Big plans for summer !

With the kayak purchase just around the corner, I've been busy stocking up on camping supplies and making arrangements to get some new gear. A new six or eight-person tent will be a part of these plans. Of course there is a long list of items that I have always desired but never owned. I'm hoping to make a lot of these purchases before the spring to help make the travel costs more doable for summer.

Two destinations I would really love to tackle this year:

• Port Austin, Michigan
• Linville Gorge, North Carolina

Hopefully Kansas City goes easy on me, it'd be a shame to give up my entire year before it really gets started.

Vacation 2011, Part 1: New River Gorge and Mooresville, NC

Vaca '11 started out by leaving Rachael's at 7am. We made our way down that familiar I-77 and around four hours later found ourselves driving through the old coal towns of West Virginia. By looking at the pic of the map I've uploaded, you see three stars. The first star is Kanawha Falls. The second star denotes Hawk's Nest State Park, and the third star marks the New River Gorge. All awesome stops as we drove through the old towns of Alloy, Falls View, and Kanawha Falls.


The gorge and West Virginia was left behind just as quickly as we had experienced it. Next stop would be Mooresville, North Carolina, to have dinner with my cousins and spend the night at their house. We had dinner at J.J. Wasabi's in downtown Mooresville. The next morning we were up by 8am and back on the road. Next stop, the beach