Simple Meets Adventure •

Top 5 Best Necessary Hiking Equipment For New Hikers

The Difference Gear Makes Anyone who has been hiking knows that the gear that you bring on the trip can really make or break the hiking experience for you. When I was younger my Dad and I went on an 8 day hiking trip through Isle Royale. To this day, that remains one of my favorite hiking and camping experiences. We were well prepared with quality equipment and that helped keep us enjoying the time we spent together. As we wandered the island we encountered several other hikers out enjoying the park before winter set in. One pair of hikers stood out from the others and has stuck with me to this day. This pair of middle aged men were of strikingly similar build and physique, but one hiker appeared to be enjoying himself thoroughly, while the other looked so completely gassed that he wished he was dead. Upon striking

My Dream Hammock Setup!

Laying back deep in the hammock, feeling the cool evening air gently flow around, gazing up at the brilliant stars just beginning to wink to life as the amber glow slowly slips below the horizon. That’s just one of many reasons why so many of us love getting away for the weekend with a hammock. But for every perfect evening, there’s always the flops. Dark clouds rolling in bringing with them pouring rain, freezing snow, and many other unpleasant surprises. Until now those have been weekends my family and I have just had to endure, Hunting out something that will make it all worth it. But now, With my dream hammock setup those nights are just as easily enjoyed. The Teton Hammock Company Recently I learned of an up and coming hammock company Teton Hammock Co. Being a local company, and run by people who are so clearly of the same heart

Our Week In Indiana

Our Favorite Stops In Indiana Our week in Indiana was a great adventure! There’s a little bit of everything in Indiana. The highlights of our week there were visiting the Lucas Oil Raceway, the Indie 500 museum, and the Indianapolis Children’s Museum! We began our week in Indiana spending time around the Lucas Oil Motor Speedway for the NHRA drags that were going on that weekend. The girl loved walking around and seeing all the drag cars and bikes, and especially loved getting to see them go! If you decide to make this a stop in your travels be sure not to forget some earplugs because those cars are LOUD!. Following the weekend at the Lucas Oil Speedway we headed further into town and stopped by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway! While there were no races occurring at the time it was really quite fascinating to see the rich history of

Busy Days in Massachusetts… Without Mom

Massachusetts started out pretty rough. Saylor was having a bad day, and mom wasn’t there. She was on a plane headed to work. That rough morning was put to a quick end after dad took everyone to the Boston Children’s museum. If you are ever in Boston with kids, you NEED to go there. The museum’s main goal is to get kids active and moving, not to sit around on screens. A few activity highlights are: A stool that kids can jump on to pump a ball up to the top of a tube. A climbing wall (not too high off the ground, so it’s pretty safe). All of the kiddos were having a lot of fun with the rock climbing wall (taking after their dad I see) Later that night we had dinner, since dad was cooking it was box mac and cheese. That’s not a bad thing, right?

Our Week In Maine

After our backpacking adventures in New Hampshire, the pine tree and lobster state of Maine awaited. The girls and I made cupcakes and a cake while Colter drove us to our destination of Ellsworth, Maine. If cooking isn’t hard enough on level and steady ground, try doing it with Colter driving a 31 foot Class C RV, in the dark, around corners. The girls had their seatbelts on around the table, but I felt like it was surfing. We only came to any incidents once, while we were at a stop light and I didn’t have my balance before we started driving again. I almost fell completely over. The balancing act made it that much more exciting. Making cupcakes on solid ground won’t quite hold up to this experience. Penobscot Narrows Bridge On our way to our spot for the night, we saw the most beautiful sunset. It was

A Week In Massachusetts

Massachusetts was nothing short of an adventure. Colter got sprayed in the eye with hydraulic oil and we had to use tweezers to pull something out behind Tessa’s ear. With those fun adventures, we still had time to sight-see which included Copp’s Hill burying ground, Bunker HIll Monument, Freedom Trail, and Navy ships. We also fit in a whale watching harbor tour. On our way from Maine, we stopped one night at a Walmart in New Hampshire, on our way to Massachusetts. When we went to raise the jacks the next morning they wouldn’t come up into travel mode. Troubleshooting was our first try at getting them up. When that didn’t work, Colter decided to manually release the jacks. He crawled under the RV on his back to release the jack. When he turned the knob on the very first jack a clear liquid shot right into his face. He

A Week In New Hampshire

We started out our adventure in New Hampshire by opening packages from the Corning Glass Museum. The first package was a pumpkin made out of glass. We will have to be careful, it was sliding around on our table. The next piece of art was a flower also made out of glass. How fascinating are they?! Next, we went for a hike. We packed up all of our gear and took off! Everything was perfect except for the weather. The wind was howling and there was a high possibility of rain and thunderstorms. Luckily we didn’t experience any of that until the end of the night. The trail was amazing, we later encountered a river with A LOT of rocks. The girls had some trouble getting over some, but nothing we couldn’t help with. We all had a blast though. Just look at the video! The terrain was crazy. We

Our Hike at Piedra Lisa Trail

Our Week In New Mexico

When we first crossed the border into New Mexico, Colter turned and looked at me and said, “This is what I imagined when I think of New Mexico. Red dirt, desert, and mountains that are flat on top with cliffs at face.” The morning after we had toured four corners (the place where four state lines meet up) consisted of leaving our pull-out camping spot right outside of Four Corners and heading towards Albuquerque. After we had been driving for a couple of hours, fuel for the RV, lunch and a meeting forced us to stop in a little town called Cuba. A gas station was the perfect place to at least knock off fuel and lunch. While we were stopped, we decided to shower and get ready for the day. As we were just finishing up getting ready, we hear a high-pitched beeping noise from the kitchen in the

Our Week in New York

Our Week In New York Our New York trip started out in Niagra Falls. We hiked a bit then later were ready for our boat trip near the falls. We set out on the path and let me tell you, that was a crazy sight to see. So much water pouring down! Once we got to the boat we received our plastic raincoats and boarded the boat. The boat got closer and closer to the falls, we could barely see where we came from. Glad they provided us with raincoats, we would have been soaked! We all even saw a rainbow from all of the mist! Niagara Falls was such an amazing experience. Troubles… So, we finished up at Niagara Falls and set out for our next destination. We totally forgot about gas! We were so focused on the next place when we forgot about fueling up our R.V. Luckily