A few friends and I spent the weekend in Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park in Maine. I was blown away by the scenery and never thought something like that was so close to me here in New England.

If you haven’t been to Acadia National Park, make the trip. It doesn’t get the publicity some of the larger parks out west do, but it’s just as impressive.  One tip: if you go, drive the loop just after sunrise.  This way you’ll miss the crowds and have the park to yourself.

The single most impressive/mind blowing sunrise I’ve ever seen from the top of Cadillac Mountain -one of the first spots in America to see the sun rise each morning.

The sunsets weren’t half-bad either.  We enjoyed it from a 3-mast schooner.

One disappointment – there aren’t many moose strolling around on the coast of Maine.. at least not at Acadia National Park. To make up for this sad fact we swung by the Maine Wildlife Park on the way home and finally, after 26 years of life, I finally saw one.

This past weekend my friends and I drove to Taconic State Park in New York for our first major hike of the year. We took the South Taconic Trail, which brought us along the top of Brace Mountain and then over to Mount Frissel, Connecticut’s highest point.

It was a steep climb when we first started off but the views were rewarding.  From the top of Brace Mountain we could see clear across the Hudson Valley and even as far as the Catskill Mountains.  At the top we came across three paragliders who were having a bit of trouble due to the strong winds.  We stuck around about 20 minutes or so to watch a launch only to see the guy spin upside down and then crash into the bushes – a firm reminder why I avoid doing that sort of thing.

From the top of Brace Mountain we continued on for about another 2.5 miles along the ridgeline towards Mt. Frissell, the highest point in Connecticut. The peak of Mt. Frissell is actually in Massachusetts, but the south slop lies across the Connecticut line and is slightly higher than Bear Mountain, the highest peak in the state.

It wasn’t the most enjoyable part of the hike.  Along the way the trail dipped down a bit and suddenly we were walking through a foot of melting snow. We made a quick stop at the tri-state marker and at the CT high point before eating a late lunch and heading back towards Brace Mountain for a few more great views of the Hudson Valley.

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to travel to Yellowstone National Park for a work. The company I work for had been selected to restore nearly 200 lighting fixtures from the historic Old Faithful Lodge , so my co-worker and I were sent there to photograph the fixtures and then drive them roughly 2,800 miles across America back to Connecticut. (Project details here.)

The trip started in Salt Lake City, where we picked up our 16' rental truck, a bunch of packing supplies and a ton of snacks for the road.  That afternoon we drove nearly non-stop for 600+ miles through Utah and Idaho to West Yellowstone in Montana where we crashed for the night.

Since Yellowstone closes to the public for the month of November, we were one of the very few people within the 3468 square miles of the park when we drove in the next morning.  That meant if something were to go wrong, we' would pretty-much on our own. Fortunately we made it in and out without incident. No flat tires, no angry bison attacks, and no geyser burns. 

Since I was there for work I didn't explore the park as much as I would have liked to, but I did manage to see some cool stuff, including several geysers and a ton of wildlife including some bison and wolves.  The lodge where we were working was literally right along-side the Old
Faithful Geyser, so every 90 minutes or so we'd take a short break to
watch it go. We actually had to hike up to a scenic overlook of the geyser basin to sign the paperwork so we could leave – not exactly the worst way to spend a work-day.

The drive back took us several days, with brief stops at Belgrade in Montana, Mount Rushmore, Sioux Falls in South Dakota, and Chicago.  After a good night's rest in Indiana and a quick meal in Ohio, we pushed straight through back to Connecticut and got home early Saturday.  It wasn't exactly the classic all-American road trip, but it was still a great experience.

My friend Mindy and I have been going on little adventures the past few weekends. Recently we drove up towards Litchfield County on a quest for some food and hot apple cider. We were successful, but only after wandering around for a bit near Bulls Bridge in Kent  – one of the few remaining covered bridges in the state.    

There's a bunch of cool stuff in the area.  There's the bridge, rapids, a scenic overlook, and a huge waterfall coming from a power station just a short distance up river.  The hiking trails bring right down along the water and eventually will connect you to the Appalachian Trail.

We did eventually find our cider at a small cafe tucked away in the
corner of a shopping area in the center of Kent. In line next to us was
Seth MacFarlane and Mila Kunis. We didn't recognize them at first but
after hearing them talk for a bit we realized who it was.

If you want directions to Bulls Bridge I've got a short write-up of the area on the Connecticut Weekender here.

Driving around and looking for things to write about for the Connecticut Weekender has led me to find a ton of cool places that I never knew exisited, including a park called the Mine Hill Preserve in Roxbury, CT. The park’s trails wind through a 19th century mining area, passing over 2 miles of an abandoned mine shaft and massive blasting furnaces.   I was hiking there this past weekend with my friend Amber when I snapped these photos.  You can find more about the park here.