Our trip to Denver last week was a great one. Two nights Lord Huron followed by one night of Joe Russo, all at Red Rocks. We ate too much, drank too much, etc. but it was all good. Dinner at The Kitchen was a highlight as well as our trip to Meow Wolf. The first class seat on the way back topped off the trip. Another great Denver vacation in the books. Can’t wait for our return in August.

Nicole, Tim, and I left work early Friday and headed to Fisher’s Gap in Shenandoah National Park. We got on trail around dusk and hiked 2 miles to Rock Spring Hut where we bunked down for the night. The next morning we had breakfast and were off to summit Hawksbill Mountain, the tallest mountain in Shenandoah National Park at just over 4,000 ft. After the summit we went back down the other side to Skyline Drive. Crossing over Skyline we hopped on the Skyland~Big Meadows Horse Trail for 5 miles then onto the Rose River loop for another 1.8 miles while stopping for lunch along the river. Next we visited Dark Hollow Falls where we had a status meeting. We decided to end the hike early and see if we could get a lodge room for the night, and luckily we were able to do that. After checking in and showering we were off to Skyland for dinner and drinks. Another great time on the mountain with friends in the books.

Nicole and I had a great time at Jazzfest. The first night I ended up on Frenchman at a small jazz bar called Blue Nile. New Orleans is a colorful and friendly town, at least in my experience. There was tons of beautiful art on Royal. The oysters and crawfish etouffe were off the chain good on Bourbon. I thought we had good oysters up here on the shore but I’m not quite so certain now. We saw a ton of bands over the 4 day event including Jimmy Buffet, Luke Combs, Billy Strings, Zac Brown, Shovels & Rope, and many more.

We did our first hike of the year this past weekend. Nicole, Tim, and Stavros, and I headed over to Manassas, VA Friday night and crashed at a hotel. In the morning, we had breakfast, and beat feet about 40 mins to the trailhead in north Shenandoah National Park. The weather was quite nice. We did the Mount Marshall overnight loop. It was Nicole’s first overnight backpack and she handled it all quite well. We are now buying her some new gear and I am excited to have finally met someone that shares many of the same interests.

It was cold on the mountain Sunday morning and we weren’t long having breakfast and breaking down camp. We filtered some water and headed towards the AT. It took us about 5 hours or so to make it back to the car. We when down the mountain and head straight for Pave Mint, a smokehouse/craft brew restaurant in Front Royal. After a late lunch we were back on the road heading home from another wonderful hiking weekend.

Day 6-9

We left Moon Palace Sunday morning with Veronica and Troy bound for Tulum. They dropped us off at our hotel and went on to their AirBNB. We really didn’t do much that night. Slipped out for dinner and drinks down the way and called it an early night. The next day we had breakfast and headed to the beach club for the day. Lucky me got sun poisoning . We met Veronica and Troy for dinner later. Tuesday, we got up and hit the Tulum ruins for somesighting and pictures. After our COVID tests we hit the road to Playa del Carmen for the afternoon. Fifth Avenue is just as I remembered it. Around 5pm we grabbed a taxi to Cirque du Soleil just north of PDC. We had an amazing 3 course dinner before the show and the show was like none other I’ve seen nor Tim has seen. Perfect way to wind up the trip.