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Category: Mordor

Today In Iceland I Learned That Viking Helmets Didn’t Have Horns And That Hobbit Houses Were Real

Today In Iceland I Learned That Viking Helmets Didn’t Have Horns And That Hobbit Houses Were Real

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So day 3 started with… more rain. Turns out the beautiful valley we roamed around in the last post wasn’t quite ready to give up on the rain after all. Rain which didn’t let up all day. Like a constant downpour from the minute we left our cabin, through 8+ hours in the car – our longest driving day of the entire trip. But we had no choice but to keep moving forward. Our destination for this day was Vik,…

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A father and son at Haleakala
Haleakala National Park In Maui With A 4 Year Old: A Review

Haleakala National Park In Maui With A 4 Year Old: A Review

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One of the things I was most looking forward to during our Hawaii trip was taking a drive up to the top of Haleakala National Park. I was excited to visit one of the most remote national parks in the entire system, and the pictures I had seen made it look like a far easier version of our somewhat ill-fated attempt to “simply walk into Mordor” aka the Tongariro Alpine crossing. The Red Crater really does look a lot like…

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One does NOT simply walk into Mordor… Or traverse the Tongariro Alpine Crossing

One does NOT simply walk into Mordor… Or traverse the Tongariro Alpine Crossing

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On Wednesday, Ariel and I traversed the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Or in other words, we attempted to simply walk into Mordor. We had known this day was coming for months and even made some half-hearted attempts to “train” for it by doing a few hour-long hikes around New Jersey. We were unprepared. Our bus picked us up from the Park Hotel where we were staying at 7:30 am and dropped us off at the start of the trail around 8…

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