We are an active vacation kind of family. We are not a sit-on-the-beach-all-day kind of family. My ideal vacation is going someplace new and seeing or doing something new each day and then ending the day relaxing at a pool or a resort somewhere – all of which sort of runs counter to our annual family beach vacation in Hilton Head. But I absolutely love our annual trip there because of the tradition, because of the time with family, and because it forces me to slow down. Much like everything else in 2020, our Hilton Head trip would not be …

When choosing a destination for our ski weekend, one of the things that appealed to me about Winterplace, WV was the fact that it also offered snow tubing. Our oldest had been skiing before and loved it, but it was our youngest son’s first time and we weren’t sure he would be as enamored with it. I liked having snow tubing as an option for the second day in case he didn’t like or if anyone just wanted to do something different. After some early frustrations, my youngest did really enjoy skiing. But even so, by lunch time on the …

When we tried to take our first family ski trip last winter, our efforts were thwarted by an ill-timed case of the flu. I stayed home with my sick youngest son and my husband and oldest son headed out on a day trip to Appalachian Ski Mountain in Blowing Rock, NC. RB totally loved it and has been dying to go skiing again ever since. We decided to tempt fate again this year and plan a weekend ski trip for the whole family. With two beginners, we wanted a mountain that would be a good place to learn. App was …

The day after Thanksgiving always seems to call for a good walk. We spent the holiday weekend with family in Ocean City, MD, and on Friday we all made the quick trip into Delaware to walk off our Thanksgiving meal at Gordons Pond in Cape Henlopen State Park. Gordons Pond Trail is a hiking and biking path made of packed crushed gravel with a half-mile section of elevated boardwalk. It is wide and easily accommodates both bikers and walkers, although walkers should always be alert to bikers coming up behind them. The trail offers pond, forest, wetland, and dune views …

Like all of our tours, our guide gave us the option of being dropped off in town or taken back to the port. Again, our larger family group split up, with some going back to the ship and some exploring the town. We definitely wanted to see Creek Street so we opted to be dropped off in town. Ketchikan is the southernmost city in Alaska’s Inside Passage. The town has its roots in fishing. First Native Americans used it as a fishing settlement, and later a salmon cannery was built to provide supplies to miners during the 1890s gold rush. …

The final stop on our Ketchikan excursion was Totem Bight State Park. Situated on 11 acres of rainforest just north of Ketchikan, this park displays restored and replicated totem poles and a representative clan house. In the early 1900s, Native Americans were forced to migrate away from their villages, leaving behind totem poles and clan houses to be swallowed up by the woods. In 1938, the US Forest Service began a program to save as many of these native artifacts as they could and to hire Natives to recreate the ones that could not be salvaged. Totem Bight State Park …

The second stop on our private Ketchikan tour was a hike in the Tongass National Forest. We walked the Ward Creek Trail, which our guide billed as a “locals” trail. Indeed, we saw a handful of people out walking their dogs but not a single other tourist. The start of the trail is an old gravel road. The trail is wide and primarily flat, with just a few easy sloping hills. It passes through lush rainforest as it follows along the creek. We had barely gotten into the rainforest when our guide Natalie spotted a black slug on the trail. …