I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Plovdiv just might be the highlight of Bulgaria (Maggie would disagree and say it’s Varna, I’m sure, but she’s biased). It ends up being my favorite city in the country, and my second favorite city in all of eastern Europe (after the city where I…
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The Rila Monastery is located about 70 miles south of Sofia, in the Rila Mountains. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get there on my own easily, so I join a tour leaving from the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral early in the morning. I can’t resist one more picture of the cathedral in…
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After a fun weekend at Oktoberfest in Munich, it’s time for Maggie and I to fly to her homeland. I’m really excited to see where she grew up, meet her grandma’s and some of her childhood friends. As the largest city and capitol of Bulgaria, our first stop is Sofia. Our friend Todor (who I…
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Wallace Falls is a hike I did a lot in my early days of hiking. When I lived in Mukilteo, the Stevens Pass corridor was a lot closer and it’s where I spent much of my outdoor time. Now living in Seattle, I don’t get out there as much, so it was a nice change…
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When most people think of Oregon, the beach probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. The Pacific Northwest isn’t known as a tropical paradise, but our beaches definitely have their own appeal, and those who venture out here, even during the winter, are rewarded with some incredible views. One of my favorite beaches…
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Do you ever just want to get away from it all? Throw your stuff in your car and drive to the beach for a few days? I did that very thing last weekend. My friend Adrienne has family friends with a condo on Cascade Head near Lincoln City on the Oregon coast, and they have graciously…
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You may (or may not) have noticed my lack of posts lately. As you probably know, my hard drive crashed a few weeks ago, and I sent it in to a clean room to extract the data. Well, unfortunately, that didn’t work. The disk is scratched and they were unable to retrieve my pictures. I’m completely…
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Winter isn’t necessarily the best time of the year to go hiking in Washington. It’s cold, wet, and sometimes there’s even snow on the trails closer to the city. But it also means there’s less (not none, just less) people out on the trails. After our last hike up Rattlesnake Ledge, Lori and I want…
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Once again, I’d like to apologize for the quality of photos in this post. These were taken waaaaay back in 2007, before I upgraded to a digital camera. How did we ever manage before we had unlimited space and we could see the shots we got, right after we took them? Confession – I didn’t want…
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I really enjoyed my time in the United Arab Emirates. Those seven days just flew by. I went into this trip expecting there to be a lot of downtime, relaxing on the beach, floating in the water and catching up on my reading. Little did I know exactly how much there is to do! We…
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Well, here we are. My last post on Dubai, except the final breakdown tomorrow. Today I want to share with you all the various photos that I took that didn’t seem to fit with any other post so far. There are quite a few, so just sit back, relax and enjoy the show… While Dubai is…
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Have I convinced you that Dubai is one of the weirdest cities yet? No? What if I tell you about the time I went skiing – in the middle of the desert? Cuz let me tell you, that was weird (and cool!). Ski Dubai is located in the Mall of the Emirates. Walking through a mall,…
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