Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Happy New Year! 2018
The New Year has come, and we are a week into it. Have you been out for any hikes yet? We had our third annual Magical Twilight Snowshoe Adventure (sounds like someone’s been watching too much My Little Pony episodes….) at Gold Creek Pond on New Year’s Eve. This hike is turning into a neat…
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Book Review: Discovering Seattle’s Parks
My family loves getting out into the wilderness, but many times we are not able to go far from town for our nature fix. But thankfully we have an amazing array of local trails to explore when we need some fresh air. Seattle is fortunate to have parks in every neighborhood. Large and small,…
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Great American Eclipse – Trip Report, August 2017
The Great American Eclipse of last August is probably fading in your memories, but I wanted to document our trip to Central Oregon to see it. A lot of planning, ruminating, advice-getting, worrying, gear purchasing, and refining packing lists over and over went into this trip. Aaron elected to stay home to save his vacation…
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Cutthroat Lake, Trip Report, 9/30/17
With my kids getting older, our schedules are getting fuller, and it’s more challenging to get an entire day for hiking out in the wilderness. But we were able to squeeze in a “quick” trip up to the North Cascades to see the larches turning colors a few weeks ago. We were not excited about…
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Book Review: Day Hiking Olympic Peninsula, 2nd Edition, by Craig Romano
Mysterious, deep, ancient forests. Coastal beaches and headlands. Alpine meadows with far-reaching views. Lakes and rivers, wetlands and surf. The Olympic Peninsula has a diverse range of habitats and areas to explore. You can research your next adventure to this wild corner of the country by using Craig Romano’s book, Day Hiking: Olympic Peninsula. This…
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Blue Lake (Mt. Baker) – Trip report, 9/16/17
After a summer of little hiking, I have been feeling ready to get back out on the trails. I’ve been wanting to go to Blue Lake for a few years now, ever since we were stymied by my car breaking down on the road up there back in 2014. This is one of those hikes…
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Super Quick BC Road Trip to Banff – July, 2017
Our kids were at camp together for a whole week in July, so we thought we’d take a little trip without them. Aaron had a doctor appointment he had to go to, and one that would be difficult to reschedule, so we didn’t get out of town until 7:30 Monday evening. We made it smoothly…
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Fragrance Lake Hike TR – June, 2017
I’m trying to fill in the gaps of kid-friendly trails we haven’t hiked on, and wanted to do something with an easy drive a couple of weeks ago. We slept in late on this beautiful morning, and it turned out Annika’s shoes were too small – once again, I had forgotten to get her new…
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Book Review and Interview: Backpacking 101 by Heather Balogh Rochfort
Summer is in full swing, and our thoughts are full of adventures we’re planning. We yearn to travel far and light, and sleep in the backcountry, with the stars and moon in view. If you’re new to backpacking, or are a dayhiker contemplating the next level of adventure, then you’ll appreciate a new book about…
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Spring Break 2017 – Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
Our first full day in Tucson during our Spring Break trip brought us to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. This was one of my top favorite spots on our journey. We got there fairly early, though I couldn’t convince everyone to get there at 7:30 am for a guided bird walk. (It’ll be just one more…
Got any book recommendations?