Our Favorite Places

What happens when a dedication to the natural world is right in your own backyard? For my family, we didn’t have to look any further than Wing Haven Garden and Bird Sanctuary in Charlotte, N.C. Education, stewardship, sharing, and opportunities for getting together as a community are steeped in Wing Haven’s roots. Back in 1927, …

Venice Beach, Florida, in Sarasota County is known as the “Shark Tooth Capital of the World” and for good reason. When my family went there in September (and again in November—we really like that beach!), it took only minutes to begin finding shark teeth in the sand. Sarasota sits on a deep fossil layer, and …

Tucked away in the middle of the Great Salt Lake in Utah is a delightful, unique state park called Antelope Island. A long, narrow island, Antelope Island is easily accessible by car, via a bridge from the mainland. It’s a pretty drive over the lake, and you can often see shore birds and boats. Antelope …

Near the south entrance of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming is the lovely Jenny Lake. Though much smaller than Jackson Lake to the north, Jenny Lake is still almost 1200 acres across and is a focal point of the park. Its waters are crystal clear and cold—it is a glacial lake—and its bottom, at …

What would you do if you had an invitation to see a sunrise off the Blue Ridge Parkway? Last fall, I received just such an invitation from some friends, so I jumped at the opportunity. Waking up at 4:15 in the morning was harder than I that it would be, but I managed to roll …

One weekend in mid-November, some friends and I decided to hike up to the Chimneys in Linville Gorge near Morganton, North Carolina. It was a bit of a drive from where we started, especially when the pavement slowly turned to gravel, and the potholes became bigger. However, we continued driving up the mountain on the …

The Toccoa and Ocoee Rivers are located in Tennessee and run a stretch of 93 miles long. This river is best known for being the only natural river used in the Olympics, and athletes rafted on it in the 1996 games. Natives refer to parts of the river as the “Upper River”, “Middle River”, and …

A friend and I went on a search for this hike one Saturday afternoon, and we had no idea what we were in store for. We drove around where we thought the base of the mountain was for a few hours. Finally, we  hopped out of the car at a nearby farm nearby to ask …

Black Balsam Knob is  one of the most popular hikes in Pisgah National Forest. The “knobs” are rolling hills of brush and bald patches, stretching as far as the eye can see.

It is tempting to sleep in on Saturdays, but if you can get out early and catch your local farmers market around 9 am, you will beat the crowd and have the chance to see things first and meet some amazing small business owners.

I love the colors of fall, and this past week the leaves were so bright and beautiful on the trees in our town. And every time I saw them, it reminded me of a place we need to go back to and soon: Craggy Pinnacle in North Carolina. The colors there must be amazing!  We …

This is going to be a milestone summer. This is the first summer in which both my girls will attend sleep-away summer camp. The first word that explodes in my mind is “freedom” — for them and me. As excited as I am to have some time to tackle a few projects at home, to …

We went to Lake Conestee Nature Park on a mild winter Sunday –my husband, my kids, my dog. It was one of those rare times where, after days of pelting rain, we were treated to beautiful weather. For a few glorious hours, the sun shone and no coat was needed on an early afternoon stroll. …