Gabe's Travel Babble

Let’s start by stating that I despise Facebook. I barely ever get any information about my friends’ lives on there anymore. Nevertheless, I haven’t been able to completely kick the habit, and that’s because, for all its faults, the algorithm actually knows me pretty well. What does Facebook show me? Well, lots of cute cat videos and even more videos […]

Jessica and I arrived in Innsbruck early in the afternoon and, after settling into our hotel, wandered the city while gathering bits of snacks and lunches to take on our next hike. We didn’t “do” much there (no museums or the like), but enjoyed wandering the cutesy old town and various other parts of the city. It was quite pleasant […]

After our Venice wanderings, Jessica, Mark, Sue, and I caught a train headed north to Bolzano, one of the larger towns in the Dolomites. We had used Bolzano as our base for adventure in 2021 as well, so were excited to head back there. Like our previous visit, we spent our time wandering the cute downtown and enjoying the good […]

Before I get to shamelessly displaying a million pictures from our hikes in the Alps this summer, Jessica demanded that I write an update to my September, 2021 post, “Bonus Blog: Huts, Rifugios, and other Alpine Hideouts.” She said the variety we experienced in our three weeks of alpine huts demanded their own consideration aside from the trails. So, here […]

Before I write anything else, I need to acknowledge what’s going to be missing from this post: my Uncle Marc’s comments. Look back at pretty much any post on here before this one (I think every single one except the first four or five) and you’ll see a comment from him. His first comment, on my post about hiking around […]

As I said in my previous post, this summer has been a bit different from the patterns Jessica and I have established over the past 15+ years. In the past, Septembers were for working — the first real push of the school year after getting through the introductory first week or two. But, in the Registrar’s Office, September is just […]

So…this summer has been a bit different than recent years. Having a job really gets in the way of travel. As you may recall, I quit teaching in the fall of 2023 and just started working at UCSC in March. With only a few months under my belt, I didn’t really have a lot of vacation time saved up. But, […]

Author’s Note: This is part 4 of a 4 part post. It’s split up so that the enormous number of photos doesn’t make it impossible for them to load on your computer. If you want to go to the first post, you can find it here. DAY SIX – NARROWS My last day in Utah was an adventure of a […]

Author’s Note: This is part 3 of a 4 part post. It’s split up so that the enormous number of photos doesn’t make it impossible for them to load on your computer. If you want to go to the first post, you can find it here. DAY FOUR – MANSARD TRAIL And on the day after, Gabe rested. That day […]

Author’s Note: This is part 2 of a 4 part post. It’s split up so that the enormous number of photos doesn’t make it impossible for them to load on your computer. If you want to go to the first post, you can find it here. DAY THREE – SOUTH COYOTE BUTTES When I got back from this day of […]