Michael Sprague » travel

Fall Drive on the Parkway

michael — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 01:20:46 +0000

We decided to take a drive to see if there were any colors left. We got on the Blue Ridge Parkway at Brevard Rd. near Asheville and drove through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park ending up in Gatlinburg, TN. From Gatlinburg we took the most direct route home via I-40. We packed a lunch and stopped at a picnic area in the National Park. The short trip made for a relaxing day off.

View all the photos from our drive.

Weekend at the Coast

michael — Mon, 08 May 2006 22:19:43 +0000

This past weekend we drove to the coast to explore Savannah, Hilton Head Island, and Charleston. We had never been to the area before and we wanted to get away for the weekend so we thought it would be a good time to go check out the coast. It was a cool and rainy weekend here in the mountains, and the weather proved to be excellent by the coast. It was mostly cloudy with some sun, but it rained only at night and was plenty warm. We are looking forward to returning to either Savannah or Charleston on another trip when we can spend more time. We thought we might like one place over the other, but it is a pretty even draw for us.

View all the photos from our trip.

Visit to Mount Mitchell

michael — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 01:44:15 +0000

There was an article in the newspaper recently about the observation tower at the peak of Mt Mitchell being torn down and a new one being built in its place. Well, since we had never seen the current one that is going to be destroyed, we though we better head out there and see it. This was not only my first time to Mt Mitchell State Park, but my first time on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Mount Mitchell is the highest point in the eastern United States at an elevation of 6,684 feet. It is interesting that air pollution and acid rain are contributing to the decline of the spruce-fir forests in the area.

View all the photos from this trip.

Nantahala National Forest Hike

michael — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 02:23:37 +0000

Some friends from the congregation and I, seven of us total, drove a little over two hours to hike in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest which is contained in the Nantahala National Forest. There are trees as old as 450 years there. It is one of the very few remaining tracts of virgin hardwood in the Appalachians. The large old trees are tulip-poplars, some with a circumference greater than 20 feet and over 100 feet tall.

View all my photos from the hike.

View information on the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest. (1.4 mb pdf file)

Mackinac Island

michael — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 01:00:39 +0000

June and I took the weekend off and went up to Mackinac Island. The fall colors were right at peak for a large part of the drive as well. This was a great time to be on the island for shopping. Most of the stores were having sales at 40-60% off due to getting ready to close for the season.

The weather was cold and dreary, which we were expecting, but we didn’t quite dress warm enough. Long walks on the island weren’t as pleasurable as usual. I think I came back with wind-burn on my face.

Another disappointment was that we were looking forward to dinner at the Village Inn on the island, but they were closed for a wedding reception. We missed the planked whitefish and cherry cobbler.

We stayed at the Pontiac Lodge. It was our first time at that hotel. It was adequate, but the room was smoky. We still prefer McNally Cottage but they were already closed for the season.

All in all it was a nice getaway, but I think future trips will be in warmer weather with accomodations at McNally Cottage so that we will get the most enjoyment from the five hour drive.

October, 2005 – Mackinac Island 12

GPS Location Sharing For Nextel Phones

michael — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 16:06:16 +0000

At work we got new Nextel i930 phones. They are Windows Smartphones with GPS support. You can get a java application from mologogo.com that will post your location to their server so others can see where you are. I have been running it on my phone.
You can see my batch of most recent locations on mologogo. In addition, the mologogo service allows you to add “friends” that you can see their location right on your phone running the app.

Door County and Porcupine Mountains

michael — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 01:07:15 +0000

earth1

Originally uploaded by msprague.

From Airventure we went up to Door County and stayed at a B&B. Then off to the U.P. to camp and hike around. View trip pictures here.

Total drive: 1531 miles
Download Google Earth data file (24kb).
[Aug. 5, 2005] Note: The kmz file has been updated to include some pictures within Google Earth.

EAA Airventure 2005

michael — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 19:52:07 +0000

We had a great time at Airventure again this year. The day before we arrived there was 3 inches of rain from severe thunderstorms. We were glad to have missed that considering we were tent camping.

It seemed like it was the Burt and Richard show this year. Both Burt Rutan and Sir Richard Branson were prominent with their involvement in suborbital space flight as well as Steve Fossett’s Global Flyer.

SpaceShipOne and White Knight

Geocaching with the in-laws

michael — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 00:14:22 +0000

geocache1,
originally uploaded by msprague.

June and I went camping with her parents July 2 and 3. We decided to try out geocaching on Sunday. Here is a gps tracklog of our trip (including our icecream stop). June’s dad and I had a great time.

Hawaii International Convention 2003

michael — Mon, 29 Dec 2003 16:43:32 +0000

June and I had the great privilege of attending the “Give God Glory” International Convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Honolulu, Hawaii December 18-21, 2003. We made some new friends and also were spiritually encouraged by the fine program and many experiences of faithful ones throughout the earth.
We traveled to Hawaii a week prior to the convention for a nice getaway vacation on the island of Kauai. Be sure to visit our photo album from this fabulous trip.

Many thanks to the warm and loving brothers and sisters from Hawaii, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the mainland United States for the kindness shown to us.