Make a shopping list and be strict with yourself about what you add to it. Then restrict yourself from buying anything not on the list so that you stick to it. Best way (that I know) to be deliberate about what food comes home with you.
Two years ago, I played Terraria, last year was Valheim, and this year I’m still deciding. I might play Valheim again. I’m working on a base that is absolutely huge.
Shenandoah is really nice. None of the East Coast parks are going to be as mind-blowing as the famous ones out west. And you can also go to the Great Smokey Mountains area if you plan the route correctly.
Yeah, that’s the real shame. You can’t really compare with something like Yosemite. But it’s just too far away. Great Smokey Mountains is sounding like the best bet so far. There’s stuff in Gatlinburg I know we would like to see as well. My daughter loves any aquarium anywhere and it has one, and there’s a pinball museum. My daughter and I both love pinball. I can tell it’s a tourist trap, but between that and the national park, I think we’ll have a lot to do.
I have lived near Smoky Mountains for years. Especially if you have kids, they will not go bored and the park is nice and not infested with people. (You just gotta go through the people to get to the park). Make sure to get to Clingman’s Dome for nice pics. There’s lots of trails for all experience levels too.
Ripley’s aquarium is in Gatlinburg, we went there last year during our vacation to the Smokey Mountains and thought it was awesome. We haven’t been to a lot of aquariums, but it’s the best I’ve been to.
There’s stuff in Gatlinburg I know we would like to see as well. My daughter loves any aquarium anywhere and it has one
Depending on how much driving around you want to do, it might be worth heading down to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. (Take this route for a scenic drive including the Tail of the Dragon and the Cherohala Skyway.) You’re also kinda within striking distance of the Georgia Aquarium (the largest aquarium in the US and the 4th largest in the world), although the drive isn’t nearly as scenic.
Having been to all but voyageurs go to either the smokey mountains or new river gorge. I was going to put mammoth cave on that list but, you know fears and stuff. I will say mammoth cave does not feel like your typical cave, it’s way larger, and has been adapted for tourists.
I’ve been to Mammoth Cave before myself and really loved it, but she doesn’t care how big the cave is. She says she just doesn’t like the idea of all of that rock above her head. We tried to convince her a couple of years ago, but she’s dead set against it. Smokey Mountains sounds like the best choice.
Sounds cool. Isn’t that neat. It’s a little island on the Canadian border that you need to take a ferry to get to. It just kind of looks like the rest of the Northern Minnesota shoreline.
I love the state parks in the area though. Much easier and cheaper to get to.
If you’re willing to go as far as Kentucky or West Virginia anyway, you should consider the Red River Gorge area in Daniel Boone in KY, or the Spruce Knob/Seneca Rocks area in WV. Neither are national parks – they’re both national forests.
Both will be considerably less touristy and less crowded than (at least the popular) national parks, and you don’t have to pay just to get in, either. These two areas have some of the most bodacious geology on display on the East Coast, in my opinion, and if you’re into that sort of thing it’s well worth checking out.
The heyday of the Seneca Rocks region seems to have passed and getting accommodation there that’s not camping is trickier than it was a few decades ago, since most of the motels and hotels around the region have folded. But you can rent cabins if you plan in advance from various outfits, and there are two quite nice national forest camp sites there plus oodles of commercial/independent ones. Seneca Rocks itself is a quite striking geological feature you can hike up and stand on top of, and Spruce Knob is just a hop, skip, and a jump away and is the highest point in WV with some great and very easily accessible views from the top. Don’t forget to stop by Yocum’s general store and pet the cats when you’re there.
Dispersed camping is no longer allowed within the Seneca Rocks/Spruce Knob sphere of influence, but it is in the rest of the adjacent greater Monongahela National Forest, including in the Dolly Sods wilderness if you’re into that sort of thing. Backpacking in Dolly Sods is quite possibly the best way to see the most varied terrain anywhere east of the Mississippi within the span of a weekend and without owning a private jet. The north, east, south, and west extremities of it may as well be on different continents; it’s pretty wild.
Dispersed camping is allowed in Daniel Boone if you go there. You have to buy a permit to leave your car anywhere overnight to go backpacking but it’s only a couple of bucks. The Red River Gorge area in Daniel Boone has some incredible sandstone formations including massive arches (some of which you can climb), shelter caves, cliffs, and overlooks. It’s also home to the Nada Tunnel which is pretty cool but maybe not so appealing to people who are afraid of caves because it’s basically a cave with a one lane road you can drive straight through. (It was actually originally a railway tunnel. I cannot possibly conceive of what it must have been like to cram a coal burning steam locomotive through that tiny passage, and if you see it you’ll know why. But that’s what they did back in the day.)
Civilized accommodations are easier to come by there including plenty of cabins and motels, and also hotels you can find near the interstate. If you’re into rock climbing there are also a ton of climbing routes all over the Red River Gorge.
Forget Yellowstone. Yellowstone is so popular and yet so fragile and so dangerous that the entire place is on lockdown. You spend your entire stay there on rails, pretty much literally. Everything is boardwalks and pavement and everything else that isn’t is cordoned off. Yes, this is so dumbasses cannot fall into geothermal features and be boiled alive. But it also has the net effect of causing you to take the exact same route in the exact same way and take the exact same pictures that everyone else already has. So you can have the same experience by just finding some rando’s Flickr album or whatever and looking at their pictures, because they’ll be just the same as yours. Plus the whole place stinks. Sulfur, don’t you know.
Oh, and you get to contend with access roads clogged by all the dimwits from the midwest who stop dead in the middle of everything to try to fit baby bison into their minivans, or whatever the fuck else. I went once and that was enough. I came, I saw, I bought a mug. I have no desire to go back. (Nearby Shoshone National Forest, however, is friggin’ awesome. So is Big Horn. Be sure to check out Shell Falls while you’re there and annoy your nearest creationist.)
As someone that has been to the tops of Cloud Splitter, Grays Arch, Chimney Rock, Half Moon, Indian Staircase, and dozens of others I cannot remember at the moment, Red River Gorge is the single best place in all of Kentucky.
I would go as far as it’s the only reason why Kentucky should continue to exist at all.
Thanks. I’m doing some research now. Daniel Boone we could probably do over a long weekend, so that could be a separate trip. Seneca Rocks looks really beautiful in photos, but I’m not convinced there would be enough to do there to sustain a week’s vacation. As far as a cabin, my daughter always balks at renting one when we’ve suggested in the past for some reason. I don’t know why. We did it at a nearby state park when she was younger and it was fine, so I don’t know what her deal is there.
If you wanted to extend a Red River Gorge trip there's some interesting Civil War era stuff in Winchester and Lexington. Fort Boonesborough was rebuilt as a Civil War fort and they do history presentations and era accurate crafting demonstrations. They have a working blacksmith, a soap maker, that kind of thing. The Henry Clay Estate is interesting and the Cassius Clay Estate (the abolitionist, General, and Diplomat not the boxer) is great. There's also the Kentucky Horse Park and Keeneland. You will also be passing through the Bourbon Trail if you're driving down from Indiana and by Big Bone Lick if you're coming down 65.
I’ve been done with school for a hot minute now but here (Netherlands) they started in the last years at elementary school, around age 11. And then some more later in highschool roughly age 14.
Elementary was taught by a cop. Mostly sensible stuff and the risks. Nothing weird but like “weed isn’t physically addictive but it can be mentally addictive, also you’re probably smoking it and that ain’t great.” or how xtc is not that dangerous on its own but often there’s junk mixed in. They also told us you can get your xtc tested by the government, anonymously. And yeah you actually don’t get in trouble believe it or not.
I think it worked because they made it so unexciting that most people I know stay away from anything but weed and even then lots of people try it and never do it again.
Dude, just get a bunch of weed and alcohol of your preference and just enjoy… I’d give my right leg if I could spend new year’s eve alone… or any other eve for that matter.
I’ve only been to Indiana Dunes and Voyageurs, but they’re both nice enough. Voyageurs is like, bring a canoe and camping supplies, though, not necessary a day trip.
Consider some state parks! Turkey Run in Indiana is gorgeous, and Pipestone State Park in Minnesota is beautiful, historical, and unique.
We’re pretty close to Turkey Run and we always tell people to please go to Turkey Run and do not go to that horrible Shades State Park which is definitely not nicer in pretty much every way imaginable and will have an unpleasant lack of a giant line of people going down the trails.
Like others have said one of the easiest things to do is simply don’t buy the junk.
Personally I found that the real game changer is finding a healthy snacking alternative. For me this is almonds and dried apricots. They’re still quite a ‘dense’ energy snack but it scratches the sweet tooth itch and is much more filling. Plus you get the added protein, fats & micro nutrients that you would usually miss in processed items.
Try out some different alternatives (my wife loves to snack on dates and Greek yoghurt for example) and try mainly just to focus on finding something you enjoy so you can swap the habit.
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