The Times and Travels of Nolan
Documenting trips I've taken and places I've seen.
March 23, 2026 Elizabeth refused to wake up. I mean, that’s a normal day for me. But waking her up while we were sharing a hotel room with my parents was a new experience, I won’t lie. Admittedly, our prior day in Ruidoso and Cloudcroft had been a real barn-burner. Anyone would need a little …
Continue reading “Desert Vacation 2026: Deuces From Las Cruces”
Editor’s note: This is the 3rd post in this blog series but covers our 4th day. Yesterday we were at White Sands National Park, and I want to give a bit of a longer feature blog post to a new national park visited for both Elizabeth and myself. Plus we got back late. I woke …
Continue reading “Desert Vacation 2026: Sunny Skies in the Sacramentos”
First of all: thank god I managed to actually sleep last night. The Holiday Inn Express was delightfully cold, but coming off of a midshift it can be real hit or miss. Thrashing around in my bed at 11:30 pm, I feared the worst. But I awoke to the sound of my parents and the …
Continue reading “Desert Vacation 2026: Palo Duro on a Hot Day”
Thursday, March 19 Hello, everyone. It’s been a heck of a long time since I traveled anywhere (like, 7 whole weeks!). As of today, that long drought is over. My parents have been visiting in Oklahoma since this past Saturday. While it was a little bit of a squeeze having them in the house during …
Continue reading “Desert Vacation 2026: Amarillo By Evening”
Until very recently in my life, the West Coast was a complete unknown. Somewhere out beyond the Rocky Mountains, a foggy land of $4 per gallon gas, surfer bros, and hippies remained outside of my sphere of consciousness. I never saw the Pacific Ocean until 2021 when I was a full 23-year-old adult. Since then, …
Daylight filtered through the cheap curtains of our cabin. On Sunday, November 16, 2025, I can’t tell you how many people were waking up within the boundaries of Mammoth Cave National Park. Maybe some lodge employees? A few people staying there? A couple of hardy souls RV/tent camping down the road? But I can tell …
Continue reading “Mammoth Cave National Park: Domes and Dripstones Tour”
Editor’s Note: This post is a transcription of a diary that I kept from my trip to Glacier National Park with family in September of 2025. It has been lightly edited for grammar and syntax, and photos have been added. 9:15 am Currently writing from I-94 in far western North Dakota. We’re 27 miles from …
Continue reading “Glacier 2025 Diary: September 20, Makoshika State Park”
I’ve often thought that National Park Service Rangers have some of the toughest public-facing jobs out there. To put it simply, the average American is an idiot. The average American in the great outdoors is an even bigger idiot. I often think of the off-duty rangers in Yellowstone who just wanted to go wolf-watching, only …
Continue reading “Mammoth Cave National Park: The Historic Tour”
But if you close your eyesDoes it almost feel like nothing changed at all?And if you close your eyesDoes it almost feel like you’ve been here before? Pompeii by Bastille – 2013 I don’t know why I included the Bastille lyrics. The song is just stuck in my head as I start writing this. Hopefully …
The first national park I ever visited was Mammoth Cave. It was part of a Spring Break way back in the day – like, I must have been 6 years old or something. As Elizabeth and I prepared to visit Mammoth Cave for her first time 20+ years later, I wondered: would any long-buried memories …
Continue reading “My 28th Birthday Trip: Mammoth Cave’s Sinkholes”
