The Times and Travels of Nolan
Documenting trips I've taken and places I've seen.
I saved this post from our March trip for last for two reasons. First of all, this is the only national park on the trip that Elizabeth and I visited for the first time. Anytime you visit a new national park, you deserve a longform blog post. The second reason is that – as you …
Continue reading “Desert Vacation 2026: White Sands National Park”
A cave is a cave, right? I guess at some point I picked up that mindset after visiting several natural cave areas over the year. There was Wind Cave in 2014, Carlsbad Caverns with Elizabeth in 2018, Meramec Caverns with my family in 2021. And maybe these visits were spaced enough apart that I didn’t …
Elizabeth and I first visited Guadalupe Mountains National Park on July 14, 2018. We were just kids then – dumb 20-year-olds who stayed close to 2 hours away so we could save a few bucks and didn’t show up to the trailhead until we were guaranteed to fight the worst heat of the day and …
Continue reading “Desert Vacation 2026: Magical Views and Major Terrors in McKittrick Canyon”
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”
