I’ve got this question a number of times recently so I thought I would share my typical answers here. Kid friendly means a lot of things to different people. To me it’s a place where you can take the kids that is not necessarily completely devoted to hiking, and has other activities to keep them entertained. Many a parent has taken a trip to Lost Maples only to end up carrying a sleepy kid after about a mile into the trail. If my nephews are anything like other kids then Dinosaur Valley State Park would be one of my top choices. I like this park for a number of reasons; The park has model dinosaurs they can look at, fossils and tracks they can interact with, and a river to fish and play in, and for those that enjoy hiking, a nice bit of backcountry with primitive camping.

Garner State Park: You won’t find dinosaurs here, but there are Basketball courts, Mini-Golf, Paddle Boats, Cabins, a large trail system, and a big river. The cabins are nice for a family that wants to be outdoors but needs some amenities.

Goose Island State Park: Teach them to catch a fish. I remember going out and leaning to fish at a very young age and having a blast. The best part about using the park is that you do not need a fishing license to fish there. There is not much else to do here beyond fishing, but Corpus Christi is about an hour away and offers plenty of other attractions.

I recently returned from a trip to Kentucky, where I completed the Bourbon Trail. The trail consists of six distilleries: Four Roses, Heaven Hill, Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, Wild Turkey, and Woodford Reserve. Much like the wine trails of Texas, which I’ve written about previously, the bourbon trail has a passport for an added incentive to visit all six distilleries. Each distillery will stamp your passport and once all six are complete, the passport can be mailed off for a free t-shirt so you can show off your awesomeness to the lesser refined drinkers of the world.

If I had to choose where to base a repeat trip out, I would fly out to Louisville, but stay at a hotel out in Bardstown. It’s closer to all the distilleries than Louisville. Also make a point to plan ahead on this one, especially if traveling on a weekend. The distilleries open later and close earlier on Sundays and in the case of Jim Beam cannot sell or serve tastings on Sundays due to local laws. Another thing to point out is there are plenty of distilleries that are not on the trail, but are in the area, and worth checking out. Buffalo Trace immediately comes to mind. If your planning on going I would say take two days for dedicated travel and devote three, preferably weekdays, to distillery and bar hoping. Especially if you’re interested in the deluxe tours offered by some of the facilities or interested in seeing some of the off-trail sites.

We stayed in Louisville at the Brown Hotel. The Brown hotel dates back to 1923 where it was a center for the local affluent. The architecture is distinctly English Renaissance. Marble floors, antique cherry furniture, and extremely lavish woodworking that includes inlaid relief ceiling tiles. It’s the first time I’ve ever had dinner on the top of a piano that was playing live music. It was definitely a unique experience for the books. The bar also stocks 50 different types of bourbon and 40 wines. Although the primary reason for going was bourbon, I enjoyed the Petite Syrah, Zinfandel, Malbec, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Normally I would have done some wine tasting notes, but since this wasn’t a wine tour, I decided just to enjoy it for what it was and not bother with busting out the notebook. The Brown also has the most down to earth, and just generally cool, bar tending staff I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Just to be clear, the Brown is not a budget hotel, look to drop around $250 USD a night in the off season. During the Kentucky Derby rooms can be as much as $1000 USD a night. It is however awesome and even if you’re not going to stay there, you should at least hit the restaurant and order the dish made famous there called The Hot Brown.

Interesting side note on this trip Mike and I both got mild food poisoning from a Reuben sandwich on day one. That made for an interesting evening.

The mini tour of Heaven Hill is a bit of a waste. The guide walks you through the museum, and spends very little time on it. You can show yourself through as it is and spend time reading everything. The only advantage of taking the tour is the single free tasting at the end. The actual distillery is located off the site and they don’t give tours. There is a replica display in the museum, but that’s it. If you’re planning a trip and can’t hit all the distilleries on the tour then skip Heaven Hill. They also offer a deluxe tour where they take you to the warehouse and offer an expanded tasting. For a separate fee, a local history bus tour is available. The mini and deluxe tours are free.

Wild Turkey was not in production while we were there, but the tour of the facility was still good. They are actually in the process of moving to a brand new distillery which will spin up in December 2010. So for those of you looking to see the original I advise getting out there soon. Out of all the tours at all the distilleries, our guide at Wild Turkey was the most knowledgeable and thorough.

The grounds at Makers Mark are beautiful. All the buildings are Victorian in architecture, jet black with red doors and red window shutters. As an added bonus, they were decorated for Christmas so all the windows had wreaths with red accent bows. Couple that with the beautiful Kentucky countryside in fall, and it makes for a wonderful visual experience.

I’ve discovered that my target bourbon is in the 85 – 95 proof range anything over that is too hot for me. Makers Mark 46 was by far the best I had. Second, although not from a distillery on the tour, but from the historic Talbott Tavern in Bardstown, was Pappy Van Winkle. The hardest to swallow was the Sam Houston. A unique feature of the bar is a bourbon flight. For $25 USD one can get 5 shot glasses filled with any bourbon the bar stocks. This is great from a taster’s perspective because the bar currently stocks 45 unique types and, according to the bartender, will be expanding to over 50 by Christmas.

If I had to give out awards:

• Best Tour: Wild Turkey
• Second Best Tour: Woodford Reserve
• Most Interesting Facility: Makers Mark
• Second Most Interesting Facility: Woodford Reserve
• Most Scenic Grounds: Makers Mark
• Favorite Drink on Tour: Makers Mark 46
• Favorite Drink off Tour: Pappy Van Winkle

I’ve found myself reading a bunch of travel blogs lately. Mostly out of curiosity about faraway places, but also out of wanting to improve my blog. I’ve found there are basically three kinds of travel sites. Mashup sites, which have a ton of authors so the content is varied and mostly timely. Fluffy travel sites about a particular destination, and then personal travel blogs. When it comes to the mashup sites, I have found a liking for Vagabondish.com. It has a nice set of information, without all the fluff. By fluff I mean, loaded wording, like “Experience wonderful sunsets, and strange exotic cultures.” Does that really say anything at all? I can say that same crap about Oklahoma, except the sunset would be on a farm somewhere, and well, you just have to go to experience the “culture.”  The other site is Killingbatteries.com. Leif’s writing style is entertaining and blunt. If the place sucks, he will say it. He writes about the good and the really bad. Personally, that is the way I’m hoping to be able to write on day.

Toured Brazoria National Wildlife Reserve on the auto trail. There were so many mosquitoes that walking anywhere pretty much sucked. I ended up with at least 10 bites. Saw a few alligators out there to, which was cool, but kept us pretty much in the car. We stayed the night at a place overlooking the bay and had a fish fry.

The next morning we hopped on a fishing boat and headed out to the bay for some fishing. The funny thing though was the motor died so we had to be towed in. We did catch stuff but no keepers.

The wildlife reserve is a nice trip if your not looking for much but a nice view and birds in the summer. Winter may be different when all the bugs are gone. Really the best thing to do in the area is fish.

Spent two lazy days in and around Goose Island. There is no hiking in the park, but they have lots of places to fish and bay-front property. The bay-front has about 40 sites and books up fast. There are campsites in the back wooded areas of the park, but I’ve never stayed at them. My philosophy with this park is if I can’t get bay-front I’m not going. The mosquito population in the backwoods is horrid and you pretty much don’t get a view or a breeze. The park I’ve also found is way better on weekdays, as they tend to sell out and over pack the park on weekends, especially in summer.

We spent most of the time fishing and sitting around, but we did drive into Corpus Christy, to see the Texas State Aquarium, which has some very nice exhibits as well as a number of animal shows. The Aquarium is located on the beach so afterward we took a stroll down the Texas coast.

The second day, we decided to drive back into Corpus during the afternoon and take a drive down the coast on Ocean Dr. On our way back up we had lunch at Water Street Oyster Bar, which has amazing stuffed mushrooms and Margaritas. Good times.

Total trip length was around 10 miles. My GPS seems to have seen better days, because the track data is almost non existent. When we got to the halfway point of the trail, it decided to start raining heavy. We new the forecast was for a 60% chance of rain, but I wasn’t expecting the heavy amount we got. It was pretty much equal distance either way so we decided to finish out the trail. We had rain gear but we didn’t use the rain pants, which was a mistake, because after an hour of solid rain we were completely soaked from the waist down. I did get to see some wildlife including a rabbit, and a few of the endangered toads the park is protecting.

We ended up changing in back of the car to our rain pants and have set a new rule to carry dry clothes in the vehicle regardless of weather outlook on the trail. Probably won’t commit to a trail when the forecast says 60% chance of rain next time.

Wow, it’s been a while since I actually posted a hike. Have to work off all that food an wine I wrote about. =) This trip was full of creatures for some reason. Lots of bugs everywhere. The mosquitoes have pretty much taken over most of the wooded areas so take some bug spray. We also ran into a tarantula and the snake that’s in the picture at the top.

This trip was a pretty quick day hike roughly eight miles long. We combined a number of the trails in the park to make this loop. From the trail head we took the Joe Johnston north, until it intersected with Canyon Overlook. Canyon Overlook is a bypass trail that parallels the JJ for a bit, but then goes up to an overlook but descends back onto the JJ. From there we took the Little Windmill across to where it intersects Sendero Balcones heading back toward the park entrance. SB intersects with Wildcat Canyon, which ends up back on the Joe Johnston near the trail head. It was extremely hot (91 F) toward the end of the hike and I pretty much blew through 90oz of water by the end. Take plenty with you if you go.

Government Canyon

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Government Canyon State Natural area is located near Helotes Tx.

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The walk is a once a year event, where a large number of merchants in Boerne, TX give out chocolate for people visiting their stores. Tickets are limited to 250 people, and they must be bought in advance. The majority of the shops are on the main street, and within walking distance of each other. I think we put in about 5 miles just wandering around the town and checking out all the shops.

Boerne is a pretty quite town, with a lot of interesting photographic material, especially downtown. If Antiques and crafts are your thing, there are a plenty of shops up there to suit you. All the chain restaurants, Chili’s, Pizza Hut, Sonic, etc are there, but my advice is skip out and get some local food from places like The Little Gretle or The Dodging Duck Brewhaus, and yes for the beer aficionado’s, The Dodging Duck, brews their own beer on site. If you plan to go to a local place, watch the time. Most of them shut down for about 2 hours between breakfast and lunch and then again between lunch and dinner. Check the websites for the most accurate information.

This was an interesting trip to say the least. First of all I accidentally hit the wrong button on the GPS and wiped out the track map, so I have nothing to upload to everytrail.com. Second, I got sick after we got to camp. It started as a headache, but I ended up spending some part of the night hurling outside the tent. =( Not exactly the best trip in my opinion. The latter brings up a good point. Since it’s the start of the year, review the contents of your first aid kit, and ensure the meds are not expired. I only did a quick look to see if I had some in the kit, but they were unusable. Some Advil and Tums could have helped.

We figured going in the off season during the school year would cut down on the number of people there, and well, it almost worked out. The general populous of day hikers were non-existent but the park was literally overrun with Boy Scouts. There was something like four troops with at least 10 kids each, at the trailhead when we arrived. Let’s just say the hike and camping were less than quiet. We were camped a mile away from the nearest troop and could still hear them. No big deal though, I’m glad to see people getting kids interested in the outdoors. Way back, when I was in it, going on a troop camp out was what I looked forward to. Beats playing video games all weekend for sure. It dropped below freezing at night, so they all should have earned their polar bear badges. Good for them.

I’ve been attempting to pack less weight, and I did, but there is room for more. I need to look at new sleeping bags. I have an old Mountain Hardware Lamana 32. I’m pretty sure there is something lighter on the market now considering it’s at least six years old. I need to replace it’s compression sack with a lighter version as well. The tent I have for winter is a four season, two person, Kelty Radiant 2 which eventually needs to be replaced with something lighter. Those items are the major pain points right now.

Sometimes you need to know each time a user did something like logged in during a time period. Since the logs can be quite large, I’ve used this method to get results pretty fast. You will need Microsoft’s Log Parser 2.2 installed to use this query. In this case I have it set to look for the name Jeff, but that can be changed to any name.

logparser “SELECT TimeGenerated, SID, Message FROM Security, Application, System WHERE Message like ‘%jeff%’” -i:EVT -resolveSIDs ON > c:\logresult.txt