Hiking California Counties- May Update

O'Neill Regional Park- Orange County

May 2017 was all about Kellisa's 18th birthday, from her cross country "day of flight"  to posts summarizing her first 18 years. It's also a chaotic time of the year as school for the girls winds down with talent shows, dances, and other end of year festivities. In the middle of all that, Lisa flew back to Chicago to spend a couple of days with family. 

While Lisa was away, we managed to hike in two new Sacramento Valley counties in Northern California bringing our total to 5 counties hiked in 2017. We ended May with a Memorial Day weekend trip to Southern California to visit family. I was hoping to hike in at least 2, if not 3 counties on the trip, but Laurel wasn't feeling well when we attempted to hike a trail in Orange County and waited in the car with Lisa. We did not attempt any other county hikes and Laurel has been a little down on the idea of hiking lately. Not sure what that means, but it may add a challenge, if not a change to our 2017 goals. Full posts with pictures from the Sacramento Valley coming soon.

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Everything but Alligators and Polar Bears

Since we finished hiking in all 50 United States back in November 2016, we've been asked, "What's next?" 

After spending many years on the Hike all 50 States Project, I didn't have a "Next". I was relieved, but also very worn out. Even though I wasn't ready, the girls are always ready for our next adventure.

A lot of people think visiting countries is the natural progression. There are many countries I'd love to visit, but the idea of traveling around the world isn't very appealing to me at this time. When I'd allow myself to think about what's next, I often turned to our neighbors to the north. Canada is beautiful, vast, and remote with tons of wildlife. Everything we love. 

I would need a specific goal and hiking in all of Canada's provinces and territories seems like a great plan and they only have 13 total. Should be easier than visiting 50 states, right? However, when you look at a map of Canada, one thing becomes very obvious, it's a huge country. In fact, Canada is the world's second largest country and you can't even drive to one of the territories. This project seems a little overwhelming...for now.