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It is just a beautiful in the Winter as the summer – we took the trip up Saturday of the John Beargrease sled dog race. The falls were frozen with water gurgling behind them. Stunning, and we still got the joy of walking all over the place. Be careful though, as the stairs were VERY icy and slick, but worth it for us!

I lived in Ashland for several years, until I finished college and couldn’t get a teaching job…declining enrollment. It is a great place to live and raise a family – very diverse population with a lot of environmental consciousness and people who love the outdoors! I prefer it to Bayfield, which along with Madeline Island draws in people from the cities to purchase second homes. It is an authentic and very nice little town – if you go, The Black Cat, The Deep Water, and the 2nd Street Bistro are all excellent places to eat and reasonably priced.

I love the Badlands and will continue to go back every chance I get! There are fossils lying all over the place, which is fun and unusual, and it is one of the few NP that you are allowed to go hiking off the trails – a little scary at first, but you can get away from the people and see some amazing things! I could never live there, but I really enjoy the stark beauty on vacations. The visitor center also has really great information!

We kindof stumbled onto this park- basically, I wanted to get the stamp in my National Park Passport. The North Unit was was great – beautiful, not many people, we will definitely be going back for more than a place to camp!!

I lived for a year in the Faroe Islands as a foreign exchange student. It was just an awesome place to have that experience, it is safe and beautiful and so many cultural opportunities! And, no McDonald’s (at least at that time – I hope that hasn’t changed!). I feel really fortunate that I was able to live abroad in such a unique place and experience being somewhat independent in a safe setting – I hitchhiked, road buses, ferries sailed, was out in small boats, road in a helicopter a couple of times, and was able to stay at different locations all over the islands. I was lucky enough to be an exchange student when it was still really expensive to make international calls, and email was probably around somewhere, but not in my circle, so I met people and went out on the weekends and traveled. I was able to get back to the islands only once since and now need to get it back on my list to share with my son – I would love to spend time there again viewing it from a different perspective.