Ever since our first experiment with AirBnB (where we snagged a New York City...
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Home Sweet Hoboken
You really can go home again.
I first learned that lesson when we returned to New York City after a year-long absence. During that trip I gained a greater appreciation for the Big Apple, around which I had lived and worked for so many years. This time back, we used AirBnb to rent an apartment in our former hometown of Hoboken, NJ.
While we often consider ourselves New Yorkers, we spent most of our adult life living just across the river in New Jersey. For anyone who’s ever been to Hoboken, the confusion is understandable. The city feels more like a borough of Manhattan than a sister of Trenton.
Hoboken is connected to New York’s great metropolis by a system of subways, ferries, and tunnels that make flitting back and forth between the two as easy as getting anywhere in Manhattan. And while the Staten Island Ferry draws tourists eager to take in beautiful skyline views, a trip on Hoboken’s Hudson River ferry is every bit as breathtaking. A summer evening trip across the river, sailing – wind in your face – away from the sunlit jewel of a city twinkling into nighttime magnificence is nothing short of magical. Although not free, the Hoboken ferry easily challenges Telluride’s claim to “the best commute in America.”
Beautiful Moab
I don’t think we’ve ever been anywhere with a greater concentration of scenic beauty than Moab, UT. Within a short drive of the small town there are two distinct national parks (Canyonlands and Arches) and the spectacular Dead Horse Point State park.
But even just driving ordinary back roads we encountered landscapes (like the one above) that would be considered national park worthy if they were located in any other part of the country. The entire area is simply amazing.
The Tip of the Canyonlands
Canyonlands National Park (also near Moab, UT) is so large that it is separated into three distinct land districts: the Island in the Sky, the Needles and the Maze. No road directly connects these areas and travel between them can take up to six hours by car. During our time in Moab, we only explored Island of the Sky, which is really just the tip of the iceberg. We’ll have to make a return trip to see the other two thirds of this wonderful park.
Arches National Park
Landscape Arch, Arches National Park, Utah
Just outside Moab in Southeastern Utah, Arches National Park preserves and protects more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches. It is believed the park contains the greatest diversity of such formations anywhere in the world. A small sampling includes Landscape Arch (above) . . .
Learning to Fly with Skydive Moab
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“Gravity will do most of the work. That and our guides who, being strapped to our falling behinds, are every bit as interested in a safe landing as we are.”
With those words we basically convinced ourselves to do something that the human mind was never designed to contemplate: step off a platform thousands of feet above the ground with only a thin blanket of nylon to slow our descent back to earth. But even that description puts things too cheerfully. We didn’t step off a platform. We tumbled off. Headfirst.
Falling out of an airplane wasn’t originally on our to-do list for Moab, Utah, or for anywhere really. There was a time when I figured I’d eventually go skydiving, but over the years that interest mostly faded. Shannon’s thinking on the matter pretty consistently fell in the neighborhood of “no freaking way.” She’d watch from the ground, thank you very much.
Watch us Jump
So how, then, did we find ourselves at 10,000 feet in a tiny single-engine propeller plane, each strapped bum to bollocks with a man we’d only met moments earlier? We’d say it’s all TripAdvisor’s fault, but the truth is that we were building toward that moment consistently, if unwittingly, for more than two solid years. Every new experience, every boundary pushed, every obstacle overcome during our travels brought us a step closer to the point where we had the courage to take this literal leap of faith.
Everywhere Once 