The post The McGlones appeared first on Hungry Mike.

The post Dominik Haeflinger appeared first on Hungry Mike.

During the evening, we converted their basement into a mini home studio to do some indoor photo shoot. Setting it up was almost as easy as pushing all the stuff to the side and hanging a black fabric on the wall. The event went rather smoothly although it was a little chaotic at times with two kids running around for no apparent reasons.

Fun family = interesting photo shoot.

The post Woody and Buzz Lightyear appeared first on Hungry Mike.

We snowshoed in Jay Cooke State Park last winter, but we decided to visit this state park again this time to see what it actually looked like when the ground and river were not covered with snow. The scenery in the park was astoundingly beautiful in fall. There were plenty of colors throughout the park.

Gooseberry Falls State Park seems to become our least favorite state park in Northeastern Minnesota. It is still a very nice park with very accessible short trails to the beautiful waterfalls, but we didn’t really experience the “WOW” factor anymore. Perhaps, we have visited this state park way too many times.

We visited Lutsen Mountains, which is about an hour from Two Harbor, to take the tram ride to the top of Moose Mountain. During our 10 to 15 minutes tram ride, we noticed the lack of fall colors along Lake Superior whereas the inland was exploded with incredible colors. Alhough the view from the summit wasn’t as great as the ones we experienced in New England, it was indeed one of the better fall colors we have witnessed in Minnesota thus far.

We have hiked in Temperance River State Park a few times, including one crazy winter season. This is truly one of the better state parks in this area. We didn’t hike too deep into it this time, but we managed to hike to a few of our favorite spots to capture the incredible fall colors along Temperance River.

It was our first visit to George Crosby Manitou State Park. This state park is not accessible directly from North Shore Scenic Drive, not to mention our stupid Garmin GPS had a hard time locating the destination. That said, we didn’t encounter whole lot of visitors in the park. It turned out to be a wonderful experience there. We hiked for two hours in the park. The first 1/3 of the hike was easy, but the rest of the hike was fairly strenuous with steep climbs and loose rocks on the ground. In fact, we tried to hike out from the trail as fast as possible before the late afternoon sun hid behind the hills.

We finally visited Tettegouche State Park. We always wanted to visit this state park, but never had the opportunity to spend enough time in it. This time, we spent five hours hiking in the inland part of the state park, and we experienced one of the greatest fall colors in Minnesota. The morning sun was perfect, the weather was perfect and the views were absolutely stunning. During our hike, we had an interesting chat with a local photographer from Grand Marais who was hired to take pictures of the boathouse views for the new Tettegouche State Park Visitor Center, scheduled to open in 2012. We even posed for a few shots upon his request. In return, he gladly sent one of his shots to us later for free. So, if you see this picture below at the Tettegouche State Park Visitor Center next time, please keep in mind that the two unidentified Asian kids in the picture are indeed us.

We paid a very short visit to the Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. We strolled along Pebble Beach to Ellingson Island because we never step foot on that island before. It was very cold on the island with virtually no trees sheltering us from the furious wind.

We took the opportunity to spend an evening in Duluth for dinner since we always drove past this city on our recent trips to this area. That said, we did climb up to the top of Enger Tower to witness the brilliant fall colors in Duluth. We read the news that King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway were at this site on October 17 (10 days after our visit) to rededicate Enger Tower. The tower was originally dedicated by the King’s father, then Crown Prince Olav, in 1939.

During our drive back home, we visited Banning State Park for a few hours of hike. It was pretty much past peak in this state park, but it was indeed beautiful where the cool breeze ruffled the dried leaves along the trails.

We spent half a day in Great River Bluffs State Park. Due to the dry weather, the fall colors in Southeastern Minnesota were less impressive compared to the fall colors in Northeastern Minnesota as the most leaves dried up and turned brown.

This is truly one of the best fall foliage vacation we have ever experienced in Minnesota. We were pretty lucky that we managed to catch it at the right time. Although I went to this trip with a busted right index finger, I still managed to take quite a few shots the entire time. These colorful pictures will help us and the rest of the Minnesotans to get through the upcoming bitterly cold Minnesota winter.

The post Fall Colors in Minnesota appeared first on Hungry Mike.

There are quite a few interesting places to visit in Colorado Springs. We visited the U.S Air Force Academy, which has a very impressive Cadet Chapel. The Gardens of the Gods was probably one of the highlights during our stay here. The beautiful rock formations reminded us of some of the national parks we visited in Utah. We did the tour at the U.S. Olympic Training Center. We also paid a visit to Seven Falls and the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park, which are pretty touristy.

We drove up to two summits on this trip: Pikes Peak and Mount Evans. Both summits are at about the same height at ~14000 feet. The views from both summits are different and Mount Evans seemed to have more snow on the ground than Pikes Peak. Altitude sickness is certainly a real deal in Colorado, especially at the summits. We were very fortunate to stumble upon several mountain goats at Mount Evans.

Somehow, we didn’t spend too much time in Denver simply because I was very busy attending all the technical sessions in the conference. On the last night of our trip, my coworker and us spent our evening in Boulder.

We had a wide variety of meals from different countries throughout this trip: German, Sri Lankan, Thai, Japanese, Mediterranean and American. We also tried bison, yak, elk, alligator tail and rattle snake. The yak meat and elk meat weren’t as great as we thought they were. However, the bison meat was excellent.

Colorado is one beautiful place and we are certain we will come back to visit the Rocky Mountains National Park in near future.

The post Colorado Springs appeared first on Hungry Mike.

After arriving in Nashville, we drove to Lynchburg to visit the Jack Daniels Distillery. The an-hour-long tour was free and it was very impressive! Although this town is located in the dry county, meaning no alcohol can be sold within the county lines, we smelled like whiskey by the end of the tour.

In the evening, we headed to the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville for our 7 PM show. We weren’t sure what to expect from the show because none of the performer names on the brochure rang a bell with us. Nevertheless, the 2-hour show turned out to be rather enjoying.

During our stay in Nashville, we did the backstage tours at the Ryman Auditorium and the Grand Ole Opry House. We also visited the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which included a tour to the Historic RCA Studio B. This studio is one of the world’s most important and successful recording studios. Many of Elvis Presley’s albums were recorded in that studio.

This is one trip where we spent more time eating than sightseeing. We tried lots of Southern Food, which includes lots of fried food. The fried chicken is like the “thing” there. It was pretty difficult to find plain green veggies in most restaurants we had been to except those overcooked green beans. That said, the food was heavenly good, albeit not healthy for us.

As a Southerner would say… Hey, y’all!.

The post Nashville appeared first on Hungry Mike.

The food preparation was A LOT of work. We brought our portable grill to their place, and I spent a good 2-3 hours grilling the chicken satays. The preparation went on well past midnight where Andy deep fried the shrimp balls at the deck until 3 in the morning.

The folks started to fill up the house fast on Saturday at noon. Lots of people and lots of food. Keith seemed a little uncomfortable with the busy scene, not to mention he was sick for the past few days. Richard behaved very well for most of the time. I was the “designated” photographer for that event, and somehow, I seemed to take more food pictures than people pictures. We couldn’t have asked for a better day because it was sunny and warm outside… certainly a welcoming sight.

We were beat by the time we reached home that evening. However, our tiredness was easily offset by the great food we had there.

Happy birthday, Keith!

The post Keith’s One-Year-Old Birthday appeared first on Hungry Mike.

After dinner, we spent quite a bit of time playing the Sequence board game. It was VERY entertaining. It started out as a simple laid-back time-killing game that later unleashed everyone’s competitiveness to win the game by the end of the night. The most memorable quote was to hear Ashton say “Good one, Hao…” on every move Hao made. Good one, Ashton… 🙂

The post All About Food appeared first on Hungry Mike.

We prepared quite a few dishes, not to mention we had only 4 adults. The food were great and I’m sure everyone gained a few pounds… a great new year celebration. 🙂

The post Chinese New Year appeared first on Hungry Mike.

Kurt and Corey brought boatload of wines and beers while Joe brought us a four-TV-tray set, which is pretty awesome. In the end, I think everyone was fully fed. We actually toned down the dishes this time. Next time, we will do more adventurous dishes, like nasi lemak, beef rendang, chicken curry and dishes that cannot be pronounced in English.

The post Hanging Out in the Winter appeared first on Hungry Mike.