The Zhan Crew: Outdoor
Showing posts with label Outdoor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Outdoor. Show all posts

Jan 20, 2019

New Mom Experience

January 20, 2019 0
New Mom Experience
My baby used to be 100% nocturnal! That meant no sleep for me at all during night time. I had to try to open up my eyes without falling asleep to feed him and change his diaper. His digestive system was rapid at digesting. One bit of milk immediately turned into pee and poop. I am officially a diaper expert and knows exactly when to change his diaper without being sprayed.

Nowadays, in the morning when he is fully awake, I put on some classical lullabies for him to listen. Surprisingly, he loves music a lot! He becomes calmer and more relaxed. I also do activities with him such as the baby tummy exercise. He is already on his way to crawl! We have a super awesome monkey seat for him. He loves to dance through the songs from the monkey seat. I am so proud to be his mom. All these activities eventually tire him out. Now, he wakes up twice in the night. It is so awesome that baby Kieran cooperates with us. He is such a sweetheart.

Today was his first time to go offroading in the blizzard and dining out with us. He was surprisingly behaving! He loved riding in our F150 like he used to in my belly. After we came home, he gave me a big smile! He was such a happy and adventurous baby!

Yes! Kieran was dining with us in the restaurant!
New York State had gone mad with the snow!
Our adventure vehicle was covered with snow!

Oct 8, 2017

Camping Addicts Journal

October 08, 2017 0
Camping Addicts Journal

In the past few weekends, my boyfriend and I traveled to three different state parks. We had so much fun exploring and being as primitive as we could. Here, let me show you each park we went to.

The first one was called the Stony Brook State Park. It is just a bit north of us, so the drive was not too bad. Our campsite was pretty secluded with only one family beside us. The campfire pit was amazing because it had a rack on it for us to cook our food.  Talking about food, we have a selection of camping meals.

For Dinner
  • We brought our preprepared veggies including yellow peppers, red peppers, onions, and mushrooms. We found them in TOPS. 
  • We also got two pieces of steaks. They were seasoned with black peppers and salt. 
These two things were for dinner. Just simply put them on the rack and let them cook. If you want to cook them in a pan above the camp fire, that is fine, too. 

For Breakfast
  • BACON, BACON, BACON (our favorite morning food when comes to camping)
  • Mashed potato, which needed to be heated up by a stove.
Our Drinks
  • V8, very healthy and keeps us away from hunger
  • Our coconut juice from Thailand, which can be found in the Asian food aisle in your local supermarket
Our second state park is called Allegany State Park, and we stayed at the Quaker area of the park. I would say this one was the most secluded campsite we had ever been on! There was no one beside us, and our campsite was surrounded by trees. We couldn't find firewood so we got charcoal instead and made delicious camp food out of it. The fire definitely lasted longer than campfire wood.

We just got back from our third state park: Cook Forest State Park. This state park has some really tall trees, and all the campsites are surrounded by them. It felt very wild and primitive. However, since Pennsylvania is known for its forests, many people from different states want to taste the nature of these forests. As you might conclude, this state park's campsite was not so secluded.  Our campsite was surrounded by two families, but there were still a bit far from us. 

I have some more videos of us cooking on the campfire. Here are some from Stony Brook. 

A post shared by Lucie Arielle (@luciearielle) on

Aug 29, 2017

Our Adventure in Pennsylvania Continues

August 29, 2017 0
Our Adventure in Pennsylvania Continues

Our Adventure in Pennsylvania 

Last weekend, we packed our clothes, sleeping bag, and cooking utensils for another amazing adventure in Pennsylvania. There is so much to see in Pennsylvania. On Friday night, we headed to Worlds End State Park to camp in our F150. We parked right beside the Loyalsock Creek. It was very dark out there and I was so terrified that wolves would suddenly appear to attack us. Well, I saw some rodents, interesting insects, and deer all around the Worlds End region.

Tips and tricks to camp inside your vehicle:
  1. Need privacy? We bought a piece of fabric from Walmart that is thick and wide enough to cover up all the windows of our vehicle, except the windshield. 
    • The windshield can be covered by the windshield shade. You can then cut the fabric into four pieces based on the size of your windows. 
    • Then open up each window slightly, put each fabric into the slight opening, and close each window. 
  2. As for our truck F150, it is wide enough to fit a sleeping mat in the back seat area. Make sure all your back seats are up and push the front seats as far as possible to the front so that you can have more space in the back. 
  3. Get a sleeping bag and tah tah! That is how we camp! 




Since we were so productive, we drove to Hamburg, PA. On the way, we passed by several interesting places such as Minersville, PA where houses are built so close to each other and residents have to park on the street. Hamburg is my favorite destination because it has my favorite store, Cabela's. I love the footwears at Cabela's. They are so cozy, and that is why I call it Coze-mart! The good thing in Pennsylvania is that there is no tax for shoes! 




Aug 20, 2017

Tioga River Adventure

August 20, 2017 0
Tioga River Adventure

Jimmy and Lusi's Adventure in Tioga River


Tioga River is a small river that runs between northern Pennsylvania and southwestern New York. The river is shallow for most parts. Some parts of the river are more like streams with rapid currents. It is a great river for kayaking. Our inflatable boat with a trolling motor only worked well for the slightly deeper parts of the river. For the shallow parts, we had to pull the boat and walk against the current. The bottom of the river is very stony, but our feet and the boat survived the 2-hour walk. Jimmy is a great crayfish catcher. He caught more than 20 crayfish, and he decided to keep them as pets in his aquarium. He also caught a froglet on the way back. When we were not pulling the boat, I had a good tan drifting on the Tioga River. It was nice to be surrounded by nature and chirping birds. I had a good time with my love. Here, I have uploaded some pictures and a video for you to enjoy. 







Aug 15, 2017

Watkins Glen State Park

August 15, 2017 0
Watkins Glen State Park

Enjoy exploring the Watkins Glen State Park


Couple weeks ago, we discovered some very beautiful trails in the Watkins Glen State Park. It was such a great experience to walk through nature and breathe in the fresh air in the mountains. It was raining when we visited the park several weeks ago. That was my first time ever to walk in the rain surrounded by waterfalls and rocky mountains.

We started from the main entrance and we hiked the entire state park (including traveling back to the parking lot) in the rain for more than two hours (roughly 10 miles) while enjoying the beauty of our mother nature. We used the Gorge Trail in Watkins Glen. This trail is the one with all the beautiful waterfalls and mountains!  Occasionally, there are waterfalls coming down from the mountains and you can walk through them. Jimmy took these opportunities to wash his feet. The waterfalls made me feel so relaxed and the sound of these falls felt like music in my ears. This is certainly the best place for physical exercise.

Here are some pictures, a video, and a map for you to view! Definitely, put this place on your bucket list!









Aug 6, 2017

Floating on Lake Huron

August 06, 2017 0
Floating on Lake Huron

The Best Lake Journey at Lake Huron, ON, Canada


Welcome aboard to Ontario's best ferry Chi-Cheemaun! This is us entering the parking area on the ferry. It is so unbelievable how many vehicles it can take in. The ferry trip costs about $77 CAD. I know it is an expensive ride but it is definitely worth it!


Going up from the parking area and these are the stairs that lead to the majestic view of the Great Lake. As you can tell from here, the ship is gigantic (definitely seaworthy). It has several floors. It feels like a concrete building on the lake. I totally loved the ship and I wish I could live on it!


Here is a view of this gigantic ship. According to Wikipedia, this ship is 111 m (364 ft) with a 19 m (62 ft) beam and has a capacity of 648 passengers and 143 vehicles, including room for large highway vehicles such as buses and transport trucks. How impressive!


Here is the front view of the ship with an Ontario flag in the middle! I love my home province! 


Look at the blue lake. How clean! I haven't seen a lake so clean like this one! I even collected some water samples from Lake Huron! Well, the water is bland, which means it is clean and chemical-free!


Here we go again! The vast blue lake of Ontario (Michigan as well). The blue lake and the blue sky are a perfect combination. I stayed mostly on the deck of the ship to take in all the fresh air. 


A man trying to feed a smart seagull floating above the ship looking for human food. This guy actually started a trend of feeding this seagull. I captured the moment that the seagull was picking up the food from the man. 


Just listen to the sound of the ship traveling on the lake and look into the vast body of this lake. I have to thank my boyfriend for taking me there. We later traveled to Sudbury on the way back home. It was a nice boating journey!

You can read more about the majestic ship, Chi-Cheemaun, here

Jul 26, 2017

Our Fishing Adventure

July 26, 2017 0
Our Fishing Adventure










We visited two state parks in Pennsylvania: Whipple Dam State Park and Bald Eagle State Park. You can see people fishing in both state parks. I caught a lot of sunfish in Bald Eagle. Other outdoor activities such as canoeing and kayaking are also possible. Bald Eagle's lake was also quite busy with boats when we visited, but that didn't stop me from getting prepared for my fish dinner!