Bryce Canyon

Cedar City, Utah

Tuesday's trip was to Bryce Canyon National Park. It was amaaaazing! We made sure to wear long pants and real shoes and even brought light weight jackets this time so we would have no need to abort the whole trip. For at least part of the day we were glad to be better prepared. It wasn't super cold or particularly windy, but it is plainly not summer anymore and there was still a chill in the air.

The main feature of the day was the Queen's Garden trail. We stopped at the visitor's center when we came in and debated whether or not to use the optional shuttle to get to our trail head. We were even in line for the shuttle when Liam noticed a sign telling us to move our car from the main parking lot before boarding a shuttle as the visitor's center parking was restricted to one hour only. So we walked back to our car, intending to move it, but decided instead to drive on to the trail and just see if maybe there was enough parking. There was. Our trail began at Sunrise Point and there were (luckily) signs leading us there from the parking lot, so off we went. There is a fabulous canyon view from Sunrise Point, they call it the amphitheater though and say 'canyon' is wrong. I thought amphitheater was 'outdoor theater,' I guess that isn't all it is. It is also a canyon full of cool stuff to look at, in this case hoodoos, a word I love. The view from above, though, was quickly overshadowed as we descended on the trail down into the canyon and actually walked among the rock formations. The queen of Queen's Garden, by the way, is a pink formation named Queen Victoria. I am still unsure why she gets a garden in southern Utah.

The trail winds back and forth and loops around and through the hoodoos and cliffs below. In some places the ground drops a bit dramatically off the side of the trail. At one point, we were stopped at a drop off where the ground beside the trail was just a lot of loose sand cascading between giant rock formations. We could see that our trail went around a curve ahead of us and continued way below us. Liam, gazing at the steep landscape between us and that trail far below jokingly asked; "Is that the trail down there? Why don't we just walk that way then?"  An older woman nearby overheard him and said firmly "Because you would die!" Then, perhaps deciding she was being a bit extreme, added; "Because your Grandma wouldn't want you to!" Haha. We stayed on the trail, for grandmas everywhere.

So we wandered along the Queen's Garden trail and then took the Navajo Loop off of it that took us to see a couple land bridges and through a few tunnels and then back up a steep, back and forth, trail reminiscent of San Francisco's 'crookedest street in the world,' (only we were going up... and walking) and up to Sunset Point. But there was construction at the view point and we were asked to wait 10 minutes before we could pass, in that 10 minutes we noticed that another trail was ending here also, and looking down that trail we could see that it went through a slot canyon way below us. So after climbing all the way up, we climbed back down the other trail so we could go through the canyon at what was, I think, the end of the Under the Rim Trail. It was awesome! We didn't continue on the trail but came back up the way we went down, giving us a chance to walk through the narrow canyon twice.

We finished our day in the park by driving the road up to Rainbow viewpoint and then coming back down stopping at most of the viewpoints along the way. The highlight of the viewpoints was probably the Land Bridge, but seeing things from up above was nothing in comparison to walking down among them.

Cedar Breaks and Parowan Gap

Cedar City, Utah

It is no longer summer. For reals. We have had to change our plans several times in the past two weeks because of weather. And on Tuesday, we should have changed our plans, but didn't. Or rather didn't until it was literally forced upon us.

We were going to Cedar Breaks National Monument. I had never heard of it before picking up a map at the local pool, it looked cool, we have a parks pass, we decided to go. So I Googled a couple hikes of the under 5 mile kind and Tuesday morning we packed our lunches, donned our usual shorts and sandals, loaded into the car, set the GPS and were on our way. Its only about 40 minutes from Cedar City, which is probably why I didn't think to check temperatures before we left. The visitor's center is also at about 10,000 feet. As we got closer, the car kept reminding us of the outside temperatures which rapidly dropped from over 60 to below 45 by the time we parked. Kris and I had windbreakers/ raincoats. Only because he always brings them. For both of us. Not because of any preparation on my part. But none of the kids had any sort of coat and all were wearing shorts and t-shirts. And it wasn't just 42 degrees out, it was also windy enough out to knock a small child over. And that wind was straight from the arctic I swear.

Still pretty, even in the cold.

We scrapped the hikes and instead stopped at each overlook and then back down the other side of the mountain, through the recent burn area of the Brian Head fire, and on the longest route possible to Parowan, Utah where we knew we could find the Parowan Gap and dinosaur tracks and Petroglyphs. Good save I say.

One of many petroglyph panels in Parowan Gap.

Zion National Park

Cedar City, Utah

This week we went to Zion National park. We had planned to do Zion Canyon on Tuesday, even though we were feeling discouraged because we were reading that even though it is September, the park is still busy enough to require the use of shuttles in the most popular areas. And that meant Zion Canyon.

Heading into Kolob Canyon

We had had high hopes that with kids being back in school we would see lots fewer visitors in the parks. Then we left later than planned that morning (always, I know). Then we realized that the park entrance was further from our home in Cedar City than we thought. Basically it all  added up to us feeling generally a little grouchy and negative about the whole endeavor. So we changed our plans en route to the park. Instead of heading to the main entrance we decided to spend our day in the Kolob Canyons section of Zion National Park, and that turned out to be the cure to all our grouchiness.

In Kolob we first stopped at the visitors center to show our pass and officially be allowed in to the park. The truth is, this is totally an honor system since it would be super easy to drive on past the parking lot and into the park. We weren't issued any kind of pass to hang in our window either. But we are honest people (who also have a parks pass and so didn't actually have to pay anything anyway) and also this was our last chance at flushing toilets after all. That's probably how they ensure honesty really, the lure of the flushing toilets.

View from the overlook

First we drove to the end of the canyon road and then walked about a mile to a park overlook. Then we drove back down the same road to a trail head back close to the entrance, the Taylor Creek Trail. The trail followed along the creek the whole way. Eventually Liam and Fionn mostly gave up walking on the trail and just walked down the middle of the creek, which was basically ankle deep the whole way.

First half got a little warm, but as we got further into the canyon there was more shade and more trees. Eventually we arrived at a huge canyon wall with two partial arches. The canyon walls were, I am guessing, the source of the creek, as they were leaking water from above. We ate lunch there, took our pictures and then turned around and hiked right back the way we had come. The whole hike was right about 5 miles and we were all very thirsty by the time we were done. Note: one small bottle of water each for a five mile hike just does not cut it, we've proven that twice now.

The lower arch of the double arch

Thursday was our day for Zion Canyon, and after our relaxing day in Kolob Canyon we were ready! Then we awoke Thursday to a persistent thunderstorm that showed no signs of letting up. And it didn't until about 3 that afternoon. So we did Zion on Friday! We had to park outside of the park and take a shuttle into the park, where we had to catch another shuttle to take us up the canyon to everything we wanted to see and do. It wasn't quite Yosemite, but it was sometimes uncomfortably crowded both on the shuttles and on the trails. The shuttles though were much more dependable than those in Yosemite. We never waited more than 5 minutes for one. Not even when we got on going the wrong way, had to get off at the next stop and wait for another to come along going our way. By the way, there are only two ways the shuttles can be going; up the canyon or down the canyon, there is only the one road. Sometimes we don't read signs well. 

Looking out from under weeping rock

First we stopped at the Three Patriarchs, which was just a quick walk up from our shuttle stop and back to catch the next one going by. Then we hiked the Emerald Pools Trail, which goes up and up and up past emerald pools 1 and 2 and 3, each formed by water falling over the canyon wall and each one harder to get to than the last with the hike to the last pool being really quite challenging for such a well traveled trail. Next we saw weeping rock, where water seeping through the rock falls like raindrops from a cliff overhang and you can actually stand in the alcove and watch it fall in front of you. And finally we walked the mile River Walk at the end of the canyon. The walk leads to The Narrows, where lots of people go ahead and continue their hike right up the river. As in they walk IN the river, there really is no trail anymore. But we did not have shoes for river walking and instead just played by the water and then caught  our bus back to the entrance and then another back to our car and headed home to our crockpot dinner. I love it when the rental houses have a crockpot and I have the foresight to actually use them.

Grand Teton National Park

Idaho Falls, Idaho

As we drove into Grand Teton National Park, Liam asked "So what's this park have?" So far, most of our national park visits have sort of had a theme: tall trees, fat trees, cliff dwellings, geysers. I told him that this one was mostly about the amazing mountain views. The problem with that is that there is currently so much smoke in the northwest that we really could barely even see those amazing mountains. It made for a fairly disappointing trip. Or at least it felt that way. But I am hanging on to a few great experiences we did have despite the smoke filled skies that blocked out those mountain backdrops that I know were there!

We entered the park through an unmanned backdoor just north of Jackson and drove basically a counter clockwise loop around the park with slight detours from that main loop. There were lots of pullouts to stop and see and photograph the views, but the views were mostly obscured by that smoke. We did eventually go through an actual entrance and have to show our pass, but that wasn't until halfway through the day. Still, we did get to see some pretty great things.

The first pretty great thing we saw that day was the Mormon Row Barns. I think I have already demonstrated that I am pretty taken with abandoned buildings, and these did not disappoint, even though the magnificent mountains that stand beyond them were mostly invisible. There are houses in addition to barns but the barns are definitely the main attraction. The birds everywhere were a bonus.

At the Schwabacher Landing beaver ponds we saw a mama and baby (okay, adolescent?) moose. Everyone watched them for a really long time. In fact we would have missed the baby if we hadn't stuck around as he emerged from the grass after we had been watching his mama for a good thirty minutes. Animal sightings in the parks are a real favorite, though we still haven't seen any bears.






Next was a short walk near Jackson Lake at Colter Bay.  Whenever we let the kids out of the car at a big body of water, well any sized body of water, they always, always start throwing rocks in.

The best view of the mountains all day was at Jenny Lake. It was beautiful, if still a little hazy.

And then we drove out through Teton Village. It really wasn't a bad day, I mean you really can't call a day in which you saw a baby moose a bad day.

Yellowstone!

Idaho Falls, Idaho

Seven years ago, we visited Yellowstone park with all ten of our children, ages 4 through 19. Kris was on crutches after a pretty severe and scary knee break a few weeks previously, but our reservations at the KOA had been in place for months and we were getting dangerously close to the time when our kids would begin to move out on us, so he was determined to pull off this vacation as planned. So we did. Yesterday we returned to Yellowstone with only five 'children' and no crutches.

Near Yellowstone Lake

Yellowstone is huge. There was no way we were going to be able to see it all in a day and we were not sure if we would have another day to return, so we decided on the lower loop which would at least get us to the most geysers. Our house in Idaho Falls is actually about two hours from Yellowstone so we planned to leave as early as possible to get the most of our day and 'as early as possible' turned out to be right about 8 am. Because early is just not our thing. About two hours later we arrived at the west gate of Yellowstone park and got started.

Hayden Valley

Our basic plan was to drive around that lower loop and stop at as many sites as we possibly could. So we did. And we saw lots of geysers, and bubbling 'paint pots' of mud, and waterfalls and bison. Lots and lots and lots of bison. Practically as soon as we were in the park we spotted the telltale sign of a wildlife spotting-lots of cars pulled over at the side of the road completely ignoring all those signs that say NOT to stop on the side of the road even if you see something spectacular-it turned out to be an elk which actually isn't all that exciting to people from Colorado, so we drove on to the next traffic hold up and this time it was a bison which is way cooler than an elk and so we did stop. In the nearby parking lot like good rule abiding citizens. Later in the day we encountered huge herds of bison crossing the road and walking right next to the road and even in some cases walking right ON the road and that one lonely bison we saw earlier lying all nonchalantly in the grass by the creek seemed pretty tame.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

At the first geyser basin we stopped at, Fionnula asked why the ground and the water was so hot, so we revealed, a little nervously, the truth about the entire park basically being within the caldera of a volcano. She can get a little anxious over potential dangers and so I was worried what her reaction would be, it was still early in the day and I wanted to see lots of things still and not have a panicked 11 year old on our hands all day. She asked if it could possibly erupt. I didn't think that lying was the way to go here and so I said that technically, yes, it could erupt and then one of her brothers was all "Well if I have to die, being here for an eruption would be one of the top ways!" and interestingly, that was the end of the conversation, she was good. Sometimes I overthink things I guess.

Old Faithful

We arrived at Old Faithful right after it had erupted and so had approximately 90 minutes to wait for the next one. We ate our lunch. We played with a raven. We listened to all the accents and other languages all around us which has been one of the greatest parts about visiting the parks this summer. Some of us may have napped briefly. After several false starts it did finally come through and erupt for us, though it took more than the predicted "90 minutes give or take 10" that had been advertised.




Then we moved on, from geyser basins to the "Dragons Mouth" cave to the lake to the canyon and its waterfalls and back to more geyser basins and finally finished at the artist paint pots as the sun was setting and then headed out of the park and back home to Idaho Falls where we were too tired to even care that we had missed dinner all together.

Artist's Paint Pots

Mesa Verde Part Two (Saturday Aug 12, 2017)

Durango, Colorado

This morning we had tickets for a 9:30 am tour of Balcony House. We got up early, we ate cold cereal, I even put dinner in our borrowed crockpot in our borrowed kitchen. We were out of here, fed, showered, and with packed lunches in hand, by 7:45 am, and that is a huge feat for this family. One of the reasons homeschool works so well for us is that we do not have to pull off this same performance five days a week, 9 months out of the year.

Climbing back out of Balcony House

The Balcony house tour promised to have us climbing a thirty foot high ladder and crawling through a tunnel that was only 18 inches wide. I actually got out my tape measure this morning to verify that my hips were less than 18 inches wide. I had a nightmare about this stupid tunnel last night. Standing at the trail head as our tour gathered I was comparing myself to others hoping at least a few of them fell into the category of "more likely to get stuck in the tunnel than me." I made it. It wasn't even close actually, it is narrow to get into the tunnel and narrow to get out, but I was never in any real danger of blocking the whole thing up and leaving everyone behind me in line stranded with no way out of the dwelling. Whew. Information presented at this tour was mostly the same as at Cliff Palace, but the tour itself was more fun. We climbed multiple ladders and crawled through two tunnels, we were actually inside the ruins and saw the springs that once provided water to the inhabitants. And this time we climbed out along the actual toe-holds (enlarged and with handrails added) that the inhabitants would have used themselves.

We only had one more thing to see on this side of the park, the Chapin Mesa Museum, so we stopped there on our way to Wetherill Mesa. Generally speaking we have steered clear of most of the visitor center stuff at the national parks, but we made exceptions for this museum and the peek into the research center at the park's entrance, which we looked at yesterday when we got our tour tickets. Because who doesn't want a glimpse of all the artifacts that have been dug up around these canyons?

Then we were on to Wetherill mesa on the other end of the park, where we saw Step House, did our Long house tour, visited the Badger House Community, oh, and ate lunch. And saw a rattlesnake. And wild horses. For reals, just like Man from Snowy River. Wetherill Mesa also featured the first flushing toilets we had seen since the entrance, so that was nice. There is one parking lot for all of this, so we parked and walked from one thing to the next. The tour at Long House was probably our best tour yet, though it did not involve as much adventure as Balcony House, we climbed a total of one ladder and there were no tunnels whatsoever. But the tour itself was more in depth and the ruins were immense. The ranger guide showed us petroglyphs on the walls right within the ruins, pottery shards in the fire pit, suspected 'cowboy holes,' where looters in the past broke through walls, and was able to describe many aspects of the daily lives of the Pueblo people who once lived here in much more detail than the other tour guides did. He wasn't exactly humble about that either, mentioning that there were a few rangers there who knew their stuff, presumably to include himself, haha.

Long House

My favorite random fact from Mesa Verde (as related by our Long House tour ranger guide): that there were 180 cacao jars found in the whole southwest region and that 166 of those jars were all in one storeroom in Chaco canyon. Whoever owned that storeroom, I feel a deep bond with them.

Mesa Verde part One (Plus a quick Arches tour and the MTC too)

Durango, Colorado

We arrived at our house in Durango late on Thursday night. We had left Ogden early that morning but made a stop first in Provo to tour the new additions to the Missionary Training Center there. Four of our missionaries have started out their missions there, but the rest of us had never been inside, so that was fun. Plus we got to humiliate our children by asking them to pose in front of the giant map of the world and point at their siblings' missions.The MTC stop was planned but then we decided to also detour through Arches National Park, which somehow we had neglected in our national parks itinerary, even though we were going to drive right by it! So we took two hours to drive through it. And took one short hike up to Landscape Arch even though it was much too hot to be out in the desert. When we got to our house we were tired and hungry and maybe a tad grumpy and were very grateful to discover that the owners of the home had stocked the kitchen with a few food and drink items for us. Yay, for quesadillas and fresh pineapple for dinner at 9 pm! Then Friday we headed to Mesa Verde!

Arches National Park

We didn't get off too early after our late night, and we had to first fill up with gas and buy ourselves some food for lunch, but we managed to get to the visitors center near the park entrance by 10 where we lined up with everyone else to get tickets to the guided tours that are the only way to see some of the most popular attractions in the park. Then, tickets in hand to see all 3 ticketed tours over the next two days, we headed to the park entrance, where we learned that no, the parks do not keep a list of who has a parks pass and who doesn't, and if you leave yours at home you are out of luck. About an hour later, we were back at the same entrance, this time with our parks pass in hand and now ready to get started for reals.

We started with the Mesa Top Loop, stopping at every single stop around the loop to get out, read signs, take pictures, and generally gape at the ruins all around us. Next was lunch and then our first ticketed tour, the Cliff Palace tour. It was raining pretty good by now, but after our afternoon in Arches, it only felt good. The Cliff Palace Tour took us down up close to Cliff Palace and the ranger guide was full of information about what is known and what is surmised about the primitive pueblo people. We stood around and looked into a kiva, stuck our heads in through the window/door of one dwelling where we could see the paintings high up on the walls above us and then we climbed out of the dwelling by way of a ladder where the original inhabitants would have climbed right up the cliff using only little hand and footholds carved into the rock.

Cliff Palace

After our tour we were ready to be off on our own a little and to see some petroglyphs too. Pictograph Point trail (which is apparently misnamed because there are no pictographs only petroglyphs which are different) starts at the Chapin Mesa museum and they close and lock the entrance gate at 6. We were beginning the trail at 4:45 and they told us it would take us two hours to walk the two mile loop trail. We had to sign in and tell them which car in the parking lot was ours and how many of us there were. The trail was a huge adventure, we squeezed through narrow passages between rocks, ducked under cliff overhangs and climbed up and down iffy rock staircases, but at the far end we were met with a rock wall full of petroglyphs! And our handy guidebook we had borrowed at the trail head included a partial translation. My favorite was probably the "whipping kachinas" who "straightened out the people," though I also appreciated the "all-powerful animal spirit" who watched over the people in their travels.

Petroglyph Point

 The mile back to the museum was mostly along the top of the canyon with great views and our company along the trail was a flock of creepy vultures that the park keeps around to hurry people along the trail. By the time we returned to the museum, they were closed and so we never actually signed out, I guess they figure that if the car you claimed as yours is no longer in the parking lot, you made it out, but as far as they know our car was stolen and the vultures got us.

On our drive out we stopped at Far View sites, which we had intended to see on our way in, but missed the sign. These are ruins from when the people were building on the cliff tops instead of right into the cliffs, there are lots of these ruins within the park, in fact we had seen some already on our drive around the Mesa Top Loop, but these were more complex. All of the cliff top dwellings predate the cliff-side dwellings.

By the time we got back to the house it was another late night and we needed gas and groceries again.

And now for some Waterfalls! Yosemite National Park.

Reno, NV

We decided we had seen enough trees and that we needed some waterfalls in our lives, so we headed next to Yosemite National Park and the promise of spectacular falls.  And they did still have trees too. And supposedly bears. We started with a day in Yosemite Valley

Vernal Falls... way back there.

The valley has all the big famous sites that everyone associates with Yosemite. It's also so popular that visiting it in July is a little more like visiting a Disney Park than it is like really getting out and communing with nature on any level, minus all the Disney employees who are obsessively cleaning up after those who like to throw their water bottles, kleenexes and candy wrappers on the ground. Even at our arrival time of 10 am it was immediately clear that parking was already scarce, so when we found a spot, we parked and left the car in favor of the shuttle buses that circle the valley all day (and well into the night). We hiked first up to Vernal Falls, along with approximately 1,000 others, some of whom were actually pushing strollers up an admittedly paved, but very steep trail. Vernal falls was pretty... but the paved portion of this trail only took us to a bridge from which we could see the falls way off in the distance. Maybe we should have gone further. But we didn't. We also saw Yosemite Falls and Bridal Veil Falls, neither of which was a hike, but rather short walks. At each of the falls there were dire warning signs everywhere about what could happen to you if you dared to climb on the rocks around the falls or wade in the water and still people were crawling all over those rocks, it was a little detracting from the beauty of the falls themselves. We did hike to one other water feature, but it wasn't a fall, we went to Mirror lake where some of us waded blissfully in the cool water.  In most cases, bridal veil falls being the exception, we rode a packed bus to each destination, and hiked/walked with hundreds of others to our destinations.

Wapama Falls

Our goal for day two in the park was double fold: to ditch most of our fellow park visitors and to get up close to a waterfall. Hetch Hetchy came through for us on both counts. Hetch Hetchy is in the northern part of Yosemite, has its own entrance, and in comparison to Yosemite Valley is a lonely place. We hiked to Wapama Falls and only saw a handful of other hikers the whole way in and back. The hike goes first over the O'Shaughnessy Dam and then through an old train tunnel, which was a fabulous start. From there it is about 2.5 miles to the falls and a good portion of it was in direct sun and walking across ankle wrenching rocky trail. I admit I wondered, given the falls we had seen in the valley the day before if this was going to be worth it. It totally was. There are several bridges across the bottom of the falls and at least one of them was soaking wet and regularly getting splashed, we stood there a long time after our hot sweaty hike in.

We finished Yosemite on a third day by driving all the way through the park and over Tioga Pass on our way to Reno, Nevada, stopping at Olmsted Point and Tenaya Lake (because apparently I can never resist a chance to wade in ice cold water). We searched in vain as we drove for some of those bears the park kept warning us were there but which they obviously have hidden somewhere. Our wildlife sightings in our three days in Yosemite were restricted to deer, squirrels, blue jays, lizards and a snake. Cool, but bears would have been better.

Even Bigger trees. Sequoia National Park.

Groveland, California

We can all now fairly confidently identify a few different types of giant trees including Cedars, Redwoods, and Sequoias, as well as some other less spectacular ones. We aren't experts, but we are definitely more aware than we were when we started thinking about a trip to the California national parks. We have climbed and walked through and over these trees and even squeezed in the space between three intertwined sequoias and looked up at the sky revealed way up high among the branches. We can tell you that a sequoia forest smells amazing (and a little like Lowes), and that in a redwood forest you will sometimes come unexpectedly upon spectacular maple trees draped with moss.


We spent two days last week exploring Sequoia and King's Canyon national parks as well as Sequoia national monument and national forest (another thing we are learning, the differences between National parks, forests and monuments... not all that much to someone who is visiting them really, except maybe that the parks are more visited and have better roads). On our first day we climbed to the top of Moro Rock, Saw the General Sherman tree and then the lesser visited General Grant tree and finally a big stump on Big Stump Trail which was probably not THE big stump for which the trail is named, but we were tired and on our way out of the park for the day so as soon as we saw A big stump, we took some pictures and headed back to our car. General Sherman is, of course the biggest tree in the world and so you sort of have to go see it, but everyone else feels the same way and so its a pretty popular trail. Grant's grove and tree however are in the less visited King's Canyon park (adjacent to and ran as one park with Sequoia) and the walk here was really much nicer and the trees still plenty as impressive as in Sherman's grove. I am sure this is an fine opportunity to make some sort of joke about the two generals for which the trees are named... but I've got nothing.

Definitely a big stump even if it wasn't the big stump

Walking towards the roots of a fallen tree

What I really liked best as far as seeing Sequoia trees was when we went the next day into the National Forest instead and walked through the Trail of 100 Giants. This trail was much less crowded and probably because of that, the trees were less protected from us people and we could actually get up close with them. In the national park, especially near the Sherman tree, the trees are all fenced in to protect them. Here we walked through a tunnel that was the hollow center of a fallen tree, climbed right up on the top of a more recently fallen tree and took a walk all along it from top to upturned roots. It gives you a real good perspective of just how huge these trees are when you are looking down a good 20 feet to the forest floor from atop a fallen tree trunk hoping you don't fall and die. And this was also where we climbed into the open to the sky 'cave' formed in the center of three intertwined trees. We finished our day in the national forest with a harrowing drive up to Balch Park, which frankly wasn't really worth it, but we did walk around a pond and watch frogs leaping in from the shore which was entertaining but maybe not actually worth the death defying ride to get to them.

Redwoods!

Crescent City, California

Got up early yesterday and headed into Redwood Park. Which, by the way, is multiple parks. There is Redwoods National Park and then there are the Redwoods State Parks: Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, all clustered together up here in Northern California. Who knew? Well, probably lots of people, but I didn't. Also, there is no charge to get into any of these parks. I believe the only one we were not in today was Jedediah Smith. Maybe. Definitely we went through Prairie Creek and the national park. Early means we were out of here by about 8:40, so not so early.

We have sort of set a pattern for our days in the National parks: start with a decent hike, eat some lunch, and then drive through some scenic areas with a couple quick sites to see. The hike we picked for Redwoods was the Tall Trees Grove. The park allows only a limited number of vehicles to the trailhead everyday, and to be one of those vehicles we had to get ourselves a permit at a visitors center. There is a visitors center here in Crescent City where we are staying, but we left before it opened and ended up getting our permit at the Prairie Creek visitors center, but it really wasn't too difficult. We did have to listen to the dire warnings of bears and mountain lions being in the area and promise to call if we saw any, even as I am reading not to rely on my phone's GPS because it probably won't work out there, just like my phone itself won't.

The drive to the trailhead involves a narrow dirt road behind a locked gate that the nice lady at the visitor's center gave us "today's" code to. Do they actually change the combination from one day to the next? Maybe. But whatever, it certainly adds to the adventure to have to use a secret code to get through a locked gate to an unpaved road that leads to your destination. The hike itself was 4 miles: 1 1/2 to get to the grove (all down hill), a 1 mile loop through the grove, and then that 1 1/2 miles back to the car. But there are plenty of 'tall trees' all along the rote, not just withing the grove itself. The former tallest tree in the world, the Libby Tree, is in this grove of trees. Its been demoted since it both shrank AND taller trees have been discovered, still it is something like 360 feet high, nothing to be ashamed of. Two things that surprised me were the gorgeous moss draped maple trees at one end of the grove loop and the burnt redwoods. Redwood trees survive fire and so there are lots of obviously burnt trees still growing strong. We ate our lunch in the grove, sitting on a fallen redwood trunk,
legs dangling a good foot above the ground.

After we hiked our way back out, with basically no whiners whatsoever, we commenced our driving tour of the park stopping first at an overlook of the valley we had just hiked through. Then we tricked the kids into hiking an additional mile loop at the Lady Bird Johnson grove where the park was dedicated in 1969. Then back through the Drury Scenic Parkway and along the Coastal Loop Drive near Klamath (partially unpaved and really narrow and possibly in danger of falling into the sea soon....) where we got out to see the WW II radar station cleverly disguised as a farmhouse and barn. Then we headed home to eat and rest in our 70s throwback house on the harbor.

On our Way to Oregon

Port Angeles, Washington to Rockaway Beach, Oregon

Wednesday morning we managed to depart from Port Angeles only slightly later than planned. We needed to get to Rockaway Beach, about halfway down the Oregon Coast by that evening, and we still had things we planned to see in Olympic Nat'l Park.

Our first planned stop was Rialto Beach on the west coast of the Olympic peninsula and about a thirty minute detour off of the highway. Its amazing. From the parking lot we walked to the beach over polished beach pebbles that separate the sandy beach from the wooded hillside, the rocks must be piled pretty deep because you can scoop them up by the handful and never find anything but more rock beneath. The overall color of the rocks is a dark gray but when you look more closely you find greens and reds and even purples and pinks and the occasional brilliant white. And I did look closely. And then I started to pick up my favorites. And pretty soon my pockets were bulging with rocks. When the kids caught on, they started to bring me the best ones they found too and by the time we left I had a sizable collection of beach rocks that Kris says have to go in MY luggage somewhere. So, forested hillside, polished beach rocks, sand, and all of it covered with huge fallen trees.

Next stop, Hoh Rainforest. Another detour off the highway but in the opposite direction from Rialto beach. So, back to the highway, slight movement in a southerly direction, and then east back into Olympic Park. This should have been about like Rialto beach time wise, but no one told us about roadwork in the park that would add over an hour to our trip. But fine. Driving and then parking issues aside, the forest itself was very cool. We ended up just seeing the Hall of Mosses trail right outside the visitors center. Lots of moss draped everything. It was even in the pond. Lots of tall trees. Really tall trees. I read that the trees here, sitka spruces, could grow to be as tall as 280 feet high, which is amazing, and also still about 100 feet shorter than redwoods can grow. Can't wait to see redwoods!

By the time we got out of Olympic Park, we were feeling a tad stressed about our arrival time in Oregon that night, but not so much that we would pass up the chance to see the Goonies' house in Astoria. All you can do is drive to the street just below it and snap a picture from there as it is a privately owned home up a private drive, but that was good enough for us and for several other fans who both preceded and followed us up the short street. After that little thrill we had to stop at Cannon Beach too where they filmed the Goonies' emergence from the caverns. By then it was getting very late, which is too bad because this was a beautiful beach I would have liked to have played at for awhile.

So we got to our house in Rockaway Beach, discovered the sad lack of much of a grocery store in Rockaway, and made do with leftovers from the night before that we had luckily packed with us from Port Angeles and finished our day on the beach watching the sunset and playing frisbee.

Whale Watch and Hurricane Hill

Port Angeles, Washington

Tonight we are preparing for an early departure from Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. We have been here since Sunday afternoon, having spent Saturday night in a less than desirable hotel in Everett Washington. Our occasional one night stays in hotels have so far not been spectacular experiences, discounting the earthquake in Missoula anyway. Sunday morning we checked out of our smoke scented hotel and went to church, probably smelling a tad of smoke ourselves, with our car packed and ready for Port Angeles. After church we entertained the rest of the ward by eating cinnamon rolls off the hood of our car in the parking lot while most of the boys and men took turns either in the back seat of the car (Noah) or using the bathrooms in the church (everyone else) to change out of ties and vests and button down shirts. I wear skirts, sandals and cotton t shirts to church, no need to change I am quite comfy thank you. After a couple hours of driving and one ferry ride we arrived at our home in Port Angeles and set about living here.

Monday morning we had an early appointment to board a whale watching boat from the actual port downtown. This tour had been a point of multiple discussions over the course of the last several weeks. We really wanted to see whales. We really don't want to spend a ton of money, in fact most of the things we do are free or close to free. In the end we decided to to it, and I am so glad because it was amazing. We looked at trips out of Bellingham, Vancouver and finally Port Angeles, this one was the least expensive and reported the highest success rate. And we did see whales. Only humpbacks, but at least six of them. And two actually dove under our boat, another actually breached the water in the distance and we watched one spinning in the water for a long time and another napping actually. Besides whales we saw bald eagles, harbor seals, elephant seals, a huuuge sea lion, porpoises and many, many jelly fish. Plus the boat ride itself was just fantastic.

This morning we had a relatively relaxing morning just taking things slowly and waiting for Kris's sister Erika to arrive from Seattle to spend the day with us. When she got here we threw our sandwiches in the car and headed for Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park. We drove straight to the Hurricane Hill hiking trail, where we hilariously missed the trail initially and walked a picnic area loop that brought us right back to our car, but after that we got going on the actual trail and enjoyed it even more than the picnic area loop. Along the trail we watched a mama bird feeding her babies in a hole on the ground in the side of a hill (!), threw snowballs at one another, and just generally enjoyed the amazing views and meadows full of wildflowers everywhere.

When we got home this evening, there was dinner to make, consume, and clean up, trash to take out, and laundry to do. At 8pm Liam was doing some pre algebra, Fionnula practicing Spanish, Ronan working on SAT practice and Noah doing mission papers.  Because right now, school and all other responsibilities have to happen whenever there is opportunity. They each got in a little bit in this morning before we left for the park too, but then there was also breakfast to be prepared, eaten and cleaned up, showers to be coordinated (with only one full bathroom that's a challenge), and lunch to be prepared for later. Basically all the normal sorts of things we would be doing no matter what our current living situation still need to get done and that's because, as I keep reminding the kids and others, we are not on vacation. Vacation is an escape from your regular life and from which you must at some point return. After vacation you get home and have to wash all the laundry that accumulated while you were playing at Disneyland. We are trying to make travel our regular life, and in order for that to happen, we can't let everything slide. Especially the laundry. And the math.

Rocky mountain Nat'l Park

Greeley, Colorado

When our older kids were little and we lived in Greeley we used to take them to Rocky Mountain National Park. Since we are visiting Greeley now it seemed appropriate to begin our national park tours with an old favorite. The last time we visited we probably had five children. Maybe six. Our memories of those sleepless years are a little dim sometimes. Either way, they were all six or under. Visiting with children who all walk on their own is a lot easier. I highly recommend it. Kudos to all those people out there hiking with toddlers and wearing babies on their backs! When we first drove into the park I told the kids to look out for wildlife: "elk, moose and big horn sheep," I said, but Fionn was sure I said "big orange sheep" and we all got a good laugh out of that. Also, I am not at all sure there are even moose IN Rocky, it doesn't seem impossible, but also I have never seen one.

I had a plan laid out to see as much of the park as possible in just one day. My plan didn't quite take into account that when we got there at 9 am, the parking lot at Bear Lake would already be full and we would need to park at the park n' ride and wait in line for a shuttle. But that was exactly what happened and that is exactly what we did, so we didn't actually get to Bear Lake until about 10 am, after a relatively harrowing journey in a packed shuttle around narrow, curving mountain roads, courtesy of a park ranger who probably never thought his career would include driving a shuttle bus. 

Bear Lake is the hike we used to take our little kids on. The little kids who are now all grown up. Its a very easy, nice path all the way around the lake and we could do it with toddlers then. So that is where we started this time too. We even had our grown niece with us who used to come here too when we all lived closer. There was still snow in some of the shadier spots along the trail. What you can't see in my pictures is that we were far from alone on these trails, these were very popular trails, hence the necessity of a shuttle.



What we didn't used to do was take the other hike that begins at the same trail head as Bear Lake, but to the left instead of to the right where Bear Lake is. This trail goes up past three more lakes. And even though the park's website also classifies this hike as 'easy,' it is definitely a tad more strenuous than the walk around Bear Lake and though I recall always being a little disappointed that we didn't try for the longer hikes, I can't imagine walking these with little people. The first lake along this trail is Nymph Lake.

When we had left the house that morning, I had decided to wear sandals because Fionnula only had sandals to wear. I thought that if I too wore sandals I would have a good idea if the hiking was becoming too strenuous for her footwear. Well, by the time we reached Dream Lake we were already traversing across some pretty serious snow pack in areas, and in a few spots the trail had been mostly submerged under snow melt too. So we didn't make it to Emerald Lake this time, Dream was as far as we went. I am not real keen on publicly slipping and falling on ice as I did witness at least one other hiker do. I am also not anxious to fall into ice cold water, and at one spot on the trail we could look back at where we had come and see that some of the 'shoreline' we had come across was nothing but snow overhanging the river with a good current rushing under it. My children were much less bothered by this than was I, and were happily launching snowballs into the lake, but still we headed back down.



After our possibly even more harrowing shuttle ride back to our car, a bathroom stop where one little boy loudly informed his mother that he "could see the SEWERS in there!" and our lunch of chips and sandwiches consumed seated on the ground at one of the pull outs along the road, we began part two of our visit: the drive over Trail Ridge Road. There are lots of places along the road to pull off and take in the views, and spot chipmunks, and watch the melting snow pour down the hillside in waterfalls.

But mostly, we headed to the top and the Alpine Visitor's Center, where we were grateful to find bathrooms with actual flushing toilets and sinks. The Alpine Ridge trail ascends up the mountain from the visitor center parking lot. It looks friendly enough, and it is only about a 1/4 mile up, but it was harder on me than I would really like to admit. Thank goodness I at least already live in Colorado and so the altitude change was less for me than for many visitors, or I think I may have passed out cold. In fact I am surprised that people weren't dropping like flies and just rolling, unconscious down the hill. At the top I was amused to hear people who had moments before been huffing and puffing up the hill now gesturing boldly towards peaks in the distance that didn't "look too bad," they were sure they "could probably do that one." Ha! The trip is more than worth the view though. Not to mention the opportunity to take a photo proving the elevation you have obtained!

We drove on a little further after the visitors center and the Alpine Ridge Trail to reach the continental divide, where Liam expressed mild disappointment that there was not a river right there dramatically splitting in two and draining to the west on one side and to the east on the other. I can't quite picture what he was expecting. At the continental divide we turned around and went back over and down trail ridge road, someday I hope we can continue on to Grand Lake, and the west side of the park. Instead of going right back out the entrance we came through that morning, we turned left at Deer Ridge Junction towards Horseshoe Park. It was getting late but I still had one more place I really wanted to visit!

The alluvial fan was amazing! My favorite place we saw in the park that day, so I am really glad we took the little extra time to go around this way. I am pretty partial to water features on my hiking trails, and this did not disappoint. There was no real 'hike' involved. We parked in a parking area and walked across boulder strewn sands, sometimes having to climb right over said boulders, to reach the water which is roaring around a corner and over the side of the mountain. There are, or were, hiking trails in the area but my understanding is that they are currently being reconstructed because of the flood in 2013. But we were content to just sit by the water anyway, dipping feet in a few still areas and listening to the sound of rushing water.

The way out of the park from here passes through meadows full of flowers and prairie dogs and we finally spotted one, single, big horn sheep posing on the mountain for us! I think everyone was suitably impressed, but Fionnula did say "He's not orange, which is sort of disappointing."