Vacation!
We just got back from our summer family vacation yesterday. Vacation was awesome. It was a classic family road trip. We drove from Tucson up to Page, AZ where we went kayaking in Lake Powell, which was a blast. Then we checked out the Glen Canyon Dam where the visitor's center had more security than an inner-city elementary school. There was a big sign that said "No Weapons, purses, bags or backpacks" and we had to walk through a metal detector. I guess there really are people who want to blow up that dam (not that I blame them, I understand Glen Canyon was breathtakingly beautiful before they filled it with water). We thought it was really funny that there was a shelf of Edward Abbey books and they didn't have "The Monkey Wrench Gang", a novel about a plot to blow up the Glen Canyon Dam. Edward Abbey was a park ranger who wrote lots of books about the southwest and HATED that dam. We thought it was funny that they even had any of his books at all. After Lake Powell, we drove out to Utah and laughed at all the quirky stuff in Utah that could never exist anywhere else (like the Missionary Mall with a giant inflatable missionary on the roof).
The next day we went to Timpanogos Cave. To get to the cave entrance for the tour, you have to hike 1.5 miles on a trail with a 1100 foot elevation gain. We're pretty experienced hikers and we thought it was quite the hike for just 1.5 miles. We spent the whole hike making fun of all of the inapropriate shoes we saw. Who goes on a 1.5 mile hike up a mountain wearing flip flops? Or rhinestone sandals? The views from the trail were amazing and the cave was awesome so that made up for a lot. After the tour, we hiked back down the mountain and got our first Junior Ranger patch of the trip. We've started collecting Junior Ranger patches from national parks. You have to do a little activity book and some of them make you attend a ranger program or pick up some trash. It's supposed to be for kids but there's no upper age limit. We're big nerds but we're okay with that. The Timpanogos Cave patch has a mountain lion on it. Then we hopped in the car and drove all the way to West Yellowstone, MT.
The next day was our first day in Yellowstone. It was amazing! The boiling mud pots were just about the craziest thing I've ever seen. There were also pools of unnaturally blue water that were boiling. Seriously, it looked like you could cook macaroni in those pools. When we went to see Old Faithful, we got to see Beehive Geyser while we were waiting. Beehive geyser is really close to Old Faithful and is more impressive but less predictable. It shoots water 30 feet into the air for about 5 minutes and it goes off roughly every 12 hours. It was about 2 hours late when we got there. A minute or two after Beehive was winding down, Old Faithful went off. It was very cool. We spent the whole day just driving to different areas and exploring the park. The park is so big that even if you had a month there you couldn't see everything. That night we went to a ranger program on wolves and finished our Junior Ranger booklets and spent the night in the Grant Village lodge right near Yellowstone Lake. The next morning we got our second Junior Ranger patch of the trip. It has a bear paw print on it. The second day in Yellowstone we spent more time hiking, which was really nice. We hiked to Yellowstone Falls, which was really, really beautiful (and got to see lots of inappropriate footwear on the way). We heard some really hilarious comments while we were walking by other people. One guy said, "Oh look, fit people" and then he said, "We shoulda brought water." Earlier that day, we got to experience a bison traffic jam. One of the bison herds decided to cross the street so a few bison were milling around in the middle of the road while the rest of the herd crossed. I'm convinced that they do that on purpose to stop the cars while the herd is crossing the street. The baby bison were super cute. What really shocked us were all the people getting out of the cars and walking right up to the bison to take pictures. Um, they're 2000 pound animals that can run 30 mph and really value their personal space. Walking up to a bison is a good way to get killed and this was a whole herd! The guy who really shocked us was the one who walked right up to them WITH HIS BABY! Holy crap! What was that guy thinking?! Later that day, after the hike, we saw a wolf. He was jogging through a field scoping out a bison that was away from the rest of the herd.
After Yellowstone, we drove to Grand Teton and camped in a tent cabin. The cabin itself kind of sucked but the park was beautiful! It was a lot less crowded than Yellowstone. In the morning we went on a 5 mile hike around String Lake. We walked for over an hour before we saw any other people. It was totally peaceful. We only saw one person with inappropriate shoes. We called him Bear Bate. He was by himself 2 miles from anywhere at 7:00 in the morning (prime bear feeding time), carrying no water, wearing flip flops and listening to an iPod. After the hike, we got our third Junior Ranger Patch of the trip. It has a moose on it. Sadly, we did not see any moose on our trip. That would've been super cool. On the way out of the park, we checked out Jackson Hole, WY (Harrison Ford lives there). It was very touristy and there were a lot of shops selling moose antler chandeliers and cheesy t-shirts.
On our way out of Wyoming and back to Utah, we checked out Fossil Butte National Monument. It was small and kind of lame but it was on our way and it was the only National Park site in Wyoming we hadn't been to yet and it was another stamp in our National Park passport book. Turned out they had 5 stamps and a Junior Ranger patch. Score! It was the fourth Junior Ranger patch of the trip and it has a fish skeleton on it. After that, we drove all the way to southern Utah so we could check out Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon and Zion before heading home.
The next day we hit Cedar Breaks National Monument and Bryce Canyon National Park. Cedar Breaks was amazing. It's now one of our all-time favorite parks. We drove up to the visitor's center at 10000 feet and hiked 4 miles (4 miles at 10000 feet is pretty tough for sea level desert people like us). Along the rim of the canyon are bristlecone pines which are the oldest trees in the world. They live about 5000 years. If you imagine what the oldest tree in the world would look like, that's what a bristlecone pine looks like. They're really gnarled and twisted and the dirt around the roots are all eroded away because the trees have been there for so long. They're very cool looking.
We spent that afternoon in Bryce Canyon National Park. The Canyon was really cool but the park was really crowded. It was all European tourists, which seemed really odd to us. Not bad, just unexpected. That was where we got our fifth Junior Ranger patch of the trip. It has a stick figure with a ranger hat on it.
We spent the whole next day at Zion National Park. We were coming towards the end of the trip and we were getting pretty exhausted from all the hiking so we only planned to hike two miles (the middle Emerald Pools trail) and ended up hiking 6. We wanted to go see The Narrows, which is where the canyon walls are so close together that you have to hike right down the middle of the river to get through. Turned out we had to hike for a mile along the river just to get there and then we just had to get in to say we did it. Then we were having so much fun and the water felt so good that we walked through the water for about a mile before we turned around. It was one of the coolest thing we'd ever done. Nick was wigging out for a while at the beginning because he hates getting his clothes wet but eventually he got over it. Sometimes we forget about his autistic quirks and that's one of them.
The next day we drove back to Arizona. We stopped at Pipe Springs National Monument, which was way cooler than we thought it would be. There's a spring there so people have lived there for thousands of years. The Mormon pioneers built a ranch there and they built the ranch house right over the spring so they had running water inside. It was really interesting. There were living history demonstrations so there was a guy making arrowheads and a guy making stuff out of wood and another guy showing how to make fire with flint and steel. Then we went to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, which was one of the coolest places I've ever been in my life. It was totally different than the South Rim. It wasn't crowded and it was a lot more rustic. The rim trail wasn't paved (hiking just isn't the same when you're not walking on dirt) and the lodge is overlooking the canyon and has a huge window with big cushy couches where you can just sit and stare at the canyon. They also have a back porch with chairs where you can sit. We sat on that back porch and stared at the canyon for about an hour. It was so relaxing and beautiful. I can't wait to go back. Then we drove to Flagstaff and spent the night there before driving home yesterday.
It was truly an awesome vacation. We went to 9 National Park sites in 10 days, got 5 Junior Ranger patches and hiked over 20 miles. We ate a lot of crap but the hiking balanced it out.
The next day we went to Timpanogos Cave. To get to the cave entrance for the tour, you have to hike 1.5 miles on a trail with a 1100 foot elevation gain. We're pretty experienced hikers and we thought it was quite the hike for just 1.5 miles. We spent the whole hike making fun of all of the inapropriate shoes we saw. Who goes on a 1.5 mile hike up a mountain wearing flip flops? Or rhinestone sandals? The views from the trail were amazing and the cave was awesome so that made up for a lot. After the tour, we hiked back down the mountain and got our first Junior Ranger patch of the trip. We've started collecting Junior Ranger patches from national parks. You have to do a little activity book and some of them make you attend a ranger program or pick up some trash. It's supposed to be for kids but there's no upper age limit. We're big nerds but we're okay with that. The Timpanogos Cave patch has a mountain lion on it. Then we hopped in the car and drove all the way to West Yellowstone, MT.
The next day was our first day in Yellowstone. It was amazing! The boiling mud pots were just about the craziest thing I've ever seen. There were also pools of unnaturally blue water that were boiling. Seriously, it looked like you could cook macaroni in those pools. When we went to see Old Faithful, we got to see Beehive Geyser while we were waiting. Beehive geyser is really close to Old Faithful and is more impressive but less predictable. It shoots water 30 feet into the air for about 5 minutes and it goes off roughly every 12 hours. It was about 2 hours late when we got there. A minute or two after Beehive was winding down, Old Faithful went off. It was very cool. We spent the whole day just driving to different areas and exploring the park. The park is so big that even if you had a month there you couldn't see everything. That night we went to a ranger program on wolves and finished our Junior Ranger booklets and spent the night in the Grant Village lodge right near Yellowstone Lake. The next morning we got our second Junior Ranger patch of the trip. It has a bear paw print on it. The second day in Yellowstone we spent more time hiking, which was really nice. We hiked to Yellowstone Falls, which was really, really beautiful (and got to see lots of inappropriate footwear on the way). We heard some really hilarious comments while we were walking by other people. One guy said, "Oh look, fit people" and then he said, "We shoulda brought water." Earlier that day, we got to experience a bison traffic jam. One of the bison herds decided to cross the street so a few bison were milling around in the middle of the road while the rest of the herd crossed. I'm convinced that they do that on purpose to stop the cars while the herd is crossing the street. The baby bison were super cute. What really shocked us were all the people getting out of the cars and walking right up to the bison to take pictures. Um, they're 2000 pound animals that can run 30 mph and really value their personal space. Walking up to a bison is a good way to get killed and this was a whole herd! The guy who really shocked us was the one who walked right up to them WITH HIS BABY! Holy crap! What was that guy thinking?! Later that day, after the hike, we saw a wolf. He was jogging through a field scoping out a bison that was away from the rest of the herd.
After Yellowstone, we drove to Grand Teton and camped in a tent cabin. The cabin itself kind of sucked but the park was beautiful! It was a lot less crowded than Yellowstone. In the morning we went on a 5 mile hike around String Lake. We walked for over an hour before we saw any other people. It was totally peaceful. We only saw one person with inappropriate shoes. We called him Bear Bate. He was by himself 2 miles from anywhere at 7:00 in the morning (prime bear feeding time), carrying no water, wearing flip flops and listening to an iPod. After the hike, we got our third Junior Ranger Patch of the trip. It has a moose on it. Sadly, we did not see any moose on our trip. That would've been super cool. On the way out of the park, we checked out Jackson Hole, WY (Harrison Ford lives there). It was very touristy and there were a lot of shops selling moose antler chandeliers and cheesy t-shirts.
On our way out of Wyoming and back to Utah, we checked out Fossil Butte National Monument. It was small and kind of lame but it was on our way and it was the only National Park site in Wyoming we hadn't been to yet and it was another stamp in our National Park passport book. Turned out they had 5 stamps and a Junior Ranger patch. Score! It was the fourth Junior Ranger patch of the trip and it has a fish skeleton on it. After that, we drove all the way to southern Utah so we could check out Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon and Zion before heading home.
The next day we hit Cedar Breaks National Monument and Bryce Canyon National Park. Cedar Breaks was amazing. It's now one of our all-time favorite parks. We drove up to the visitor's center at 10000 feet and hiked 4 miles (4 miles at 10000 feet is pretty tough for sea level desert people like us). Along the rim of the canyon are bristlecone pines which are the oldest trees in the world. They live about 5000 years. If you imagine what the oldest tree in the world would look like, that's what a bristlecone pine looks like. They're really gnarled and twisted and the dirt around the roots are all eroded away because the trees have been there for so long. They're very cool looking.
We spent that afternoon in Bryce Canyon National Park. The Canyon was really cool but the park was really crowded. It was all European tourists, which seemed really odd to us. Not bad, just unexpected. That was where we got our fifth Junior Ranger patch of the trip. It has a stick figure with a ranger hat on it.
We spent the whole next day at Zion National Park. We were coming towards the end of the trip and we were getting pretty exhausted from all the hiking so we only planned to hike two miles (the middle Emerald Pools trail) and ended up hiking 6. We wanted to go see The Narrows, which is where the canyon walls are so close together that you have to hike right down the middle of the river to get through. Turned out we had to hike for a mile along the river just to get there and then we just had to get in to say we did it. Then we were having so much fun and the water felt so good that we walked through the water for about a mile before we turned around. It was one of the coolest thing we'd ever done. Nick was wigging out for a while at the beginning because he hates getting his clothes wet but eventually he got over it. Sometimes we forget about his autistic quirks and that's one of them.
The next day we drove back to Arizona. We stopped at Pipe Springs National Monument, which was way cooler than we thought it would be. There's a spring there so people have lived there for thousands of years. The Mormon pioneers built a ranch there and they built the ranch house right over the spring so they had running water inside. It was really interesting. There were living history demonstrations so there was a guy making arrowheads and a guy making stuff out of wood and another guy showing how to make fire with flint and steel. Then we went to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, which was one of the coolest places I've ever been in my life. It was totally different than the South Rim. It wasn't crowded and it was a lot more rustic. The rim trail wasn't paved (hiking just isn't the same when you're not walking on dirt) and the lodge is overlooking the canyon and has a huge window with big cushy couches where you can just sit and stare at the canyon. They also have a back porch with chairs where you can sit. We sat on that back porch and stared at the canyon for about an hour. It was so relaxing and beautiful. I can't wait to go back. Then we drove to Flagstaff and spent the night there before driving home yesterday.
It was truly an awesome vacation. We went to 9 National Park sites in 10 days, got 5 Junior Ranger patches and hiked over 20 miles. We ate a lot of crap but the hiking balanced it out.
posted by Kristy at 9:39 AM
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