our big planned rocky mountain national park event with the grandlidboms was a drive along some of trail ridge road, aka: the highway to the sky. the road crosses (winds) through the park, maxing out at 12,186′ elevation, with breathtaking views in every direction. we fired up one of the guided tour apps and piled […]
wildlife
rocky mountain national park.day two. emerald lake.
i wasn’t kidding. after our 5.6 or so mile hike to mills lake on our first day, we turned around and hit the trails again on day two. the grandlidboms were set to arrive that night for a couple of days, so i wanted to cram in all the things i could before they were […]
the black hills. custer state park.
when we booked our time in custer, south dakota, i knew it was close to wind cave, badlands, and mount rushmore, but i had only vaguely heard of the black hills. despite its gloomy sounding name, it turns out, the black hills are completely amazing. we got a little taste of them on our drive […]
badlands day.
our site in custer was pretty close to a lot of things, but badlands was still about a two hour drive away. thankfully, we had THE BEST neighbors, who also had a sweet pup, who offered to check in on ruby and take her for a few walks throughout the day, so we were able […]
devils tower. one hit wonder.
fun story. the journey to devils tower national monument passes through the tiny, little, stupid, pointless, sad town of moorcroft, just off the highway. i’m normally pretty good about observing speed limits in these sorts of situations because i know about the racket these small towns cops like to run, but i must have missed […]
glacier. avalanche lake.
now that we were in a new location, more central to all the parts of the park, with electric hookups to keep this sweet pup cool while we were gone for long periods of time, we had a lot more options for possible hikes and things to do. and with the kids all rested up […]
glacier. going-to-the-sun road.
have i mentioned it was hot in glacier while we were there? like 90s hot. and we were in the many glacier campground, with no hookups and limited generator hours. and since ruby is not allowed on the trails in glacier, we had to leave her in the camper while we were out hiking around. […]
teddy roo’s. petrified forests and the rest.
well. we had one big day in the south unit of teddy roosevelt national park (plus a few evenings), and one big day in the north unit. our third day was spent entirely on running a few errands (haircuts, car wash, post office, lunch) in nearby dickinson, nd. the kiddos and doggo were thankful for […]
teddy roo’s np. north unit.
after our visit to the south unit, on our second day in belfield, nd, we made the fifty mile drive up to the north unit of theodore roosevelt national park. it was definitely a different feel from the south unit, a bit smaller (or at least the drive was shorter), and was way less populated. […]
teddy roosevelt national park. south unit.
theodore roosevelt national park marked the unofficial start of our “decidedly more adventurous” part of the summer road trip. it was also a brand new park to us, and we were pretty excited to check it out. we arrived in the late afternoon, at our FULL HOOKUP campsite, and once we were set up properly, […]