our second major field trip while new gramma and grampa terry were in town was the las vegas springs preserve. i didn’t know stuff like this existed in las vegas, but i guess there’s probably families who live here who need places to go that aren’t casinos. we learned a lot about the history of […]
real bodies at bally’s.

derek planned several big adventures for our vegas time, specifically while my parents were in town. our first, and the most anticipated by anna and my mom, was the real bodies exhibit at bally’s. it’s basically a bunch of real actual bodies and organs and parts, cut up and displayed in random and interesting and […]
valley of fire state park.

well, we had big plans to go to page, arizona and then the grand canyon, before meeting my parent in vegas in a few days. but, we have some camper issues that we need to get looked at (specifically, some water damage in the floor), so take a more direct route to vegas, to get […]
some zion-y stuff.

zion national park was our last stop on our two month long tour of utah (and one colorado) national parks. it was definitely my favorite, but i think we were sort of worn out by the time we got here and our motivation to get out and explore seemed to be at an all time […]
zion national park.kolob canyon and canyon overlook.

we had two weeks in zion, giving derek a full weekend to explore with us. unfortunately, he wasn’t feeling great, and i was still a little sore from my angel’s landing hike, so we kept it very low-key. first up, on saturday, we drove out to kolob canyon, which is a way different part of […]
zion national park.the narrows, done right.

after our little (and underprepared) adventure into the narrows on our first day at zion, we decided that at least some of us would be returning to do a proper hike into the legendary canyon. after much deliberation and weather studying, we decided that anna and i would do it one day and then report […]
zion national park.angel’s landing.

as soon as we knew we were coming to zion, i started contemplating one of the park’s most epic hikes. i had seen so many pictures and heard tales of folks who had successfully hiked angel’s landing (and those who had turned back), and i KNEW that i would regret not giving it a try […]
halloween festivities in the wilderness.

we have been in southern utah for quite awhile now. about a month and a half. i have been researching and researching options for autumn/halloween themed activities. but it wasn’t looking good. there are no pumpkin patches in the desert. all of the little towns we have been near don’t even have legit grocery stores. […]
zion national park.the narrows.

if we only did one thing at zion national park, we knew it was going to be the narrows trail. it’s basically a hike into a canyon, where there’s a river, which can vary in depth, width, and flow, but the hike is mostly in the water. since it’s october, the temps of the water […]
bryce canyon hikes.queens garden, navajo, wall street.

i took two pretty epic hikes whilst visiting bryce canyon. on sunday, just after we arrived, the entire fam took a stroll along the queens garden trail and then connected to the wall street trail to make our way back out. the first bit is a nice, flat, paved walk along the rim. then, down […]