on our last day at glacier, we debated several options: 1. leave early. 2. i go on another long alone hike. 3. go on a family hike. in the end, we decided to go on a family hike. there weren’t many options left. the last one on our list was an out and back at […]
derek
glacier national park.avalanche and hidden lake hikes

when the weekend rolled around, our only question was which hikes we would do on which days. we had three that we for sure wanted to do, so we started with the longest one first, avalanche lake. it would clock in at around 5 miles, the longest our kiddos have attempted. we got an early […]
glacier national park.going-to-the-sun rd. and lake mcdonald

so, after the four days of full hookups, laundry, cleaning, and regular bathing, we headed north to glacier national park. we arrived on friday (and thankfully/surprisingly got a campsite, which i will detail later) and got busy exploring on saturday. glacier happens to boast one of the most beautiful scenic drives in the country, the […]
grand tetons.jenny lake and string lake.

i had high hopes of cramming all of my grand teton national park pics into one post, but that was just unrealistic. but i am going to get them into two posts. this is the first in that installment. firstly, on the way in, we drove from the north end to our campsite on the […]
yellowstone.canyons and the rest.

let’s see. when i left off, we were still at yellowstone, having completed an epic day at grand prismatic and old faithful. the rest of our time there was a little more laid back and/or disappointing, so i’m cramming it all into this post. (and as for the long blog break, we were without good […]
yellowstone.old faithful and grand prismatic.

picture the scene. the fourth of july. at one of the busiest national parks in america. we prepared ourselves for a frustrating day. but we also took preventative measures to be as successful as possible. so, we planned to get up at the crack of dawn, drag the kids out of bed, maybe change them […]
yellowstone.upper loop drive and mammoth hotsprings.

our trip from salt lake city-ish to west yellowstone was a long one, at around 5 hours and 40 minutes. we usually like to stick to about 2-4 hours. add in packing up, bathroom, gas and food breaks, registering at the campground and setting up, and we had a long and not fun day. i […]
dinosaur national monument

on saturday, we rolled into our 22nd state, leaving colorado and entering utah. we camped at dinosaur national monument, which spans both states. after we settled in to our campsite (which wasn’t hard, because we didn’t have any hookups – sewer, electric, or water. which means we basically just parked), we headed over to the […]
maroon bells and hanging lake.

once we were sufficiently settled into our campsite at rifle gap state park, we got a good night’s sleep and loaded up the next morning to head to a really popular hiking trail. hanging lake is a pretty intense 1 mile hike up 1000 feet to get to a beautiful turquoise lake and waterfall that […]
train rides and tent camping.

after derek and i took our excursion to twin lakes, i couldn’t shake the idea that we would camp there. we decided that we would leave friday and head down, spend one night and then get back on track to rifle on saturday. once that was decided, the grandlidboms decided to stay a little bit […]