for my third and final post from our spot just south of the redwood national and state parks, i’ll tell you about the cool things we did in the area that didn’t earn us a patch or badge. the first thing that we did was head to the visitor center, which is right on the […]
hiking
redwoods edventure quests.trillium falls, patrick’s point, prairie creek.
WARNING. this post contains one zillion pictures of redwood trees, the ocean, and lidkids. as we normally do at any national park, we first stopped at the visitor center to get junior ranger books, advice and the lay of the land. redwood national and state parks is different from most national parks because, as the […]
lassen volcanic national park.
sooooooooooo…. from lake tahoe, via reno, we moved onto lassen volcanic national park. i really had absolutely no idea what to expect from a volcano themed national park. our campsite was on manzanita lake, in the northwest corner of the park and basically had zero cell signal, which meant it was going to be a […]
kid free rubicon trail hike. (plus: vikingsholm).
when the grandlidboms are in town visiting, it gives derek and i an opportunity to do some stuff without kids, a luxury you give up when you adopt a life on the road. since we are both keto-ing pretty hard, we decided to use our alone time to go on a longer hike than would […]
lake tahoe with the grandlidboms.
it has been a LONG time since our last visit from the grandlidboms. we spent christmas in san diego with them, so it had been over six months by the time our lake tahoe visit rolled around, and the kids could barely contain themselves. we arrived and set up a little before they were able […]
point reyes national seashore adventures.
while we were in manteca, california, the high temps were creeping up to 105° and maybe higher. it was hott. then, we hopped in the camper and car and drove towards the coast. and when we settled into our cute little shady campsite among the redwoods, just two hours away, at samuel p. taylor state […]
yosemite. part two.
our first four days of derek’s time off in yosemite had been packed pretty full. we learned a lesson that maybe we should scatter his time off, because we were all pretty exhausted from the long drive in and out every day, not to mention whatever adventures we partook in. for the last of his […]
yosemite. part one.
ok. so. yosemite. “the crown jewel of the national park service”. we were both excited to see it and a little bit dreading the crowds. our campground was about an hour out of the valley and had no cell signal, so derek took the first week off entirely to explore and adventure and we would […]
sequoia national park.tunnel log and moro rock.
we didn’t know it at the time, but the tuesday after labor day would be our last big adventure in sequoia and kings canyon. we did a lot and decided that instead of fighting the cell signal logistics problem, we would just head to fresno and regroup before our yosemite time. anyhow. for our last […]
sequoia and kings canyon.big baldy hike.
our third day in sequoia and kings canyon was memorial day. so, bonus, derek was off. not bonus, so was everyone else. :). we decided to find a less populated spot and had no trouble at all securing parking at the big baldy trailhead, just a few miles from our campsite. the hike was about […]