our campsite in benson is an hour or so from four different national monuments/historic sites. since derek was off for martin luther king jr day, we decided to hit up chiricahua national monument to do a bit of hiking and exploring. the place was pretty amazing. a hidden gem of arizona. we took a short […]
hiking
joshua tree.hidden valley, cholla cactus garden, cottonwood springs.
for our first joshua tree big adventure, i dragged the kids out for a short hike in hidden valley. i think technically it was a “nature walk”, but it had some good spots to climb and explore, so we’ll call it a hike. first photo shoot with an actual joshua tree. they really are so […]
escape to red rock canyon
at this point, i don’t think it’s a secret that i’m not a fan of las vegas, so i was pretty glad to venture out of the city with my mom, to do a bit of hiking and exploring in the red rock canyon. the ride there was mostly standard desert colors, but as soon […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
bryce canyon week.
our fourth national park in the mighty five of utah was bryce canyon. we had a week scheduled there, with the hopes of getting a first come first serve site in the park campground. a few days before we left, we were looking around our beloved campendium app and found a great boondocking spot in […]