on the day we went to chiricahua, we had high hopes of maybe swinging by fort bowie national monument, which is in the same neck of the woods. but, we had read that the hike just to get to the visitor center was three miles, round trip. we hiked enough at chiricahua that we were […]
national parks
tumacácori national historical park.
on thursday, the kids and i loaded up and headed off to check out tumacácori national historical park. (pronounced too-mah-KAH-kohr-ee, we would learn). basically, it’s the ruins of an old spanish mission, a few miles north of the mexican border, and it was chock full of information about the history of when catholic european explorers […]
chiricahua national monument
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 […]
saguaro national park
since arriving in the sonoran desert, we have been enamored with the giant saguaro cactus and couldn’t wait to visit the national park dedicated to the iconic giant. our spot in tucson was only about 30 minutes away from the west side of the park, so we were able to visit twice in our four […]
casa grande and tonto national monuments.
during our time in mesa, we were able to hit up two different national monuments, both about an hour or so away, and both dedicated to preserving the history of native people who inhabited the area long before we did. first up, casa grande. the big house. the kids insisted on doing as much of […]
grandlidbom san diego christmas, days 2 & 3.
after our action packed first day with the grandlidboms, the lidkids spent the night with them, and since we didn’t have anything planned until lunchtime on day two, our morning at the camper was lazy and glorious. i savored a delicious cup of coffee outside by the lake, with no bickering, whining or cartoon sounds […]
joshua tree.keys view. cap rock.
for our final adventure in joshua tree, we waited for derek to finish work at 2pm (hooray for an east coast job) and headed off to the keys view. from the viewpoint, you can see down into the coachella valley, salton sea and the san andreas fault, although we didn’t know what we were looking […]
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 […]
joshua tree.indian cove campground, junior rangers.
as soon as we got our camper back, we packed up and get the heck out of las vegas and made our way straight into joshua tree national park. it was dark by the time we arrived, so we didn’t get a good indication of our view, but when the morning rolled around, indian cove […]
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 […]