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 […]
national parks
grand tetons.our (epic) campsite.

for our trip to grand teton national park, derek had found us a sweet boondocking spot, just outside of the park, in bridger-teton national forest. it’s public land, so it’s free, but without any hookups. it would be our longest such adventure. we rolled in friday evening, where a cluster of campers were situated on […]
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.junior rangers and artist paint pots.

on our second full day at yellowstone, we took it pretty easy. derek had to work, so it was just me and the three kiddos, so we decided to hit the junior ranger station closest to our entrance and then stroll around the artist paint pots boardwalk and take in some geothermal activity. the junior […]
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 […]
florissant fossil beds national monument

whenever we move to a new location, one of the first things i do is scout out national parks and monuments and such. the kids like to do the junior ranger program and i enjoy the history, geology, nature, etc of the different places. so, when we locked in colorado springs, i searched the nearby […]
great sand dunes national park.

when we realized that we would be sort of kind of passing near great sand dunes national park, we knew we would take a detour and spend at least a day, even if we camped out in a nearby walmart. but, our internet free campsite caused us to make a hasty exit and we found […]
capulin volcano national monument

due to being either pretty busy or lacking internet for the last few weeks, i have fallen quite behind in my blogging. but never fear, a flurry of blog posts is on the horizon. firstly. our trip to capulin volcano a couple of weeks ago. we were staying at a state park, in raton, where […]