Usually, when you plan a vacation, you have a certain route picked out ahead of time. On this particular expedition, we are learning how to pivot and change plans at a moment’s notice. That’s what happened to us when we were deciding where to go after…
A lot of people have asked me to elaborate on some of the details of our National Parks road trip. I’m in the middle of writing a blog post about how the trip came to be because it’s a pretty unique and special story. In this…
We were really looking forward to meeting up with my parents in Moab, which was our next stop after Kanab. They were on their own little travel adventure and after seeing them nearly every day back on Salt Spring, to not seeing them for two months…
Bryce Canyon was an Easter egg for me. Maybe that’s an unusual term to reference a National Park as it’s usually describing something in the digital world, but Bryce Canyon was a joyful surprise, hidden away with a really great personal message, and because of this,…
In the late 1800s, the first Mormon European settlers came to the area and called it “Zion” which is Hebrew for “Sanctuary” or “Refuge.” The Paiute Peoples who were native to the land called it “Mukuntuweap” which means “straight canyon” or “straight river.” As the lush…
In mid-October we booked a week in Kanab planning to visit a variety of attractions in the area, traveling back and forth from a home base. The campsite itself was nothing special – a gravel parking lot on the side of the highway, but its central…
Perhaps it was that we had just left Yosemite which was larger than life in every aspect. It could have been because we hadn’t slept through the night in 37 days straight as our two youngest are both usually up at least once per night and…
Yosemite was the first park that took my breath away and moved me to tears. We came out of the mountain upon Tunnel View look-out and like everyone else just pulled over and stared. There was both grandeur and simplicity in the way the rock rose…
There is something so spectacular about feeling minute next to a tree. You are dwarfed by strength. The sheer size of the Redwoods gives instant perspective. They are century-old giants, living through passages of time that I will never see and can barely comprehend. In comparison,…
Lassen was one of the places I wanted to see as the reviews reminded me of growing up in New Zealand and going on a trip to Rotorua to see the geysers and boiling mud. There is something about experiencing the action in a geothermal area,…