Well, trying to post this since yesterday but a lightning strike took out our modem last night so things are finally up and running so, here you go! :o)
So Saturday we headed out Saturday morning - bright and early! We drove through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico ...
Every time we stopped for gas - the girls hopped out hoping to wash the windows...
We passed favorite sites like the lava flows by El Mapais..
and then stopped for the night at Gallup, NM
More pictures from Day 1:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yytwmefb8og5rt6/AACgZYHoN9dGdBGjVWRUqaQca?dl=0
The next morning we hit the road early - passing lot of beautiful sights but not sure what started this fire,, but they were working to put it out as we came through.
We reached our first stop.. Hoover Dam and meandered around to get out to see the Dam.
So thankful I had my paper maps - we hit so many areas where we had no cell signal at all..
I have a running list of things we saw that I want to research or look up - this is one of them. It was in between Las Vegas and Los Angeles along the desert - it was called the Seven Magic Mountains.
and then there was this solar panel place...
We saw lots of Joshua Trees...
and sat in bumper to bumper traffic for a few hours in 113 degree heat... which put us way behind on our coast adventures... but we did them all anyway..
The first being Griffiths Observatory and seeing the Hollywood sign from there.
The observatory was spectacular.
Then we headed to the beach... we planned to drive up the coast but with the traffic - we just ran out of daylight.
We made it to the hotel in Fresno about 1am or so...
More pictures from Day 2:
Our next adventure was to Sequoia National Park. Wow! With every turn and windy road - it was just one amazing sight after another...
The trees were absolutely amazing... to think that this ...
grows from this.. just amazing!
There were two times that my nerves got the best of me... this is the first - we were hiking a trail up Moro Rock... it goes straight up to about 7000 feet on a rock.. no ledge or anything. I got to this point and really couldn't go further... but Morgan and the girls went up and I waited.
This was their view.. so beautiful!
Yup... that's our car driving through a tree!
More pictures from Day 3:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/v5604zy68aohu93/AADFJoZCp14XqH9NWzsx02ila?dl=0
The next day we headed out to King's Canyon National Park. Nora and Rose got their first Junior Ranger Badge of the trip - by the end of the trip, they earned on at Kings Canyon, Yosemite, Great Basin and Dinosaur National Monument as well as completed enough hours to get their Girl Scout Ranger patch from the National Park Service.
At King's Canyon, we saw more huge Sequoia trees....
The views were amazing..
We saw some waterfalls...
and did a little hiking..
This was the other time that my nerves beat me - we were going on this hike.. it was beautiful but with the brush getting closer in and lots and lots of berries on the bushes - I just kept thinking we would sneak up on a bear. Thankfully Rose had to go to the bathroom so me, her and Nora turned around and headed back after hiking for about 40 minutes... Morgan and Emily continued on to try and get to Zumwalt Meadow.. along the way, the spotted encountered some mule deer -but thankfully no bears (just the Morgan monster :) - he!)
They were a little dirty after their hike!
We headed back down the mountain to the hotel... and called it a day...
More pictures from Day 4:
The next morning we checked out of the hotel and headed to Yosemite National Park.
What a view!
Yosemite was amazing... everything from snowy peaks to beautiful meadows, waterfalls... and even complete snowpacked areas...
As we exited the park, there was a bunch of snow that the girls played in - they quickly got really cold!!
We headed from Yosemite to Reno for the night... it was such a neat drive along Hwy 50, labeled "the loneliest road in the US"... lots of neat things along the way - rock messages, windmills, Pony Express paths and remains of Pony Express stations...
More pictures from Day 5:
We headed out the next morning from Reno across Nevada to Great Basin National Park. We were going to round Lake Tahoe but just decided to go on east instead ... just not enough time between stops to add an extra 2 hours or so...
On our way, we had to pull off the road while we waited for this to come by - it was a 24 ft wide load the trooper said...
Cooper mines..
What a gorgeous view at Great Basin...
And a beautiful trail at the top...
From there, onto Utah for the night...
More pictures from Day 6:
The next morning we were up and out early - but before we even hit our destination - Rose lost her very first tooth!! She was so excited!!! We had plans to go to Golden Spike National Monument before coming here -but Salt Lake City morning traffic changed our minds - and we headed east first instead of looping around the city to go there.
This was so neat - to walk into this exhibit and find dinosaur bones everywhere!
What was even neater... was one of the dinosaurs that we saw in the museum in NY last summer - was found here and is on display there... that's just so cool!!
Before leaving, we wandered the park and found some petroglyphs ..
and then on our way east towards Colorado - we spotted some pronghorn antelope...
and then before settling in for the night, we went out and stopped along the highway to see the night sky... so pretty with no light pollution!!
More pictures from Day 7:
The next morning we headed home.. it was a long drive from Rifle, Colorado to here - it took us about 16 hours but then with the time change - we got home around 1am.. we were pretty pooped. While driving though, we tallied up our list of animals we saw - wish I could have taken a picture of all of them but no luck... but we did see horses, cattle (one time in NM we saw a cowboy rounding up some cattle), bison, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, mule deer for bigger animals and then the smaller variety - lots of birds (magpies, stellar jays, ravens, woodpeckers), and lots of little critters (chickarees, ground squirrels, golden mantel squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits.
But the views along the way didn't stop... through the Rockies, then the meadows and prairies of east Colorado and Kansas...
We only hit one batch of rain going and this one coming home.. and that was it... we couldn't have asked for better weather.
More pictures from Day 8:
But as always - it's good to be home.. today we did laundry, cleaned out the car, the girls played and hung out together...
and ended up playing Oregon Trail together... and it was funny while they were playing... Nora noticed that they were crossing the Green River. She turned to me and said "Mommy, we just crossed the Green River too"! :) (We did when we were traveling around Dinosaur National Monument)
