States

Ober Gatlinburg

Posted on November 27, 2015 by Heather Gebbia

One of the items on my bucket list of things to do while we’re traveling was to take the kids to an alpine slide. I remember my parents taking me to those in New England when I was a kid and I knew my kids would just love it. So while in Gatlinburg we visited the Ober Gatlinburg Ski Resort. During non-ski season the resort has all kinds of other fun activities to do like an indoor ice skating rink, mini golf, scenic gondola rides, water slides (summer only), and our favorite — alpine slides! The beautiful fall colors were an added bonus.

The alpine slide was not open first thing in the morning because they had to clean the rain and leaves off the slides, so we started the day with a maze where Chris & Jesse teamed up against Jake & me and Jake and I won! We had the fastest time of the day recorded on the board, but that didn’t last long.

Then we played Jesse’s favorite game, mini golf.

The slides were still not open so we rode the scenic chair lift to the top of the mountain.

There was a band playing all day at the top of the mountain. I would have liked to have stayed up there longer and listened to them, but my kids are just not into listening to bands yet.

This is the view going back down the chair lift.

By this time the slides were finally open. Yay!

At Ober Gatlinburg you can either buy individual attraction tickets if you only plan to ride something once or twice, or you can buy a pass for unlimited rides for the whole day. This was the best option for us because we rode the alpine slide so many times that day I lost count. We took a day off work and went mid-week and it was not crowded at all. The people working the chair lift and slide got to know us really well by the end of the day. They were some of the nicest and most friendly people. Every employee at this place was so nice!

Another ride the kids loved was the swings.

There were a couple of other attractions that we did not do. They had a new mountain roller coaster that looked really fun, but since it was not included in the unlimited ride pass we skipped it. I think it was $15 per person to ride that which I think is just way too expensive for one ride, especially when you multiply that by 4 of us. The scenic gondola was also too expensive per person so we skipped that too. Regardless, there was plenty for us to do with the unlimited ride pass and we enjoyed our day at Ober Gatlinburg so much! If you are ever in this area, I would highly recommend it.

Categories: Tennessee | Tags: alpine slide, gatlinburg, ober gatlinburg, Tennessee, tn | 2 Comments

The Smokies with a side trip to Minnesota

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Heather Gebbia

Tennessee and Minnesota in the same week? Sure, why not?

After leaving our last TN State Park we moved on to Gatlinburg, but I took a side trip to Minneapolis for some work meetings. It was my first time in Minnesota but I don’t get to update our travel map since it was just me, not the whole family. This was a fun trip! The team that I work with is so spread out with most people in different states including NC, FL, TX, AZ, VA, WI, CA and MN. And then there’s me; you never know what state I’ll be in. We all got together for some team meetings and team building. I had never met most of the people on the team so it was nice to get together and see everyone face to face.

This was in the lobby of the Wells Fargo building. I thought it was cute.

My manager Mike and his wife took my co-worker and me out for a delicious Italian dinner one night. After that we went to see the Mall of America. I am not much of a mall person (I prefer to shop online), but I must say this is one incredible mall. When our travels take us to Minnesota, my kids are definitely going to want to check out the amusement park inside this mall. It is now on their bucket list of “must-dos”.

One night we had a make-your-own-pizza night at Mary’s house. She has an amazing game room downstairs where the Web team competed against the BI team at table-top shuffleboard. The BI team won 13-0. I think that’s because I was upstairs and was not down there helping out my Web team. Sorry guys!

My favorite thing we did was some team-building at Escape. This was so much fun! We had to split up into 2 teams since our group was too large. The team I was on did the Mr. Dupree mystery. We were locked in a room for one hour and had to find clues in order to escape the room. We were doing pretty well and I think if we had about 10 more minutes we might have escaped, but we ran out of time. Below are the pictures of our 2 teams after we failed our escape attempts. Oh well, it was still really fun and now I would like to find one in another city so our family can do this together sometime.

I am truly blessed to work with such a fabulous group of people! This is not just a group of people who work together, these are friends. Working with friends is always more fun.

I stayed at the Loews Minneapolis hotel which was very nice. It even snowed the last night I was there. That was exciting to see since I hardly ever see snow. This was the view from my room.

Some friends on my Facebook page said that this view isn’t quite like the views I have been sharing during our travels this year. Yes that is true and even though I enjoyed this visit, I must say I am definitely not a city girl. Getting back to Tennessee and driving on the Foothills Parkway on the way home from the airport, I was greeted by the breathtaking scenes below. Home sweet home! (Home is where we park it.)

Meanwhile back in Gatlinburg, the boys enjoyed Great Smoky Jellystone Park. This was the perfect choice for Halloween week because Jellystone parks are known for having many kid-friendly activities and this one did not disappoint. The activities included candy bar bingo (always a big hit with my kids), a huge game room, mini golf, and a playground that kept the kids busy for many hours.

Our campsite backed up to a cute little creek. Fat Cat didn’t seem to like the creek noise. I think this must be her least favorite park we have been to because she never wanted to be outside like she usually does.

Since she didn’t spend much time outside, she decided to find some mischief to get into inside instead. She climbed up on this narrow ledge around the kitchen slide. Then she had no way to get back down until Chris rescued her. Crazy cat!

Halloween was packed full of activities for the kids including a scavenger hunt, hay ride with Yogi Bear and trick-or-treating of course.

We spent another week in Gatlinburg after Halloween and visited Ober Gatlinburg ski resort to ride the alpine slides which was super fun! Stay tuned for another blog post about that later.

Categories: Minnesota, Tennessee | Tags: escape room, foothills parkway, gatlinburg, great smoky jellystone, great smoky mountain national park, mall of america, minneapolis, Minnesota, smokies, smoky mountains, Tennessee, tn | 2 Comments

Tennessee State Parks

Posted on October 24, 2015 by Heather Gebbia

We are absolutely loving Tennessee State Parks! There are so many of them and they all look amazing. We stayed at 3 of them so far. I already blogged about the first one in another post: Reelfoot Lake State Park.

The next two that we stayed at are Henry Horton State Park:

and Cumberland Mountain State Park:

They were all wonderful, but Cumberland Mountain was my favorite. It was especially beautiful because of the fall colors. After living in Florida for 14 years we are not used to seeing these kinds of fall colors. It was awesome!

We realized we love staying at state parks so much more than RV parks. They are more woodsy and secluded, the sites tend to be bigger and more spread out, and they have more of a campground feel. Don’t get me wrong, we still enjoy RV parks, but lately state parks are more to our liking.

Jesse and I had quite an adventure at Henry Horton State Park. Jesse has been doing Couch to 5K with me because I’m training for the Disney Princess 5K in February. Jesse loves to run so he is joining me as I do this. There was a nice nature trail that we could access just behind our campsite. Somehow we ended up getting lost in the woods. At one point the trail wasn’t well-marked and we suddenly realized we were not even on a trail anymore. We found we were walking in circles because we kept ending up back at the same spot. Chris called me wondering where we were because it was going to be getting dark soon. I told him I think we’re lost, so he and Jake came looking for us. They came across a park ranger on a horse and told him they were looking for us. He said that he had recently seen us and knows about where we are. He came along about 10 minutes later and helped us find our way back. I guess you could say we were rescued by the Lone Ranger. 🙂

Our friends, the Graham family met us at Henry Horton. Their girls joined the boys on the maze at the park.

Also while we were at Henry Horton we did some sightseeing in Nashville with the Grahams. We visited the Grand Ole Opry.

And Cooter’s Dukes of Hazard Museum:

Cumberland Mountain State Park was lots of fun. They have 3 playgrounds which the boys loved!

Cumberland Mountain is known for this beautiful bridge.

The other side of the bridge.

And they have beautiful nature trails.

This was a suspension bridge. It was fun to walk across it.

Another place we visited while at Cumberland Mountain was the Crossville Model Railroad Club. This reminded the boys of their Grampa who loves to take them to see model train sets like this. Going here made them really miss Grampa. They are very excited to see him and Gramma in just a few weeks.

One thing I loved about this park is there was no WiFi. I know, that might sound crazy because everyone loves to have their free WiFi. Chris and I use our Verizon data plan for work, but when an RV park has free WiFi the boys like to play on a Minecraft server and watch Stampy videos. If you don’t know who Stampy is, consider yourself lucky. 🙂 Just kidding, my kids love watching him and have learned lots of cool things to do on Minecraft by watching his videos. Anyway, when we don’t have WiFi they tend to go outside and play more often. At Cumberland Mountain they rode their bikes a lot more than usual. Also, the picture below shows them in the woods behind our campsite. They spent most of the week back there making their own nature trail. They were so imaginative and creative and they spent hours back there clearing leaves and making a trail. They used walkie talkies so I could keep in touch with them and make sure they didn’t get lost. It reminded me of when I was a kid and how I used to go out and ride my bike and play in the woods for hours. Kids really need more time to be able to do these kinds of things. They need more time to just be kids.

Kitty also really loves camping in the Tennessee State Parks. So much to see and explore. Jake was teasing her with this branch on the picnic table.

Another place we visited was Ozone Falls which was beautiful!

We also celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary last week. We had a date night with Katie and Keith. We have really enjoyed spending time with them for the past 2 months. One of the hardest parts of this lifestyle is saying goodbye to people so often, but when we said goodbye to the Grahams it was only for a little while. We’ll see them again in 2 weeks. Until then, safe travels!

Categories: Tennessee | Tags: chapel hill, crossville, crossville model railroad club, cumberland mountain state park, henry horton state park, nashville, ozone falls, reelfoot lake state park, tennessee state parks, tn | 1 Comment

Natchez Trace Parkway

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Heather Gebbia

The Natchez Trace Parkway is 444 miles long and runs through Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. There are many historical places of interest and scenic viewpoints along the Trace which is part of the National Park System. We only visited a small portion of it in Tennessee, but now it’s on the list to go back and see more of it at a later date.

One of the historical places we visited was the Meriwether Lewis Monument, the site of his death and burial. We just finished reading about the Lewis and Clark expedition so it was perfect timing to visit this site. In the book we read that there were mysterious circumstances surrounding his death. It was believed by many that he killed himself, but that was never certain and to this day it remains a mystery.

How cool to see American history come to life! I love history and love visiting sites like this where we can learn in even more detail about people and events from our nation’s past.

We hiked to some waterfalls and drove to some other scenic viewpoints along the Natchez Trace.

Driving a 2 mile section of the Old Trace.

The leaves were just starting to change colors. I imagine in another few weeks the fall colors will be amazing.

We stayed at Thousand Trails Natchez Trace right next to our friends, the Grahams. For two weeks we spent every evening having game nights with them. Actually, I should say every evening except for the one night that poor Katie decided to break her foot and then needed to go to the hospital.

We celebrated Jake’s 11th birthday while we were there. Notice the 9 on his cake? No, we didn’t forget how old he is. When you live in an RV you make do with what you have and that was the only candle in the house. One week later when we celebrated Keith’s birthday, he got to be 9 too. 🙂

Jesse looks the most excited about Jake’s present.

The fall colors were already showing at our campground.

Tennessee is beautiful at this time of the year!

Categories: National Parks, Tennessee | Tags: lewis and clark, meriwether lewis, natchez trace, parkway, Tennessee | 1 Comment

Reelfoot Lake State Park, Tennessee

Posted on September 27, 2015 by Heather Gebbia

Reelfoot Lake was created by a series of earthquakes during 1811-1812 that caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards for a short period of time. Reelfoot Lake is actually a flooded forest. We enjoyed camping at the state park for a week and learning the history.

We had a beautiful site right on the lake which was so peaceful.

Cypress trees grow all around the lake and rise up from the water.

We toured the state park museum and walked the boardwalk to view the natural wildlife and trees growing out of the water.

The sunsets were spectacular!

Since the lake is near the Mississippi River we drove over to see it and found this tire swing at a picnic area that the kids loved.

And since we were so close we just had to drive over to Kentucky just to say we’ve been there. We didn’t add the state sticker to our map though because our rule is we must spend at least one night in the state before we get the sticker. Maybe next year!

This was a great place to relax and unwind for a week after our busy rally time in Missouri.

Categories: Tennessee | Tags: mississippi river, reelfoot lake state park, Tennessee | 1 Comment

Rally Time in the Ozarks

Posted on September 20, 2015 by Heather Gebbia

We just spent a couple of weeks in Branson, Missouri. Branson is one of the friendliest towns we have ever been to. People are just so nice and polite there! We went to Branson to attend the Fulltime Families NOT Back to School Roadshool Rally. Don’t let the name fool you. Our kids may not be sitting behind a desk in school all day, but there was plenty of learning (or roadschooling) going on.

It was awesome to re-connect with friends we met at the last rally and to meet some new friends. The rally was super fun with many fun family activities like campground games, s’mores night, 80’s night, and a movie under the stars featuring what else but the movie RV (my favorite!).

We also went on several field trips. First we hiked to a waterfall.

My Florida boys thought the water was too cold, but the other kids didn’t seem to mind it. They must not be from Florida!

We went to the Titanic Museum. This museum has many artifacts from the Titanic and you can learn all about the ship and its passengers. It was so interesting, but unfortunately we were not allowed to take any pictures inside the museum. At the beginning of the field trip we were each given a boarding pass with the name of a real passenger on the Titanic. The boarding pass had some information about the passenger and let you know what class they were in. At the end of the museum you found out if your passenger survived. Jake and Jesse each received a pass with the name of a little boy who was in third class. Their passengers both survived. Chris’s passenger was a crew member who also survived. My passenger did not survive, but she was a hero. She was in first class and had gotten on a lifeboat, but then she gave up her seat to a mother and child.

We also went to see the Jonah show at the Sights and Sounds Theater which was a really awesome show, but again we were not able to take pictures during the show.

Another show we attended was the Shoji Tabuchi show. The Fulltime Families group was honored to be invited to this show for free. Shoji Tabuchi is an extremely talented violinist from Japan. The show is very entertaining and has a wide variety of music from swing and polka to country and pop. The show consisted of a very talented group of musicians, singers and dancers.

This theater is known as having “America’s Best Restrooms”. I heard the men’s room even has a billiard table!

We went on several fields trips with our good friends, the Graham family. We toured the College of the Ozarks. I was so impressed with this college. The students all work on campus to earn free tuition. When they graduate they leave with no student loan debt. They are also taught to work very hard which is why the college is also known as Hard Work U. Beautiful views of the Ozarks from the college.

The college is a Christian college and displays the Ten Commandments. One thing I found interesting was that several students rode their bikes to class and just left their bikes outside the buildings without locking them. Hmm, it’s funny how that works when people are taught “thou shalt not steal”. Too bad they no longer teach that in public school.

Words to live by…

Beautiful chapel on campus.

Cute little old fashioned school house at the college.

The mill was very cool. We met some of the students that were working on weaving and basket making. It was so interesting to watch how she made a table runner on this weaving loom.

Outside of the mill.

Another day we went to the Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery where we learned how they breed trout to later be released into Lake Taneycomo. We watched an interesting short film in the visitor center that explained the whole process. The visitor center also had lots of reptiles for us to check out.

Touching an albino king snake. I was surprised how soft this snake felt. Not slimy like they look, but very soft.

Feeding the fish so they can grow up to be released into the lake for the fishermen. I guess this is what they call “farm raised fish”?

Watching some fly fishermen in the lake.

Then we went to the Table Rock Lake dam. The visitor center there was also very interesting where we learned all about how they built the dam, and that they had to build it due to flooding problems. The visitor center also had a lot of educational and fun things for the kids to play with.

The beautiful Graham family. I love these people!

Another day we went on a hike to some caves at Lakeside Forest Wilderness Area.

We walked into this cave and thankfully didn’t run into any wild animals, but there were a lot of spiders. It was creepy!!

We celebrated Jesse’s 9th birthday at Lambert’s (Home of the Throwed Rolls). We had never been to a Lambert’s before but I have heard of them. I imagined we would be getting hit in the head with rolls the whole night, but it wasn’t really like that. They came around regularly with rolls and if you want one you hold up your hands to catch it and they throw them to you. They also regularly bring “pass-arounds” to your table which are several different side items and you can have as much as you want. Between the rolls and pass-arounds we hardly had room for our dinner. The place really knows how to feed people and you will not leave hungry! The food was delicious and it was a really fun night. We were very thankful to have the Grahams join us for Jesse’s birthday celebration. After dinner we all went back to their RV for a fun game night.

Fat Cat enjoyed her time at the rally too! Here she is guarding the door. She’s such a good watch-cat.

And she liked lounging in a beach chair.

Some other things we did included a visit to Stone Hill Winery and a date night at Branson Landing with our friends. The nighttime light show at the landing is really cool! This has been a really busy 2 weeks! Next we’re going to rest up for a week in Tennessee before we meet up with our friends again.

Categories: Fulltime RV'ing, Missouri | Tags: branson, college of the ozarks, fulltime families, homeschooling, lake taneycomo, lambert's, Missouri, not back to school roadschool rally, ozarks, rally, roadschool, roadschooling, shepherd of the hills fish hatchery, shoji tabuchi, sights and sounds theater jonah, table rock dam, throwed rolls, titanic museum | 3 Comments

My New Favorite State is Colorado

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Heather Gebbia

After leaving Bryce Canyon, we had planned to stay at Lake Powell for a week. Lake Powell is in both Utah and Arizona. We stayed on the Arizona side at the Wahweap Campground. Lake Powell is so beautiful and the water is so incredibly blue! Unfortunately it was over 100 degrees when we were there so we only stayed for 3 days. I hear all the time about how the heat in Arizona is a “dry heat”. I don’t care what they call it, when the temps get over 100, it is pretty darn hot. And in an RV it seems worse because during the heat of the day, even running two A/C’s, we just can’t keep it cool. There are many interesting places to visit at Lake Powell including Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and the dam and hanging gardens at Glen Canyon. We are planning to come back out west next year and definitely want to return to Lake Powell to see all those places we missed this time because it was just too hot.

After Chris & I were finished working each day this is what we were doing. That lake water felt heavenly after melting in the heat of the RV all day.

Since we decided to cut this trip short, we moved on to Colorado. I absolutely love Colorado! It is incredibly beautiful and the weather is fabulous! Of course I may not think so in the winter, but it was wonderful in the summer. On our way there we made a stop at Four Corners Monument. This is the spot where the four states of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado meet. It was pretty cool to be able to be in all 4 states at one time.

In Colorado we visited the super cute town of Telluride. We took some advice from Trip Advisor and parked at the parking garage in Mountain Village. The parking garage was plenty big enough for our dually truck and only costs $7 for the day. From the parking garage you can ride the free gondola into Mountain Village where there are lots of shops, restaurants and lodging. Mountain Village is at the bottom of a mountain biking trail (it’s a ski area in the winter time). People were riding their bikes down the mountain and then they hook their bikes to the gondola to ride back up the mountain. I definitely want to come back with bikes and do that someday. That looked like so much fun!

When the bikers get off the gondola at the top of the mountain, you can get off and take some pictures and walk some trails. Then you can get back on the gondola and continue down into Telluride. I wanted to do a 5 mile hike to Bear Creek Falls so we didn’t do any extra hikes near the bike trails. The hike to the falls was a strenuous 2.5 mile hike up the mountain, then an easy 2.5 miles back down. When we were almost to the falls we heard thunder and it started drizzling, but we were determined to get there after having already walked most of the way. At one point Jake got really tired and said he needed to stop and rest. Just before we stopped to rest we finally saw the falls which gave us that extra energy we needed to make it the rest of the way. It was cold and drizzling a little, but still worth the hike to see it.

View from the gondola ride.

View from the top of the mountain where the mountain bikers start.

View from the gondola on the way down to Telluride.

The cute little town of Telluride.

At the start of our hike we had no idea how hard it would be. I mean it’s only 5 miles round trip, right? How hard can that be?

Views from our hike up to Bear Creek Falls. It’s still a nice sunny day.

It’s getting cloudy and we’re starting to hear thunder, but we’re not stopping now!

Time for a rest.

We made it, the beautiful falls!

View looking back down.

Resting on the way back down.

I loved Telluride and definitely would like to go back there again for mountain biking in the summer and snow skiing in the winter.

The next day we visited Mesa Verde National Park. This park has lots of cliff dwellings where Native Americans lived a few hundred years ago. It was really cool to see their homes, walk through the rooms and imagine what it must have been like living there.

Junior Rangers with a Big Ranger.

Hiking down to another cliff dwelling.

Mesa Verde has many vista points where you can see the other 3 states of the Four Corners.

Earning another Junior Ranger badge. We just love the Junior Ranger program. Jake and Jesse are learning so much of our nation’s history doing these programs. This is Roadschooling at it’s best!

We stayed at Mesa Verde RV Park right across the street from the national park. The views from our campsite were amazing and the weather was perfect!

One thing I really wanted to do while we were in Colorado is ride an alpine slide. My parents took my sister and me to some alpine slides in New England when we were kids. It was so much fun and I would love to take our kids to one. Durango Mountain Village has an alpine slide, so Chris took an afternoon off work so we could go. Unfortunately we got there and found out they changed their summertime hours and are now only open on weekends. We were so disappointed! Thanks to another Fulltime Family blog though I found out there is an alpine slide in Gatlinburg, TN and we are planning to go there later this year, so hopefully we’ll get another chance at the alpine slide thing. 🙂

We only just scratched the surface of visiting Colorado, visiting just the southwestern portion of the state. And if we were not on our way to the Fulltime Families “Not Back to School Roadschool” rally in Missouri, we would have stayed longer. There is so much more to see and Lord willing, we will be back for a much longer stay someday.

Categories: Colorado, National Parks | Tags: Arizona, Colorado, cortez, durango, four corners monument, lake powell, mancos, mesa verde national park, mesa verde rv park, New Mexico, roadschooling, telluride, Utah, wahweap campground | 3 Comments

Bryce Canyon National Park

Posted on August 29, 2015 by Heather Gebbia

Bryce Canyon is by far my favorite place we have been so far. It is the most unique and beautiful place I have ever seen. And Utah is a gorgeous state! We did so many fun and interesting things here so I apologize in advance for the long blog post.

Our favorite activity was the trail rides!

Our guide, Shawn was awesome! He stayed very close to Jesse since he was the smallest in the group and probably looked the most nervous. The guide stopped and pointed out interesting places to us and told us a lot of history about Bryce. He also told a lot of jokes. At one point he stopped and got off his horse and lined us all up for a family picture. He was the best guide we could have asked for!

Jake did great! His mule tried to go her own way a few times and he was able to get her back on track. One time she rode him so close to the cliff and then turned around to start going back down into the canyon. I was so nervous watching that, but I was so proud of Jake. He didn’t panic or anything, he just patiently guided her back in the right direction.

They had a photographer waiting for us to get to this point so we could each get in a picture which was nice since I’m usually taking the pictures.

One of our friends said Chris looks like someone from the movie City Slickers in the picture below. 🙂

Just before the trail ride we saw our first rattlesnake in the wild. We wouldn’t have even seen it if someone else hadn’t pointed it out to us. The scary thing is we just walked right by that spot and didn’t even see it. It’s amazing how easily they can blend into the background.

We completed the “I Hiked the Hoodoos” challenge for the boys’ Junior Ranger books by finding the benchmarks below on our hikes. At each benchmark the boys could get a pencil rubbing of the benchmark to prove we went there. My favorite hike was to Queens Garden.

We found the queen, see her?

The next hike was the Navajo Loop. After finding Queens Garden you can continue onto this trail.

Another activity the boys had to do to earn their badge was to pick up trash on our hikes. They’re such good little Junior Rangers!

That was enough hiking for one day. The next day we went back and did the hike to the Tower Bridge.

A little window in the wall.

View from the other side. I spy a Jesse.

We found the Tower Bridge!

One evening we drove out to Rainbow Point to see some other scenic viewpoints. The Natural Bridge was really amazing.

And another day we drove to Fairyland Point. This park has so many beautiful vistas!

The next weekend we did some more hiking at Red Canyon which is just 10 minutes from Bryce Canyon.

This tunnel is at Red Canyon on the way to Bryce Canyon. We had to drive our RV under it on the way to Bryce and we got nervous about our height. We pulled over and measured to make sure we could fit under it.

And then we went to Mossy Cave back at Bryce where we were so excited to find a beautiful waterfall. Being out west it has been so dry and it’s unusual to see running water.

We attended an evening ranger program on astronomy. The night skies are really dark since there are no big cities nearby so you can see so many stars. After the astronomy program they had big telescopes set up outside and we were able to see Saturn with its rings. We also saw some shooting stars in the sky that night because there was a meteor shower that week.

After attending the ranger program, completing their trash pickup and hiking the hoodoos, the boys were able to get their Junior Ranger badges.

We stayed at Ruby’s Inn RV Park just outside of the national park. There is a free shuttle bus that will take you from the campground into Bryce. Ruby’s Inn seems to have a monopoly in that town, I think they must own everything in the area. The campground is not cheap, but it was the closest and easiest way to spend so much time at Bryce. The campground is very nice and the campsites are the largest we have ever seen. They have a pool that was very crowded most of the time so the kids only used it once. There is also an indoor pool at the Inn that you can use if you’re staying at the campground. There is a grocery store, a couple of restaurants and some other shops there also. Of course everything is overpriced so if you plan on staying there, make sure you stock up on groceries before you get there. Ruby’s Inn is very cute though and they have some cute picture-taking opportunities in front of the shops.

Bryce Canyon is definitely a place I would love to come back to see again someday.

Categories: National Parks, Utah | Tags: Bryce Canyon, bryce canyon national park, canyon trail rides, i hiked the hoodoos, mossy cave, navajo loop, queen's garden, red canyon, ruby's inn, ruby's inn rv park and campground, Utah | 8 Comments

Grand Canyon National Park

Posted on August 11, 2015 by Heather Gebbia

In my last post about Route 66 I mentioned that we spent a day at the Grand Canyon. I had heard that when you go to the Grand Canyon, you look at it for a while, take some pictures and you’re done. I wrongly assumed we wouldn’t want to spend more than a day there. There is so much to see and do at the South Rim, you really could spend a lot more time if you want to. I haven’t been to the North Rim yet so I can’t speak about that.

We started the day at the Visitor Center so we could pick up Junior Ranger booklets for the kids to work on, then we walked a lot of the rim trail.

They have shuttle bus transportation to take you to many of the points at the park. The Orange bus route will take you to the east side of the park which is the least crowded. You can also see beautiful sunsets from there. The Blue bus route takes you around the Grand Canyon Village which includes 2 campgrounds, a hotel, a few lodges and several places to eat and shop. They even have a grocery store and a U. S. Post Office! The Red bus route will take you to the Hermit’s Rest on the far west side of the park with many scenic viewpoints along the way. We went on all the bus routes that day and tried to see as much as we could since we had only planned one day there.

This squirrel was so cute and not the least bit afraid of people. He tried to steal Chris’s banana right out of his hand!

You can see the Colorado River winding through the canyon in the picture below.

I loved this sign outside of one of the gift shops. It was so appropriate to go along with the magnificent scenery of God’s Creation.

I saw many people standing out on narrow ledges getting their pictures — this was as close as I got.

This is how the boys entertained themselves while waiting at one of the shuttle bus stops. I love how they so easily entertain themselves!

We thought sitting on the ledge would make a nice picture.

Or maybe hanging off the ledge instead?

We enjoyed this day at Grand Canyon so much and already were making plans to come back next year. Well, it turns out we were able to return sooner than we thought. We went to Cottonwood, AZ to stay at a Thousand Trails and had planned to visit some national monuments in that area. It turned out to be a bad time to visit that area as it was over 100 degrees. We immediately started searching for some place else to go that was cooler. Previously I had wanted to stay at the full hookup campground in the Grand Canyon called Trailer Village. It is very hard to get into that campground without making reservations way in advance. While we were in Cottonwood I kept checking their website and eventually found 3 consecutive nights available that week! We hitched up and left the sweltering heat of Cottonwood and headed to the cooler temps in the Grand Canyon. It’s really nice to have a house on wheels so we can move whenever we feel like it.

Trailer Village was awesome and I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to stay at an RV Park in the Grand Canyon. It’s so convenient to have the bus transportation and all the other amenities available right there like stores and restaurants. We enjoyed this campground so much and were able to extend our stay 2 more nights while we were there which gave us plenty of time to more fully explore the area.

When we were there the previous week for one day, the boys were not able to earn their Junior Ranger badge because we didn’t have enough time to do one of the required activities which was to attend a Ranger program. We were able to get that completed on this second trip and they were happy to earn the badge for this famous park.

We saw so many elk wandering through the park, even right by our campsite.

With more time we were able to go on a couple of hikes into the canyon. We did not go all the way to the bottom. It is recommended that if you plan to go to the bottom, all the way to the Colorado River, that you don’t plan to do it in one day. You need to plan to spend the night in a tent in the canyon. They have ranger programs down there and plenty of people do camp overnight, so our kids have made up their minds that they want to do that next year. I don’t know if I’m up for spending the night in the canyon with the scorpions so stay tuned to see if that really happens.

Anyway, we at least wanted to hike to the Ooh Aah Point because as part of the FtF Book Club we are reading books about a family that visits many different national parks. We recently finished the book about the Grand Canyon and this was one of the points they mentioned in the book. So of course we had to find it! Here are some pictures from that hike.

We found it!

Ooh, Aah!

The next day we hiked down the Bright Angel trail to the upper and lower tunnels. The boys love wearing their Junior Ranger vests with all of the badges they have earned so far. Many other hikers on the trails stopped to compliment them on their badge earnings and to see all the places they have been. In fact, many people on the buses also asked them about their badges and travels. These vests generate a lot of attention!

The Lower Tunnel.

After that hike the boys and I went for a bike ride. Chris couldn’t join us unfortunately because his bike was stolen back in California, but I don’t think he was too disappointed. It was Sunday and after our 2 hikes that weekend he just wanted to chill out and watch whatever sports happened to be on tv.

The bike trails there were awesome and can be accessed right from the campground. The views are priceless!

We heard that you can see the best sunsets from the Desert View Watchtower which is way at the east end of the park, about 25 miles away. The shuttle buses don’t go that far so we drove. Unfortunately we didn’t know that they don’t let anyone up in the watchtower after 6:30 and we got there at 6:35. That was very disappointing because it was our last night there, but I was still able to get a couple of nice pictures.

The sunsets at the Grand Canyon are the most spectacular I have ever seen!

A couple of cute photo bombers.

And for all of you Fat Cat fans out there, you’ll be happy to know that she also enjoyed her time at the Grand Canyon. The pictures below were actually at a stop-over in Williams before we were able to get into Trailer Village. She was rolling around on the ground so happy to be out of the sweltering heat of the last campground. It’s really amazing how the temperature can be so different only an hour away.

The cooler weather gave her so much energy she decided to learn how to walk the fence.

And at the campsite at Trailer Village she liked practicing her tree-climbing skills.

And she’s learning to be a watch-cat.

I hope you enjoyed this post about the most visited national park in America. It definitely was crowded, but I’m so glad we were able to spend more than just one day there.

Categories: Arizona, National Parks | Tags: Arizona, grand canyon national park, the Grand Canyon, Trailer Village, williams | 4 Comments

Getting Our Kicks on Route 66

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Heather Gebbia

We stayed at two cute little towns in Arizona along Historic Route 66: Williams and Winslow.

Williams is a great place to stay if you are visiting the Grand Canyon. There is a train that goes from Williams to Grand Canyon each day that looks really fun but we didn’t do it. It’s quite pricey and you only get to stay at the canyon for about 3 hours before you have to board the train to return to Williams. We only had one day to spend at the Grand Canyon and we wanted more than 3 hours there, so we opted to drive. We ended up staying at the Grand Canyon for about 9 hours that day so I was really glad we decided not to splurge on the train. And even 9 hours was not long enough, there is so much to see in Grand Canyon, but that is for another post.

We stayed at the Railside RV Resort in Williams. The sites were really close together which I did not like very much, but the people who own or run the place are so nice and hospitable. They have free breakfast every morning and a shuttle that will take you down to the historic district to visit all the fun Route 66 stuff. We took advantage of the free shuttle and did some sightseeing.

The train station was really cool.

I love this sign! Freedom is definitely not free and I am so very grateful to our military and their families for their sacrifices. There is so much freedom in this traveling lifestyle that we are living, and I never want to take it for granted.

I thought this sign was funny. We didn’t eat there, but I liked the sign.

We did eat here, at Cruisers Route 66 Cafe.

The guy singing was right by our table and he asked the boys to come up and play some instruments while he sang “My Brown-Eyed Girl”. I love that song!

Jesse really enjoyed his ice cream.

After leaving Williams we went to stay at Homolovi State Park in Winslow. This campsite was amazing! We realized we really need to stay at state parks more often. We had so much space all to ourselves. It was so peaceful and beautiful.

The skies and sunsets in the evening were spectacular! All of this was right outside of our door! I think I could have stayed here for a month.

Even Fat Cat loved this place! She sat outside all the time watching for rabbits and squirrels and any other little critter she could find. Thankfully she didn’t find any snakes! One day there was a rabbit as big as her that she was stalking, but I think she realized it was too big for her to tangle with.

Chris and the boys enjoyed a water balloon fight one day. Look at Chris! He is a still a kid at heart.

Homolovi State Park is home to the ruins of the Hopi Indians that lived here a few hundred years ago. We toured the ruins and found lots of broken pottery that is preserved there.

Of course we had to be Standin’ on the Corner in Winslow, Arizona; it’s such a fine sight to see! I love the Eagles music and I was so excited to be able to get our picture right here. “It’s a girl my Lord in a flat-bed Ford slowin down to take a look at me.” Well, she wasn’t exactly looking at me, Chris maybe, but I digress.

A few more random pictures from Route 66 that we found on our way to Petrified Forest National Park.

If you read my post about Santa Monica, you’ll see that we found the end of Route 66 there. I would love to travel more of the “Mother Road” on our way back east but we haven’t quite decide yet which way we’re going. We are heading to a Fulltime Families rally in Branson, Missouri so it’s possible we’ll be heading down more of this famous road.

I would love to stay in one of these! They are so cute!

Next up, Grand Canyon! Since 9 hours at the canyon wasn’t long enough we ended up going back and got to actually stay in the only full hookup RV park within Grand Canyon for 5 days. That was awesome! Stay tuned for that post. First I have to sort through over 400 pictures I took.

Categories: Arizona | Tags: Arizona, az, grand canyon, historic route 66, homolovi state park, hopi indians, painted desert, standin on the corner, the train, williams, winslow | 4 Comments

States

Ober Gatlinburg

The Smokies with a side trip to Minnesota

Tennessee State Parks

Natchez Trace Parkway

Reelfoot Lake State Park, Tennessee

Rally Time in the Ozarks

My New Favorite State is Colorado

Bryce Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon National Park

Getting Our Kicks on Route 66

Why You Should NOT Buy a Heartland RV

Follow Blog via Email

Our Map

Archives

Recent Posts

Contact Us