Corona Arch and a Rattlesnake Encounter

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Heather Gebbia

Moab Utah has so many fun things to do that it is definitely one of those places we plan to return to one day.  Besides visiting Arches and Canyonlands, and river rafting on the Colorado River, we also heard about a really awesome hike to Corona Arch.  When I mentioned to Chris that I wanted to hike to this arch he said only if they would be serving Coronas once we got there. 😉 This hike is about 10 miles from Arches National Park.  We met up with another Fulltime Family that joined us on this hike which made it even more fun!

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Meet the Muller family.  4/5 of them anyway.  Fin must have been running off ahead with our boys at this time.  We loved hanging out with this family for the evening and hope to meet up with them again someday down the road.

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There’s Fin!

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What a beautiful arch!

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Beautiful views looking back from the arch!

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I thought this train track looked really cool coming through the rock.  I wish we would have seen a train come through while we were there.

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While we were in Moab we stayed at the OK RV Park.  The sites at our campground were so close together!  This is why we prefer to stay at state parks whenever possible.  But while visiting Moab the choices are pretty much limited to RV parks with really tight sites like these (or boondocking).

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The views were pretty though.

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Speaking of boondocking, after the hike to Corona Arch the Muller family invited us to their campsite for dinner.  They were boondocking at a really awesome spot.  Boondocking (also known as dry camping) means they were camping at a spot with no water or electric hookups.  We haven’t done that yet mainly because we don’t have a generator.  I’m hoping we can get a generator sometime soon because from what I’ve seen you can stay in some really out of the way spots with amazing views.  The picture below was taken from their campsite.

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Wide open spaces in the wilderness like this would be nice, but I should mention there is a much higher chance of encountering wildlife like the rattlesnake the boys came across that night.  The snake was right near Jake’s foot but thankfully only rattled to warn them to get away which they did.  They came running and screaming back to the campsite.  I thank God for watching over and protecting the boys that night!

I’m sorry I don’t have a picture of it.  Chris went to look at it and since it was getting dark he needed a flashlight to see it.  He called me over to check it out, which I did.  It blended in really well with the sand.  I’m surprised Jake didn’t step on it.  Again, I thank God for protecting them!

Anyway, that about wraps up my posts from Utah.  Two weeks, three national parks and lots of fun!  Now on to some more adventures in Colorado.  Cheers!

Categories: Utah | Tags: , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Canyonlands – The Needles

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Heather Gebbia

If you are following along, my last post was about Canyonlands – Island in the Sky.  The Needles was about 70 miles south of where we stayed in Moab so we went there on a different day.

Maybe it’s just because we were tired from a lot of hiking and activities in Moab, but we just were not as impressed with this section of Canyonlands.  If we had it to do over, we probably would have skipped it.  It was a long drive and in our opinion, not really worth it.

This park is pretty far out of the way so maybe they just don’t get a lot of visitors, but they really need more parking spaces.  To access the most popular hike in the park (Chesler Park), you need to drive down a narrow dirt road for 3 miles.  The big dually truck has no trouble on dirt roads, but it becomes a problem when that road is skinny & narrow and someone else is coming the other direction.

Once we finally made it to the end of the 3 mile dirt road, there was no available parking.  It was a very tiny parking lot for the most popular hike in the park.  So, we turned around and made our way back out the skinny 3 mile dirt road.

We made the best of it by going on some of the other hikes, but they just really didn’t measure up to all the other places we had seen in Utah.  Not to mention, parking was very limited at these other hikes as well.

Anyway, now that I’ve really built this up to be a great park, I’m sure you want to see my pictures, right? 🙂

The first cool thing we saw was on the way into the park.  There were several cows just lying on the side of the road.

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And then we got to Newspaper Rock.  This is a wall full of petroglyphs.

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Those are the Needles way off in the distance.  If you come to this park and are fortunate enough to find parking for the Chesler Park hike, you can hike all the way up to the Needles which would probably be a really cool hike.

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We hiked on the Pothole Point trail which has beautiful views off in the distance and fun rocks to climb on.  Lots of potholes in the slickrock too which I suppose is how they came up with the name for the trail.

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We learned about cryptobiotic soil.  The black-ish soil in the picture below is alive and made of tiny living things.  There are signs in the parks to let you know to stay on the trail and not walk on this soil.

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The Slickrock trail also had some beautiful views.

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I really don’t mean to make it sound like this part of Canyonlands is not worth visiting.  It certainly has some amazing views to see, and I’m sure if we had a chance to hike to the Needles it would have been awesome.

I also need to be fair and say that our lack of enthusiasm for this park may have a lot to do with the fact that we were all exhausted from 2 weeks of hiking in Utah.  The picture below of Jesse on the way home after the Needles pretty much sums up how we all felt by that point.

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Categories: National Parks, Utah | Tags: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Canyonlands – Island in the Sky

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Heather Gebbia

While we were in Moab, Utah we visited Canyonlands National Park.  This park is separated into 3 districts: Island in the Sky, the Needles and the Maze.  The districts are separated by the Colorado and Green Rivers.  The Maze is not accessible by vehicle so we didn’t go there, but we did visit the Island in the Sky and the Needles on 2 different days.  The entrance and visitor centers to these 2 districts are not at all close to each other, so it’s not practical to visit them on the same day.

I will add another post about the Needles later, but I will mention that of the 2 districts, we enjoyed Island in the Sky much better!

Our first hike was to Grand View Point.  It reminded me a little bit of the Grand Canyon, on a much smaller scale.

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Next we did the Aztec Butte hike.  We found out that Butte is pronounced “byoot”, not the way we had been saying it, lol!  However, even though we now know the correct pronunciation, my kids still like to call it “butt” because they think that is funnier of course. 🙂

It was a steep climb up slickrock.  We met some other hikers along the way that said our kids are like monkeys.  I’m not sure what they meant by that. 😉 Maybe it’s because Jesse was way up ahead of us, climbing like a monkey?

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The views from the top were incredible, and it was a great place to stop for a snack break.

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My people thought this cave looked like a good place to take a nap.

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There were some structures from ancient peoples that lived there a few hundred years ago.

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The next hike was on Whale Rock.  This one might have been our favorite.  It is made up of huge mounds of rock that from a distance could resemble a whale.

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On top of the whale was the perfect place for a picnic lunch.

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Nap time again?  I think I tired my people out with all the hiking while we were in Utah!

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After lunch we did the Upheaval Dome hike.  That was definitely the hardest hike of the day.  Maybe it was because we could have stopped at the first overlook, but I insisted we keep going to the second overlook which involved a lot more up and down hill hiking.  By the end of this hike we were all exhausted.

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But no matter how tired we were, we couldn’t leave Canyonlands without seeing Mesa Arch.  It was a short hike to a spectacular view!

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New Junior Ranger badges!

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Stay tuned for another Canyonlands post about the Needles.  Cheers!

Categories: National Parks, Utah | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments

River Rafting on the Colorado River

Posted on May 28, 2016 by Heather Gebbia

We decided to try river rafting while we were in Moab, Utah.  This was super fun and now the boys really want to do an overnight river rafting/camping trip sometime.

Moab has several options for river rafting outfitters.  We went with Canyon Voyages and they were awesome!  Our guides were friendly and knowledgeable.  They pointed out areas of interest along the way, and told lots of interesting stories.  We did the full day trip which included a stop for lunch.

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The water was calm for most of the trip, with only about 6 rapids along the journey.  The rapids were the most fun though so we wish there had been more.

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That is Fisher Towers off in the distance where mountain climbers climb all the way to the top!

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Here come the rapids!

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That water was cold!!  Supposedly people jump in the water to swim on these trips, but that must happen later in the summer.  At this time of the year I didn’t see anyone jumping in the water.  And when the water splashed on us from the rapids it was quite cold.

The snow-covered mountains off in the distance are the La Sal Mountains.  I think there is snow up there most of the year.

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This was where we stopped for lunch.  Canyon Voyages brings along a delicious lunch with many options like turkey or ham sandwiches, hummus, veggies, quinoa and fruit.

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In the morning we were on the raft with a single guy from Poland who is touring America’s national parks for 6 months.  He gets from place to place by hitchhiking.  It was very interesting talking to him and getting to know him.  In the afternoon we were on a raft with a really nice family from NC.  One thing I love about our traveling lifestyle is meeting all kinds of different people from many different parts of the world.

I love these next pictures of the boys.  The expressions on their faces show me just how much they were enjoying themselves.  I love my boys, all 3 of them!

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What a fun day!  This trip was appropriate for young children.  They allow kids as young as 5.  Jesse is not quite old enough yet for a trip with more advanced rapids.  Someday we’ll try that when he’s older and maybe an overnight rafting trip too.

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Categories: Utah | Tags: , , , , , | 5 Comments

Arches National Park

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Heather Gebbia

After we finished visiting Capitol Reef we headed over to Moab, Utah to visit Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.

Rather than just try to visit these parks in the evenings and on Saturday, we took a few days off work to more fully experience these parks.

Jake got a Utah Rocks t-shirt last year when we visited Bryce Canyon.  This year the rest of us decided to get those shirts so we all wore them while visiting Arches one day.  We all think that Utah ROCKS!

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On our first visit to Arches we went to Balanced Rock and Double Arch.  How does that rock stay up there??

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The scenery at Arches is simply stunning!

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One day we went on 2 separate hikes, totaling over 8 miles.  The first hike was to Landscape Arch, and then we went on a little further up to Partition and Navajo Arches.  We didn’t make it all the way to Double O Arch; we’ll have to save that for next time.

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Landscape Arch.

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Climbing up to see more arches.

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There was such a beautiful view through Partition Arch.

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This is standing under Navajo Arch.

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We hiked to a few more arches in this area and then took a lunch break.  After lunch we went to the Delicate Arch hike which I think is probably the most popular, and I can see why.  The hike up to it was strenuous, but with amazing views.

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We hiked up lots of slickrock.

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Then hiked around this narrow ledge.

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The hike was worth it to come around the corner to see this!

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We rested up at Delicate Arch for a long time, but eventually decided it was time to hike back down.

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And then we went back to the Visitor Center so the boys could turn in their activity books and earn their Junior Ranger badges.

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We really loved Arches and plan to return again someday to hike some of the other trails we didn’t make it to this time.

Categories: National Parks, Utah | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Capitol Reef National Park

Posted on May 23, 2016 by Heather Gebbia

We just enjoyed a very busy couple of weeks visiting 3 of the beautiful national parks in Utah.  I think Utah might just be my favorite state now, or at least a tie with Colorado.  Utah is extremely beautiful, you must go!

The first park we visited was Capitol Reef National Park.  I heard that many people skip this park in favor of the more popular locations.  We almost skipped it too, but I was unable to book 2 full weeks in Moab, so we needed a place to go for a week before we could go to Moab.  That turned out to be a blessing because I am so glad we came to this park!  It was incredible, and in my opinion it is a place you should not skip if you are planning a trip to Utah.

The drive from southwest Colorado to Capitol Reef was one of the most beautiful drives we have had in our travels.  If your travels take you in that direction, I would highly recommend taking highways 95 and 24.  Both are incredibly scenic, but make sure to fill up with gas before getting on 95.  It is a very long drive with no place to stop for anything, and no cellular coverage either.

Here are a couple of pictures from the drive:

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We stayed at Thousand Lakes RV Resort in Torrey, UT.  This was a very nice RV park and we were lucky enough to get one of their extra large back-in sites.  The interior pull-through sites looked a little tight, but the back-ins were nice.  There is no Verizon coverage in this area, but AT&T worked great.  This was the one time we needed our backup AT&T plan.

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The town of Torrey is super cute.  There is a little grocery store and a bakery/deli where you can get lunch on your way in to the park to hike for the day.  When you drive into town, the speed limit is 35 and there is a police car parked on the side of the road.  The first couple of times we drove down the road we thought this was a real police officer waiting to catch speeders driving through town, but after a few times we realized it’s a fake guy behind the driver’s seat.  Really funny, and I guess it works to slow people down driving through town, at least until they realize he is not real.

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It looks like he’s been sitting here for a long time; he’s quite wrinkly!  He looks a little grumpy too.

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Okay, enough about where we stayed and how we got there.  Let’s get on with Capitol Reef.  All I can say is A-MA-ZING!  The scenery is so incredibly beautiful!  It was only a 10 minute drive into the park from our RV park, so we went in each evening after work to hike and explore.  It helps that it doesn’t get dark until 8:30 at this time of the year.  The first night we did a short hike on the Sunset Point trail.

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The second night we hiked to Chimney Rock.  This is a more strenuous 3.5 mile loop, with a lot of uphill climbing.  It was great exercise and incredible views from the top.

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The kids loved all the rock climbing!

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Another night we hiked to Hickman Bridge.

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One evening we did the Grand Wash Trail.  The trail map showed this as being a 2.2 mile trail out and back meaning 4.4 miles total, but it turned out to be a little longer than that — about 5 miles round trip.  We were all pretty tired after that one and probably could have just stopped and turned around halfway through and that would have been enough.

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We saved the best for last.  On Saturday we hiked to Cassidy Arch which was amazing!  Definitely my favorite hike of the week!

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The hike up to this point was all uphill, but it was so worth it to come around the corner and see the arch off in the distance.

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These rock piles are called rock cairns.  The park rangers put these on trails to help you stay on the trail.  They’re very helpful because there are many times where it would be hard to determine which way the trail goes.

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The rock cairns are especially helpful when hiking on wide areas of slickrock like this.  See the little rock piles along the way?  That helped us to know which way to go.

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This is up on top of where the arch is.  It was a great place to stop and have a snack break.

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The view was gorgeous from up there!

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We’re looking down into the back side of the arch in this picture.

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After Cassidy Arch we went down to the campground that is part of Capitol Reef.  The campground is surrounded by orchards and red rocks.  It is beautiful!

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We really enjoyed our week at Capitol Reef.  I would highly recommend it if your travels take you to Utah.

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Categories: National Parks, Utah | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments

Navajo State Park

Posted on May 8, 2016 by Heather Gebbia

Navajo State Park is located in southwest Colorado, just across from New Mexico on Navajo Lake.  This was the perfect place to rest up after a busy couple of weeks in New Mexico and to prepare for another couple of busy weeks visiting national parks in Utah.

This state park is about 45 minutes from Durango and Pagosa Springs, and you know what?  We didn’t go to either one.  That’s what happens when you’re a full-time RV’er.  Sometimes you realize you just need some downtime and you can’t see and do it all. We’re not on vacation, this is our life.  And sometimes in life you need time to get caught up on work, school, household chores, and time to just chill out.  That’s what we did at Navajo State Park.  Not a bad place to just unwind and rest for a week.

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Chris is walking the cat. 🙂

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The day we arrived in Colorado it was very cold.  It was snowing during parts of our drive that day, but by the time we got to our campground it was only raining.  It was the first time in all of our travels that we had to set up our home in the rain.  And it was freezing!  By the next day the sun came out and the rest of the week was just beautiful.

Jake and I went hiking on the nature trails that we could access just behind our campsite.

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He is getting a lot of use out of his camera he got for Christmas.

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We had a nice backyard for the week to enjoy.

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Jesse was playing badminton by himself!

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Fat Cat settled into a shipping box and asked to be shipped back to Florida. 🙂  Just kidding, I really think she loves these new places to explore (including boxes)!

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Chris took both boys to play golf.  Now they can’t wait to see Grampa again and play golf with him.

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Next up we plan to visit some of the fabulous national parks in Utah.  Be prepared for lots of blog posts.  I imagine I will be taking LOTS of pictures!

 

Categories: Colorado | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

Cochiti Lake Recreation Area

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Heather Gebbia

While visiting northern New Mexico we stayed at Cochiti Lake Recreation Area.  This has got to be the most beautiful site we have ever had.  I could never get tired of these views!

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The morning after we got there we woke up to a very cold morning and an amazing view of snow-covered mountains off in the distance.

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I was super excited to find out that the Boyink family of Ditching Suburbia was staying at the same campground for the first few days we were there.  I have been following their blog since before we “ditched suburbia”.  What a treat to have the chance to meet them in person and get to know them better.

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Just before we took this picture with them, we got to admire this awesome rainbow.

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There was so much to see and do in this area, and no way to see and do it all in the time we were there.  I guess we’ll just have to come back again someday.

While there we did make it to several fun places including Tent Rocks National Monument, Santa Fe, and the Turquoise Trail.  They all have their own blog posts.

We also met up with some other Fulltime Families in the area for a couple of roadschooling field trips.  It’s always fun to find out there are other FtF’s nearby.  We went to the ABQ BioPark Zoo in Albuquerque.

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And the Explora Science Center also in Albuquerque.

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I sure will miss the spectacular view at this campsite, but at least I know we’re moving on to more spectacular views.  I love this nomadic life and the constantly changing scenery!

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Categories: New Mexico | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tent Rocks National Monument

Posted on April 26, 2016 by Heather Gebbia

Tent Rocks in Cochiti, New Mexico is one of the coolest places we have hiked.  It almost ranks up there with Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon, a couple of our favorites from last year.  Beautiful views, rock climbing and a slot canyon all add up to awesomeness!

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We had never hiked through a slot canyon before.  A slot canyon is a narrow passageway between tall cliffs and rocks.  You have to be very careful not to hike through those when there is any chance of rain because flash flooding has been known to occur in these narrows and hikers have unfortunately been trapped and killed in places like this when that happens.  We hiked here on a day with no rain in the forecast.

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The view from the top was incredible!  My pictures really don’t do it justice.

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Jesse is trying to stuff a pine cone in a hole in the rock and Jake is just looking silly.

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This park is pretty small and the hike only takes about an hour or two.  There is also no Junior Ranger program or Visitor Center here.

For such a small park, it really was an incredible hike! I love being back out west where we can hike in places with views unlike anything I have ever seen.

Categories: National Parks, New Mexico | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Drive Down the Turquoise Trail

Posted on April 25, 2016 by Heather Gebbia

We drove along the scenic Turquoise Trail between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.  There are a few cute towns with shops and places worth stopping for a visit.

Our first stop was in the town of Cerrillos.  There wasn’t much going on in this town, but we did find a gift shop with a petting zoo that the boys loved.

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Jesse really didn’t like the animals slobbering on his hands.

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Jake didn’t mind.

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Then we stopped in the town of Madrid which had a lot more going on.  This town was a little crowded and it was harder to find a parking spot for the big truck.

There was a cute little spot called Connie’s Photo Park where we took lots of these types of pictures.

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There were lots of cute gift shops like this one.

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And we stopped at Jezebel’s old fashioned Soda Fountain for some milk shakes.  Yummy!

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We continued down the trail to the drive up to Sandia Crest.  Tinkertown was a cute museum that we stopped at along the way.  This is a collector’s paradise.

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I think that Mark Twain might have liked our traveling lifestyle based on this quote.

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We made it up to Sandia Crest which is more than 10,000 feet above sea level.  It was freezing cold up there so we didn’t stay long.  We were all wearing shorts because it was in the 70’s down in Albuquerque, but in the 40’s up on this mountain.

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The most exciting part of the day for the kids was finding snow up on the mountain.  They only wished they had worn warmer clothes and shoes so they could have played in it longer.

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And the least exciting part of the day was a flat tire on the truck.  My goodness it seems we have been keeping the tire companies in business lately!  And Chris has become quite the expert at changing tires.

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At the end of the trail we got to Albuquerque where we rode on the portion of historic Route 66 called the Musical Highway.  For about 1 mile you can hear the song America the Beautiful playing as you drive along the road.  I really didn’t believe we would hear anything, but we did and we could hear it very clearly.  It was so cool!

We had planned to visit Old Town Albuquerque but the flat tire put a wrench in those plans.  Once we were fixed up and back on the road we were all ready to find some dinner and then head home for the night.

Categories: New Mexico | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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