Category: Kim’s Daily Journal

We started and ended our day the same way – with friends! These 4 girls have spent endless summer days and snow days together. They’ve hiked NH mountains together and now can add Utah to that list. They climbed and explored all over the Window arches (North Window and South Window), Turret Arch, Double Arch, the Garden of Eden and walked around Balanced Rock. We hiked, hid in the shade, hiked more, hid in the shade, and finally parted ways around lunch.

After a cool respite with Murphy, the Solsos headed back into the park (for the 4th time) to finish the leg of the drive we hadn’t yet done. We got out to see the lookouts but as Mat said “it feels like you’re opening the oven door and stepping in.” We did venture further from the car at Sand Dune Arch because the cool stone walls and drop in temperature when you were in its shade was so inviting. We followed the narrow passages and it opened up to a beautiful playground and huge sand box for the young at heart. It was a fun spot, and we were missing our friends.

We enjoyed the Moab Brewery enough (and they can easily accommodate big parties) so we ate there again. We made plans to meet at the same spot in the park 12 hours after our first meeting to watch the sunset from the ranger recommended spot. So we finally saw our first beautiful sunset… just kidding, we missed it. Only a few minutes late! The kids enjoyed it from the car and Dave took a time-lapse for us since they made it in time. It’s turning into a family joke. We made our way to Panorama Point and did get to see the stars come out. A ranger popped up (they said they can’t announce star-gazing ranger programs because 400 people will show up so they just randomly show up at places instead) and told us the mythological stories of the constellations from the Hopi and Navajo people. She also pointed out planets with her laser but could have used Mat’s star gazing app to get them right, oops. It was fun laying on the hot stone ground to see the stars, satellites, planes, and meteors in the sky with friends by our side. I’m pretty sure the sky is darker at our camp (when the streetlight Mat hates is out), but we also don’t have a trail of tourists driving in and out. A memorable night.

It was our last visit to Arches, and we feel like we saw and enjoyed almost all of the park. There was one long hike, over 7 miles, that walks you past a few more famous arches, but none of us were sad to skip it. I know I talk about the heat a lot but hopefully when I plan my future trips to see the other UT and AZ parks I’ll re-read this and remind myself there is only so much you can see and do in August before melting, so maybe consider visiting in another season, lol. This was also one of the most popular parks on our itinerary so we half expected to be limited by crowds, have difficulty finding parking especially at trail heads, wait in lines for the visitor center, but we never ran into any slow downs. Maybe people have been reading the same news sources as me and decided to change their plans. Once again, I’m grateful to have explored one more beautiful park.

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021

When your 10 year old tells you “this is maybe my best day” and pauses to add “ever”, all those days of planning and packing and worrying about what might go wrong are instantly worth it! Today was an epic day. We started the day early in Arches National Park (our 11th national park!) with a mission. We wanted to hike to Delicate Arch which is written up as “strenuous… narrow ledges… exposure to heights… do NOT plan to hike this midday… take at least 1 quart of water per person.” Sounds exciting right? So while we didn’t wake up super early (because all this fun we’re having is tiring) we didn’t dilly dally either, and we were at the trail head before 9am and snagged the one of last parking spots. This is a popular trail and I was happy to see lots of people for a change. There’s comfort in knowing if I drop from heat exhaustion there’s lots of people around to go for help, LOL.

We LOVED this hike. It was work but between all the huffing and puffing, we kept saying “This is (gasp for air) such a cool hike!” Then dad jokes: “I think (gasps for air) it’s more of a hot hike.” Insert kids’ eye roll here. After a mile or so we did find the ledges and “exposure to heights” as they called it, and I started to get nervous and clinging to the cliff wall so everyone coming down had to pass on the edge side. The kids kept noting I was afraid of heights, which I’m usually not, and I explained I’m not afraid of heights, I’m afraid of falling or watching them fall on the slippery sandy rock. But then you finally reach the summit, and there’s the Utah license plate standing taller than you can imagine. It is incredible! The sandstone swirls around it, and it’s like climbing across the inside of a cereal bowl to get to it but the effort adds to the thrill of it. I was shaking the entire 45 minutes that we stayed to enjoy the view and told Mat it’s not the hike that’s going to make my legs sore — it’s the fear! The crowds of people were all so friendly and everyone was patient and courteous letting the people in front of them enjoy the arch, offering to take pictures for whoever was in front of you. Maybe it was the adrenaline but it all felt so warm and fuzzy to see everyone getting along and enjoying a beautiful spot.

The kids telling of this story may go differently: ‘it was awesome, I loved climbing all around, only mom was scared…’ but I think sometimes the fear adds to the excitement and experience. We hiked down pretty quick, in less than 40 min, and hit the visitor center as the mid-day sun was starting to do it’s thing. We happily returned to the RV for lunch and walking Murphy, who luckily seems to be over his stomach bug! After our siesta I had plans to explore another park in the area but knowing how remote it is, and how not all my ideas turn out great (think of all the missed sunsets) I was worried it’d be a tough sell but our kids have been such good sports this whole trip they happily agreed to my offer of “comfy chairs (backseat), shade, and air-conditioned downtime while I drive us somewhere neat.” So I drove us 90 miles into nothingness to find Goblin Valley State Park, also recognized as an international “dark sky park” for start gazing. The 90 minute drive was so worth it. and I had Mat entertaining me with quotes from Labyrinth the whole time, after telling him we were going to see hoodoos.

Have you see the movie “Galaxy Quest”? There’s a scene where the crew lands among a tons of boulder piles that all come alive and chase them. We were there among the “hoodoos” today. The state park set up tables and shade just above “the Valley of the Goblins” and they tell you that you can explore anywhere in the valley. There are no trails to stay on. The poster even advertises kids jumping across the tops of the hoodoos. Well technically, the ones we played on are “stunted hoodoos” called goblins. So we dropped into the valley and started slowly exploring, and then started climbing, and then started running around. Once again we had the place to ourselves. We did see a few other people here and there in the distance occasionally but really it felt like a huge playground just for us! It was just the coolest place, but again, pictures can’t do it justice.

The kids begged to play hide and seek but I was reluctant. I don’t like the idea of purposefully not being able to find my kids in huge park full of huge goblins that turns into one of the darkest places on earth every evening, but Mat told me I needed to relax and they’d be fine so I tried to be fun mom and play along. And fun it was! Once we started and everyone agreed to yell “polo” if the seeker yelled “marco” to give us a general idea of their whereabouts, it became a blast. Mat and I had just as much fun climbing and hiding and searching the goblins as the girls did. It was the most epic hide and seek game ever! Luckily it wasn’t until our way out that we read about the numerous venomous creatures, the hospital being 100 miles away, and some of the holes being called “keeper holes” that are easy to get into but virtually impossible to get out of, or “fun mom” might never have relaxed.

As we climbed out of the valley the kids told us it was their best day ever. They tried to think of ways to have future birthday parties here or how to get all their friends here for one big epic day of fun. But we reminded them that this place is so remote and being 90 minutes from Moab probably doesn’t see a lot of visitors from here, much less from NH! So that’s twice today that we put in real effort and got to enjoy something awesome – just a different kind of effort – one was a hot hike and the other was a long drive.

But our epic day didn’t end here. After thousands of miles of driving and 3.5 weeks of traveling with the company of just us, we crossed paths with our neighbors who live 200 yards from us in Derry!!! Not just neighbors… the girls’ best friends and a family we appreciate more than they’ll ever know having been part of our tiny bubble during crazy covid quarantine. So an awesome dinner at Moab Brewery with amazing friends was the perfect end to a fantastic day.

Monday, August 2nd, 2021

Mat and I agree – the fear of cliff edges seem to get worse as we get older. At least we don’t remember the stomach lurching and twisting the way it does now. We looked over some serious cliffs today and watched jeeps drive down the craziest road ever to the canyon bottom. Canyonlands is the perfect name for this national park. It’s Utah’s largest national park so we aren’t going to see the entire place. And after witnessing jeeps “dropping” into the canyon on the infamous White Rim Road, which is the 100 mile road that accesses more remote parts of the park, we’re okay with not exploring the whole place!

Imagine this park is a picture of the Flux Capacitor from Back to the Future – the flow of the Colorado and Green Rivers are what “make time travel possible” and are called the River District. The rivers divide the park into 3 other districts: Maze, Needles and Islands in the Sky. From Moab, where we are, we can easily visit Islands in the Sky. To visit the other districts you have to leave the park and drive hours to get to the other entrance. So we decided to see everything we could in Islands of the Sky. We visited the Visitor Center, drove every mile of road and enjoyed the lookouts. We hiked the short and popular trail to the iconic Mesa Arch which was a stunning site.

The highlight of this park was hiking the Grand View Point Trail. It was our favorite hike of the whole trip so far! The mile hike out to the “Grand View Point” was an awesome mix of stone stairs, rocky cliffs, and sandy paths with beautiful desert vegetation that almost looked landscaped it was so nice. And the view was in fact GRAND. Pictures can’t do it justice but it was soul-filling. We spent at least 40 minutes enjoying the wonderment and different views from any direction you looked.

After finishing the Jr. Ranger books (one of the kids favorites so far, “tied with Carlsbad Caverns” they said) they earned their badges and we left the park. On the way out you have to pass RIGHT by Dead Horse State Park so we paid the entrance fee to check it out. It was totally worth the stop. The views were amazing and different from all that we’ve seen yet. From Canyonlands you can see the impressive canyons, but you don’t have a great view of the rivers. From this state park, the views of the Colorado River were awesome and memorable! We aren’t seeing the Grand Canyon on this trip but today felt grand for sure.

Then off the pool to cool off and some well deserved down time. Mom had the great idea to drive into nearby Arches National Park for a great view of sunset but we just watched the cloudy sky get dark. Not all my ideas are winners but it was still a fun evening and Murphy got to visit his first national park.

Sunday, August 1, 2021

Who doesn’t want to get trapped in a cliff dwelling by lightning then thunder 6 seconds later? It was awesome! We had 3 rangers and an ancient dwelling in the coolest cave to protect us. What I loved: hiking down over a mile from the mesa top to find this house. You can’t see it from the road, like so many of these cliff dwellings, they are ‘off the beaten path’. Emerson said she loved “imagining what life was like in this cave so high on a cliff” in the 1200s. She asked the rangers lots of excellent questions including “could they use horses in the canyon? Did they have blankets? Did they have doctors or healers? Did families share a kitchen? Did they fall off the cliffs?” We all learned a ton!

Maddy loved being told we had to stay in the cliff house as the thunder boomed around us. Did you know that the sand stone can conduct electricity? I asked Mat what he loved and he said standing in that cliff house was his “favorite part of the trip so far”. It was pretty amazing to hike down steep switchbacks and finally get a glimpse of the house. This ruin had 150 rooms and 21 kivas (underground circular rooms) and was home to a community of roughly 150 Ancestral Pueblo people. We got to climb 2 big wooden ladders, but if you looked up you could see so many more “rooms” high above us that seem impossible to reach! Mat loved it enough to hike another mile in the hot mid-day sun to also see Step House.

After the lightning and thunder subsided we hiked back to the car for the 20+ mile drive through the winding cliff roads out of the park when the skies finally opened up and down poured on us! It made for an exciting drive down. For being in desert areas we have seen a lot of storms! The kids giggled the whole way down.

It was almost 6pm before we left Colorado for Moab, Utah. We did stop to do some tire maintenance (hoping once we get to MT we can address the one tire that has a very slow leak), have a quick dinner, and then our first evening drive of the trip, an easy 2 hours. It was beautiful to see the changing landscapes in the late afternoon light, we loved it.

Utah is a brand new state for all 4 of us! And Moab is just as beautiful as advertised. Our campground: the Canyonlands RV Resort has the weirdest entrance between a gas station and a billboard but it’s a cozy place to call home for the next 4 nights. Our first “late arrival” but we had no trouble setting up camp and Murphy made fast friends as always.

Saturday, July 31, 2021

Our second surprise state! We didn’t realize we were going to hike into NC in the Great Smoky Mountains, and we didn’t think we were going to see Arizona this trip! Four Corners National Monument is located in the Navajo Nation, which has been closed due to covid since early 2020. As we planned for this trip, it was still closed and sure enough, Solso luck strikes again, and it opened the the day we left home! It’s operating at 50% capacity so the website said to expect long lines. We went early and found it was nearly empty! We had fun exploring this simple monument in the middle of nowhere.

After our excursion to stand in 7 places at once (4 states and 3 nations), we went home for lunch and to walk Murphy, then spent the afternoon exploring our 9th national park, 7th of the trip, Mesa Verde. We couldn’t get a ranger led tour today because I didn’t realize the tickets would sell out in minutes! 14 days ago I had a reminder on my calendar to get today’s tickets, and they were long gone by the time I looked. So plan B: try again, set my timer this time (not just a calendar reminder), and get tickets for the next day. Within the first 2 minutes the entire morning sold out but I was able to get an afternoon tour. That means today we explore, tomorrow we take a tour. So if you are planning a trip to Mesa Verde set your alarm and be ready to put tickets in your cart the moment they go on sale (8am Mountain, 10am EST).

I was worried we wouldn’t have the full experience without the ranger led tour into a cliff dwelling (Mat had memories of this being amazing as a kid) but turns out there is plenty to do and see – despite the visitor center being closed due to rising covid cases, the Cliff Loop Road closed for road work, the museum and other buildings closed for HVAC and ADA compliance issues. We picked up our Jr. Ranger books, drove the 20 miles across the park along some pretty awesome cliffs, to the Mesa Verde Loop. We listened to the downloaded audio tour podcast, and got out to explore the 10 lookouts/points of interest. We learned about the first pit houses built to the cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans. The views of the cliff houses were awe-inspiring and worth the trip for just that! I thought we’d see the big famous Cliff House but I didn’t realize we’d see 30 other cliff dwellings scattered throughout the mesa! Without the tour of an actual cliff house, we still managed to spend the majority of the afternoon in the park.

You can guess what’s next… swimming! We love playing frisbee with our awesome crocheted frisbee (aka the hippie frisbee) when we have the pool to ourselves. Then we cleaned up and went out to dinner at Mancos Brewery. Food was great but Mother Nature was spectacular! Storms brewing off in the distance gave us not 1, not 2, but 4 rainbows! After the clouds shifted we saw it was actually 2 FULL rainbows. All the while we watched lightning light up the sky in the distance. The threat of rain and the increasing wind finally chased most of the customers inside, but we were done eating so we headed home. An unforgettable dinner.

We ended our day with the conclusion of The Hunger Games movie and pistachio nuts (from PistachioLand!) for dessert. A day with little expectations (we didn’t think we’d see 4 Corners and didn’t think we’d see much of Mesa Verde) and some mid-day moodiness (finally, it was almost getting weird, LOL) ended up being a full and memorable day.

Friday, July 30th, 2021

So my plans certainly don’t go exactly as planned and that’s okay. I had grand plans to get to White Sands National Park last night for sunset and again this morning for sunrise. But as we enjoyed our taco dinner last night we saw the sun beginning to set. We did try to get to the park after dinner, but it was already dark by the time we pulled up, oops. The sunset was still gorgeous from Peggy. I thought the kids were being surprisingly good sports about visiting a park during prime game time until they admitted they just wanted to hear more of our book, LOL. We’ve been reading Hunger Games together during the Peggy drives or downtime. It is a great book and something exciting always seems to be happening so I don’t blame them. As for sunrise, well, the sun rises at 6:15 and the park opens at 7 so we enjoyed our morning without a rush. But that’s not to say we still didn’t get there early.  We all enjoy doing the fun stuff before the mid-day heat! 

This park is awesome! The largest gypsum sand dune in the world. It has one road, just 8 miles and loops back to the only visitor center so it’s an easily explored park in just a half day. And we picked the right half! We had a gorgeous, cool, morning and the place to ourselves. It is truly surreal to be somewhere so beautiful and so enchanting and be alone. It was fantastic. 

We started the day in the dunes playing football, running around, playing frisbee, rolling down hills, climbing over more and more dunes. I did keep the camera out of the fine sand while we played but definitely took tons of pictures as the day went on. I hiked back to the car for umbrellas, so we lasted longer as it got sunnier out… and the umbrellas turned out to be fun props for the kids (thinking of Ms. Debbie!). The dunes themselves don’t get that hot. The gypsum doesn’t absorb the sun. We learned this is the wettest desert with a collection of water under the dunes that keeps them cool, even damp underneath which also keeps them from blowing away. But that didn’t keep us from getting hot! So by mid-day we ventured back to the visitor center to learn more and earn the Jr. Ranger badge.  

Next stop: PistachioLand! I wanted to see the “world’s largest pistachio nut” because it’s been awhile since I’ve had my fill of concrete foods. Turns out it’s not just a roadside attraction — it’s a full-on tourist trap and we loved it! We tried the pistachio ice cream, we bought various flavors of pistachios that are all grown, processed, seasoned and packaged right there on site — so good! We even took the tour through the orchard and learned all about the farming of pistachios which was really quite interesting! The giant pistachio sculpture was in honor of their dad who started the farm and also loved putting his family in car to seek out similar roadside attractions. I thought it was a son’s sweet tribute to his dad, so I’ve requested the same from my girls – a roadside attraction in my honor when I die. Maybe giant ski poles on route 26 in Upton, LOL. 

After our nutty stop we drove from Alamogordo to Roswell, NM and the alien sightings started immediately and never stopped. Even their Dunkin Donuts has a massive alien out front! We stayed at the Red Barn RV Park and found it was a surprisingly charming spot just outside a fairly tacky town. Luckily we like charming and tacky! So we went out to dinner for the first time since Pigeon Forge (which feels like a lifetime ago) just to explore the downtown a little more.

Another day that we’ll remember as awesome! And probably not remember that Murphy had his first accident in the RV, that we kept putting off lunch until we were starving, that the RV park had NO internet and sad shower water pressure, and that we had a couple tires with low pressure that we needed to address. It’s not all perfect but perfect is never our goal!

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

The trick to finding the fun:  get up early before the heat (mornings are in the 70s here – perfect), pick a hike that you can talk your kids into (Guadalupe Peak’s 8+ mile hike to the highest peak in Texas will have to wait), know that there will be something along the way to capture their interest (thanks National Parks FB Group for tips and pictures of this hike). So that’s what we did – we hiked 2+ miles from the visitor center to Devil’s Hall. Loved it. And hiked the 2+ miles back out. 

Instead of hiking up the Guadalupe mountains under the hot NM/TX sun, we hiked down into a canyon, followed a dry river bed that offered shade, climbed awesome rock formations nicked-named “the stairs”, and found the narrow canyon passage named Devil’s Hall that was actually more heavenly then hellish – cool and shaded this early in the morning! We rested, had snacks, spent time being silly, and took a bunch of photos. Once the kids start taking silly photos it’s hard to get them to stop. We had to remind them that outside our cool passage way the sun was only getting hotter so we finally said goodbye and headed back. On the return trail we saw a total of 6 people our entire morning in the park. Six. This park only sees 200k+ visitors a year compared to Great Smokey Mountains National Park’s 12 million+ visitors. It was kinda nice having the place to ourselves! 

Then we drove. Packed up Crystal Betty, said good bye to Texas, for real this time, and headed for Alamogordo, NM. This was a crazier drive than we expected! We drove out of the Sacramento Mountains and dropped 4000 feet in 13 miles with plenty of signage to warn you this was tough on trucks. Crystal was working pretty hard today. I always picture NM as a fairly flat state for some reason but I won’t anymore! 

We were happy to be back at a KOA campground for the night with cleaner showers and a pool for the kids to jump in. The Whites City RV Park had no pool but it did have laundry so it was the first day on the trip I had dry towels! So far, every time I’ve done a wash the swim stuff is immediately used and wet again. While I enjoyed having clean towels for a couple days the wet ones don’t really bother me that much… it’s a part of camping you just accept. This whole trip has inherent discomforts, it’s like skiing – even the best days of skiing you know you’re going to be cold or wet or have an uncomfortable boot or have to deal with foggy goggles at some point but that never trumps the actual experience. We all LOVE a day of skiing and we are all LOVING camping life. 

Okay, so the weirdest part of the last couple days: we’ve been straddling the central and mountain time zones and our source of information, our cell phones, keep bouncing between the two so it is really hard to keep track of the time! In Guadalupe Mountain National Park you are actually in mountain time zone but the only cell tower that reaches here is located in central time zone so you’ll never have the right time here. A few times our phones even disagreed with each other. But we’re on vacation so who cares?

Monday, July 26th, 2021

Carlsbad Caverns is totally worth a visit! I could list all kinds of adjectives for this enormous cave but you just need to see it. We arrived for our timed entry and skipped the elevator to walk down the trail — a mile and a quarter long, dimly lit, damp, with switchbacks 80 stories down into the earth! That alone was pretty amazing. Everyone has to take to the elevator to exit, but the self guided audio players had lots of great info the entire walk down. Once you’re in the cavern there’s another mile+ loop around the “Big Room,” aptly named. We learned this is not the longest, deepest or biggest cave, but it is incredible! Maddy thought Luray Caverns was more beautiful with its stalactites and stalagmites everywhere you looked, but the sheer scale of this cavern is beyond impressive. Biggest surprise: there’s a gift shop, snack bar, and restroom facilities 700ft underground!

So I know I’ve raved about the Jr. Ranger program before, but it’s not just a cool badge, it’s the difference between walking through a park with some oohs and ahhs and really learning about what you’re looking at and what makes it so special. Yes, the activities are often pretty easy like word searches and crosswords, but you’re still learning.

I’m so grateful, again, that we’re making this trip THIS year with my kids still young enough to participate. Maddy already feels like she’s too old for some of it, but you can see her secretly enjoying the activities. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want the badge you earn?

Best part of today’s ranger program was talking to 3 different rangers at the park. These people LOVE their jobs. One even has “Batmom” as her license plate. The last ranger, Anthony, was our favorite and even though we were all starving for lunch by this point, all of us kept asking more questions! He loved the girls’ interest and even gave them an extra poster. Our favorite conversation with him was all about the Lechuguilla Cave which is part of CCNP, but not accessible to the public. The photos he shared are incredible and knowing so much underground wilderness is still being explored that may never become accessible to the public makes you appreciate the caves you can see even more.

One of my favorite parts of today’s audio tour was hearing from such a huge range of professionals: park rangers, cave specialists, paleo-botanists (studying plants of the past), microbiologists, hydrologists, geologists… it was all very interesting. We all enjoyed this park and would highly recommend it to anyone. Now lunch and siesta!

Carlsbad Caverns are located under the Guadalupe Mountain Range and the Guadalupe Mountain National Park Visitor Center is only 30 minutes from the campground, so late afternoon we decided to check it out. Back to Texas we go! National Park #7, 5th of the trip. This is a much less visited park, and we saw very few people.

Like always, we asked for the Jr. Ranger Program (I am surprised it’s never offered, we always have to ask for it) and this particular ranger was way less enthusiastic about it all. He gave us the books and the pins – usually you have to show you completed everything, they make you do a pledge to protect the parks and nature and THEN they give you the badges! Not only was he less informative, the booklet itself was pretty small and the requirements for this park were: complete 6 pages or just take a hike. So we mapped out the hike we plan to do the next morning.

We all had fun checking out the local wildlife in the visitor center because they were all stuffed — so many snakes! I definitely DON’T want to see any of the wildlife here in the wild. We picked out our souvenirs – Mat gets a tacky magnet for the fridge, I get a Christmas ornament (we’re going to need a bigger xmas tree!), Emmy picks a key chain and Maddy collects the free maps and a sticker for her trunk.

When we left the visitor center the kids were NOT interested in a nature walk around the center (it was less than a mile!), they were done with the sun and done with this park. So, I may have threatened to return their souvenirs and told them they could buy them on amazon if they didn’t want to actually experience the park. They agreed to a short walk. We did learn that one thing that makes this area special is there was a mail route from St. Louis, MO to California, instead of sailing it around South America, before the Pony Express. They could make the trip in 25 days!

The kids also agreed to explore Frijole Ranch, which is a history museum in the park that requires little walking. Well, it was a bust since it was closed for renovations, so kids won out and we went home for a movie and ice cream with Murphy. They were right – much more fun. To be fair to the kids, we don’t have to love everything, and we have yet to find something here that really interests us. But we’ll be back tomorrow to try again.

Sunday, July 25, 2021