Trip Summary- Highlights and Looking forward

 We arrived home later on July 11 to a very happy kitty and with very happy kids to see something familiar. Since then we've been enjoying family time and settling back in to sedentary living. However, before we returned, I interviewed my family with the following trip questions so we can plan our next journey and for you to plan yours! Here is what was said:

What were our top 2 favourite days (enjoyed by all 4 of us) (both locations are near each other!)

1. Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado: Cliff dwelling exploration and ancient Puebloan learning
2. S. Utah-- Goosenecks State Park to Edge of Cedars State Park museum, Newspaper Rock (Utah) to Canyonlands National Park (Needles Section).  Oh and throw in a dinosaur museum and a cool local restaurant with huge shakes too!

What were your two best days personally on the trip?

Chris: Rafting and traveling up Mt. Evans in Colorado & Hiking Angels Landing in Zion National Park

Chloe: The Lamar Valley in Yellowstone (WY) and Chaco Culture National Historic Site (& Rafting)

Vera: Las Vegas (my bday--saw an illusionist!) and Great Sand Dunes National Park

Corwyn: Horseback Riding in the Rockies and Winterpark Colorado's Alpine Slide

What places would you really like to go back to?

Chris: Yosemite NP, Pinnacles NP and Utah in general

Chloe: Pinnacles NP (California), Canyonlands NP, the 4 corners region (UTAH) and Yellowstone

Vera: Zion National Park (Utah)

Corwyn: Great Sand Dunes National Park to go run down the dunes again! (Colorado)

What place or park surprised me by being more amazing than expected?

Chris: Great Sand Dunes National Park (Colorado) and the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier --a very cool historic museum (San Diego, Ca) & Mesa Verde Ntl Park

Chloe: Great Sand Dunes NP, the Rocky Mtns of Colorado and how the USA National Park system has adapted well with shuttles and road closures to bursting visitors

Vera: Great Sand Dunes Nt'l Park

Corwyn: River Rafting in Colorado on the Clearwater River

What places do I NOT want to go back to?

Chris: Monument Valley, Arizona

Chloe: The Salton Sea (California)-- 'The world after people and climate change :(

Vera: Mexican Hat, Utah (we were promised a restaurant and there weren't any)

Corwyn: The National Forest campground in Taos, NM where biting ants were everywhere (Las Petacas Nt'l Forest)

What place was I most disappointed in?

Chris: Crater Lake National Park (snowing and no lake view)

Chloe: Monument Valley, Arizona

Vera and Corwyn: Crater Lake (we'll have to take them back one day as it is really gorgeous!)

Favourite Animal Sitings:

Chris: hundreds of bison in Lamar Valley, Yellowstone

Chloe: Seeing a Desert Fox 2x's in Hidden Valley Joshua Tree National Park

Vera: The Coyote in the campground in Joshua Tree National Park & the Elephants and Gorilla at the San Diego Safari Park

Corwyn: Diamondback Rattlesnake in Bandolier National Monument

Best Hike or Exploration

Chris: Angels Landing Zion National Park

Chloe: Chaco Canyon Rim Hike (Chaco Heritage Ntl Historic Park, New Mexico) & Angel's Landing

Vera: Nevada Falls hike in Yosemite National Park

Corwyn: Climbing through the cavates and up ladders to cliff dwelling in Bandolier National Monument, New Mexico & hiking up the sand dunes (Sand Dunes National Park, CO)

Best Bike Ride!

Chris: Mission Bay San Diego & around the closed roads in Yosemite 

Chloe: Zion cycling the closed roads with Grandma Eve, a wild turkey, and a thunderstorm that started a waterfall!

Vera: Bike trails around Santa Fe along the rail tracks, New Mexico

Corwyn: Mountain biking around Bell Rock in Sedona, Arizona

What will I miss most about the journey?

Chris: Listening to audiobooks (whole novels) with the family as we drive

Chloe: Waking up to the sunrise through the tent flap and spending time with the kids

Vera: The starry skies in the desert and sleeping with no tent fly

Corwyn: Not doing school work!

What I missed the most about home and longed for?

Chris: Friends and family (how appropriate if you're reading this F&F!)

Chloe: organized cupboards, the garden and our kitty

Vera: KITTY!, fort building and my bed (and her friends!)

Corwyn: KITTY! (and his friends)

The perfect journey is circular, the joy of departure and the joy of return (and not too many saddle sores!)

Yellowstone and Grand Teton: Wild and crowded

 We headed to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park for the last major leg of our travels for 7 nights of camping and exploration in the area. These two parks are basically adjacent and together are such a large area that even with many many walks and hikes and even with the 5 nights I've previously done in the park back when I lived in Wyoming in 2004 we didn't even drive to all the roads or see all. There is a tonne of backpacking to do here and I look forward to returning.

Old Faithful

We started with 2 nights at Jackson Lake in Grand Teton and enjoyed the campground at Coulter Bay. Teton unlike Yellowstone is all about the mountains. Gorgeous backgrounds followed us and next time I'd love to canoe and hike them. We enjoyed the cool dips we took as we have not seen many natural lakes on this trip! Although we did see a few far away bison and some moose it was actually the old settlement of Mormon Row that we particularly enjoyed. Volunteer docents had set up a settler learning area where we could dress in 1860s dress, wash clothes, make rope and toys and learn about settler life and work. The  kids were thrilled and spent hours there. We also fit in a muddy bike ride, dodged a thunderstorm and took one more dip in another lake.

Games and activities at Mormon row. 

People had warned us that Yellowstone would be unbelievably crowded and they weren't wrong for at least the geyser basin area. A park ranger infomred us that 5.4 million people visited the park last year! We think Yellowstone should implement a few of those free shuttle buses for the busiest areas to help with the lack of parking and congestion. But it was worth the crowds to see it. We saw Old Faithful go 3 times and saw numerous incredible and varied bubbling mud pools, paint pots and smaller geysers and partial eruptions of big geysers. Chris and my parent both caught big explosion of less reliable geysers which was pretty cool. I really enjoyed especially some of the colourful hot sprints and the different colours and formations formed from the living organisms that inhabit these hot areas (thermophiles). 

Us with castle geyser 

Amazing thermophiles at a hot spring

We recommend making sure you walk beyond geyser basin and we really enjoyed the strange world of porcelin basin and the steamboat geyser.

steamboat geyser, the largest having mini eruptions while a ranger gives a talk. 

After 3 nights at Madison Campground all together, my parents took the kids in their campground down to Fishing Bridge in the south of the park and Chris and I went to a smaller (and gorgeous) northern campground called Slough Creek near the Lamar valley, the "Seregeti of North America." If you are worried about seeing bison in this park--don't be. There are 7000 and they are at capacity. We saw more than 1000 in our one day in the Lamar Valley. 

Slough Creek campsite

soon many bison!

Our campsite was a nice respite as we had the longest we'd ever been away from the kids (2 nights or 40 hrs). There were badgers, bears and bison in the campsite and we hiked and hiked. We had some close encounters with bison and Rusty grouse and petrified trees and alpine wildflowers. This whole trip we've been chasing the Spring and we're still in in it it seems with mountain wildflowers and thunderstorms.

hike to the petrified forest

still spring in the mountains! 

By the time you read this we'll probably be home. We're now jetting across Montana, Idaho and Washington. It's been an amazing trip but 'the best journeys are circular: the joy of departure and the joy of return.' Expect the next post to be our high (and low) lights from 4 different perspectives.

Look forward to seeing you soon.