Adventures

After leaving Yellowstone National Park, we headed due south to the Jackson Hole area and Grand Teton National Park. We ended up staying in Victor, a very nice small town just across the border into Idaho and only a few miles outside of Jackson. Fun Fact about Idaho - it is a completely made up name. The Teton Valley area was truly beautiful everywhere we looked, and we just loved it. Our airbnb condo was in a large, mostly new construction community that was pretty and had

Old Faithful - our first stop in Yellowstone National Park, natch. Yellowstone is so different from other national parks, in a variety of ways. First, it’s the original US National Park, established March 1, 1872 by President Ulysses S. Grant. It’s also the second largest national park in the contiguous 48 states - only Death Valley and a handful of Alaskan national parks are larger. Last, at least from the perspective of parks we’ve visited, the area has been and still is

Craig vs Wall Street - a slot canyon in Bryce Canyon National Park The Utah National Parks have been on our list for this road tripping lifestyle almost from the beginning. Craig had never visited the parks, and I have not been to any since I went to Bryce/Arches on a family road trip when I was a young teenager. This spring seemed like the perfect time - we were already on the West Coast and starting the Utah road trip in early May meant we were able to see half the parks

The Amphitheater - we got up close and personal with a lot of it. [This post is part of the Utah Ultimate National Parkness series - see the main post for additional background.] You can see 80-90% of the park in the above single photo - as I mentioned in the main post, it is the smallest of the Utah National Parks and has the highest elevation. And, it’s not really a canyon - the park is actually the eastern edge of a really high, enormous plateau (the eastern edge of the P

[This post is part of the Utah Ultimate National Parkness series - see the main post for additional background.] As I mentioned, Zion National Park was our favorite of the Big Five national parks in Utah. Just about everywhere you go in the park was pretty, but then when you hike up a bit, you really get the full perspective and beauty of the park. I think our favorite hike was the Emerald Pools/Kayenta hike. From there, the valley between Zion’s canyon walls looked very p

[This post is part of the Utah Ultimate National Parkness series - see the main post for additional background.] What is it about natural arches made of rock that intrigues and inspires us so much? I have no idea, but they are SO VERY COOL. Going to Arches National Park, you get big arches, small arches, thin arches, double arches, far arches, near arches, etc, etc. and you can enjoy many of them in just a few days. Here are some of my favorites: The most iconic arch in the p

[This post is part of the Utah Ultimate National Parkness series - see the main post for additional background.] Why did we love Canyonlands? Because it was enormous and has these seriously carved vistas that rival the Grand Canyon. It’s also mysterious in its own way because so much of it is still completely wild and very difficult to access, with only one of the three districts having multiple paved roads. The views are simply breathtaking. The best way to start your visi

[This post is part of the Utah Ultimate National Parkness series - see the main post for additional background.] Western Escarpment of the Waterpocket Fold - NPS image, since we couldn’t get anywhere near the right perspective from the scenic drive right next to the cliffs. As mentioned in the main Utah post, we went on a lovely scenic drive between the Zion/Bryce area and the Arches/Canyonlands area (Moab, Utah), which took us through Capitol Reef National Park, the most rec

Growing up in Southern California, Palm Springs was always a legendary, iconic place, outside the greater LA metro area, but not “too far”. When I was old enough to visit, though, I found it …. well …. a little boring. I won’t bore you with the details (see what I did there?), but I do have fond memories of nearby Idyllwild and had also always heard good things about Joshua Tree National Park. As a result, when we were planning our first post-retirement “wintering,” Palm S

As part of our retirement planning, we needed to figure out what we wanted to do during the winter months. I do not like the cold. I’m one of those people who grew up in LA and always complained when the weather got “bad,” meaning below 60 degrees, days of rain, etc, etc. Although Craig is much more cold-tolerant than I am, our activity goals these days include so much outside time, that living in places with “normal” winters didn’t seem right for us. We also didn’t want to