Circle the Wagons

In the 1800s, a wagon would have taken 8-10 weeks to travel between Independence, MO and Santa Fe, NM along the Santa Fe Trail. Thankfully, we were able to drive it in four days and see/do lots of fun things along the way!

Altogether, we spent 11 days on this trip - two in Chicago, two visiting my parents, and seven on the road between Illinois and California.

3117 miles

Where the Streets Have No Name

In an effort to pad our stamp and unit totals, we decided to make our long drive home even longer with a detour to Joshua Tree National Park. Well, even though it added almost another 60 miles, it's still kinda on the way, isn't it?! 😜

515 miles, 8.5 hours

Take It Easy

The penultimate day of our drive back home to California put us back into familiar territory, for the most part. We've driven this stretch of I-40 before, except for the section between Grants, NM and Sanders, AZ, when we took a slight detour to visit El Malpais National Monument and El Morro National Monument in 2016.

385 miles, 6.5 hours

100 Years Young

Clearly, the Grand Canyon is way older than a mere century. However, 2019 does mark the centennial of the establishment of Grand Canyon National Park. How cool to squeeze in a visit during this 100th anniversary year! Our only other trip to the South Rim was a little more than 10 years ago.

December 2008

To Instagram and Beyond

When I first suggested Page as a possible spring break destination, the boys asked what we could see there. I told them to google "Antelope Canyon" or "Horseshoe Bend" and find some images...

Thanks to social media, there were a plethora of pics to view.

And to no one's surprise, it didn't take much to sell them on the idea!

Butte-tiful Bridge

There are a number of units in the National Park System which require a little more effort to visit. Some are found in remote locations such as Alaska, Guam, or American Samoa. Others, like the White House or Port Chicago Naval Magazine N MEM, require advance reservations and background checks. And a handful can only be accessed by boat or by hike, both of which are true of the unit we visited today - Rainbow Bridge National Monument.

When we first decided to come to Page for spring break, I was very disappointed that Rainbow Bridge boat tours were only offered on Saturdays, which didn't fit our schedule. But when I checked again a few weeks later, they had added a Monday tour, which I promptly booked!

What Time Is It?

Staying up late to hang out with our friends probably wasn't the smartest move for R and me, considering that the plan was to be on the road by 7:30AM PDT this morning. Why so early? Because that's how we roll every day, vacation or not!

Melting Points

By the numbers...

• 3057 miles
• 8 states
• 15 new NPS units
• 38 NPS passport stamps
• 19 NPS Centennial stamps
• 2 state capitals
• 6 smushed pennies
• 4 cans of spray paint

Show Me the Way to Go Home

You know that song that Brody, Hooper, and Quint sing on the boat in Jaws? Call that our theme music for today. Well, except for the drinking part...

Show me the way to go home.

I'm tired and I want to go to bed.

I had a little drink about an hour ago,

And it’s gone right to my head.

Wherever I may roam,

On land or sea or foam,

You can always hear me singing this song.

Show me the way to go home.

Today's route: 460 miles

Stick a Fork in Us

Today's route: 305 miles

In order to get to our last new unit (#140 for me, #139 for R, and #136 for M and J) of the trip, we took NM-53 through the other side of El Malpais National Monument this morning instead of staying on I-40 west. 

Got Opinions?

It has taken me a little while to get this recap written up, but I can backdate the blog so it doesn't appear to be quite as late - haha! Here are the family's thoughts on our most recent Saiki-delic road trip...

What are some of your favorite things that we saw or did on this trip (top 3)?

M / R: Sledding at White Sands, going to Carlsbad Caverns, and the Pima Air & Space Museum

J: White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns, and the Cubs game

Me: Carlsbad Caverns, getting passport stamps from a new region, and seeing parts of the country we've never been to before

Physics Is Fun

Hurry up and wait. That's what we did this chilly (below-freezing!) morning to get in line for the Trinity Site Open House. I had been told that the queue to get through the Stallion Gate Entrance of the White Sands Missile Range could get quite long, so we arrived around 7:15AM for the 8:00AM opening.

 

Guesstimating there were ~25-30 cars ahead of us

Easter Sun-day

HE IS RISEN!

He is risen, indeed!

We celebrated Jesus' resurrection this Easter Sunday morning with Calvary Chapel Tucson. They held their service at the Tucson Convention Center, with special music by Steven Curtis Chapman. It was nice to be able to attend church while on vacation, but we missed our #smallchurchbigfamily!

OCD Madness

Throughout 2016, the National Park Service is celebrating is 100th year. In honor of this milestone anniversary, Eastern National has issued a commemorative centennial stamp to nearly all of the 410 units in the NPS. Our current tally of units visited as a family is 115. So while we didn't check off any new units today, it was a successful day of stamp collecting for me!

Wait 'Til Next Year

Marking time. For my older son that means marching in place without moving forward. As parents we've marked the milestones in our kids' lives - first teeth, first steps, first days of school. And as a family, we've had to mark all the things we've missed sharing with R's brother K over the past year - a Stanley Cup for teh Blackhawks and a great post-season for the Cubs! Christmas. The March Madness (newly rechristened "Swordfish") Invitational for the guys in Vegas...

This spring break finds us on the road trip we planned to take before that late-night phone call came and we headed off to Chicago to be with K instead. Last year we were going to meet K here in Phoenix to watch a couple games together since he had never been to Spring Training. Fittingly, we started everything off this year by watching the Cubs play the Brewers today, the epitome of marking time - 108 years, to be exact!

Hits and Misses

I wanted to write up a recap for this trip, but when I went to poll the family, my not-so-diplomatic teenager had this comment to offer...

"Not one of your best trips, Mom."

Ouch.

After nursing my bruised ego, I had to admit, he's probably right on that point. This *won't* rank up there as one of our most favorite trips. I'm okay with that -- you can't hit a home run every time, right?! Still, I'm happy that we were able to see places that we had never been before and learn new things. That's why I think traveling is a valuable experience!  

So, even if there were more misses than hits this time around, I am still going to make them find something positive to say about it...

3:10 to Yuma

Did I already mention that one of the pre-trip homework movies was 3:10 to Yuma, starring Noah, Batman, and Percy Jackson? Let me just say that as much as they liked the gunfights, the boys had a hard time buying into the ending...

That doesn't make any sense!

WHY WOULD HE DO THAT ?!?!

Even though the location is never shown in the movie, we learn that Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) has escaped from Yuma Prison before and will have no problem doing it again. So, first thing this morning we headed off to see Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park for ourselves. 

Run for the Border

To visit Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, you have to really want to go there. It's not on the way to anything, and quite a detour from any major interstate, so I don't think anyone would go there just on a whim. Clearly, count me among those who really wanted to visit (and my lucky family got to come, too!)

From Tucson, it took us about 2.5 hours on a small, two-lane highway to get to Why, where we turned south on AZ State Route 85. The park entrance was just a short distance from the junction.

Wonderland of Rocks

From the trailhead parking lot at Fort Bowie, it was 8 miles of gravel road back to AZ State Route 186, where we turned south for the short drive to reach our next destination...

Fort(ress) of Solitude

"What are we doing today?" asked the not-so-junior rangers, as we got off I-10 and headed south on a very small, desolate road.

"Fort Bowie," I replied.

"Why would the government build a fort out here in the middle of nowhere?" asked the patient husband of the crazy lady who will travel anywhere to visit any place with a brown National Park Service sign.

After parking at the trailhead, we started the 1.5 mile hike in to the visitor center to find out.