Angels landing at Zion is my favorite hike of any.
Arches is the most unique of any imo. Crazy rock formations and a lot of them look like huge dildos which is always fun.
Grand Teton though is my favorite in the country because of the mountains, lakes and wildlife. Seeing moose and grizzlies up close is awesome.
I've seen moose pretty close at Grand Teton and Yellowstone. Never seen a grizz in the wild. How close/scared were you? Were you strapped?
Grizzlies scare the shit out of me. 2 were in the meadow across from Jenny lake turn off. Saw them safely from the road.
They should.
Tell that to the Asians with cameras. I know my place.
The Chinese and Japanese tourists at yellowstone were absolutely wild. They would roll up in these big tourist busses doing road trips of the country run mostly out of Vancouver BC. They would take a few pictures and then hop right back on. They mostly thought Yellowstone was more like a zoo than a national park and treated the animals like they were tame. Everyone knows bears are dangerous but I think they didn’t realize that Buffalo kill more people in the park than anything else and they would get within 10 feet of them, I never went past 50. To be fair you would see a lot of dumb fat Americans do the same thing. A big news story in the park when I was there, a married Japanese couple legit put their toddler on a wild elk who was just chillen on some grass in one of the tourist areas for a photo op. Kid didn’t get hurt but it still blows my mind.
Haha forgot to mention all the Asians when we were at Yellowstone, especially at Old Faithful (and a pretty good bit at Grand Prismatic). They definitely love our NPs.
Obviously all national parks are best seen outside of your car, but most of the western parks are at least worthwhile to visit even if you're just passing through. These South Florida parks are completely different, they aren't really drivable (you physically can't drive to Dry Tortugas, can barely enter Biscayne by car and while there are plenty of roads through the Everglades you really don't see anything worthwhile).
Also unlike the western parks they aren't especially hikable. Everglades is the only one where it's really an option and I wasn't especially keen on taking three people I'd be responsible for keeping alive out into a gator and python infested river.
So unlike basically every other experience I've ever had with my Dad in an NP, we invested heavily in some professional tours. I already mentioned the ferry to Dry Tortugas. We also had a boat tour scheduled to some islands in Biscayne Bay. Unfortunately my daughter had a cough and they were extra COVID cautious so we didn't get to do that one. That left us essentially walking out on a jetty into Biscayne Bay from the VC. We saw a ton of iguanas (non native species) and plenty of fish. Encountered a number of dudes who could have passed for the darkness brothers and looked like they would have played for the U 20 years ago. @creepycoug. Wasn't a single @dflea or @YellowSnow cracka fishing out there, all brothas.
So Biscayne was kind of a bust as we only scratched the surface on it. Definitely a place I'd like to explore more.
Did get a shot of Pops and the kids I can actually share there.
Now to the easily the best part of the trip. Everglades National Park is huge, iconic, unique and yet not entirely what I expected. I've always associated the Everglades with gators and airboats, and there are plenty of both. But there's a ton more to it than that.
Everglades was actually the first NP set aside for environmental/ecosystem reasons rather than scenic ones. And most of it is not what I would call especially beautiful. It is absolutely full of animal life though, and a lot of animals you're not going to see anywhere else in the NP system. Certainly not anywhere out west.
As the third largest park in the lower 48, Everglades actually preserves 7 unique ecosystems, rather than just the obvious swamp I've always associated with it. We got to check out a number of them:
Tram tour through the poorly named Shark Valley (this is what most would think of when thinking of the Everglades). Saw a number of gators here, a black snake of some sort (much smaller than a python), a few turtles and a crapload of wading birds. Most exciting experience was at the one stop the tram makes there was a nest of baby gators we were able to view from a distance. I took the kids over there, we looked, and then we heard a low growling sound. I was curious as hell but smart enough to gtfo there. Told the tour guide about it and he said "yeah that was Mama letting you know you were too close to her babies."
My son swears the guide is wrong and it was a Florida Panther who was babysitting for the Mama Gator.
CSB We also did the classic airboat tour. Lots more wading birds and gators, and saw a bunch of turtles on this as well (softshell and hardshell). I had done an airboat tour in November years ago and the wildlife was much more plentiful so it was a bit of a disappointment for me. Apparently the water levels are lower November to April and so you see a lot more critters then. Summer is the wet season and they have a lot more water to hide in. But the other three had never been on an airboat and were very impressed with what we saw.
But the highlight for all four of us was not these more classic Everglades experiences, it was what did on the Everglades coast. The glades includes large chunks of the south Florida coastline were the river of grass meets the sea. This brackish environment is absolute gold for wildlife. We did two tour boats out here - first on the southwest side through 10,000 islands and secondly at the far south edge at Flamingo. Both were extremely worthwhile.
The 10,000 Islands trip was easily the best though. We went out amongst the mangrove island (basically a floating tree that builds a root down below the water line and creates it's own island) in this extremely shallow brackish water and honestly my big hope was to see a manatee. We did see one although we didn't get a very good look. On that end it was a bust.
But we found a pod of bottlenose dolphins who decided to ride in our wake for a good 5-10 minutes and it was probably the most fun my kids have ever had. Hell up there with the most fun me and pops have had too. Pics don't do it justice but this site doesn't have a good mechanism for uploading video so it's the best you'll get.
Also saw tons of seabirds: Ospreys and kites and plenty of others.
My son had one big goal for the trip that hadn't been accomplished - he wanted to see a crocodile. So we added an extra trip and went to the aforementioned Flamingo for another boat tour with the express purpose of seeing some crocs. We did see four or five (none especially close). We also had a much closer encounter with a couple manatees this time around including a baby one.
Both kids completed some assignments and became Everglades Junior Park Rangers which they were very proud of. My son was most excited to have seen the crocodiles, my daughter fell in love with the manatees. The dolphins were far and away the highlight for me.
All told I think we spent about 2 1/2 days exploring the Everglades.
Worth all the tim and every pemmy.
If you ever get the chance to visit it's easily my favorite one to visit of any that I've seen east of the Rockies.
Oh, and my only daughter gave me this that morning to celebrate. Hope your kids gave you the honor, respect and unintentional comedy you deserve for Father's Day as well!
Oh, and my only daughter gave me this that morning to celebrate. Hope your kids gave you the honor, respect and unintentional comedy you deserve for Father's Day as well!
Obviously all national parks are best seen outside of your car, but most of the western parks are at least worthwhile to visit even if you're just passing through. These South Florida parks are completely different, they aren't really drivable (you physically can't drive to Dry Tortugas, can barely enter Biscayne by car and while there are plenty of roads through the Everglades you really don't see anything worthwhile).
Also unlike the western parks they aren't especially hikable. Everglades is the only one where it's really an option and I wasn't especially keen on taking three people I'd be responsible for keeping alive out into a gator and python infested river.
So unlike basically every other experience I've ever had with my Dad in an NP, we invested heavily in some professional tours. I already mentioned the ferry to Dry Tortugas. We also had a boat tour scheduled to some islands in Biscayne Bay. Unfortunately my daughter had a cough and they were extra COVID cautious so we didn't get to do that one. That left us essentially walking out on a jetty into Biscayne Bay from the VC. We saw a ton of iguanas (non native species) and plenty of fish. Encountered a number of dudes who could have passed for the darkness brothers and looked like they would have played for the U 20 years ago. @creepycoug. Wasn't a single @dflea or @YellowSnow cracka fishing out there, all brothas.
So Biscayne was kind of a bust as we only scratched the surface on it. Definitely a place I'd like to explore more.
Did get a shot of Pops and the kids I can actually share there.
Now to the easily the best part of the trip. Everglades National Park is huge, iconic, unique and yet not entirely what I expected. I've always associated the Everglades with gators and airboats, and there are plenty of both. But there's a ton more to it than that.
Everglades was actually the first NP set aside for environmental/ecosystem reasons rather than scenic ones. And most of it is not what I would call especially beautiful. It is absolutely full of animal life though, and a lot of animals you're not going to see anywhere else in the NP system. Certainly not anywhere out west.
As the third largest park in the lower 48, Everglades actually preserves 7 unique ecosystems, rather than just the obvious swamp I've always associated with it. We got to check out a number of them:
Tram tour through the poorly named Shark Valley (this is what most would think of when thinking of the Everglades). Saw a number of gators here, a black snake of some sort (much smaller than a python), a few turtles and a crapload of wading birds. Most exciting experience was at the one stop the tram makes there was a nest of baby gators we were able to view from a distance. I took the kids over there, we looked, and then we heard a low growling sound. I was curious as hell but smart enough to gtfo there. Told the tour guide about it and he said "yeah that was Mama letting you know you were too close to her babies."
My son swears the guide is wrong and it was a Florida Panther who was babysitting for the Mama Gator.
CSB We also did the classic airboat tour. Lots more wading birds and gators, and saw a bunch of turtles on this as well (softshell and hardshell). I had done an airboat tour in November years ago and the wildlife was much more plentiful so it was a bit of a disappointment for me. Apparently the water levels are lower November to April and so you see a lot more critters then. Summer is the wet season and they have a lot more water to hide in. But the other three had never been on an airboat and were very impressed with what we saw.
But the highlight for all four of us was not these more classic Everglades experiences, it was what did on the Everglades coast. The glades includes large chunks of the south Florida coastline were the river of grass meets the sea. This brackish environment is absolute gold for wildlife. We did two tour boats out here - first on the southwest side through 10,000 islands and secondly at the far south edge at Flamingo. Both were extremely worthwhile.
The 10,000 Islands trip was easily the best though. We went out amongst the mangrove island (basically a floating tree that builds a root down below the water line and creates it's own island) in this extremely shallow brackish water and honestly my big hope was to see a manatee. We did see one although we didn't get a very good look. On that end it was a bust.
But we found a pod of bottlenose dolphins who decided to ride in our wake for a good 5-10 minutes and it was probably the most fun my kids have ever had. Hell up there with the most fun me and pops have had too. Pics don't do it justice but this site doesn't have a good mechanism for uploading video so it's the best you'll get.
Also saw tons of seabirds: Ospreys and kites and plenty of others.
My son had one big goal for the trip that hadn't been accomplished - he wanted to see a crocodile. So we added an extra trip and went to the aforementioned Flamingo for another boat tour with the express purpose of seeing some crocs. We did see four or five (none especially close). We also had a much closer encounter with a couple manatees this time around including a baby one.
Both kids completed some assignments and became Everglades Junior Park Rangers which they were very proud of. My son was most excited to have seen the crocodiles, my daughter fell in love with the manatees. The dolphins were far and away the highlight for me.
All told I think we spent about 2 1/2 days exploring the Everglades.
Worth all the tim and every pemmy.
If you ever get the chance to visit it's easily my favorite one to visit of any that I've seen east of the Rockies.
Oh, and my only daughter gave me this that morning to celebrate. Hope your kids gave you the honor, respect and unintentional comedy you deserve for Father's Day as well!
After leaving Olympic we drove down through PDX then swung west out of Salem and hit the Oregon coast. One of wifey's biggest goals for this trip was to see the Oregon coast and it did not disappoint. We took it all the way down into Cali where we hit Redwood National and State Parks. Very confusing trying to figure out where the National portion of the parks actually is but irregardless it's a mute poont and this place is awesome. We stopped at the Big Tree Wayside and did the loop trail around there. My oldest was in a whiny phase last summer that he's mostly grown out of since - his two targets for the trip were Redwood and Sequoia and he actually enjoyed them both when we were there. Win. After checking out the trees we swung by the Kuchel VC on the beach and saw a sea lion swimming in the surf maybe 10 yards out. Highly recommended park.
We left Redwood headed east for Lassen Volcanic and definitely underestimated the climb from the coast to Redding (or wherever it levels off). Also hit our second longest dead stop of the trip, this one thanks to logging somewhere on highway 299 before Willow Creek IIRC. Whiskeytown Lake was a cool pit stop. We got to Lassen too late to hit the VC but had time to do the whole loop before dark. We got some cool views of the peak though you can really only see the top of the mountain from most of the places on the park road. We got out and played in the snow somewhere on the south side of the loop. Besides the volcanic dome Lassen also has weirdo volcanic features similar to Yellowstone, we got to see some mud pots and other oddities. Wildlife was real sparse here, I don't think we saw a living creature outside of maybe a few bird...until driving south past the Kohm Yah-mah-nee VC towards the park exit we had a black bear maybe 20 feet from us foraging up on the hillside. This was my favorite bear sighting of the whole trip because this guy was all ours - we didn't find him thanks to a traffic jam or somebody else giving us a heads up. There wasn't another soul in the area - actually I don't think we saw more than 2 or 3 people our whole time in the park. Didn't get any good pics of him but this was a fun one for me. Overall Lassen is highly underrated IMO - cool thermal features, pretty mountain, and not at all spoiled by crowds. Would love to return here with some real time to spend.
The next day we turned south for Yosemite, one of six parks we would actually get to spend a night in (Yellowstone, Glacier, Banff, Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Grand Canyon). Honestly, I tried to set my expectations fairly low. I've seen pics of Yosemite my entire life. I knew crowds can be a massive issue. One of the big debates on the trip was do we do the north side first (which we did) or the south side, because we knew timing wise whichever end we did first was going to be less crowded since schools in the west would be getting out right around the time we got to Seattle. We made the call to see Yellowstone/Grand Teton/Glacier at less crowded times and sacrifice the California/Utah parks. So I was prepared to be disappointed at Yosemite.
We came in the Big Oak Flat entrance, once again a bit unprepared for how significant the climb would be. We got in late afternoon and thankfully had maybe a two minute wait to get in (we were prepared for an hour to two hour wait). We took in the views on the descent into the valley then like I presume most people we stopped to see Bridal Veil Falls once we reached the valley itself. While we're admiring the water fall the people behind us point out a black bear back in the weeds towards the edge of the trees. While checking out the bear a pretty big crowd gathered but we were at the front of the crowd with decent views of him the whole tim. He wasn't super close but we got to see him move around a bit and eat (berries I assume). Was a great start to our tim in Yosemite.
We checked into our room at the Stoneman Lodge in Curry Village, hauled every piece of food out of our vehicle as per instructions so the bears didn't try and break into it, then walked around Curry Village. Really cool area, plenty to do, options to eat, etc. Tons and tons of people, as expected.
After getting some ice cream we decided to drive around while there was still some daylight left. Maybe 200 yards after leaving the parking lot we came upon a bear jam, we stopped and admired this one for a bit but we didn't have great views due to the crowds so we drove off fairly quickly. Once we got on the westbound side of the loop the crowds thinned out pretty quickly and we found a quiet spot to hang out on the Merced River. There was one other family within sight for the first half of our time there and then they left and we had the place all to ourselves. Never in a million years did I expect to have our own idyllic spot with no one around in Yosemite Valley. This was maybe one of the coolest outdoor experiences of my life. Stunning scenery, absolutely perfect weather, water that was shallow enough and moving slow enough my two year old could play in it without me having to really stress about keeping him alive. Just a super relaxing evening. Gorgeous sunset lighting on the rocks too.
The next morning we took one more drive around the valley, stopped and did a mini hike with views of Yosemite Falls, then headed out of the valley.
Right there with Many Glacier for my favorite stop on the trip.
After Yosemite we drove through the Grant Grove at Kings Canyon, saw the General Grant, then went to my son's other big goal and made the hike down to the General Sherman at Sequoia (ngl, we took the tram back).
After seeing the two biggest trees in the world we drove deep into Kings Canyon to stay at the Cedar Lodge. This was maybe the most remote drive we took the whole trip (or at least right there with going through the Mojave Desert). The actual canyon in Kings Canyon is FAR. The hipster thing to say is that "The rock formations at Kings Canyon are just as beautiful as Yosemite." *Charlie Murphy voice* WRONG. It is however massively more remote. We got the Lodge and found out due to water shortage they had deactivated all the showers. My wife was thrilled with that one. They were also out of a number of supplies including soap (in the rooms) and ketchup at the little cafe. Good news is they were also short on staff so they had this beauty posted.
I think we would have enjoyed it more had we been a little more prepared for the situation. That said, the Kings River itself is prettier than the Merced River and looks like it would be an amazing raft ride. We got to hang out a second straight night on a beautiful river surrounded by nature and no people so that was cool. We didn't encounter any wildlife which was a bit of a bummer but otherwise a cool place that I'm not sure I'll ever visit again. If I had it to do over again this would not be one of the six NPs we stayed in but I get why it was both inexpensive and available now. Still very much worth it just would have had some better options.
After making the crazy drive back out of Kings Canyon we swung back northwards towards San Francisco and made a quick pit stop at Pinnacles. Everything I had read said that Pinnacles is not a driving park. It's not even a great hiking park. It's mostly a great rock climbing park. We are not rock climbers and even if we were we didn't have tim for all that. So we drove in as far as we could, looked around, and drove out. It is definitely not a driving park. Highlight - since we were late getting in the Ranger at the entrance station gave our kids Junior Ranger badges since she knew we wouldn't have tim to do enough activities to earn them before the rangers got off. We wouldn't have tried but it was nice to get that extra badge. Lowlight - it was Hawt. As. Balls. There was a swimming pool next to the VC for the campers and the pool was completely full. Pretty sure besides us everyone in the park was in that pool.
Of all the parks we visited on this trip Pinnacles was easily our least favorite.
After a couple days in San Fran (including accidentally going downtown the morning of the gay pride parade..."accidentally" "😉") we drove down Pac Coast Highway. It was very cool but honestly I think we liked the Oregon Coast better. One cool stop was San Simeon to see the bull elephant seals argue with each other. These things make @CFetters_Nacho_Lover look sleek. We spent three days in LA seeing various sights, then ended our tim in LA with a boat trip out of Oxnard to the Channel Islands
Channel Islands NP: Similar to Dry Tortugas in that you can only reach it via boat or floatplane, Channel Islands was super cool. We had a halfday wildlife watching boat tour with Island Packers (this went to the closest island Anacapa but we didn't set foot on the island). As we're getting everybody out of the van to go to the boat some kid sees our car tag, run up behind us and says "are you from Mississippi?" When traveling I always tell people we're from Memphis rather than Mississippi - it just sounds better, especially nationally. So when the kid asked me that I braced myself. I said "yes" he said "no way we are too." I was like, cool what part? He said "Olive Branch". Now I'm not sure if we're being punched. But then they referenced by Sonics hoody and said their dad was from Washington they lived in Olive Branch. Turns out they are in the same school district as my kids, they had a daughter my daughter's age and they hung out the whole tim on the boat. And of course the two girls ended up in the same first grade class this year.
Small. Freaking. World.
The boat tour was great. Only complaint was it was cloudy the whole tim but otherwise super cool. Saw big pods of dolphins both directions - bottlenose on the way out and a massive pod of common dolphins on the way back. The kids swore they saw a baby dolphin. I saw a shark at one point. And there were tons and tons of sea lions soaking up the sun when we cruised around the backside of the island. Good times. Really cool VC back on the mainland too.
After the boat tour we drove east across @RaceBannon territory towards Joshua Tree. We stopped to see the Cabazon Dinosaurs and saw a roadrunner in the parking lot on our way out. Continuing east we had a hotel booked in Yucca Valley. Unfortunately they had a power outage scheduled for the south side of the road that night at 8pm. We checked in at like 7:40pm. Thankfully Habibi warned us and we were able to find a room at a super ghetto Travelodge with a saguaro out front.
The next morning we hit Joshua Tree NP which is apparently the completely wrong tim to do it. The park is known for it's wild sunsets and stargazing. We saw neither. We were greeted by this sign though.
#Goals
We drove through the park, stopping to hike up to a vista of the Coachella Valley, which is, uhh, sparse and dry.
The joshua trees were cool though, as was Skull Rock and the cholla cactus gardens.
We hit the Oasis of Mara on the way out and at this poont it was pretty clear the whole family was done with this sightseeing business, so I called an audible and said "why don't we just drive straight to Vegas and skip Death Valley". This was a very popular decision in the DNC family, though I was sad to skip an iconic NP like that. I was super spoiled though - they had humored me so much for almost four full weeks at this point and I knew it so it was tim for me to make a small sacrifice for them.
Here's the rough overall route btw if anyone cares
What I’m getting from all this is that @dnc lives in Graceland
Nah. He’s neighbors with that cousin fucker @SECDAWG
Meh, from what I’ve gathered, @dnc is more around the nothern part of this state, MS. Great area, different than the southern part with the gulf and not as good, imo, but great area. It’s not the gulf. Huge difference..
He’s up around olive branch, Oxford, Memphis area…
I’m saying that, when I have a hiatus, hard to tell what I’ve missed here by trying to look at “notifications” and shit.
But anyway, still around. Been catfishing for a week while all the kids out of school.
Here's the rough overall route btw if anyone cares
What I’m getting from all this is that @dnc lives in Graceland
Nah. He’s neighbors with that cousin fucker @SECDAWG
Meh, from what I’ve gathered, @dnc is more around the nothern part of this state, MS. Great area, different than the southern part with the gulf and not as good, imo, but great area. It’s not the gulf. Huge difference..
He’s up around olive branch, Oxford, Memphis area…
I’m saying that, when I have a hiatus, hard to tell what I’ve missed here by trying to look at “notifications” and shit.
But anyway, still around. Been catfishing for a week while all the kids out of school.
Since I can’t edit after “15 fucking minutes…or ever delete”…I’ll just re-fucking quote and just say, I’m no where near north of this state, especially shit hole Memphis or just south in MS that are shitholes other than Oxford,MS…. Only than Oxford, MS(I’ll say that again)…I’m from Hattiesburg Souf, to the coast, either way and all over.
Here's the rough overall route btw if anyone cares
What I’m getting from all this is that @dnc lives in Graceland
Nah. He’s neighbors with that cousin fucker @SECDAWG
Meh, from what I’ve gathered, @dnc is more around the nothern part of this state, MS. Great area, different than the southern part with the gulf and not as good, imo, but great area. It’s not the gulf. Huge difference..
He’s up around olive branch, Oxford, Memphis area…
I’m saying that, when I have a hiatus, hard to tell what I’ve missed here by trying to look at “notifications” and shit.
But anyway, still around. Been catfishing for a week while all the kids out of school.
Since I can’t edit after “15 fucking minutes…or ever delete”…I’ll just re-fucking quote and just say, I’m no where near north of this state, especially shit hole Memphis or just south in MS that are shitholes other than Oxford,MS…. Only than Oxford, MS(I’ll say that again)…I’m from Hattiesburg Souf, to the coast, either way and all over.
After a couple days in San Fran (including accidentally going downtown the morning of the gay pride parade..."accidentally" "😉") we drove down Pac Coast Highway. It was very cool but honestly I think we liked the Oregon Coast better. One cool stop was San Simeon to see the bull elephant seals argue with each other. These things make @CFetters_Nacho_Lover look sleek. We spent three days in LA seeing various sights, then ended our tim in LA with a boat trip out of Oxnard to the Channel Islands
Channel Islands NP: Similar to Dry Tortugas in that you can only reach it via boat or floatplane, Channel Islands was super cool. We had a halfday wildlife watching boat tour with Island Packers (this went to the closest island Anacapa but we didn't set foot on the island). As we're getting everybody out of the van to go to the boat some kid sees our car tag, run up behind us and says "are you from Mississippi?" When traveling I always tell people we're from Memphis rather than Mississippi - it just sounds better, especially nationally. So when the kid asked me that I braced myself. I said "yes" he said "no way we are too." I was like, cool what part? He said "Olive Branch". Now I'm not sure if we're being punched. But then they referenced by Sonics hoody and said their dad was from Washington they lived in Olive Branch. Turns out they are in the same school district as my kids, they had a daughter my daughter's age and they hung out the whole tim on the boat. And of course the two girls ended up in the same first grade class this year.
Small. Freaking. World.
The boat tour was great. Only complaint was it was cloudy the whole tim but otherwise super cool. Saw big pods of dolphins both directions - bottlenose on the way out and a massive pod of common dolphins on the way back. The kids swore they saw a baby dolphin. I saw a shark at one point. And there were tons and tons of sea lions soaking up the sun when we cruised around the backside of the island. Good times. Really cool VC back on the mainland too.
After the boat tour we drove east across @RaceBannon territory towards Joshua Tree. We stopped to see the Cabazon Dinosaurs and saw a roadrunner in the parking lot on our way out. Continuing east we had a hotel booked in Yucca Valley. Unfortunately they had a power outage scheduled for the south side of the road that night at 8pm. We checked in at like 7:40pm. Thankfully Habibi warned us and we were able to find a room at a super ghetto Travelodge with a saguaro out front.
The next morning we hit Joshua Tree NP which is apparently the completely wrong tim to do it. The park is known for it's wild sunsets and stargazing. We saw neither. We were greeted by this sign though.
#Goals
We drove through the park, stopping to hike up to a vista of the Coachella Valley, which is, uhh, sparse and dry.
The joshua trees were cool though, as was Skull Rock and the cholla cactus gardens.
We hit the Oasis of Mara on the way out and at this poont it was pretty clear the whole family was done with this sightseeing business, so I called an audible and said "why don't we just drive straight to Vegas and skip Death Valley". This was a very popular decision in the DNC family, though I was sad to skip an iconic NP like that. I was super spoiled though - they had humored me so much for almost four full weeks at this point and I knew it so it was tim for me to make a small sacrifice for them.
FREE PUB!!!
And while I’ve not been to Death Valley NP, the Army has a huge desert training center that borders the southern end of the park. I’ve been there 4 times and thankfully May was the hottest month out of the 4 trips and that was hot enough for me. I couldn’t imagine being there in July or August.
Comments
She celebrates me on Fatass Day.
After leaving Olympic we drove down through PDX then swung west out of Salem and hit the Oregon coast. One of wifey's biggest goals for this trip was to see the Oregon coast and it did not disappoint. We took it all the way down into Cali where we hit Redwood National and State Parks. Very confusing trying to figure out where the National portion of the parks actually is but irregardless it's a mute poont and this place is awesome. We stopped at the Big Tree Wayside and did the loop trail around there. My oldest was in a whiny phase last summer that he's mostly grown out of since - his two targets for the trip were Redwood and Sequoia and he actually enjoyed them both when we were there. Win. After checking out the trees we swung by the Kuchel VC on the beach and saw a sea lion swimming in the surf maybe 10 yards out. Highly recommended park.
We left Redwood headed east for Lassen Volcanic and definitely underestimated the climb from the coast to Redding (or wherever it levels off). Also hit our second longest dead stop of the trip, this one thanks to logging somewhere on highway 299 before Willow Creek IIRC. Whiskeytown Lake was a cool pit stop. We got to Lassen too late to hit the VC but had time to do the whole loop before dark. We got some cool views of the peak though you can really only see the top of the mountain from most of the places on the park road. We got out and played in the snow somewhere on the south side of the loop. Besides the volcanic dome Lassen also has weirdo volcanic features similar to Yellowstone, we got to see some mud pots and other oddities. Wildlife was real sparse here, I don't think we saw a living creature outside of maybe a few bird...until driving south past the Kohm Yah-mah-nee VC towards the park exit we had a black bear maybe 20 feet from us foraging up on the hillside. This was my favorite bear sighting of the whole trip because this guy was all ours - we didn't find him thanks to a traffic jam or somebody else giving us a heads up. There wasn't another soul in the area - actually I don't think we saw more than 2 or 3 people our whole time in the park. Didn't get any good pics of him but this was a fun one for me. Overall Lassen is highly underrated IMO - cool thermal features, pretty mountain, and not at all spoiled by crowds. Would love to return here with some real time to spend.
The next day we turned south for Yosemite, one of six parks we would actually get to spend a night in (Yellowstone, Glacier, Banff, Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Grand Canyon). Honestly, I tried to set my expectations fairly low. I've seen pics of Yosemite my entire life. I knew crowds can be a massive issue. One of the big debates on the trip was do we do the north side first (which we did) or the south side, because we knew timing wise whichever end we did first was going to be less crowded since schools in the west would be getting out right around the time we got to Seattle. We made the call to see Yellowstone/Grand Teton/Glacier at less crowded times and sacrifice the California/Utah parks. So I was prepared to be disappointed at Yosemite.
We came in the Big Oak Flat entrance, once again a bit unprepared for how significant the climb would be. We got in late afternoon and thankfully had maybe a two minute wait to get in (we were prepared for an hour to two hour wait). We took in the views on the descent into the valley then like I presume most people we stopped to see Bridal Veil Falls once we reached the valley itself. While we're admiring the water fall the people behind us point out a black bear back in the weeds towards the edge of the trees. While checking out the bear a pretty big crowd gathered but we were at the front of the crowd with decent views of him the whole tim. He wasn't super close but we got to see him move around a bit and eat (berries I assume). Was a great start to our tim in Yosemite.
We checked into our room at the Stoneman Lodge in Curry Village, hauled every piece of food out of our vehicle as per instructions so the bears didn't try and break into it, then walked around Curry Village. Really cool area, plenty to do, options to eat, etc. Tons and tons of people, as expected.
After getting some ice cream we decided to drive around while there was still some daylight left. Maybe 200 yards after leaving the parking lot we came upon a bear jam, we stopped and admired this one for a bit but we didn't have great views due to the crowds so we drove off fairly quickly. Once we got on the westbound side of the loop the crowds thinned out pretty quickly and we found a quiet spot to hang out on the Merced River. There was one other family within sight for the first half of our time there and then they left and we had the place all to ourselves. Never in a million years did I expect to have our own idyllic spot with no one around in Yosemite Valley. This was maybe one of the coolest outdoor experiences of my life. Stunning scenery, absolutely perfect weather, water that was shallow enough and moving slow enough my two year old could play in it without me having to really stress about keeping him alive. Just a super relaxing evening. Gorgeous sunset lighting on the rocks too.
The next morning we took one more drive around the valley, stopped and did a mini hike with views of Yosemite Falls, then headed out of the valley.
Right there with Many Glacier for my favorite stop on the trip.
After Yosemite we drove through the Grant Grove at Kings Canyon, saw the General Grant, then went to my son's other big goal and made the hike down to the General Sherman at Sequoia (ngl, we took the tram back).
After seeing the two biggest trees in the world we drove deep into Kings Canyon to stay at the Cedar Lodge. This was maybe the most remote drive we took the whole trip (or at least right there with going through the Mojave Desert). The actual canyon in Kings Canyon is FAR. The hipster thing to say is that "The rock formations at Kings Canyon are just as beautiful as Yosemite." *Charlie Murphy voice* WRONG. It is however massively more remote. We got the Lodge and found out due to water shortage they had deactivated all the showers. My wife was thrilled with that one. They were also out of a number of supplies including soap (in the rooms) and ketchup at the little cafe. Good news is they were also short on staff so they had this beauty posted.
I think we would have enjoyed it more had we been a little more prepared for the situation. That said, the Kings River itself is prettier than the Merced River and looks like it would be an amazing raft ride. We got to hang out a second straight night on a beautiful river surrounded by nature and no people so that was cool. We didn't encounter any wildlife which was a bit of a bummer but otherwise a cool place that I'm not sure I'll ever visit again. If I had it to do over again this would not be one of the six NPs we stayed in but I get why it was both inexpensive and available now. Still very much worth it just would have had some better options.
After making the crazy drive back out of Kings Canyon we swung back northwards towards San Francisco and made a quick pit stop at Pinnacles. Everything I had read said that Pinnacles is not a driving park. It's not even a great hiking park. It's mostly a great rock climbing park. We are not rock climbers and even if we were we didn't have tim for all that. So we drove in as far as we could, looked around, and drove out. It is definitely not a driving park. Highlight - since we were late getting in the Ranger at the entrance station gave our kids Junior Ranger badges since she knew we wouldn't have tim to do enough activities to earn them before the rangers got off. We wouldn't have tried but it was nice to get that extra badge. Lowlight - it was Hawt. As. Balls. There was a swimming pool next to the VC for the campers and the pool was completely full. Pretty sure besides us everyone in the park was in that pool.
Of all the parks we visited on this trip Pinnacles was easily our least favorite.
After a couple days in San Fran (including accidentally going downtown the morning of the gay pride parade..."accidentally" "😉") we drove down Pac Coast Highway. It was very cool but honestly I think we liked the Oregon Coast better. One cool stop was San Simeon to see the bull elephant seals argue with each other. These things make @CFetters_Nacho_Lover look sleek. We spent three days in LA seeing various sights, then ended our tim in LA with a boat trip out of Oxnard to the Channel Islands
Channel Islands NP: Similar to Dry Tortugas in that you can only reach it via boat or floatplane, Channel Islands was super cool. We had a halfday wildlife watching boat tour with Island Packers (this went to the closest island Anacapa but we didn't set foot on the island). As we're getting everybody out of the van to go to the boat some kid sees our car tag, run up behind us and says "are you from Mississippi?" When traveling I always tell people we're from Memphis rather than Mississippi - it just sounds better, especially nationally. So when the kid asked me that I braced myself. I said "yes" he said "no way we are too." I was like, cool what part? He said "Olive Branch". Now I'm not sure if we're being punched. But then they referenced by Sonics hoody and said their dad was from Washington they lived in Olive Branch. Turns out they are in the same school district as my kids, they had a daughter my daughter's age and they hung out the whole tim on the boat. And of course the two girls ended up in the same first grade class this year.
Small. Freaking. World.
The boat tour was great. Only complaint was it was cloudy the whole tim but otherwise super cool. Saw big pods of dolphins both directions - bottlenose on the way out and a massive pod of common dolphins on the way back. The kids swore they saw a baby dolphin. I saw a shark at one point. And there were tons and tons of sea lions soaking up the sun when we cruised around the backside of the island. Good times. Really cool VC back on the mainland too.
After the boat tour we drove east across @RaceBannon territory towards Joshua Tree. We stopped to see the Cabazon Dinosaurs and saw a roadrunner in the parking lot on our way out. Continuing east we had a hotel booked in Yucca Valley. Unfortunately they had a power outage scheduled for the south side of the road that night at 8pm. We checked in at like 7:40pm. Thankfully Habibi warned us and we were able to find a room at a super ghetto Travelodge with a saguaro out front.
The next morning we hit Joshua Tree NP which is apparently the completely wrong tim to do it. The park is known for it's wild sunsets and stargazing. We saw neither. We were greeted by this sign though.
#Goals
We drove through the park, stopping to hike up to a vista of the Coachella Valley, which is, uhh, sparse and dry.
The joshua trees were cool though, as was Skull Rock and the cholla cactus gardens.
We hit the Oasis of Mara on the way out and at this poont it was pretty clear the whole family was done with this sightseeing business, so I called an audible and said "why don't we just drive straight to Vegas and skip Death Valley". This was a very popular decision in the DNC family, though I was sad to skip an iconic NP like that. I was super spoiled though - they had humored me so much for almost four full weeks at this point and I knew it so it was tim for me to make a small sacrifice for them.
He’s up around olive branch, Oxford, Memphis area…
I’m saying that, when I have a hiatus, hard to tell what I’ve missed here by trying to look at “notifications” and shit.
But anyway, still around. Been catfishing for a week while all the kids out of school.
Since I can’t edit after “15 fucking minutes…or ever delete”…I’ll just re-fucking quote and just say, I’m no where near north of this state, especially shit hole Memphis or just south in MS that are shitholes other than Oxford,MS…. Only than Oxford, MS(I’ll say that again)…I’m from Hattiesburg Souf, to the coast, either way and all over.
And while I’ve not been to Death Valley NP, the Army has a huge desert training center that borders the southern end of the park. I’ve been there 4 times and thankfully May was the hottest month out of the 4 trips and that was hot enough for me. I couldn’t imagine being there in July or August.