Week 4: Death Valley, Lake Mead and Coral Pink Sand Dunes

The drive from San Diego to Death Valley felt long, but I think we just had to get used to being in the car again. We arrived to the Furnace Creek Visitor Center around 4:30pm, just before closing time. We were able to grab our junior ranger packets and ask about camping options. The Sunset Campground, closest to the visitor center and at an elevation below sea level (that sounds unique, right?!), was open that night so we headed over. We were immediately unimpressed with our choice of camping locations.

The campground was a barren, gravel parking lot with no shade or structures other than the bathroom buildings in each corner of the space. The wind was whipping through the space and the temperature at 6pm was still in the upper eighties. We contemplated our options - Spencer even wandered the space until he found enough of an internet connection to check the availability at the nearby privately-maintained golf resort in the middle of the hottest desert on the continent (eye roll)... those rooms were out of our price range. We decided to stick it out - we weren't alone; in the parking lot of 200+ spaces there were at least 3 or 4 other parties that looked like they would be in this with us.

With the wind so fierce, we ended up preparing sandwiches for dinner in the car (after having the same sandwiches for lunch... luckily the kids didn't complain at all) instead of cooking on our camp stove. We also opted to move boxes around in the car to clear space for a sleeping pad so that we wouldn't have to set up the tent alongside the camper. We were glad to have a full charge on our solar-powered car battery to run our cooler. We opened the windows and vent in the camper, and ran the fan during the night once the wind died down. We ended up running out of power around 5 in the morning, but all in all, we were decently rested the next morning. We ate a quick, no-cooking breakfast of muffins from the gluten free bakery before heading out to explore more of the park.

We started off the morning at the visitor center again where Emmett and Josie became junior rangers for the 5th time on our trip. Then we headed to the lowest elevation in North America - the Badwater Basin - to lick some fresh salt crystals from the ground. The geology of the park is fascinating - it boasts some of the biggest extremes in North America. It has the greatest elevation change from lowest to highest elevation points; it is the lowest, driest and hottest location; and although the highs while we were there were around 105 degrees F, there was still snow on the mountain peaks. The landscape reminded me a lot of the desert in Oman due to how rocky and plant-less it was, though Oman didn't have snow-covered mountains.

After seeing the Badwaters, we headed toward the park's exit with a quick stop at the Zabriskie Point viewpoint. As they were not recommending outdoor activities between 10am and 5pm, we called it a day around 11:30am and moved on to the next location.

In our original plans, we were actually going to head to Sequoia National Park before Death Valley, but due to extremely cold and snowy weather forecasts, we decided to forego the Redwoods until another time. And because we had already seen parts of the Mojave Desert during our time in Joshua Tree, we decided to make our way to Lake Mead National Recreation Area next. We made an excellent decision. On the way to the lake, we drove through Las Vegas, and as Spencer had never been there before, we extended Josie's nap time by driving along The Strip. It all seemed very glamorous. We were glad to be driving through.


We camped at the Boulder Beach Campground, where there were trees, a breeze and a gorgeous view of the lake (which was within walking distance). While there for 3 nights, we swam in the cool lake waters each day, rested around the campground, rented a boat and saw the Hoover Dam from the lake side, did the Junior Ranger work, and on our way out, saw the Hoover Dam from the bridge above it. It was restful and pleasant.

Our next stop was the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Southwest Utah. We arrived there on Thursday night and were excited to have cool enough temperatures to have to pull out our sleeping bags and mittens again. It even rained on us three or four times while we were there! It was so refreshing!

The next day, Friday, was Emmett's 5th birthday and we were glad to be with our friends who helped us to celebrate. That morning, Emmett requested pancakes for breakfast, ate in our friends' camper, and then opened his presents from us: a hydration backpack, a science experiments activity book and a bat-copter toy (Emmett had picked that one for himself a couple months before his birthday and knew it was coming). The kids headed out after breakfast into the sand dunes on their own - what a fun place to have some kids-only adventures! Josie lasted the shortest amount of time, so Chris headed out to bring her and Sierra back. While the two boys were exploring on their own, I was putting together a birthday scavenger hunt. It was fun to be able to explore the park by finding places to hide goodies and clues, and to be able to bury the treasure deep in the sand.

The kids returned from their exploration and were tired, but excited to complete the scavenger hunt. They figured out all of the 5 clues and dug up the buried treasure, only to immediately ask for more clues and another scavenger hunt! After some cheese and bean quesadillas for lunch, we tried to get the kids to nap. Rio and Sierra napped without a problem, but neither Emmett nor Josie were interested in letting each other sleep - they were too wound up. So we skipped making the birthday "cake" (cherry crumble) for that afternoon and instead started in on making dinner so that the kids could get to bed early.

The following day, Saturday, we woke the kids up by 7:30 so that we could eat some breakfast and head over toward Kanab, Utah, to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. Best Friends is the largest no-kill animal sanctuary in the country. It is over 3700 acres in a gorgeous valley, and is home to thousands of animals who otherwise would be homeless. It specializes in taking in animals with physical or behavioral needs (it is most famous for taking in dozens of fighting dogs that were to be sent to be euthanized because they were too behaviorally dangerous - many of those dogs were rehabilitated and now live with adoptive families). The tour was interesting, especially for the adults, but the kids were ready to get out of their car seats by the time we were done.

At that point we headed to a playground in Kanab, Utah, and had a picnic lunch before heading back to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes campground and napping. Since both Emmett and Josie napped (finally!!), Spencer and I made the cherry crumble over the fire, prepared the food for dinner, and were ready when the kids awoke to have a birthday cake snack and to explore the dunes together. Emmett, Rio and Josie all tried sledding down the dunes until it started raining on us again, so we headed back to camp for dinner and bedtime.

The following day, Sunday, was our last morning in the dunes before heading to Zion National Park area, where we were scheduled to meet up with Spencer's parents, Roger and Mary. 

Our Route

Our route to our "San Diego House":

Our route home:

A Week of Fun in San Diego

We arrived in San Diego on Sunday, April 28 and were allowed to check in to our AirBnB early, so took advantage of that time to clear and clean out our car and camper and do lots of laundry. The kids both took naps while Spencer and I cleaned so we were able to be very productive. We had our gear cleaned up and airing out all over the house by the time Spencer's brother, Austin, and his family joined us around dinner time. The four kids, between 1 and almost-5, were excited to see each other and get a week of cousin-time together. Spencer and Austin, who both work for the same consulting company (but with different customers), were planning to work from our AirBnB house throughout the week.

On Monday, we decided to hit up the Fleet Science Center for the morning. After a fun time playing mostly in the "Kid Zone," we made it home for lunch and Hatcher and Emmett got to spend their quiet time playing together while Josie and Darwin napped. We didn't take on anything else that afternoon, in hopes of having well-rested kids for the next day.

On Tuesday, we took advantage of the rainy forecast to hit up the San Diego Zoo. It was wonderful! We got there pretty close to opening time (9am), met up with our friends Chris, Rio & Sierra, and made it all the way until 4pm, when all of the kids basically asked to leave because they were so tired and done. We started the journey with a bus tour, then headed out with our wagons and stroller. The highlights were seeing "elephants eating food" (Josie), walking through the "bird cage"/aviary and the seeing the cheetah who lived with the golden retriever (Emmett). All of the kids loved riding a sky tram/gondola as well. Josie still asks for the story of the day we went to see the elephants eating food. She was impressed! And the kids slept hard that night.

Wednesday was scheduled to be a bit warmer, so we headed to Chris, Jen, Rio and Sierra's AirBnB on the beach. They were right on La Joya, near a playground and public beach. The kids were pretty tired from the zoo adventure, so we took it easy by playing with sand toys at the playground and on the beach, then heading home for a nap after a picnic lunch. That afternoon, we had the chance to meet with my cousin, Mike, who has lived in San Diego for a long time, and who I hadn't seen since I was a kid. We met at Mission Beach and had a picnic dinner while the kids played in the sand. We got to watch the sunset while eating ice cream - the kids decided they really liked Mike and asked to see him again (and asked for the visit to include ice cream again, too.)

The next day we headed back to the coast, but this time to a place called The Children's Beach, near La Joya, where a bunch of seals live and play. We watched the seals, played in the sand and climbed lots of rocks before picnicking and heading home for nap. That afternoon we headed to another playground in downtown San Diego. My kids had a hard time dealing with their exhaustion that afternoon, so we took it easy on Friday again.

Friday morning we sampled some baked goods at a gluten free bakery near our house, then headed to Balboa Park to check out the Model Train Museum. The kids all LOVED it. We ended early that morning to try to get home for lunch and nap. Emmett loved all the quiet time he got to spend with his cousin, Hatcher. Their favorite activity turned out to be building forts out of the couch cushions, and they loved calling Darwin random words, followed by "head" ("Darwin is a cereal-head! Hahahaaa!"). They got to have lots of time to be silly together.

Austin, Summer, Hatcher and Darwin headed out Saturday morning to head back north to Oregon. After saying goodbye to them, we met with our friends, Del and Ali, who used to be our next door neighbors in Fort Collins. They invited us to meet at Liberty Station - an old military base converted to park and shopping/food area. Then after lunch and a lost nap time, we purchased a new car top carrier (our old one we sold earlier in the week because it rubbed the paint on the door of our car every time we opened the back hatch - the new one is shorter and wider), then met up with Cousin Mike again, this time at a little beach in front of a club where he likes to do some ballroom dancing, and where he would be dancing later that evening. We brought along some popsicles and the kids were content. We ended up staying at the little bar and hearing the band's first few songs and dancing with Mike a little. The kids only loved him more after that experience.

Sunday marked the end of our time in San Diego. We headed north out of town toward Death Valley National Park. We were sad to say goodbye to the city in which we had just spent such a lovely week. But we hope to head back that way sometime in the future - it is such a nice place to travel with kids.

Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon & Joshua Tree

I finished the first blog post and folded the laundry on our first full day in Mesa Verde. During that time, Spencer took Emmett and Josie to the visitor center to get the materials for becoming Junior Rangers again. The kids were both very enthusiastic about the program after their experience at Great Sand Dunes.

After the boring morning of laundry and cleaning up, we skipped nap and took the kids to the park's museum so that E & J could start on their Junior Ranger work. The museum and visitor center at this park were great - there was so much to learn about our location and the kids really got into it. We saw our first glimpse of the ruins built by the Ancestral Pueblo people. Without a nap, though, we cut our visit short and headed back to camp for a quick dinner and bed. Emmett was excited to meet a friend, Atlas, whose family is from Albuquerque, NM and who was around camp at dinner time as well as other meal times throughout the Easter weekend. They threw snow balls, built forts and climbed trees together. Having other kids around certainly makes for a more pleasant experience for our kids and for us.

Our second full day in Mesa Verde was Easter Sunday. The kids didn't realize it was Easter since we had celebrated the holiday the Sunday before our departure, but there was something special about celebrating the equinox and spring and new life that day. We played in the snow, chased down bugs with nets, and thought about trying to do a tour of some of the ruins, though Josie's and Emmett's sleeplessness put a damper on any major or strenuous exploring we might've thought we would do. Instead of a tour, we headed back to the museum in hopes of completing a driving loop that would allow us several opportunities to see ruins. The kids were enthusiastic until about the third time we had to re-buckle their seat belts. But we saw some ruins, got to have some fresh air, and had a little picnic lunch at a viewpoint of the most famous Mesa Verde village ruins - Cliff Palace. We tried to have the kids nap in the car on our way back to camp (the park is huge and the drive is long), but since neither of them have ever been good sleepers in the car, that didn't happen. So that meant for another early dinner and bedtime.

While driving around Mesa Verde, Josie had her first experience with a pit toilet. She was terrified of sitting on one (who can blame her?) and has since then regressed to using diapers throughout the day again. I guess potty training can wait until we get back.

On Monday the 22nd of April, we packed up our gear and continued our journey west. Our next stop was the Grand Canyon, and the most exciting part for Emmett was that we would be meeting up with his friends from school, Rio and Sierra, and their family.
We had to stop at the visitor center on our way out to pledge to be great junior rangers then headed out over the mountains. We listened to LOTS of Disney's Frozen soundtrack and we stopped at the Four Corners monument and ate our picnic lunch after the obligatory photos of us standing on four states at one time. Then we met up with Rio and Sierra's family just before the turnoff into the national forest just outside the Grand Canyon - they had driven from Moab that day. We found a place to camp on a forest road just outside the park. Since we weren't in a campground and therefore didn't have toilets, we had to dig holes for our toilet. Emmett loves this - Josie did not.

As usual at this point, we were lacking sleep for our first full day at the Grand Canyon so we had a rough morning. We had hoped to hike the rim walk with the kids, but Emmett had several major meltdowns so instead we saw the visitor center and completed the Junior Ranger packets there. We got to see some elk, a couple of awesome views of the canyon, a great movie about the canyon and its history and formation, and then we headed back to the camper for naps. The kids napped hard and we had a delicious dinner then headed back to one of the visitor centers to catch a ranger talk and complete our Junior Ranger requirements. Due to the long line at the entrance into the park, we just missed the talk, but luckily the ranger worked with us to complete our badges anyway. We spent some time exploring the Watch Tower at the Desert View visitor center and headed back to camp for dinner and bed.


On Wednesday, we said "so long," to Rio and Sierra's family for a day (we would be meeting them the following day at Joshua Tree National Park) and we headed further west to see if we could get a campsite inside the park. Joshua Tree was in bloom this year, due to the flooding earlier in the season, so the campsites have been booked for months. We were hoping for a first-come first-served site on a Wednesday.

We stopped at the Grand Canyon campground for a quick shower, then stopped again for some groceries before the long drive. Unfortunately for us, showers and groceries took until after lunch time and so we still had a long drive ahead of us before camping out for the night. We called the visitor center at Joshua Tree and they thought we wouldn't be able to find a spot so late in the day and recommended we find a place at a private campground outside the park. We ended up staying overnight north of the town of Joshua Tree and though it was appealing to have showers and toilets in the desert heat, we really wanted to spend time inside of Joshua Tree and knew that driving in and out each day would be hard with young kids. So we packed up as quickly as we could on Thursday morning to head into the park to see if we could get a couple of sites inside.

After a bit of time exploring our options, we ended up finding 2 sites next to each other at the White Tank campground - what luck for us and for our friends! We set up camp and then took the kids for a drive in hopes they would fall asleep with the air conditioner running hard. They did - YES! We decided that at nearly $4 a gallon, that nap probably cost us over $20. But hey, at least the kids were better people afterwards. Emmett and Josie worked on their Junior Ranger booklets, climbed all over the boulders and chased down lizards. Right around bedtime, our friends arrived and we hung out with them for the following two days.

On Friday we packed some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast and plenty of snacks and took the kids right over to hike after getting dressed. With 4 adults and 4 kids between 2 and 5 years old, we managed a less-than-2 mile hike and it took us over 2 hours. Every time we stopped Emmett made sure we understood how hot and exhausted he was and we reminded him that the longer we wait, the hotter the sun will be for the rest of our journey.
We made our goal: Skull Rock. Josie decided to be scared of "Skuw Wock" and wouldn't stand with the group for a photo. But a few "cuddews" (cuddles) helped her feel well enough to get back to the car. We had pancakes for lunch and tried to get Josie to nap in Spencer's tent under a shade canopy, but she wasn't able to. Luckily, Emmett got to nap in his friends' camper and he was the only one who slept that afternoon (crazy). We let him stay up to see the stars with Josie's Christmas present - a kid  telescope. He felt really good about himself for earning such a tremendous reward for sleeping. Josie got to look at the morning moon the next day - she was asleep before 7pm; long before the stars were visible.

We had been planning to stay a full day in Joshua Tree again on Saturday and head to San Diego on Sunday, but with the heat  in the mid to upper nineties and lack of napping options, we decided to find a campground for Saturday night that would be closer to our next destination. We found a place just north of San Diego where we showered and slept, then we headed to our AirBnB for an early check-in on Sunday. Stay tuned for another post (hopefully soon!) that tells the tales of our San Diego adventures. Until then, tata!