Day 26: On top of the World

Today we played in the mountains of Colorado.  The Rocky Mountains are as spectacular as they appear in television ads.  The main highway follows along a series of gorgeous rivers, and you are surrounded on all sides by scenery that will make you cry.

Our first stop for the day was the ski resort of Vail.  Skiing is one of our favorite activities to do as a family; Nora is especially passionate and would rather ski than do just about anything else.  So this stop was a must.  In summer, visitors can ride the Gondola to the top of the mountain.  Many visitors are avid mountain bikers and take their bikes in the gondola and ride down along the ski trails.   Others, like us, ascend to enjoy the view at 11,000 feet.  It was all we could do to keep ourselves from spinning around like Julie Andrews and singing “The hills are alive…”

After leaving Vail, we headed east on I-70 towards Denver.  We took a last minute detour to Idaho Springs, Colorado, home of the Phoenix Gold Mine.  I had seen the mine mentioned in the AAA tour guide, but wasn’t sure what to expect.  Let’s just say that it’s not a shiny, glossy tourist attraction.  They’ve been mining gold in these mountains since the 1850s, and the mine looks like it hasn’t changed much.

We donned hardhats and took a guided tour of the mine, which is owned by a third-generation miner and still operates today.  We saw veins of gold in the rock pillars that hold up the “ceiling,” and got a fun tour full of anecdotes and tall tales that may or may not be actual truth but make for an entertaining half hour.  The girls even got to try out some mining operations for themselves, here preparing a hole to receive blasting dynamite.

The tour ends with a chance to try panning for gold in the stream that runs alongside the mine.  A lot of the mining byproduct ends up in the stream, so there really are small pieces of gold in there, and reportedly, larger nuggets have been found.  We got a quick lesson from a local and headed into the stream.  Eric found a piece of gold!  OK, it was a fleck — to be more specific, a fleckette.  We played at mining for a few minutes and gave up our dreams of hitting it rich.  Evidently it requires patience, know-how, and a whole lot of luck–all of which were in short supply today.

Tomorrow we’ve got a surprise planned for the girls, and we’ll get our feet wet some more.

Cheers from Denver.

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Day 25, part II: Rapid Relief from the Heat

Moab, Utah was a complete surprise. We planned to stay there over night and use it as a base for a trip to Arches National Park (see previous entry), but when we got into town, we realized that it was a destination unto itself. Moab is an adventure junkie’s dream town. It’s the place where mountain biking was born, and the town’s economy thrives on tourists coming there to hike, bike, rock climb, off-road in Jeeps, and raft the Colorado River.

When we found out that Ellie was old enough to go on some of the rafting trips, we made a quick change of plans and decided to hit the river. We awoke before dawn to find an outfitter that had some open spaces, and we got lucky. The blistering morning heat convinced us that it was the right decision. It was 87 degrees at 7am, and we needed to cool off.

After a quick hike at Arches National Park, we changed into our water clothes and boarded a bus that would take us 45 minutes up-river. Nora and Ellie were both a little bit anxious.

There were 10 people, plus our guide, in our raft. One family was from France, and the other family was from Germany. This made for some interesting sign-language and not much conversation. The guide broke the ice shortly after we started floating on the river by standing up and doing a back flip into the river. The rest of us soon followed, sans back flips, of course.

This trip was a ‘family’ trip and so was on a relatively calm section of the Colorado. Fantastic scenery. No heavy whitewater, but there were some very fun rapids. Nora and Ellie each got a chance to swim in the rapids, assisted by Eric.

At one point, the guide pointed out a cliff on the river bank that was a safe spot from which to jump into the river. Eric was one of two brave souls who decided to try it.

And at that point, my camera batteries ran out. You’ll have to take my word for it that he did a perfect, Olympic-caliber jump.

This was one of those things that we had never planned on doing this trip, but it made for a very memorable day for all of us. I admit, we are now dying to try “real” whitewater rafting. It’s something to look forward to in the future.

Tomorrow we’re off to Denver … will update when we can.

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Days 23, 24 and 25: Utah Rocks!

Despite the fact that Jello (specifically, green jello) is the Official State Snack, Utah is a beautiful and impressive place, with some of the most breathtaking scenery we’ve experienced.  Utah has more National Parks (5) than any state other than California. We explored 4 of them. Thankfully, they are all different, and we never got bored.  Each day we hiked for a couple of hours, and often attended a Ranger Talk.  The geology of each is very different, and we all learned a lot — especially the girls, who had to really listen and explore each park to earn their coveted Junior Ranger badges. It should pay off down the road when the girls take Earth Science in school.

Zion National Park, our first stop, is a couple of hours from Las Vegas, and is the westernmost park in Utah.  The park features towering sandstone walls that surround you as you walk in the valley.  It reminded us a lot of Yosemite, though the rock here is red, instead of the gray granite of the California park.

There, we hiked up to the Emerald Pools, and stood behind a waterfall created by those pools.  It was a great hike, and we all got our feet submerged in the red mud of Zion.

Bryce Canyon is about 75 miles from Zion.  We spent the night in a small town outside the park, in a very cute but well-appointed little cabin situated on a farm.  The girls were thrilled to see the farm’s kitten, buffalo, llamas and horses.  We were awakened by roosters in the morning.

Bryce Canyon amazed us with it’s intricately shaped “hoodoos” (yes, that’s the official term) and brilliant colors.

We took a morning hike among the hoodoos and marveled at the weirdness.  The girls insisted that it looked like ‘Tatooine’ from Star Wars.

Driving to our next stop that day, we passed through Capitol Reef National Park.  Though we didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy the park, it is a place that I’d love to spend more time exploring.  Though the park does feature cool geologic formations, the highlights this day were the wildlife, the abundant orchards that have been flourishing here for over 100 years, and the petroglyphs — ancient symbols carved high into the rock walls by native people who lived here over 1,000 years ago.

On Monday, we had an abbreviated visit to Arches National Park, just outside Moab, Utah.  The sandstone in this area has a tendency to erode into walls that feature ‘windows’ and ‘arches’, and it makes for a dramatic landscape.  I’ll write a separate post on our day in Moab later, but we started the morning with a short hike up to the famous Double Arch, that evidently appeared in one of the Indiana Jones movies.  It was blistering hot in Moab, and the most scenic arches were a 3 hour hike away, so we decided to keep our visit short.

I had expected everyone to be tired of National Parks by this point, but even tonight Nora asked when we were going to visit another.  We don’t have any more planned for this trip, but we do intend to take time this year to explore some of the many National Parks we have in New England.

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Day 22: I can’t think of a catchy title, so this is what you get.

Today was a low-mileage day — we drove only 150 miles. It’s amazing how your perspective changes when you take a trip like this. The other day Ellie asked, “are we almost there?” I replied: “it depends on what you mean by ‘almost’.” Nora piped up: “anything less than an hour.”

We got up early this morning and let the kids swim in the Exalibur pool one last time before we checked out.

Then we left Las Vegas, much to the sadness of Nora, who still can’t decide whether she prefers Vegas or Disneyland.

Passing through the Nevada and Arizona desert, we soon crossed into Utah, and drove to Kolob Canyon. Kolob Canyon is part of Zion National Park, but is rarely visited and is free from crowds. We explored the vistas, marveling at the bright red rocks contrasting with the green plant life. The girls got their Junior Ranger badges (are you sensing a trend?) and we ended our day with a short half-hour drive to our hotel.

Eric is starting to feel better. We also had small bouts of domesticity again today. I rejoiced when I found my favorite brand of shampoo at a natural foods store (I was running very low and wasn’t sure what I was going to do, as I can’t use the ‘normal’ brands for more than a day or two). I did the laundry, and we stocked up on groceries. Mundane, but for some reason, all of those things put together made for a great day.

Tomorrow we’re off to explore the rest of Zion National Park.

 

 

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Days 20 and 21: Viva, Las Vegas!

When we were planning the next stop on our route, Nora asked why we were going to Las Vegas. What was there to see or do? We described it as “Disneyland for grownups.” However, I think that the girls, Nora especially, like Vegas as much as they liked Disneyland.

When we rolled into town late Tuesday night, they were awed by the lights and the over-the-top facades on the casinos and the fact that there is a rollercoaster coming out of a hotel that looks like New York City. They were stunned when they saw our hotel: a brightly lit castle called the Excalibur.

You gotta love cheap Vegas hotel rooms. $61 per night, and they threw in a $25 dining credit. Our room has been recently renovated, and it’s very nice and comfortable. We decided to stay three nights. Eric is still sick, and we are all feeling a little run down, so we are calling it our ‘sabbatical from our sabbatical.’

When we were planning our cross-country vacation, Nora was very excited about going to California; but Ellie was insistent that she wanted to go to France. Today she got her wish. (OK, it’s Paris the casino, but it’s close enough for a 5 year old).

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The rest here has been good for us. The girls love the hotel pool, and have been spending the mornings there, playing on the water slide. In the afternoon and evening, we explore some of the “fantasy” casinos (though we still haven’t gambled a penny), play some video games, and just take in the sights and the lights. We’ve succeeded in keeping the kids away from the less savory aspects of Vegas, though the girls can’t understand why there are billboards of women in their underwear. We are saving the topic of ‘showgirls’ for another time.

Eric is still trying to beat his illness, whatever it is, but I think it’s getting better. Tomorrow we’re heading off to Utah, and more National Parks. We’ll update when we can. We’ve discovered that hotel internet access does not always work as advertised.

Postscript: We couldn’t leave Vegas without a little bit of gambling, so I sent Eric downstairs with $40.  He came back an hour later with $50.  Not bad for someone on cold medicine.

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Days 18 and 19: Grin and Bear It

If we’ve learned anything from this trip, it’s that you need to allow more time than you think for the major National Parks. There is always more to see than you have time, but the other wrinkle is that it takes almost a solid day to get situated and find your bearings. In an effort to reduce humans’ effect on the natural environment, most of the National Parks are limiting private vehicle access to the most popular roads and sights, especially in high tourist season. Shuttle buses are comfortable and run frequently, but it’s not always fast and/or easy to get where you want to go.

Yosemite has yet another reason to require more time: bears. The Yosemite Black Bear is prevalent in the park, and they have learned that humans like to keep food in their cars and in their living quarters. If you leave food, or even scented items like toothpaste, in your car after dark, you run the risk of smashed windows or the roof being torn off by a hungry bear.

After three weeks on the road, we have a lot of assorted food and scented toiletries scattered around the car. Most people empty their cars and take everything into their hotel rooms. Trouble is: we weren’t staying in a hotel room. We were staying in a tent with canvas sides.

Thankfully, Yosemite provides metal ‘bear boxes’ to store your stuff — we needed three of them. It took almost 1 1/2 hours just to unload the car and tote everything to the bear boxes.

Despite all the bother, the park is a beautiful place. Granite walls tower above you as you walk in the valley. Eric woke up that morning feeling like he had been “hit by a bus”, but he wasn’t willing to let that stop him from enjoying the natural beauty. We set out on a hike called the Mist Trail that we believed was 1 1/2 miles. We didn’t realize that it was also straight uphill the entire way.

Many rest stops later, we got to the end of the trail … only to find that that was where the Mist Trail actually started. Ellie didn’t want to hike anymore, so she and I headed back to the car while Eric and Nora continued on.

I think it was a total of 6 or 7 miles round-trip, with an increase in elevation of over 2,000 feet. Nora out-hiked Eric easily. They went to the top of Vernal Falls and enjoyed the view before hurrying back down to meet us.

Unfortunately, I don’t think any of us enjoyed sleeping in the tent. It had cots, but they were uncomfortable. And they were so close to the other tents that you could hear it every time someone in the next cabin turned over in their sleep. Thank goodness it was only one night.

 

When we woke up and got going, Nora was also sick. She was very lightheaded and fell and cut her lip and scraped her knee. We had her checked out at the infirmary to make sure she wasn’t dehydrated, and she checked out fine, so we continued on with our plans to leave. Poor Nora was pretty miserable the first few hours we were driving, but by afternoon she was back to her normal, perky self.

I’d say that Yosemite was the first of adventures that didn’t turn out to be quite as perfect as planned. Someday we’ll return, get a “real” hotel room, and spend a few more days exploring. But for now, we say farewell to California, and head back east.

 

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Days 16 and 17: San Francisco Treats

Our San Francisco adventure actually began on Friday night, when we arrived at our hotel in Santa Clara, in the heart of Silicon Valley. We had planned on staying the night in Monterey, but didn’t realize until it was too late that weekends in that area were w-a-y out of our price range.

We relied on our trusty Fodor’s guide for dinner options. It was an easy choice once we saw that there was a recommended Moroccan restaurant only 4 miles from our hotel. There is no Moroccan food anywhere near our home in Massachusetts. We arrived at Menara just in time for the show: two belly dancers that engaged the audience and the made the evening a lot of fun. The girls were great about trying all of the different foods.

We woke up Saturday morning and explored the city of San Francisco. The girls squealed as we drove up and down the steep hills of the city, likening it to a roller coaster ride.

We then crossed the Golden Gate bridge, bound for Muir Woods. This is one of the last remaining stands of giant redwoods in the San Francisco area. It was cool and lovely, and we all enjoyed hiking in the giant forest.

Next, we went back into San Francisco to the Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum geared to kids, located at the gorgeous Palace of Fine Arts.

We could have spent all day playing with the various exhibits. One of the most, um, unsettling: a (clean, unused) toilet transformed into a drinking fountain (“bubbler” for you New Englanders) to illustrate how locked in our brains are to using things in the same old ways.

Sunday we headed back into San Francisco for dim sum at Yank Sing. This is one of the most memorable meals I think I will ever have. Dim sum is a Chinese brunch tradition, and San Francisco has many dim sum restaurants, but our research told us that this restaurant was the best. I have to believe that it is.

Dim Sum is kind of like a Chinese buffet that is brought to the table. The waitresses push around carts loaded with assorted goodies, and you choose the ones that you want. The ladies put a stamp on your bill, and at the end of your meal, it is added up and you pay the total amount. The food was fantastic. At every bite, Nora exclaimed, “this is wonderful,” and oohed and aahed. Ellie wasn’t quite as enthusiastic, but she ate well. The food was amazing, and I don’t have the time or space to describe it, but I could go on for hours. It was a bit of a splurge, but totally worth it.

After breakfast, we had to explore Chinatown. Ellie and Nora both loved Chinatown, the sounds and the colors and looking in the shop windows.

Tomorrow we’re off to Yosemite, so we’ll be ‘unplugged’ for a couple of days. We’ll check in when we have internet access again.

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Day 15: Could you be any more Pacific?

(Title courtesy of Eric, who made me use it).

What a pleasure to wake up near the sea on a glorious morning! We’ve been really lucky with weather this entire trip, but today we were especially thankful for clear skies. We had been warned that the Pacific Coast Highway was often socked in by fog in the summer, but today it was bright blue skies and gorgeous scenery the entire way.

When you wake up in a town like Morro Bay, you don’t want to leave. We prolonged our stay with an early morning visit to the shore, where the locals were surfing and the sea otters were frolicking in the kelp.

Our first stop for the day was Hearst Castle, one of many former “palaces” of William Randolph Hurst.  Hurst had an amazing art collection, and built several homes to house the collection.  The setting is magnificent — high on a cliff overlooking the Pacific coast.  The art collection, to our great surprise, was incredibly interesting and very much to our taste.  The tour lasted 1 1/2 hours, and didn’t even begin to make a dent in all there was to see.  The highlights were the two swimming pools: the outdoor pool a sparkling blue Greek temple, and the indoor pool modeled after the Roman baths.
The indoor pool has an amazing design: when you enter the room, it appears as if the pool contains no water.  It takes a minute to realize that the pool is indeed full, and what you are seeing is reflection of the room.

 

A short drive up the road from Hearst Castle is a turn-off where we saw elephant seals sunning themselves on the beach.  There were probably 50 seals, most lazing around but a few who were ‘play fighting.’

 

We stopped several times during our drive to take in the full ‘Pacific’ experience.  We stopped for a seaside picnic at a secluded cove, and took a hike in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park where we viewed an 80-foot waterfall cascading into the ocean.

We also made good on our promise to let the girls swim in the Pacific Ocean.  We had gotten a tip about an unmarked beach in Big Sur that was simply not to be missed.  The tip was a good one — this was probably the most gorgeous beach I’ve ever seen, and there were few people to mar the experience.

We’ve seen photos and movies featuring the Pacific Coast Highway, but none of them truly do this drive justice — our photos don’t, either.  It was simply a fantastic day.

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Day 14: We are introduced to L.A. traffic

As fans of the show American Idol, both girls wanted to see “Hollywood.” They pictured a place where TV and movie stars (and American Idol contestants) would be walking down the street, maybe performing on stage, around the clock. I think they were a little disappointed. We showed them the famous Hollywood sign, and pointed out the Kodak Theater (where American Idol is filmed — never mind that the Oscar ceremonies are held there as well). Next door was Grumman’s Chinese Theater, and we checked out some of the handprints and footprints, as well as some of the stars on Hollywood Boulevard. They recognized only the cast of Star Wars, and Shirley Temple.

We tried to get lunch at the famous Pink’s Chili Dogs, but the line was too long, and wasn’t moving. Some day I will try them.

We then headed up the coast, taking the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu (which they also knew from a television show) and took a short walk on the pier.

Santa Barbara was our first real stop on our drive up the coast. The old Mission is beautiful, and though it was closed when we got there, we enjoyed the grounds — a perfect break from driving.

Our home for the night was in the old seaport town of Morro Bay. We arrived just at sunset, and took a look around before heading to dinner.

Oh yes, dinner. One of the most memorable we’ve had the entire trip. We took a recommendation from our Fodor’s guide, and headed to Taco Temple. They are known for their fresh-fish tacos, and they were amazing. Nora really enjoyed her taco, and wanted to buy a Taco Temple t-shirt. We even considered staying in town another night just to eat there again — it was that good. Go.

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Days 12 and 13: Out with the Princesses, In with the Jedi

As we were planning this trip of ours, Nora and Ellie always treated Disneyland as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I have a feeling that it did not disappoint.

I do admit that my expectations were not super high. For those of us on the east coast, Disneyland had always been described as “just an amusement park” in comparison to The Magic Kingdom in Florida. Eric had been to Disneyland as a kid, and so he had his impressions as well.

We were very pleasantly surprised. There is a charm about Disneyland that is different from Disneyworld. Perhaps it is the compactness, I’m not sure. Some of the “magic” feeling is missing, probably because it’s in the middle of Anaheim and not in its own zip code, but the smaller size makes everything more accessible.

California Adventure, just a minute’s walk from Disneyland’s main gate, is a more typical “amusement park.” I think of it as a cross between Epcot and MGM, with a dash of Coney Island thrown in.

We split our time pretty evenly between the two parks, managing to hit most of the rides. We kicked it off early with the Finding Nemo ride, which just opened a few weeks ago. It was very cool, and a nice way to update the old 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride.

This was the first time that Ellie was tall enough to ride almost all of the rides. At one point I offered her a choice of things to do next, and she responded: “Mom, I didn’t come here for the shows, I came here for the rides!”

Though there was one show that, for me, was the highlight of the trip. The Jedi Training Academy is a live-action Star Wars themed show. The “Jedi Master” chooses 15 kids from the audience and, using lightsabers, “trains” them in the ways of the Force. Both Nora and Ellie were chosen (thankfully, or we’d still be wiping away the tears of the one not chosen).

Both girls took their training very seriously. And it was lucky that they did, for within moments, Storm Troopers rushed the stage and the newly trained recruits were face-to-face with their arch enemy, Darth Vader. Nora was selected first to do battle with Lord Vader. I could tell she was nervous. Ellie went soon after. Both girls did their part to defeat the Dark Side, and two new Star Wars fans were born. The rest of the day they walked around swinging imaginary lightsabers and reliving their battle. All thoughts of Disney Princesses were pushed to the side.

We spent long days at the parks, returning to the hotel in time to watch the nightly fireworks from the swimming pool. On our last night, we ended with a final ride on Space Mountain, which was everyone’s favorite. We were sad to leave, but knew that there were more adventures ahead.

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