Author: Jennie Simpson
Mountains, Mountains, and More Mountains

Mountains, Mountains, and More Mountains

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Hey Guys! Here’s part two of our Denver area explorations. If you missed part one, you can find it here. We were only in the Denver area for one measly week, but we crammed every bit of adventure we could into that one week.

It was so cold and windy the day we went to Loveland Pass. Alex forgot his jacket and wasn’t up for doing much exploring so we walked around a little, snapped a few pictures, and got back into the warmth of the car.

Even on a cloudy day the view was breathtaking…and not just because it was cold.

We got there right as the clouds started brushing the tops of the mountains. We thought briefly about walking up the trail…but with one of us without a jacket and the bitter cold…we passed.

This picture was taken the same day as the ones on Loveland Pass. We took a drive up the Mount Evans Scenic Byway. We barely squeaked in on the last day the road was open for the 2018 season.

We made it all the way to Summit Lake before we had to stop. The road to the summit was already closed. Alex was still without a jacket so our hiking was pretty limited. It was a balmy 30° with a wind-chill much lower at Summit Lake that October day. Those of us who braved the cold and wind to see the views really wished we had actual coats and not just jackets. But Guys…look at that view!

We saw some female longhorn sheep. There was a whole herd of them just hanging out right by the road. Checking out the cars as they drove by. Meandering into the road whenever they felt like it. We thought they were goats until we talked to a Ranger. The Ranger told us all of the goats had been staying higher up on the mountain. Wildlife is one of our favorite things to see while we’re out exploring.

Here’s another shot of the view. This one was on the way back down. We were super bummed we couldn’t go all the way to the summit. We’ve made plans to go back to Colorado next year and have this on our list of places to revisit. Hopefully, on a warmer day.

Mount Evans, with a height of 14,264 feet, is the twelfth highest mountain in Colorado. The Mount Evans Scenic Byway is the highest paved road in North America and takes you through several biomes before getting to the top. We stopped at the Mount Goliath Natural Area to see the Krummholz Forest.

Krummholz comes from a German word meaning crooked wood. The stunted, twisted trees mark the transition between forest and tundra.

We love National Parks. We basically make all of our plans based on National and State Parks along with the State Capitol Buildings. Jerl had been looking forward to this particular National Park since we started this crazy nomad life. We were staying in Golden, CO so it took us a good two hours to get to the Rocky Mountain National Park. We only had one day to explore RMNP so we got up super early and spent the entire day seeing as much of the park as we could.

It was rut season for the Roosevelt Elk in Rocky Mountain National Park. We were hoping to see and hear them. We hadn’t been in the park an hour yet, and we both saw and heard them. You can’t see them in the picture above, but this is where we were standing when we first herd them. Bugling to one another. Calling out challenges. Staking claims.

The mammas and the babies were grazing by the road.

The day we were at RMNP was the last day the Old Fall River Road was open for the season. We couldn’t have timed it better if we’d tried. And trust me, I try…but this was just a happy coincidence. Old Fall River Road was built between 1913 and 1920 as the first motor route to cross the Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s only a nine mile road, but it took us a couple of hours to traverse it. Every turn was cool enough to stop at and take pictures of and ogle, there were waterfalls to hike to, and all four life zones to learn about. The road ends about half way up the main park road at the Alpine Visitor Center.

 Welcome to the high mountain country! It was super windy up on the mountain at the Alpine Visitor Center. Soooo windy and not even close to warm. But I like the views…so we hiked the Alpine Ridge Trail. The trailhead is right off the Trail Ridge Road which is the highest road in any of the National Parks. The trail itself isn’t long…it’s just over half a mile, but it is a steep climb up 220 or so stairs. The trail ends at 12,000 feet. It was so windy the day we went that we kept expecting to get blown off the trail. It was a pain going up…but it totally made the trip down faster.

The view at the top was spectacular! There were mountains in every direction.

On a different day, we would have stuck around and really taken in the view…maybe even picnicked up there, but the warmth of our car was beckoning to us. So, we looked as long as we could withstand the cold and wind then raced back down the trail to get warmed up.

The aspens were showing off their colors. We found this gorgeous grove along the Trail Ridge Road. Fall colors are some of my favorite colors. I spent a good portion of our time here trying to find some fall foliage.

We were in Colorado three whole weeks. We’ve changed our plans for our next loop so we can spend more time in Colorado. For the first time…in 49 states…we’ve found a state that gives our love of Texas (our home state) a run for its money.

Colorado, we will be back.

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018
State Forty-Nine

State Forty-Nine

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Hey Guys! I realize that Colorado was actually the thirty-eighth state to be ratified but, for us, it’s the forty-ninth state we’ve been to! We only spent a week in the Denver area, but we crammed so much into that one week that I’m going to break it up into two different posts.

The Colorado State Capitol Building will be the last SCB we visit for a while. It’s SCB number forty-eight for us even though Colorado is state number forty-nine on our map. If you’ve been with us for a while, you might remember that we missed the Alaska SCB. Planning didn’t work out…it would have cost way more than we wanted to spend for us to lay eyes on a building. So, we skipped it and went on a day cruise instead.

On the first floor of the Colorado SCB the “Women’s Gold” wall hanging celebrates all of the achievements of women in Colorado through its first one hundred years of statehood. The maker of this quilt had a little help though…she had 3,500 people put at least one stitch in the wall hanging.

Colorado Rose Onyx marble from Beulah, CO is so rare that all of the known reserves were used to build the SCB. So, if you ever want to see it in person, you’ll have to visit the Colorado State Capitol Building.

Around the dome is the Colorado “Hall of Fame”. There are sixteen stained glass windows depicting individuals who helped with the growth and development of Colorado.

During the tour, we were able to go up into the dome and out on the little walkway around the dome. Check out that view! Those are the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

Between the third floor of the SCB and the dome, there’s a museum. It’s not a huge museum, but it’s packed with a ton of information about Colorado and the SCB.

They call Denver the “Mile High City” because the SCB sits exactly one mile above sea level.

There are three “mile high” markers on the steps of the SCB. The first one was put on the 15th step in 1909.  After the brass cap was stolen seven times within thirty-eight years the “mile high” was etched into the step itself.  In 1969, some students at the University of Colorado remeasured and found that the first measurement was off a bit and a brass cap was installed on the 18th step. In 2003, measurements were taken again and they found that the “mile high” marker was still off…so, another brass cap was installed on the 13th step. You can see all three steps in the picture above.

The exterior cast iron dome was recently restored and covered in more than sixty-five ounces of pure gold.

While we were in the area, we took the time to go visit Buffalo Bill’s grave and museum.

William F. Cody was born in 1846 on a farm in Iowa. Throughout his life, he embraced the Old West and did everything from herding cattle to riding on the Pony Express to scouting for the Army, but it was his time as a buffalo hunter that scored him the name “Buffalo Bill”. In 1872, Buffalo Bill joined a theater production that would one day become Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.

William Cody was buried on Lookout Mountain in 1917 where he loved the view of the Rocky Mountains.

Not far from where Buffalo Bill is buried, is Genesse Mountain Park where you can see Denver’s buffalo herd. There are a couple of overlooks and a few hiking trails you can use to catch a glimpse of them.

On our last day in town, we snuck in a visit to Dinosaur Ridge.

We missed the tour by like…five minutes. So, we opted to walk it. Well, actually, we walked one part, drove to the other parking lot then walked the other part. We probably ended up walking more this way, but the rain was threatening so we tried to stick close-ish to the car.

Dinosaur Ridge is world famous for its dinosaur tracks and bones. Kind of cool to walk where the dinos once walked.

Dinosaur Ridge is known for the world’s first stegosaurus discovery. While you walk the trail, you can touch actual dinosaur fossils.

It’s called a dinosaur bulge. It’s where a big dino…maybe a brontosaur…steps in soft ground like a river bed or mud and it creates this bulge shape as the ground hardens. We’ve been to 49 states, but this is the first time we’ve taken the time to visit a dinosaur site. I can promise you…it won’t be our last. My little science nerds were in paleontology heaven.

Let’s talk foodies! Y’all know we like our burgers! Check out this jalapeno popper burger. Yum-oh!!

Stay tuned for Denver Part Two!

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018
Our 2018 Year In Review

Our 2018 Year In Review

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Hey Guys! Happy New Year’s Eve!!

I thought we’d end the year with a quick post to share some of our favorite memories from this year.

Our year started off…well…not the best. We spent last New Year’s Eve driving through an ice storm to get back to Missouri so Jerl could have eye surgery and our home-on-wheels could get a new engine. It was a stressful start to the year, but it got loads better!

We made it to twenty-one different National Park Units this year! Twenty-one! Two of those were revisits, but nineteen were new for us…so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that seven of our top ten memories for this year are about National Parks.

Let’s start with our honorable mention…Sparky’s Burgers in Hatch, New Mexico just missed our top ten, but we all like it so much we decided it really should at least get an honorable mention! We’d been eyeing Sparky’s for a couple of years now. We found out about it in 2015 while we were in Alamogordo, but didn’t want to drive that far in the time we had in the area. This year, however, we made it! And Guys…it’s so good! We got there right as they were opening and it’s a good thing because when we left, the line was already starting to curve around the block. Alex had to try one of Sparky’s famous green chili shakes. He chose chocolate and raved about it the whole time. I think next time I may have to get one too!

Our number ten spot isn’t a foodie or city or state…it’s not a National or State Park…it’s a view. The Columbia River Gorge from the Portland Women’s Form State Scenic Viewpoint in Corbett, OR was spectacular even though the smoke from some nearby fires was wafting through. We had this entire viewing area to ourselves…well…there was one other person there and he was busy having a conversation with himself…so…yeah. But, that view!

Sequoia Park Zoo comes next. We found this little zoo in Eureka, CA and made time to visit right at the end of a day of exploration. We got there just in time for the red panda feeding and zoo talk. We’ve been to some of the top rated zoos in the country and this little zoo is one of our favorites. Happy animals, clean and big exhibits…what more does a zoo need? What it lacks in size, it more than makes up for in heart.

One of the things we love is a good view and what better place to get a view than atop one of Colorado’s tallest mountains. Pikes Peak is the most expensive mountain we’ve explored…but Guys…that view. When we were there, the summit was torn up for construction of the new Summit House. It’ll be fantastic when it’s done! We just might have to go back and see it completed!

One of the states that Jerl has been looking forward to the most is Colorado. The mountains have called his name for many years so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Rocky Mountain National Park is on our top ten list. We were only able to spend one day exploring this giant park and hope to go back one day to see more of it.

Yosemite National Park is in the number six spot on our top ten list for 2018! We were there right before the busy season, but there were still so many people. The few days we ventured into Yosemite Valley the crowds were insane! It wasn’t our thing…all of the crowds. But, when we drove Glacier Road and Tioga Road…the crowds weren’t nearly as bad and the views were ah-mazing!

One of the places I’d been looking forward to visiting is Redwood National and State Park! These two parks work together to preserve one of the largest tracks of old growth coastal redwoods left in the US. And! There’s Fern Canyon! This canyon has fifty feet walls covered in several types of ferns. It was so fun to wade down the small creek! If traveling isn’t your thing…you can take a look at Fern Canyon without leaving your home…it was used to film parts of Jurassic Park II.

We made it to Oregon right as the burn season was revving up. We could see the smoke from one of the fires at the park we were staying in. We were worried we wouldn’t make it up to Crater Lake National Park due to the fires. I’m so glad we did! Crater Lake is gorgeous! The blue of that water!! There’s a bit of lore that says the blue bird used to be black before it dipped into the waters of Crater Lake.

Olympic National Park rests in the number three spot on our top ten list for this year! This place…Guys, I could totally spend a season or two in this area of Washington. There is so much to love about Olympic National Park! You get beaches, mountain vistas, and forests of moss covered trees to hike through!

This next park is not only in our number two spot, but was the biggest surprise for us. We weren’t entirely sure of what to expect from Kings Canyon National Park, but we loved it! You get the gorgeous tall trees and you get to explore a huge canyon! We somehow ended up taking an old forest service road to get into the park and in doing so drove right through one of the largest groves of redwood old growth left. We had it to ourselves and it was fantastic! The canyon was a total surprise. There are views for days, hikes and waterfalls to explore!

Our number one memory of 2018 is Sequoia National Park! We heart tall trees in a serious way. We can’t get enough of them. We stayed in the Sequoia National Park area for two weeks and we spent every spare minute we could up the mountain, in the park walking amongst the tall trees. I’m already trying to plan our next trip to Sequoia.

We’ve wrapped up our State Tour. Y’all haven’t seen the last few posts about those explorations yet, but they’re coming! We hope that each of you have a wonderful New Year’s Day and a blessed 2019! Thank you for being a part of our crazy nomad journey!

See y’all down the road!
Colorado Springs Take Two

Colorado Springs Take Two

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  Hey Guys! We spent two very full weeks in Colorado Springs. We jammed so much into two weeks I’m breaking our Colorado Springs explorations into two posts. This is part two. If you missed the first part you can find it here.

Caught up?! Awesome! Here we go with part two!

The road up to Pikes Peak is only nineteen miles, but it can take you a whole day to get to the top. There are several pull-offs and hikes on the way up.

It was early fall and the aspens were just starting to change colors. We caught our first sight of some golden aspens on the way up. It was at one of the first pull-offs and while everyone else was ogling the view…I was a bit obsessed with the trees. Y’all know I love the pretties…

We stopped for a picnic lunch at one of the parks. Well, we tried to. We were getting set up and some hornets decided we were super interesting. So, we loaded up and moved to a different section and they found us again! We ended up eating in the car.

At each stop along the road the views got more and more breathtaking. There was construction at the top so we had to park at mile sixteen and take a tram to the top. The trip was both terrifying in it’s speed/closeness to the edge of the road and awesome for the views.

They had most of the top torn up. There will be a brand new summit house sometime in 2019. We’ve been in and out of mountains over the last three years of our nomad life, but this was the first time we had been at or over 14,000 feet. We definitely noticed the thinner air. And the view. The view was pretty spectacular!

The Manitou Cliff Dwellings were originally built by the Anasazi over 700 years ago. Today, you can walk through the rooms and learn more about how the Ancestral Puebloans once lived. I honestly don’t know if these particular cliff dwellings are authentic. We’ve heard they aren’t. But it was still neat to walk through them. At the Manitou Cliff Dwellings you can walk through the rooms, climb up the ladders…you really get to explore.

The first time we went to the Garden of the Gods it was on a weekend and it was so crowded we ended up driving on through and checking out the little museum at the visitor center. The boys enjoyed perusing through the nature center that showcases all of the animals that can be found in the Colorado Springs area.

We had way more fun than we probably should have with the What’s That Scat exhibit. You look at a pile of fake scat and try to guess what animal it’s from then push the button to light up the picture of the animal.

The red rock formations of Garden of the Gods were created millions of years ago due to geological upheaval on one of the natural fault lines that run through the area.

There are quite a few different hiking trails in and around the gardens. Some are paved but several are more rustic. We ended up going back one morning during the week and managed to avoid most of the crowds. We were finishing our hike when the crowds started pouring in.

One of the best things about the Colorado Springs area was meeting up with an old friend and her family! **waves at the Lowe family** The first time we met up was at this great Mexican restaurant. The food was great and the company was excellent! One of our absolute favorite things about this crazy nomad life of ours is the chance to see our friends who live all over the country.

We had two very, very full weeks in Colorado Springs and loved it! We loved it so much we’re trying to rearrange our plans for next year so we can spend some more time in the area!

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018
Forts, Fossils, and Rock Formations

Forts, Fossils, and Rock Formations

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We made it to Colorado!

Guys! Colorado is state number forty-nine for us!!

We spent two weeks in the Colorado Springs area and tried to squish as much as we could in.

Y’all know forts are kind of our jam…so it won’t be a surprise when I tell you that one of our first stops in Colorado was Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site. Fur trader brothers Charles and William Bent along with their partner Ceran St. Vrain established a place for trading opportunities.

Bent’s Old Fort opened in 1833 and was one of the main centers of fur trade along the Santa Fe Trail. The fort prospered for 16 years until the region’s beavers and buffalo herds started to disappear. Bent’s Old Fort was the only place between Missouri and Santa Fe for travelers to replenish their supplies and make repairs. It was a safe haven for travelers making the long trip.

Some seasons, the population of the fort could swell upward of 200 people. Most of the rooms at the fort were used for necessary crafts like blacksmiths, carpenters, doctors, warehouses, and kitchens. The few rooms dedicated to living quarters were available to company employees and sometimes important guests.

Around 1846 the fort was no longer used just for trading. Because the Bents were known peacemakers with the region’s tribes, Bent’s Old Fort turned into the headquarters for the Upper Platte and Upper Arkansas Indian Agency.

 At Bent’s Old Fort, we learned several things. One of the coolest things we learned is that they used scraps of fur to line the windows to help weather proof. In hind-sight, this is a ridiculously obvious and simple solution, but one I hadn’t thought of. We also learned that forts employed cats. It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Forts are full of supplies like food and furs that need to be protected from not only raiders and thieves but also from mice. When they were excavating the original Bent’s Old Fort they found graves for the working cats. We’ve been to…well…quite a few forts and at every single fort we learn something new. Some new small detail about life during that time period.

In the middle of a prairie, not far from Colorado Springs you’ll find Paint Mines Interpretive Park. It’s only about half an hour from Colorado Springs, but it feels like you’re on a completely different planet! Native Americans have used the colorful clay in this area for their pots for over 4,000 years. The kaleidoscope of colors is due to the different amounts of iron oxide in the clay. We found colors ranging from bright yellows and oranges to pinks and purples to a whole range of grays. There were a few different hiking trails to get to the paint pots. We parked at the closest one and only hiked about half a mile to get to the park. It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours!

We love visiting National Park Units. Love it! So when we found Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument we added it to our list of must-sees while we were in the Colorado Springs area. The boys earned another Junior Ranger badge while we were there. The Rangers got a kick out of seeing all of the badges. It’s fun to watch the Rangers with the boys. The boys still don’t really get it…the attention. They love the learning and exploring that comes with each badge and each park. They’re not collecting the badges for attention.

The thousands of detailed fossils that have been found at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument tell the story of a prehistoric Colorado. This area used to be under a large shallow lake millions of years ago. There was also a very active volcano about fifteen miles away. The combination of all of these elements made the perfect area for making fossils.

We spent weeks exploring the giant sequoias and redwoods along the Northern California coast. We saw them in the form of pine cones and saplings all the way to huge 3000 year old trees. At Florissant Fossil Beds NM we saw huge sequoia petrified stumps. The largest stump is forty-one feet in circumference. It was really something seeing these magnificent trees from the beginning of their lives to end.

Lets talk foodies! Colorado Springs isn’t lacking in foodie spots. Check out this burger! And Guys…Jamaican food… So…good! We actually have plans to go back to the Colorado Springs area next year and this Jamaican place will definitely be a place we will revisit!

There weren’t very many pretties around the Colorado Springs area while we were there. It was late summer/early fall when we were there so the flowers were mainly gone, but I did find these purple pretties!

Stay tuned for the rest of our Colorado Springs adventures!

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018
Cheyenne, WY

Cheyenne, WY

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Hey Guys!! We made it to Wyoming! These weekly jumps are wearing us out!! We’ve had three weeks in a row of jumping states and long drive days. Moving so fast makes our travels seem kind of like a blur. We start the whole…which-state-did-we-do-that-in thing. It’s no bueno.

Utah sent us off with a spectacular sunrise. We also spent some in the morning keeping track of a big semi-truck that kept swerving all over the road. I think he needed a nap. He was swerving so bad we didn’t want to try and pass him…and honestly, we didn’t want him behind us. He’d speed up and slow down and was just all over the road.

It didn’t take us long to reach Wyoming. Unfortunately, the sign was in a bad spot to stop so I had to snap a picture on the go.

Our long drive to Cheyenne was filled with looonnggg stretches of road like the one above. We saw so many antelope. I think we found the land where the antelope play. We really wanted to see some deer playing with the antelope and maybe a buffalo roaming around. *wink, wink*

Our reason for staying in Cheyenne was to visit the State Capitol Building. Guys, it was closed! Completely closed! It won’t reopen until sometime in 2019. What the hey-diddly!!! They’re completely remodeling it. Y’all may or may not know, but I have a book that I collect stamps from each State Capitol Building…stamps you can only get in the SCB. It’s not a sticker stamp. It’s an ink stamp. *sigh*

Plan B. We went to the State Museum which is right across the street from the SCB and hoped that the stamp had been moved there during the SCB remodel. We lucked out and the stamp had been moved to the museum. The museum was small, but filled to the brim with information about Wyoming. This was the boys’ favorite exhibit. There was info about everything from Wyoming topography to Wyoming natural resources to the state’s history and lore.

Jerl was pretty excited to learn that the NCAR Wyoming Supercomputing Center was located in Cheyenne. There was a small visitor center with some hands on exhibits. I have four boys who were in nerdom heaven. We were able to take a tour of the facilities. I heard lots of numbers and names of things fly around. It all went over my head. All I can tell you is that you’re looking at a very, very, super-dee-duper fast computer. The little lights were flashy and it really was impressive.

If you’re ever in Cheyenne look for the big boots. They’re all over the place and are all decorated differently based on where they’re located.

We were surprised by how small town Cheyenne felt. We saw so many antelope all over the place. I don’t think there was a single time we went out that we didn’t see antelope. Wyoming really is the place of wide open places where the deer and the antelope play.

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018
Park City, UT

Park City, UT

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Hey Guys!! We made it to Utah! This trip, our stay in Utah was only one week, but we have plans to spend about a month and a half exploring more of Utah next year.

We stayed at an RV park in Park City, UT. It wasn’t a terribly long drive day for us, but it was super hot and it was pretty much a constant climb up hills the entire way. Our home-on-wheels started to protest the heat and having to work so hard when we were about twenty minutes away from our RV park in Park City. Luckily, we were right by a chain-up area where we could pull off. We unhooked the toad and I drove the rest of the way in the 4Runner while Jerl drove the RV.

The boys were super excited to have a pool to play in all week. We had the pool and the hot tub all to our selves the entire time. We didn’t mind. The water in the pool was pretty cold…even though the day temps were warm, the nights would dip pretty cold. Nicholas was really cold one day when he got out of the pool and it took us a good five minutes to talk him into getting into the hot tub with us to warm up. He kept saying he was too cold for the hot tub! Ha! Kids…

We had access to a great hiking trail right outside the RV park. We love to walk in the evenings. Some RV parks are good for it and some aren’t. It’s always nice to find a park where we can easily get some walking miles in.

We were close to Salt Lake City so we went to visit the Utah State Capitol Building. I love all of the columns. And Guys, check out that dome! I love the clouds and all of the seagulls painted on it. So pretty! All of that Georgia marble is gorgeous. And the huge skylight… love it!

I don’t know what this animal is supposed to be. It looks like a Pegasus with pink wings combined with a seahorse. Whatever it is, it’s stinkin’ cute. Even though the Utah SCB wasn’t one of the biggest ones we’ve seen…even though it wasn’t super ornate… the whole building was impressive with it’s attention to details.

We wanted to lay eyes on the Great Salt Lake. I did a little looking and found Antelope Island State Park which sits in the Great Salt Lake. We headed over for a little looky-loo one afternoon. From my research I knew the best place to see the island’s bison herd was over at the Historic Fielding Garr Ranch so we headed that way. We hadn’t gotten very far into the park when we spotted our first bison. They were everywhere! Some were in groups, some were out solo or in pairs.

Down the road from the bison we ran into these curious prong horn antelope. They were right by the road. I didn’t have to use zoom at all to get that shot. We stopped for a minute, then drove on when they started to get a little antsy with the paparazzi sticking a camera in their face. Aren’t the gorgeous though?! We were really surprised by how awesome this little island was. At forty-two square miles, Antelope Island is the largest of ten islands that sit in the Great Salt Lake.

The Historic Fielding Garr Ranch is where the majority of the bison herd hangs out. It was closed when we got there (after 5pm), but we were still able to walk around and look. Fielding Garr Ranch was established in 1848 and is one of the oldest working ranches in the Western US. In 1893, twelve American Bison were brought to Fielding Garr Ranch. Those twelve eventually became one of the biggest and oldest bison herds in the US. Today, the number of bison fluctuates between 500 and 700 bison depending on how many calves were born and how many bison were culled, sent to other herds, or died of natural causes. If you’re in the area, every October the Great Bison Roundup takes place where they gather up all of the bison on the island and do a health check to decide about culling or moving of the bison. We’d love to go check out the roundup some year!

After we got our fill of bison…honestly, can that ever happen…we drove to the other side of the island to do a short hike out to Lady Finger Point. We were loosing the sun at this point so we couldn’t do much hiking. We got out to the point just in time for a pretty spectacular sunset. We took our time looking around then headed back to the car before we lost all light.

We found a great burger place called Proper Burger. Check out that burger! Yup, those are fries on the burger. You can’t see it but there was also an egg on the burger with those fries and bacon. You should check it out if you’re in the Salt Lake area.

I didn’t really see any pretties during our week in Utah. It was toward the end of summer and still really hot and dry. I did catch this thistle just as it was starting to open up. I love the symmetry of it along with the colors.

We really enjoyed our week in Utah. It was short and went fast, but it was a great first trip to the state. We’re hoping to spend all of next September (2019) and part of October exploring a few of Utah’s National Parks!

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018
Boise, ID

Boise, ID

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Hey Guys! The next three weeks are going to fly by for us! We are officially on our way to Florida for the winter. We’re making some big jumps with the next three states so we can spend some time back in Missouri and Texas before hunkering down in the Sunshine State for the cold winter months.

After two very long drive days we finally made it to Idaho!! When we first started this nomad life thing, we did really long drive days all the time. It was just part of the life since we were trying to jump our way out of Tornado Alley during tornado season. After we got back from Alaska where we had a week of twelve to fourteen hour drive days through Canada to get back to the lower 48…well, we decided those long drive days weren’t working for us anymore and I started planning shorter drive days. So, the two really long drive days to get to Boise, Idaho had us…I don’t know if reminiscing is really the right word…more like dredging up how we felt about all of those super long drive days we used to have.

We were only in Idaho for one week, but we crammed us much in as we could! Our first stop was the State Capitol Building. I loved all of the marble used in the Idaho SCB. We, actually, ended up visiting the Idaho SCB twice. The first time we went the stamp I need for my State Capitol book was locked up. We didn’t get to take a guided tour, but we were able to poke around on our own.

Y’all know I love a great staircase. This is one of the main staircases in the Idaho SCB and is made of marble! We enjoyed the Idaho State Capitol Building. There are a few things I tend to look for at SCBs and a great dome is pretty much at the top of my list. The Idaho SCB’s dome is simple, but beautiful. It’s an apt description for the entire building. Simple. Great colors. And Beautiful.

We always look for different things to do in each area we visit so when we found out about the old Idaho State Penitentiary, we planned a day to go explore it. We were lucky enough to get there right before a tour started.

Before it was an Idaho State Penitentiary, it was an Idaho Territorial Prison. The building in the picture above used to be the kitchen. It burned when some inmates started a riot over…bacon. The Great Bacon Riot of 1973. That should totally be a book. Or a movie.

We got to take a look in the cells of the isolation building called Siberia. No heat, no AC, no bathroom…it earned it’s name when some of the inmates froze to death while serving time there.

According to the docent, there are parts of the old prison known to be haunted. The cell in the picture above is one of those areas that more than one person has claimed to experience something paranormal while near it. We were allowed into several of the cells in this area, but this cell was locked tight. Are you interested in a ghost story? Well, according to the docent, each year during Halloween the old penitentiary holds a haunted prison. It’s like a haunted house. They hire actors and local college kids to help in the haunted prison. One of the girls hired started screaming for someone to let her out of the cell about an hour into her shift. The others thought it was part of her act, so they didn’t go investigate. By the time her shift was over, she was curled up in the corner crying. She claims that there was a thick shadow that kept following her around the cell and crowding her. Several other actors throughout the years have had similar stories about that same cell.

The Idaho Territorial Prison was built in 1870. In 1872 it was turned into the Idaho State Penitentiary and was open until 1973 when they opened a new State Penitentiary that was bigger.  In the over 100 years the Old Idaho State Penitentiary was running, it received over 13,000 prisoners. Only 213 of those inmates were women. Back when the prison was first opened, they had the women and men inmates in the same facility. Our docent kept all of the stories she told us to PG, but she did hint at more than a few…unsavory things that happened during the lifetime of the prison. I think the experience was eye opening for the boys. We all hear about prison, we see it on televisions and in the movies, but to actually walk the halls and see the cells of a real prison and to hear real stories about real people who were in those cells and halls…it’s different. It’s real.

We found an overlook of More’s Creek. It was a gorgeous day! We’d just spent several weeks in smoky areas of Oregon and Washington without seeing a blue sky so you can imagine that this amazingly blue sky was a very welcome sight.

We found the old Diversion Dam. Back in the late 1800s the Territory of Idaho built the Diversion Dam to help with farming. We were going to walk down this cute boardwalk until we noticed all of the spiderwebs. There were so many webs! So. Many!! And most of their residents were home. I wanted to kill them all with fire, but we didn’t think Idaho would appreciate that. So we drove on.

Let’s talk foodies! We found a pizza place that landed firmly on our top five list. Nicholas will tell you all about it in a Pizza Street post, but I will say this…the spinach artichoke dip with those little bread bites…I could have easily eaten my weight in them. I might have done just that. Maybe.

We also found a…well, a fry place that serves their fries with a side of burger. Seriously. The Boise Fry Company had so many different kinds of fries! Different types of potatoes are offered in different cuts of fries. My faves were the little po’ balls. Little scoops of mashed potatoes deep fried…it was like little balls of deep fried heaven. The potatoes available change seasonally and the cuts offered per potato change daily. And…check out all of the different kinds of dips! You didn’t really think a place that specializes in fries would only offer ketchup, did you? We had to try all of the dips and several of the shakers. They ranged from savory to sweet. We would have totally eaten at this place again! It was a fun find.

We were pleasantly surprised by the top-notch foodies offered in Boise. We definitely didn’t go hungry.

It was hot and toward the end of a dry summer when we were in Boise so there weren’t many pretties. We saw quite a few of these flowers along the roads though. The bees were thoroughly enjoying them!

We enjoyed Boise, ID more than we thought we would. We have plans to go back to Idaho next year to do some more exploring!

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018
More OP Adventures

More OP Adventures

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Hey Guys!! We spent two weeks exploring as much of the Olympic National Park as we could. We didn’t get to see nearly as much as we wanted to due to the amount of smoke from all of the nearby fires, but we saw enough to fall in love with the area.

National Parks are usually big. There are smaller monuments or historic sites…but the parks are…well, they’re huge. Usually, they’re more wilderness than not and unless you’re up for doing really long or overnight hikes, you’re not going to get to see most of the park. Olympic National Park is so accessible. You can explore coasts, tall trees, and mountains. The NPS has done a fantastic job with this park and it’s trails.

 On our first full day in the Olympic Peninsula (OP) we headed out to the coastal part of Olympic NP. When we started out it was an absolutely gorgeous day! No smoke in the are…the sun was shining…it was amazing. We stopped by Tongue Point on our way over to our first hike of the day. We got there really early in the morning and spent a few minutes exploring the tide pools. The tide wasn’t very low, so we didn’t see much. The view wasn’t bad though.

Our first hike that day was Cape Flattery. I’d done my research and knew ahead of time that the Cape Flattery hike is super popular and parking can be difficult to find. So, we headed there super early and had our choice of spots to park. There were already quite a few groups there…we weren’t the first that morning. I really love this trail. It’s mostly up on this boardwalk which is cool, but did make it kind of hard to pass people.

It was so sunny that morning when we started out! But Guys…look at all of that fog! I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was a little disappointed. I really wanted the unobstructed view here. But, look how gorgeous the view is even with the fog. I mean, when you’re surrounded by beauty it’s hard to be anything but in a good mood.

We were impressed with this tree. It looks like a candelabra to me. You can also kind of see how people were having to hang off and scoot around each other on that boardwalk trail. It was a little narrow, but workable.

It was lunch time when we made it to Rialto Beach and the place was packed! We circled around a couple of times then headed back down the road to find a parking spot. We had lunch in our car and then headed back to the beach to do some exploring. I’d seen online that there was a neat rock formation a little ways down the beach. There were some conflicting distances though, so I wasn’t sure just how far down the beach it was.

Check out the driftwood. It’s huge! And there was a ton of it lining the beach. The farther down the beach we got the fewer people we saw. If you squint at the upper right picture, you can see a couple of the boys next to that big rock. The look like ants. The bottom right pic is another look at how big those rocks were. The boys are standing down below them. It ended up being about a mile down the beach, but it was an enjoyable walk with only a few other people venturing that far. We did find a few little shallow tide pools on our walk. I was hoping to find some sea stars, but…we didn’t see any. Something to look forward to next time we’re in the area.

One of our favorite areas in the Olympic NP is the Hoh Rain Forest. We got to the visitor center right before they were closing, but the park was still open for a few more hours so we did the Hall of Mosses trail. Check out that moss! All of the trees on the trail were dripping with green moss. The entire area was green. Green fuzzy moss, green ferns, green grass in the water…it was a lot of green.

Before we made it to the Olympic National Park, I checked the website to do some last minute research on a trail I wanted to do. It’s always a good idea to check the alert section of the NP website you’ll be visiting. This time I learned about a wasp problem. And they weren’t lying. We had a whole group of wasps decide to take up residence under our car. We drove to a gas station and saw a few of them coming out from under the car, but didn’t think much of it. When we got to our next stop by Lake Crescent we’d lost several of them, but almost didn’t make it back in the car. The wasps that were left were not happy with us. We drove to the Sol Duc trail head and lost the rest of the wasps. We didn’t see any when we got out or came back after the hike. Thank goodness! We did see a whole nest of the same wasps on the Hall of Mosses trail.

We found another tall tree that’s now on our list of favorites. The Sitka spruce averages 220 feet tall and looks very cool dripping with moss.

We walked right by this fawn and its mom while we were on the Hall of Mosses trail. They weren’t terribly worried about us.

We found some decent foodies in the Port Angeles area. We had to stop by a local chain called Frugals. It’s a drive through only so we took it back to our home-on-wheels to eat it. It was pretty good considering it was pure fast-food.

There weren’t very many pretties around, but I found a few. I know this is a mushroom…technically a fungus. But I love the colors in it.

And then there was this pretty. It was all alone on one of the trails we hiked. I love how pristine white it is.

We absolutely loved the OP! More than we thought we would.

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018
Olympic Peninsula

Olympic Peninsula

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Hey Guys! We made it all the way up to the Olympic Peninsula of Washington! This is the farthest north we will go on this loop before we turn south and head for Florida for the winter.

We’d spent the last month in smoky and hot Oregon. We started keeping track of where all of the wildfires were the first week we were in Oregon. It felt like the entire western US was on fire. We managed to keep ahead of it, but it got close a few times. Close enough for ash to fall on us. We’d seen a report that there was a wildfire in the eastern side of the Olympic National Park. So, as you can imagine, we were kind of thrilled to see the rain as we were driving into Washington.

We stayed at a great little RV park right near the old Elwha Dam in Port Angeles. We were there for two weeks, but due to the smoke, we spent quite a bit of that time inside. On days when the smoke receded enough, we headed out to explore. We walked down to the old Elwha Dam one afternoon. We could walk there from our RV park which was great. We meant to go back and follow a trail we found but it ended up not happening.

The Olympic Peninsula (OP) of Washington has quite a large population of Native Americans. I loved seeing the dual language signs everywhere!

Our first drive up to Hurricane Ridge (one of the Olympic NP areas) was a little…foggy. If you’ve been following along on our adventures for awhile, you might remember our Sequoia NP fog experience. If you need a refresher, you can find that here. We got a little worried as we drove up the mountain to get to Hurricane Ridge and it kept getting foggier and foggier. I thought, well…here we go again.

Thankfully, we drove up above the fog/clouds and this was our view. Not bad, right? Some of that is fog or clouds and some of it is smoke. It’s still an impressive vista even with the smoke.

We ended up going back up to Hurricane Ridge on a clear-ish day. You can see in the top picture above how the smoke hung around. The smoke was a constant, but the view was still beautiful. One of the cool things about Hurricane Ridge is that during the winter months, you can snow shoe and ski from there. The NP Service has a little snow cabin for the Ranger’s that’s manned during the winter months.

On one of our full days to explore, we headed out to hike and on the way there we drove by Lake Crescent. It was choked with smoke. We’d heard that the smoke would be coming in that day and we were hoping to get in a hike before we had to retreat back inside.

We made it to the Sol Duc Falls that day and it was gorgeous! You couldn’t even tell the smoke was hanging around while we were hiking. We did start to smell it as we were on our way back to our car though. But the hike was awesome.

On a different day, we made it to Marymere Falls. The trailhead for this hike was right on the Lake Crescent shore. I loved the trail for this hike! Check out this bridge we walked over. (top right picture) It was an old log that the NPS had fashioned into a sturdy bridge across a stream. And check out all of the moss. This is what I’d always thought this area would look like. I had a specific vision in my mind of what hiking in the OP would be like…and this picture is it. This is what I thought it would be like…what I had hoped it would be like. You know how sometimes you get it in your head that something is going to be a certain way, but then when you get there it’s so different than what you’d thought that it’s a let down? This place totally held up to what I was hoping it would be. Actually, that’s not true…it was better. In the right picture you can see a little stream the bridge took us over. There was a path down to it. You can get a sense of how big the trees are in this area with this picture. Can you find the person in the lower right corner of this pic?

Here’s another picture of Lake Crescent for you. You can see more of it here and you can kind of see just a hint of the beautiful water color.

We saw so many deer! So, so many! And they weren’t real shy. Guys, don’t try to pet or feed the wildlife. We saw a few people actually trying to take selfies and feed/pet the wildlife. Don’t do that. If you frighten the animal and it harms you…the animal is the one who will suffer. Some parks are required to put down any animal who’s harmed a human. So, just don’t do it. Admire them from afar…take pics from afar, but let them stay wild. Oh! And Guys…check out the blue of this bird! It reminds me so much of the blue water in Crater Lake! There were a couple of these birds playing around while we did the Marymere Falls hike.

I’m realizing that there are tons more pics I want to add on to this post…so I’m going to break it up into two posts. I’m going to show you some foodies we found…and pick up with some more explorations on the next post!

Lets talk foodies for a minute! We hit a BBQ place our first night in the area. It was pretty good! Check out the sandwich one of the boys got. Huge! They ate it all. There wasn’t anything left. We found this little burger place in Forks while we were out exploring one day. You can’t tell, but that burger is huge! Huge! It’s sitting on a regular sized dinner plate. It was and 8″ or 9″ plate. Alex laid waste to this burger. Teenagers…whattaya gonna do? You’ve got to feed them. It’s a good thing we have a residential sized refrigerator in our home-on-wheels!

I found this pretty up on Hurricane Ridge during one of our excursions. Love the purple pretties!

Well, I’m going to leave off here this time. I’ll pick back up with some more OP adventures next time so stay tuned!

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018