Day 1. 4/17/23
We drove to Beatty, Nevada today. I prepared most of the day Saturday, packing, cleaning, and getting snacks and food for the drive. I packed the car Saturday and Sunday, and Monday morning, we got ready, finished packing and started our drive around 9am.
We drove nonstop all the way to St George. The boys were a little fussy, and it took them a while to understand that, since I was the only adult on this trip, I couldn't help them with everything while I was driving. Daniel couldn't come on this trip, because he felt like he couldn't take a week off of work every month for 3 months in a row. 😬 So, being the only adult and only driver, they had to learn that if they dropped something, they were out of luck until we stopped again.
The 2nd half of the drive was a little better. We stopped in St George for gas, bathroom break, lunch and to play at a park for 20 minutes. It was a long break, but needed for the kids. We took a couple more stops the rest of the way to Beatty, and got there about 5pm. It really wasn't a bad day of driving, other than the couple of times Sawyer got upset about something and screamed about it for 20 minutes straight. 😂 We listened to music, we listened to a book (101 Dalmatians), and the kids watched a movie while we drove.
Gramma and Grampa Fern met up with us in Beatty about 20 or so minutes after we got there. We waited at a park near the hotel and just played and stretched our legs. After checking into our hotel, we drove around looking for a place to eat dinner... but apparently, nothing is open in Beatty after 6pm. And the Dennys was all the way in and through a casino. And we didn't want to take the kids in. AND inexplicably, there are no grocery stores in Beatty! So we just ended up going to the park again and eating what food I brought with us that day, which was probably better than what we could've eaten at Dennys. We had sandwiches, veggies and hummus, fruit, chips, juice and treats. It was actually pretty perfect.
Day 2. 4/18/23
Death valley all day today. Here's the thing about Death Valley: it's a vast desert. Huge. And all the things that are cool to see are so spread out. As a result, it was a lot of time in the car, driving to see a handful of things, and a lot of in and out of the car.
We had a little breakfast at the hotel (very limited options), and then drove into the Valley. There were some lovely wildflowers on the side of the road on the way in.
Our first stop were the sand dunes. These were really cool to see, and would've been really fun to explore more. But it was super windy, which my kids hated. We had sand whipping into our skin and sand getting into our eyes, and so, we didn't stay very long on the dunes.
After obtaining a map of the place, we decided we wanted to spend the rest of the day exploring the southern end of Death Valley, where there were more things to see.
We went to the old Borax works site and saw the mill and the big wagon they used to transport borax.
We went to the visitors center, so Dad could get the stamp for his cool national parks stamp book. We also walked through the museum there and learned a little more about Death Valley. Did you know it's the hottest place on earth? It has the hottest recorded temperature anywhere on earth, 134°F in 1913. There has been a higher temperature recorded somewhere in Libya, but scientists have since recognized error in that recording, and the Death Valley record still stands.
We went to the Badwater Basin. Did you know that it's the lowest point in North America, at 282 feet below sea level? The scientist who first thought that this area was below sea level was laughed at by his colleagues, until they measured it and found out he was right. There were these pretty cool salt flats that we walked out onto for a little while.
We drove this little loop called Artists Pallet, so named because the rocks of the hills there are all kinds of colors. It was really beautiful. Jack and Sawyer were pretty done at this point, driving and getting in and out of the car. So when we stopped for a minute to get out and look around and read about the colored hills (there's no iron in them, but lots of other elements to make all the different colors), they brought their trucks and started digging in the dirt and playing with their trucks. And after a few minutes, the girls joined them. 😂 It took several minutes to convince them to get back in the car.
We went to the badlands and hiked up to a little lookout point. The rocky hills there looked so cool. The girls and Dad and I hiked up, and Mom and the boys stayed at the bottom, so the boys could play with their trucks in the dirt some more.
We had dinner at a little BBQ place in Beatty, and then went back to the hotel to just relax a little. The kids watched some TV on my phone and I dozed on the couch. I got the kids all ready for bed, because we had another excursion tonight!
So, the kids were all in their jammies with teeth brushed, we'd read our scriptures and prayed, we got on our sweatshirts, and headed back out. Apparently, Death Valley is one of the best places for stargazing, and we were there at the new moon, so it was very dark and the stars were bright. We drove out, not quite to the national park, but down a little dirt road away from town, heading in the direction of Death Valley. We stopped and got out. It was pretty dark. Dad had an app on his phone for stargazing, and Mom had bought a book about constellations for the kids, and we looked at the stars and for constellations. The boys lasted approximately 5 minutes, predictably. It was pretty cold, though. So Mom got in the car with them while the girls and I stayed out for a while. After some time, Camille was done too. But Brooke was still interested all the way up until we left!
The sky was beautiful. We could see so many stars, and it was so fun for my kids to be able up at the night sky like that. We're usually having them go to bed before it's really dark.
Day 3. 4/19/23
Death Valley again. We drove out to see Ubehebe Crater. It's this massive half mile across and 500 foot deep crater made by the explosion resulting from steam pressure under the surface of the earth. It was a very cool thing to see. And dad was hilarious, because he kept doing this overly dramatic storytelling of how the crater was created to each one of the kids. And each time he told it, it got more and more dramatic and explosive. And we all laughed. We hiked about a half mile up to a lookout point, and to see the mini crater on the side.
Mom and Dad wanted to drive down Wild Rose Canyon, to see the place where one of their friends grew up in Death Valley. The drive was pretty. But there wasn't much to see out there. We drove a little way farther, partially down a bumpy dirt road to see the charcoal kilns, which were actually really cool. They burned the trees in the area down to hot charcoal and then transported the coal to another part of Death Valley for processing... Borax, was it? Anyway, they were really neat. We saw that people had built some cairns there, and the kids wanted to build their own. So we stopped for a while, they liked for flat rocks and built some cairns. They had a great time.
We left Death Valley after this, going back the way we'd come down Wild Rose Canyon, and then out the park. There was one more place we stopped, just a lookout point where Dad took some pictures. And we drove a couple of hours to Bakersfield for the night, stopping at a gas station once to go to the bathroom and buy a cheap pizza for dinner.
Dad's pictures of Death Valley. He does such a good job!
Day 4. 4/20/23
We checked out of our hotel in Bakersfield, and drove a few hours north to Kings Canyon National Park. Because of flooding from the craziness that was this winter, we couldn't go to Sequoia National Park at all and could only get into a tiny portion of Kings Canyon. We drove to the visitor's center there, where I bought each child a souvenir of their choice, and we walked through the museum exhibits and watched some informational videos that made us want to come back when the rest of the park was open... And then we drove a short distance to see the giant sequoia trees, and the General Grant tree, which is one of the 5 biggest trees in the world. My kids were amazed at how big those trees were ... well, actually, we were all quite amazed. And it was fun taking the little hike around all the trees.
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| Jack, being in his dress up phase, begged me endlessly for this little ranger outfit; first at Death Valley, and then here at Kings Canyon. But it was a little bit more than I was willing to spend. He did end up convincing his Gramma to buy it for him for his birthday, which was extremely kind of her. He loved it so much and wore it pretty much every day after this. |
At the end of our exploring at Kings Canyon, we were all a little hungry and tired. We'd mostly snacked since our hotel "breakfast". And it was nearly 4pm, anyway. So we drove into Fresno to a Black Bear Diner for dinner. It was real delicious, and we were all very happy.
After dinner, we went to visit David and Kira's family in nearby Visalia. It was fun for our kids to meet and play with their cousins, and for us to visit with them. It's been a long time since I've seen them!
Finding a hotel that night took a very long time. By the time we left David and Kira's house, it was already late. And then we drove around a while, while mom and dad were calling around to find a hotel. So by the time we actually booked somewhere and went in to bed, it was after 11pm. When I realized we'd be waiting for a long while, after parking at a hotel, I started getting my kids ready for bed while we were in the car. They all had their jammies on and teeth brushed. So that helped the process a tiny bit.
It's something I learned being on this trip with my parents... they are very much "fly by the seat of your pants" while on vacation. Which is very much not my style, especially with a bunch of little kids. I feel like I handled it with a lot of patience (that I sometimes didn't feel) when we had to wait long periods for them to find a place to stay or eat. I would rather know with plenty of time beforehand, so that we can get in bed at a reasonable time. But it all turned out just fine, and we had a great time with them and made some great memories.
Day 5. 4/21/23
Right after getting ready and packing up, we headed up to Yosemite National Park. It was quite funny, really. It took us a few hours to get there from where we were staying in Fresno. We entered the park, in a very wooded area, and then we continued to drive for what felt like forever. And I was irritated. We passed several of what looked like lodges and visitor centers. But we passed them and kept driving, down a very long, windy road. I kept thinking, "Okay, we've already been in the car for hours today, can we stop yet? We entered the park 45 minutes ago!" But I was just following dad, and he kept driving. So I kept following. But I was fuming slightly.
Then, after forever, we drove through this long tunnel, and the view that it opened into was breathtaking. And I understood all the driving. It was so gorgeous. We stopped for some pictures and to walk around and climb the rocks for a little bit before getting in the car again and driving into Yosemite Valley towards the visitors center.
We explored the visitors center, bought souvenirs, and took walks along the paths and boardwalks in Yosemite Valley. Dad took a ton of pictures, and we did a little hike to see the waterfalls a little closer up. They were incredible! And there were so many waterfalls in Yosemite! It was just beautiful there. The mountains and cliffs were amazing.
That night we stayed in a little town about an hour outside of Yosemite called Sonora. The drive out there was so beautiful. We drove this windy road through green hills covered in wildflowers and budding trees and bushes, and the river cut through the hills as we drove along it. So lovely.
We went out to a burger place for dinner that night, but had to wait a really long time to order and get food. We played games while we waited, which was fun. But everyone was a little cranky and hangry, and the kids were hard to handle. It was also difficult to see how irritated my parents were with my kids, and they were a little bit snappish with them. We were all tired, and just needed food and rest.
Day 6. 4/22/23
Yosemite again. Mom and dad did some grocery shopping in the morning while I was getting myself and the kids ready for the day, so that we could do picnics for food instead of going out so much.
We drove the hour or so back into Yosemite, stopping a bit along the way for dad to get his perfect shots. 😂 We took a walk down the boardwalk to a cool bridge to play Pooh Sticks. We had a picnic. And we attempted to go on a bigger hike in the afternoon. But the busses were all overly full and didn't stop enough for us to get a shuttle ride up to the hike we wanted to do. Instead, we drove out a little ways and walked a path to another cool bridge, and we played Pooh Sticks again. And we explored the area. And we spotted a coyote! It was a great day exploring Yosemite and taking pictures and having fun.
At the end of our day, we drove back to our hotel in Sonora, had another picnic dinner in the hotel room, and went to bed.
Dad's pictures of Yosemite:
Day 7. 4/23/23. Jack's Birthday
After getting ready and packing everything up, we headed to a local sacrament meeting. Then changed clothes and went to Colombia State Park for the afternoon. We brought a picnic lunch, and then had a great time exploring. Colombia State Park is a historical gold mining site, and they have kept it up for people to see how mining towns were. We panned for gold, dipped candles, saw an old jailhouse, bought old fashioned candy from a candy emporium, went into a blacksmiths shop, and tried sassparilla. To cap it all off, Grampa took us all to a little diner for ice creams, to celebrate Jack's birthday. The ice cream cones were H U G E. None of the kids finished their ice cream, and all of them started feeling sick when we got back into the car.
At about 4:30pm (later than I'd intended), and after the ice cream, we said goodbye and Gramma and Grampa and started our drive back home. We drove a few hours to a town just over the Nevada border, called Carson, and got a hotel for the night. It was the tiniest bit sketchy, and I was a little nervous to be there with the kids by myself. But we made it through the night without incident and all got a decent night's sleep.
Day 8. 4/24/23
Got breakfast at McDonald's and hit the road, driving all the way through Nevada and Utah, making it home around 5pm or so. When we crossed the border into Utah, it was a little bit rainy and cloudy, but there were the most vibrant, brilliant rainbows I think I've ever seen in my life. They were incredibly bright, and I could distinguish every single color in them! At times, I even saw double rainbows. It was so amazing, and what a way to end the trip!
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