Spring Break, Just the Three of Us

This was the first year that we only had one kiddo home for spring break. They haven't always lined up with everyone off at the same time, but we usually have a weekend overlap with everyone. But this year, with Bug in Brazil and Bean going to Hawaii with friends, it was just Peanut and us. We let him pick what he wanted to do, and so. . . here's Spring Break 2026!

We stayed home for the first couple of days. Watched General Conference and had Easter dinner on Sunday, while packing up the van and getting ready to hit the road Sunday afternoon.

And we started off by driving to Death Valley. Had a dinner stop at Red Rock Canyon State Park,

and then spent the night at the Father Crowley Overlook lot. Got a gorgeous view in the morning!

We didn't have a lot of time in Death Valley the next day, but did stop at Dant's View for a little while. Getting to see Bad Water Basin from above was cool.

And there were quite a few wildflowers in the area.

The lower elevation superbloom was long gone, but we were happy to find more than a dozen different types of flowers.

I'm always more impressed with the desert than I think I will be.

And then, we finished the drive to Peanut's pick of destinations. He wanted to hang out with our friends in southern Utah for the a few days. 

We parked our van at their house and loved having evenings hanging out with them (and access to a hot shower after our hikes!)

Peanut and E. made a fort the first night and slept in it every night.

From all reports, it got really hot inside and the last night, they finally ripped down the walls so they could sleep, haha.

On Tuesday, we went to Zion NP to hike to Observation Point. It was really crowded driving through the entrance to the park with all the other spring break travelers, but luckily this trailhead was outside of the main part of the park and while still busy, it wasn't non-stop people.

And the view at the end was fantastic. We could look down at the end of The Narrows and see the whole canyon, which we had visited just two years ago.

Our hiking crew. Just missing the three oldest kids.

Found lots more flowers along the trail

Love that spring in the desert brings out all of these blooms, before it gets too hot for everything.

And we also found dozens of these catepillar "webs". We thought they were spider webs at first, until we looked at them a little closer.

Not pictured from our time together: hot tubbing, video games, eating lots of good food, and lots of conversations that kept circling back to the state of our nation, but also included good books and future plans and memories of our kids when they were a lot younger and all lived with us.

On Wednesday, we went to Bryce Canyon for an overnight visit. Last time we were here, Daddy-o wasn't with us, and the whole place was covered in snow, which was beautiful, but made it impossible to hike, so Peanut and I were excited to come back.

I think the hoodoos are prettier in the snow, but still amazing (and way easier to hike through this way.

We did a figure 8 loop, starting with Wall Street, 

which involved some crazy switchbacks. Glad we did this on the way down.

And glad that the whole trail wasn't as packed as the beginning (although I won't lie--this area was still packed and I did a little magic eraser to get rid of the extra people in this picture, haha.)

It was so crazy seeing where trees have managed to grow in these tight spaces that don't get a lot of light. But we found life scattered through the hoodoos,

including flowers growing right out of the rocks. There's hardly any soil here.

After coming down into the lower part of the park, we crossed a wash and did a loop on the Peekaboo trail. 

This hike was mostly up and down, over and over again, but it was so cool hiking through these rocks.

We saw lots of cool formations,

and other than Peanut drinking almost all his water in the first half of the hike, things went pretty well. Luckily it wasn't hot.

It was a full afternoon, almost 6.5 miles of gorgeous scenery. We were tired and hungry by the time we finished, and ready to go find a camping spot.

And even though we had to drive a couple of miles in to find an open spot, the area in Dixie National Forest just outside of the park was a great place! We were worried at first because you can only camp in designated spaces, and every one we came across was already taken, but luckily it's a long road into the forest. This would be great for longer term camping to explore all the parts of the park with lots of space and privacy at each campsite.

The next morning, we went back in to the park to hike along the rim and see the formations from up above.

We did a little over 2 miles and got some good views.

It's just so different from anywhere else that we have hiked.

Some of the formations that we had passed the day before, like the Alligator here, were much easier to make out from above. We stared at the rocks down below for several minutes without any idea which rock was supposed to look like an alligator, but the light colored layer at the top was a lot easier to spot this way.

By mid-morning, we were ready to say goodbye. But we'll be back!

We were starving so we stopped at Henrie's Drive-in for burgers and milkshakes, which always feel welcome after a couple days of hiking.

We had one more night in St. George with our friends and then one last camping spot in the desert--Anza Borrego this time.

This was our third free camping spot on this trip (plus the free nights on our friends' street). I've been impressed with all the options--the southwest is definitely bookdock friendly.

We pulled out the UV lights to explore once it got dark and found some great stuff, like these little blossoms on one of the shrubs around our camp spot.

And all the rocks in the area.

But the highlight was finding several scorpions. We could see them from 20 feet away, they're so bright!

We enjoyed our last evening of real camping. Peanut got to pick the first half of our trip, but we had one more stop coming up. . .

Vanventures!

 

I made a goal to get out in our van at least one night a month this year, and Bean's water polo tournament in AZ provided the perfect opportunity to get a longer trip in at the beginning of the year. Peanut, Daddy-o, and I left on Wednesday and drove to NV the first day. 

We stopped at the Kern National Wildlife Refuge to make lunch and do a little bird watching.

We found a lot of ducks and waterbirds.

Then, we continued the drive--got a really pretty sky as the moon came up.

And we made it to Las Vegas for a late dinner at Tacos El Gordo.

We were so excited that they've opened a store here--hoping they come up to the Bay Area some day.

And then, our camping spot for the first night. We found an area just outside the Valley of Fire State Park that is on BLM land and had lots of room for campers. Love our free camping spots!

And then, we finally made it to Valley of Fire. This has been on my list for years now, and every trip we make through this area, something happens.

This park did not disappoint. It was incredible!

We did the Wave hike and 7 Wonders loop. The rock formations were incredible.

Our van is happy when we get out :)

The weather wasn't great, but we actually really enjoyed getting to see the desert in the rain.

We went from red sand,

to red rocks.

Found some shelter!

It was like being on a different world!

We really loved this hike.

There was even a little mini-slot canyon.

The striations in the rock were so beautiful.

We had a lot of questions about this, and got lucky to run into a Canadian couple towards the end of our hike and were chatting and I asked if either of them happened to be geologists--and the man was! So he was able to answer a few of our questions and tell us a little about what was going on.

We really enjoyed talking with them and ended up finishing the hike and standing around in the parking lot for another hour or so. 

The rain led to some puddles for us to dodge.

And we did a quick side spur which took us to

Another slot canyon. This is the biggest one in the park and was so cool.

Found a bunch of barrel cacti.

After that hike, we made lunch, made a couple of other stops, including to stop and see this view of the road through the red rocks.

It's seriously so fun to be able to explore this way.

We want to come back to more thoroughly explore this park.

The clouds were incredible!

Our final stop was to see a few petrified logs in the park and then we were off to our sleeping spot for the night.

I had to include a picture of our ramen bowls--I'm loving this dinner option in the van. One dish meal that is so good!

We found another spot on BLM land to sleep, this time near the Hoover Dam because. . .

We wanted to stop and see it the next day! It was quite impressive.

Honestly, the bridge was even more beautiful than the dam.

We took a tour inside the dam and the power plant, which was fascinating.

The designs included in building were so fun.

We loved getting to peek out of the dam.

Colorado River

It was fun going through the tunnels.

I would hate to have to use these stairs in case of an emergency--it's a lot of steps!

Glad that we made this stop.

Here we are at the state line. . . half in AZ and half in NV.

It's crazy seeing how high the water has been at times, and how low it is right now.

More beautiful skies as we drove down to Tucson. We stopped at a KOA on the northside of the city for the first night down there--that meant we got showers before we went to hang out with people in closer quarters :)

Saturday morning, we met up with Bean at the pool! It was so fun seeing her play again.

We got to sneak away at lunch to meet up with our niece/cousin at her favorite taco stand. It was fun catching up with her for a little bit. And then back to the pool. Bean had some good playing time and they did pretty well.

That evening, we had a little time before sunset, so Daddy-o, Peanut, and I went over to the Painted Hills Trailhead for a little walk.

It was gorgeous out.

We caught the last light, and even saw a whole herd of deer out there.

And then, after watching the game Sunday morning, we got back on the road to start the drive home. We made it pretty far and had picked a spot at a trailhead in Indio, CA for the night. Unfortunately, someone thought it was a good spot to come play really loud music late at night. After about 10 minutes, we gave up and moved to the neighborhood nearby. Not ideal, but we really just needed a place to sleep. And then, Monday was just a few hours drive home. 

Such a fun little winter trip and 5 more nights in van!