Pinnacles National Park

After several days of indulging and indoor play, we were ready for an outdoor adventure. Daddy-o was able to take the day off and we went to Pinnacles National Park for a full day of hiking.

The kids and I had been once, almost 4 years ago, but this was our first family trip to this park, which is our closest National Park (just under 2 hours!)

We started with the Bear Gulch/Moses Springs trail. The caves were closed on one stretch, but the trail that skirts around them still had a couple cave areas that we were able to go through. It's a very different hike than most that we do.

There were little areas of fall colors.

And this gorgeous mossy staircase at the end. . .

which leads up to a small reservoir.

We took a break to eat snacks and throw rocks in the water. It was turning into a gorgeous day with temperatures just right for hiking.

More fungi! These were cute little upside down cups. I need to get better at identifying what I'm finding because I usually have no idea!

We took the Rim Trail back down, 

and found some incredible moss. Pinnacles has such a variety of environments--rough, rocky cliffs, caves, and these wet forest areas.

We took a lunch break after our first hike. We've really embraced the warm camping lunches while on day hikes and it's really fun. We heated up water for soup bowls and a couple Mountain House backpacking meals and pretty soon, everyone was stuffed and happy. I've finally learned that this is so important for hiking happiness, especially for Peanut.

I wanted to explore the Sycamore Trail that runs along a creek bed next. Bean stayed back by the car, reading, because she'd strained her ankle the day before and didn't want to push it too much.

 I thought Peanut would opt to stay back as well, but like I said, a full belly is key for him and he was actually the one pushing for us to go farther on this segment.  The trail ended up going downhill pretty steeply in a couple spots and Daddy-o and I were both ready to turn back so we wouldn't have all the uphill on the way back, but he wanted to see more. It was a pretty trail and I can only imagine how great it will be in a few weeks when the water is flowing freely and the trees are all starting to bud.

There was a pretty little meadow where we found several woodpeckers. And we saw deer right at the start of the trail, too.

Peanut got his reading time after all. We were meeting up with friends, the G family, for the last hike and they weren't there yet so we just relaxed for a bit. They ended up getting there an hour later than they'd expected because the park rangers weren't letting anyone through because of crowds (which was crazy because there were actually several empty parking spaces there the whole time!) But eventually they were let through.

The last hike of the day was the hardest. Condor Gulch is a whole lot of uphill, and then back down again. I'm at the point where both directions hurt almost equally, haha. But the views were amazing from the higher points. We did not see any condors up there, which was our hope. We may have seen some from the parking lot, but it's hard to know if they were vultures or condors from that distance.

The hike back down was a little rushed because we were losing daylight fast. We had slips and stumbles, bandaids, and tears, but it was mostly fun, and by that time of day, we had the trail almost completely to ourselves, so it was the least crowded conditions we'd seen all day. And I didn't get a picture of it (because pictures never do justice), but the full moon was rising as we came down and looked absolutely amazing as it came over the cliffs and treetops. It was a great way to end the day.

And. . . drumroll please. . . while we were there, we got our 1000th hour of outside time for 2020, just a couple days before the cutoff! Bug had actually finished his hours a few days earlier, but both Peanut and Bean finished theirs while we were doing that last hike. It felt like a huge accomplishment. We had to do 144 or so hours in this last month, which is no easy feat for December. Our highest month, July, was only a couple hours more than that, so I was skeptical that we'd be able to do it, but these kids were determined and they did what it took! 

Peanut wanted to celebrate by not leaving the house for the rest of the year, haha. I'm not going to force anymore hikes until January, but my guess is he'll want to ride his bike again. Instead, we stopped for dinner at A&W in Hollister on our way home. And then our two crazy teens did a double feature with the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. I can't stay up until 1 a.m. for movies, but I'm glad they have each other to be teens with and do all those things that they'd probably normally be doing with friends.

Black Friday Opt Outside

One last outdoor adventure--a day trip to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. The kids had never been and it had been decades since Daddy-o or I had seen the Grand Canyon (and both from the south rim.)

After a slightly dicey drive on icy roads for the last few miles, we made it and the views were everything we hoped for.

It was beautiful seeing the snow covered cliffs in the shadows.

We bundled up for a short hike, had a picnic in a sunny spot, and then headed off on a longer hike along one rim and then looping back through the campground and a pine forest.

We made snowballs, 

hiked through the snow,

and realized how cool snow is. The animal tracks were so much easier to spot.

These bird tracks were so cute!

And the rabbit.

It was a great day trip and totally worth the hours of driving. We made it back home in time for dinner. My mom and brother came to see us in our driveway for an hour so we could say goodbye. The whole week was wonderful--so many beautiful sights, so much incredible family time, so many excellent outdoor hours.

 

Saturday, we drove the 12 hours home and ended up with this, haha. Traveling wipes you out, and makes crazy messes, but it's worth it every time.

Death Valley Sand Dunes

Over a year ago, we had started talking about doing a trip for Thanksgiving 2020--camping in Death Valley for a few days, Thanksgiving in St. George with my family, maybe some extra national parks. And then, Covid happened and we stopped planning anything at all. But a couple months ago, I brought it up again, thinking through how we could do this safely, and we finally decided to go for it. Of course, things had to get more complicated--with Utah cases rising rapidly (and so many people refusing to cooperate with precautions), and then CA recommending quarantining after travel. We almost cancelled the trip, or at least the UT part of the trip, several times in the last week. But in the end, we decided that we were taking enough precautions to make it reasonably safe and that the benefits for everyone's mental health were worth the tiny risk we might be taking.

So, we loaded up the minimal camping supplies we needed for a couple nights in the desert, most of our food for a week of travel, and set off on an epic adventure. It wasn't travel like we normally do it (Bean and I were the only ones who even went inside for a quick bathroom stop, no food stops at all), but we made it to Death Valley National Park with about 2.5 hours of sunlight left.

And that meant we had time to stop at the sand dunes before setting up camp.

These were absolutely incredible and I'm pretty sure the kids could have played around here all day if we'd had time.

So much fun!

We got them all jumping.

Pure joy.

And of course Daddy-o couldn't let this opportunity go by. He got the coolest photo, for sure.

We were off to a good start, and with a couple days of exploring ahead of us! 

Lockdown, Day 7 or is it Coronaschooing, Day 6?

I'm not sure how to count this pandemic--from the day schools closed? Or from the shelter-in-place order, when we were locked down? Or whatever the new restriction is going to be, which we're all just waiting for because there are too many people who can't seem to figure out how far 6 feet is, or what it means when someone lives in their household. Parks are starting to shut down completely in the counties around us and based on the reports from the weekend where groups were hanging out in closed picnic areas and gathering in parking lots and everywhere else, I'm sure our county is right behind them. It's going to be sad when we can't get out to hike anywhere other than our street (and I really hope they don't take that away, but who knows what will happen?)

But despite the news being dismal as always, today had it's bright moments. We checked another new game off the list--The Art Game, which I didn't realize when I found it at Goodwill is just a special set of cards to play Old Maid or Memory. But I haven't played Old Maid in ages and it was kind of fun, and the art work is beautiful and inspired a conversation about the Impressionists and how they were all friends and painted each other. We compared the style of paintings for each artist and how sometimes artists will change their style so the paintings don't all look like they match. The book that comes with the game has a ton of information, so it will be fun to learn more about each of these artists as we play with the cards. Peanut wasn't at our charter school in NC long enough to get the art history base that the other two kids received, which was always one of my favorite things about that school.

We got out for a bike ride/walk in the afternoon. It was a pretty chilly, gloomy day, so the bike path was a lot quieter. The creek was dry today, so instead of getting to skip rocks and wade, we walked the dry bed and the kids found fun things to photograph. 

Peanut and I left behind some natural rock art :) The kids call the orangish rock "paint rocks" and have used them at park day over the years, so today we drew pictures and messages with them.

Even when it's gray out, I'm so grateful for the outside time. We took two different walks today, both very needed. We're all feeling a little cooped up, I think. I keep thinking what this must be like for those living in apartments, and in dense urban areas where it's difficult to find places to walk without running into others. We still have it pretty good. I need to remember that.

And I'll just leave off with this photo. I'm glad our backyard is a no motorcycle zone. We don't need that kind of traffic around here. :)

Fall in Sycamore Grove

When some friends said they were going to try to take some family photos at Sycamore Grove and invited us along, I decided to go for it. Official pictures honestly stress me out--the whole process from finding a photographer, a location, and clothes for everyone, to actually doing the photo shoot and hoping for amazing photos that we're going to want to blow up to put on our wall is just too much pressure. So this felt like the easy solution--we only had two days to get ready, so no time for new outfits, and it was a low-cost (free) attempt, so if we didn't get anything we liked, it wouldn't be a big deal. Best of all, it was an absolutely beautiful day just before all the rain started, so we got to go for a nice walk with friends.

And I think I got some good pictures of the kids.

And some fun ones, too.

The kids were all really cooperative, which helped.

Super smiley :)

Then they started goofing around.

They were having fun with the whole thing,

probably because it wasn't just us. Having friends around had them on better behavior, and just made it fun.

Perfect trees for climbing.

These two--they seem to connect in a special way. I've watched it over and over, ever since they got to know each other. There may be a 3 year age difference, but that doesn't seem to matter.