Category: National Parks & Monuments

While we were in Tucson, we made a last minute change of plans to head down to Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) Mexico.  Since the drive from Tucson to Puerto Penasco was to be 3.5 hours, we decided to break it up by making a one night stop at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.  Not only was it a beautiful park and campground, it allowed us to dump and top-off our fresh water tanks before making the trek into Mexico.

Part of Saguaro National park is right next to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum that we had visited the day before, which was only a 20 minutes drive from our boon docking site at Snyder Hill BLM.  We decided to head over to the park as a day trip to see the cacti and allow the girls to earn another badge.

On our honeymoon trip we had visited the Grand Canyon North Rim.  Since we weren’t hiking down into the canyon, we had just walked along the rim a bit and checked out some viewpoints.  It was pretty, but far from our favorite of parks based on that experience alone.  This time, at the South Rim, we decided to hike down into the canyon (not all the way, but a little bit!).  It was a whole different experience, and left us wanting to come back and hike down farther!

Although the landscape was not as picturesque as many National Parks, it was fascinating seeing and touching the petrified wood that was over 200 million years old!  We felt that a half day in the park was all we needed, but we’re glad we made the detour.

Exploring the ancient Aztec Ruins of the ancestral Pueblo people was so interesting.  Ir really put how our life now is into perspective.  Lucky for the girls, the doors of the ruins were just their size making exploring that much more fun. 

At Canyonlands we had a little preview of the kind of structures that the Ancestral Pueblo people built to store their food, but at Hovenweep we had the opportunity to see many different Pueblo houses and structures.  The skill of these ancient builders was apparent in their handiwork, and being in the presence of their ruins made us ponder what life must have been like for the people that lived here 800 years ago. 

Canyonlands was another park that Justin and I visited on our honeymoon but didn’t get to explore for long, so we were excited to see what was in store for us.  The girls got to enjoy a beautiful campsite full of things to keep their imaginations flowing and we were able to hike/climb some pretty impressive rock buttes.

Thanks to the unexpected daylight savings time change (at least to us this year since we haven’t had cell service to remind us of these things), we were awake earlier than usual and had extra time to stop in Moab to purchase a couple needed items such as fresh veggies before heading to Arches later that afternoon.  Little did we know the daylight savings time would shape our visit so much!

Onto Capitol Reef where we had 5 days to explore.  Justin and I hadn’t really had time to explore this park in much depth during our honeymoon trip years ago, so we were excited to take advantage of what all the park had to offer.

We ended up staying in Bryce Canyon for 2 days in frigid temperatures. The rocks are just so spectacular they almost look like someone painted them orange! We hiked, we biked, we explored and our 2 girls became official Jr Rangers of the park.