After a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast at our hotel, we were ready to begin our second day around Death Valley. It was another clear blue-sky day which started out cold, but quickly warmed up with the sun. Our first experience when we arrived in Death Valley was a drive through the hills on the east side of the Black Mountains. The drive is called Twenty Mule Team Canyon Road. Those of you who are older might be…
Continue Reading “Hiking Hills and Sand Dunes in Death Valley”
White Sands National Park is one of the newest National Parks in the US. Originally a National Monument, Congress changed it to a National Park is 2019. However, as we drove up to the park, some of the signs still said White Sands National Monument. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s start back at the beginning of Saturday. White Sands had been one of my prime destination for this trip. However, getting there turned out to be more…
Continue Reading “From Sunset to Winds at White Sands National Park”
When I was a kid, my dad mentioned visiting Carlsbad Caverns and what a unique experience it was. Since then I have always wanted to visit it. While I said that visiting White Sands National Park was the reason for this trip, Carlsbad Caverns National Park was definitely a part of the reason as well. About 20 years ago my wife and I had visited Albuquerque. At that time I realized Carlsbad Caverns was quite far south so we didn’t…
Continue Reading “Descending into the Depths of Carlsbad Caverns”
Over Thanksgiving week my daughter and I had the opportunity to visit Channel Islands National park off the coast of California. Our family traveled to Santa Barbara to be with my wife’s family for Thanksgiving. We went down there two years ago, but a fire forced us to evacuate. It was time to try again. My daughter, Andrea, lived in Santa Barbara for five years for school. She graduated from Cal. State Channel Islands. I have been down to Santa…
Continue Reading “Exciting Sights at Channel Islands National Park”
Denali is a well known national park in Alaska. Because of its more remote location, it is not visited as much as some parks in the lower 48. When people do visit, they most likely visit for one of two reasons. First they want to see Denali, the mountain. As the highest mountain in the United States, it is obviously worthy of a visit. The second reason is visitors want to see animals, big animals like moose, bear, or caribou.…
While the Space Needle is the iconic sight for Seattle, Mt. Rainier is the icon for the state of Washington. In fact, despite Washington having many mountains, locals often refer to it as simply, “the mountain.” If you can get the Space Needle and Mt. Rainier in the same picture, then you really have a classic Washington picture. Unfortunately Mt. Rainier is not always as visible as we would like. The areas infamous rainy days often hides it from view.…
Pinnacles National Park is a newer national park. It only became a national park in 2013. Perhaps because it is newer explains the reason why many people aren’t even aware of it. While it is located just 80 miles south of San Jose, it is the 13th least visited national park in the United States. Only a little over 233 thousand people visit in a year. Compare that to the 4 million who visit the popular Yosemite National Park just…
