Day 2 - Death Valley

Day 2 - (March 13) Death Valley

We took a day trip to Death Valley National Park in California. 

Because it was spring, the temperature was warm, but not unbearable, so we were able to explore the salt flats and go on a few short trails.

Days 3-4 - Las Vegas

Day 3 - (March 14) Valley of Fire State Park

Today, we drove about an hour outside of Las Vegas to visit the Valley of Fire State Park.

We had a fun day hiking and playing on rocks at Valley of Fire State Park, outside of Las Vegas.

Later that night, we wandered around the strip, checking out the different casinos' attractions.

Day 4 - (March 15) Leaving Las Vegas

Today we left Las Vegas and headed home. On the way, we stopped in Henderson to see the cactus garden and visit Ethel M's chocolate factory.

Prescott, AZ

We made another attempt to go north to play in the snow. This time we were more successful at Goldwater Lake.

Crown King, AZ

We went to Crown King to play in the snow but found mostly slush and fog.

New Mexico (Oct 13-16, 2016)

The twins had fall break so we decided to take a quick road trip to New Mexico a few days before my knee replacement surgery. 

On the way there, I made us stop near Dragoon, AZ to visit The Thing, roadside attraction. It provided a great stretch break. We then had a delicious BBQ lunch in an old train dining car in Willcox, AZ.

Once we arrived in New Mexico, I got to see several roadside attractions including 3 "World's Largest...." !

We drove through Las Cruces, where I needed to stop to take a picture with the world's largest chili pepper. 

 

By early evening, we arrived in Cloudcroft, where we rented a cabin (with lots of moths!). 

The next morning, we hiked the Trestle trail.

The next day, we drove to Alamogordo and visited White Sands National Park, which contains the world's largest gypsum dunefield. We rented sauces and  went sledding down the dunes.

While we were in the area, we visited the PistachioLand  farm, where we tried lots of different flavors of pistachios and I was able to pose next to the world's largest pistachio. 

Nashville music

I went to Nashville for a work conference. Last night we had a social event where we were entertained by local country singer/song writers. Some of the songs were very good.

Prescott, AZ

This has been a slow travel year. My work trips haven't been to anywhere new and at the start of the year, we bought a new house. We've spent almost every moment of our free time renovating it so we could move in by the end of the summer before school started. As soon as we moved in, I started making updates on my house to prepare it for sale. With all that work finally done, we decided to take a bit of a break and explore some of the forest roads outside of Prescott today. 

We saw a bald eagle, lots of deer, and a tarantula.

Travel Map

This blog gives me a single location to record when and where I went, and key things I saw or did while there (since 2001). I write from my perspective and rarely post pictures of friends or family that I'm with (other than my husband). 

Posts for longer trips are shown in sequential order to make it easier to read about the full trip from the top of the page through the end. (See Hawaii for examples).

This map shows where I've been (orange pins) and trips I currently have scheduled/planned (green pins). Click the image for a better view. 

Happy travels!

Last updated October 2025

Devil's Bridge

We decided to hike to Devil's Bridge today. It was supposed to be a fairly short easy hike, but somehow we lost the trail and ended up with a very steep climb before reaching the bridge.

Luckily, once we were at the top, some other people arrived and showed us the way to the actual path, which we again lost part way back down.

To top it off, when we got back to the Jeep, it made scary grinding noises. Luckily, it wasn't anything serious.

Montezuma's Castle

We drove to Camp Verde today to visit Montezuma's Castle so the girls could collect another junior ranger badge. 

Kanab Condo (July 28-Aug 2, 2014)

Instead of camping this year, we rented a 3 bedroom condo in Kanab, UT and used that as our base for day trips across northern Arizona and southern Utah. 

This map shows an overview of the different spurs we took while staying in Kanab.

The girls enjoyed collecting Junior Ranger badges last year, so we structured this trip to visit state and national parks where they could collect more badges. (Here are the badges they collected by the end of this trip)

Day 1: Drive to Kanab

Our first stop was Sunset Crater, outside of Flagstaff.

It gave us a chance to get out of the car and stretch our legs. 

We didn't take a lot of pictures here, since we've been here before, but the girls did get their junior ranger badges.

Our next stop was Horseshoe Bend outside of Page, AZ

After taking pictures, we were back on the road. We arrived in Kanab by late afternoon and checked into the condo. The girls went for a swim at the condo, then we went out for a relaxing dinner, and grocery shopping to stock up the kitchen.