New Mexico/Colorado

Another Holiday, another camping trip with family.  This time we spent time with Kevin's family.  The trip was broken up into three segments.

On our way to Albuquerque

First we spent time in Albuquerque, New Mexico with Kevin's parents.  We traveled out on a Saturday and stayed through Wednesday.  We worked remotely from their house.  We decided to do our own little tour of the Breaking Bad filming locations in town.  In addition we did the Lane family fourth of July tradition of having a BBQ and eating homemade ice cream.

Selfie at Walter White's House [Breaking Bad]

The Dog House [Breaking Bad]

Mom and Kevin

The next segment of the journey was a camping trip to Breckenridge, Colorado with Kevin's sister and her family.   We stayed at a campground right near Dillon Lake.  Colorado was beautiful, very green with lots of mountains.  We watched the Fourth of July parade with the kids, then we rode the gondola up the mountain.  Kevin and I stayed up there and went on the Alpine slide and had lunch at the Ski Hill Grill.  That night we watched fireworks over Dillon Lake.

Stopped at Sonic for Lunch. Traci and Kevin's Trucks and Trailers

Dillon Lake

Breckenridge Gondolas

Alpine Slide

Fireworks over Lake Dillon

The final segment of the trip was an overnight stay in Telluride, Colorado.  We stayed at the Matterhorn Campground, which is right outside Telluride.  After setting up camp, we went into town for some shopping and dinner.  It's monsoon season there, so we were hit with afternoon thunderstorms. We walked around in the rain, and ended up eating at a yummy restaurant called Brown Dog Pizza.  There's just something about a steaming hot slice of pizza when it's cold and rainy outside!

Main Street in Telluride

Brown Dog Pizza

The next morning we caught the gondola from the town of Mountain Village and rode it into Telluride.  We ate breakfast at Maggie's Bakery, and then headed back to Mountain Village.  I really love that little town, I would love to stay in one of the lodges there sometime, although I'm not sure we could afford it!  The town is filled with huge mansions, it's obviously a playground for the rich!

Telluride Gondola

Mansion in the Mountains

We hope you had a fabulous Independence Day!  You can see more pictures HERE.  Oh, and I remembered (mostly) to video on the trip, so you can catch the trip vlog below if you're interested.

Watch on YouTube

Duck Creek - May 23 - 26 2014 [Memorial Day]

We decided to kick off the summer with a camping trip to Duck Creek, Utah with my parents.  We spent most of the time fishing at the lake.  Well, I don't fish, so I read and took pictures.  Everyone else caught quite a few!  I've taken to calling my dad The Fish Whisperer because he can always catch fish even when no one at the lake is catching anything.  Everyone crowds around him and wants to know his secret.  He says he doesn't have one.  I'm not convinced.

We also went on a hike to a meadow and 'The Big Tree' as my family has dubbed it.

We had a 4x4 adventure on our way to the bat caves.  We got lost on some rough back roads that were really meant for ATVs.  Oops! We eventually made it to the caves.  I didn't go in ( I'm extremely claustrophobic), but everyone else did.  Mom and Kevin found a bat, sleeping in a corner of the cave.

What would camping be without a fire, some s'mores, and star gazing?  I love to look up at the night sky.  It's very peaceful to me.  Kevin actually stayed up until 2AM one night waiting for a meteor shower.  He got some good pictures, but he didn't see many meteors.

 

Getting away from my everyday life was very good for me.  I really relaxed and had time to reflect.  I thought about life on a grander scale, and that is always a good thing!

More pictures from our trip can be found HERE.

Fall Celebrations

Fall is my favorite time of year, I love the cooler weather, the colorful leaves, and the start to all of the Holiday fun.  We like to kick off the season by taking a trip to see some fall foliage.  One of our favorite places to visit is Sedona, AZ.  This year we took the trailer and the dogs there for a four-day weekend to celebrate Halloween, Kevin's Birthday, and Dia De Los Muertos.

For Halloween we carved pumpkins and took pictures of the dogs in their Halloween costumes.  Abbie was a bat and Cassie was a Harley dog (again).  Uptown Sedona is fun on Halloween night, everyone young and old goes to uptown Sedona for the festivities.  All the stores hand out candy, there are costume contests, and performers. It is also the best place to people watch - which we did while eating dinner on the patio at Taos restaurant.  They are dog friendly so Abbie got to go along too.  It was pretty chilly so we stopped in at a local coffee for coffe/hot chocolate.  We didn't get very many good pictures - we're still learning how to shoot good candids.

The next day we drove up the canyon and took pictures of the fall leaves.  We seemed to have been a week or two late for the peak color season, most of the leaves had already fallen, especially as we got further up the canyon.

Later that evening we went to Dia De Los Muertos at Talaqapaque.  Dia De Los Muertos is a beautiful carnival basked in candlelight. This year they had stilt walkers, fire dancers, acrobats and musicians.  We lit a candle for my grandma who passed away a few months ago.

We celebrated Kevin's birthday the following day with cupcakes and presents.  He got some sweet goggles for his Harley rides, a Harley riding bell, a Harley hat, a visa gift card, and an iPod shuffle.  We went back to uptown Sedona, did some shopping, and had dinner at the Sedona Pizza Company.

Click HERE for more Sedona Photos.

4th of July and No Fireworks!

The Muffin Man and I met up with his family in Flagstaff for a family fourth of July camping trip.  It rained every day, and a lightning and thunderstorm on the 4th meant we didn't get to see any fireworks.  Bummer.  I loved the rain though, and we did have a good time seeing the family.  Besides just hanging out at camp, we went to Bearizona, a drive-through wildlife park, and also took the kids geocaching.

Here are some pics from our trip.  (By the way - I don't know why some of my Flickr pics are showing up as 'Currently Unavailable' on the blog - it's very annoying.  I'll try to figure out the problem and get it fixed!)

Zions National Park

For Memorial Day weekend we took a camping trip to Zions National Park with my family.

The first day Kevin and I hiked an unmarked trail with my parents.  We thought it would be a 2 hour hike, but turned out to be 7 hours!  It was a lot more strenuous than we thought too.  Lots of climbing over big rocks!  About halfway in, Kevin hit a slippery patch of rock and fell and twisted his ankle.  We were next to a stream, so Kevin soaked his ankle, and we stopped and ate lunch.  Afterward he felt good enough to continue.

Some serious hiking/rock climbing


Natural Arch

We finally made it to the end of the hike, it turned into a beautiful slot canyon


The next day Kevin stayed at camp to rest his ankle, and I hiked with my parents and nieces to a waterfall.

Me and some of my nieces (from L-R:  Andrea, Gwyneth, Alizé, Me, Mandi)

A waterfall we nicknamed "Mini Maui"

Later that evening Kevin and I hung out at the Zion Brewery listening to a local band

Then we roasted hot dogs and, later, s'mores around the campfire with the rest of the family.

String of lights on my parent's 5th Wheel trailer

You can see more pictures of our trip HERE.  You can also check out my mom's blog post and photos.

It's a Grand Canyon

Even though we've lived in Arizona for a long time, we visited the Grand Canyon for the first time just recently.  We took our trailer and stayed at Mather Campground inside the park (South Rim).

Kevin, me, and our camping gnome at the Grand Canyon

The first night we hiked to Mather Point (which is an easy above-the-rim hike) from the visitor's center.   It was a paved hike so we were able to take Abbie with us.  We got there just in time for sunset, there were gorgeous views of the sun hitting the peaks of the red rocks.  Look close at the picture and you will see Kevin out on the ledge (in a black sweatshirt).

The next day we decided to hike Bright Angel Trail to the 1 1/2 mile resthouse (3 miles round trip).  This was a pretty serious hike (for me at least) it was a steep change in elevation and it felt like we were going straight down (and back up).




We didn't feel too sore the following day, so we hiked another 3 miles (round trip) on the South Kaibab Trail to Cedar Ridge and back.  This one was even steeper than the Bright Angel Trail, and had some serious switchbacks.

The last night we rode the shuttle bus up to Yaki Point, sat out on the ledge and took pictures of the sunset

You can see more pictures from our trip by clicking HERE.