Month: January 2020 Page 1 of 4

Daisy woke up with her own Vegas flair this morning.

It really was time to go so we checked out this morning. It was crazy busy. Friday morning of Super Bowl weekend. Happy we were getting out of here. We’ll watch the Super Bowl in the next little town we’re in. I think it’ll be Page.

We walked back to the RV, dropped off Daisy and our things and caught a taxi back to the strip. We never checked out the Venetian or the Wynn hotel and wanted to so we walked around for another hour or 2.

We walked back to the RV and on our drive out we stopped by the Vegas sign for a quick picture. There’s a huge line to take a picture underneath it so we just snapped a quick selfie from the side. Smart one V.

Hoover Dam. Oh yeah, Hoover Dam is super close to Vegas. We left Vegas a little after 2 so bit later than we were thinking and had to re-adjust into learning mode quicker than we all thought we would have to.

Hoover dam is a federally protected site so as we arrived to the checkpoint and were asked if we had firearms, we were promptly turned around. Shoot. What do we do now? We went to one of the overlooks of Lake Mead to figure out what we should do next. We didn’t want to just drive past. We kind of felt that Hoover Dam was pretty important for the kids to see during this country wide trip. I was also irresponsibly annoyed at this point that Edwin didn’t just say “no” to the question of fire arms. Although good on you Edwin for not lying, I’m glad you didn’t. Smartie-pants Edwin called an Uber and after we waited for a little while we made it to the visitor center. By that time though it was 4:17. The visitor center is open until 5pm however they don’t let anyone in past 4:15. I do think that we were all a little relieved that we couldn’t didn’t have to walk through another visitor center. Walked all the way across the dam to the Arizona side back again.

Hoover Dam was built during the Great Depression from 1931-1935 and was originally called Boulder Dam before President Herbert Hoover changed the name.

The winged guardian angels over Hoover Dam.

The Dam is just SE of Las Vegas and downriver from the Grand Canyon (<4hrs) If spans the Colorado River over the Black Canyon between the states of Nevada and Arizona. Hoover Dam creates Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the U.S. (when full). It’s a concrete gravity arch dam that is 726’ tall, 1244’ long, and 45’ thick at the top AND 660’ thick at its base.

Super cute story about a dog if you can in large the picture.

And who could pass up a Dam burrito from the Dam café? Too bad it was closed.

After Hoover Dam the sun was already setting and we still had a few hours till we would arrive at Grand Canyon National Park. We pulled into the campground late. Girls were asleep when we arrived. The stars were amazing.

Grand Canyon National Park. 22nd National Park.

Checking out today. I promised the girls we’d checkout the pool because we didn’t make it there yesterday. We thought the pool was supposed to be open but it was not.

Oh and loving the room and Caesars Palace by the way. The rooms are spacious with a giant bathroom and wonderful tub. Best bath I think ever this morning. The tub is huge and filled 1/10 of the speed as a regular tub. It was awesome.

One day in Vegas, so we decide to do it up and hit up the buffet for breakfast as well. Edwin didn’t come last night and I’m just a sucker for buffets. Probably because we never went out to dinner when we were little and if we ever did it was a random buffet somewhere. I know the quality isn’t as good but I can’t give up the variation and trying a bite from everything. And I find there’s always something that is good. But is it bad if sometimes you’re favorite thing is paying for a buffet but your favorite is the pizza and gelato bar?? Breakfast was even better than dinner with really tasty French toast. The other plus is ordering about 5 different drinks without feeling guilty. Of course you need water, coffee, grapefruit juice, pineapple juice because why not, and soda, because sometimes soda is better than coffee after a night out. (Mom you would have gone crazy with my 5 drinks lines up in a 1/2 circle around my plate 🙂

Somehow during breakfast it was decided to renew our rooms for another night 🙂 …I guess we all had more fun than we though we thought we would.

After going back to the room to digest for a bit, we hit the strip. The girls were all about going back to New York New York to play in the arcade and ride the roller coaster.

Money gets you far in the Vegas world of prizes…a whole 2 lollipops, 2 mini water guns which actually served for a better water fight than we anticipated, and my rubber orange ring, which I also grew quite fond of. Overall, best arcade prizes I think we’ve ever walked away with.

Fun buildings in Vegas

Getting excited for Graceland with Elvis all around us

More nightly fountain shows

My 1 win of the night…at least it got me up enough I could play for awhile and stay even. Oh and I did get to finally spin the wheel for wheel of fortune 🙂 wishing it was Saturday night when Tiesto would be at omnia.

We cleaned up and left pretty early. It’s super windy here today. We took our Death Valley picture on the way out. We drove in late and had a bit of a family meltdown…

Back in Nevada…Off to Vegas we go…

How to share about Vegas…it was only 2 days ago, but already hard to remember exactly what we did…good thing I have pictures to look at. We did the customary drive up and down the strip when we arrived so we could get a better lay of the land.

We decided to stay at Caesars Palace…well because we do have some major fans of Percy Jackson living among us 🙂 Of course parking for the RV is not quite available everywhere so we had to park at the Rio less than a mile from the strip.

Vera was not happy about us telling her we were not only going to Vegas but we were going to stay a night there as well. She hates smokers and gamblers so she was determined to not like it. Also, after driving down the strip she was bummed that Isabella and Edwin picked Caesars to stay at. “Out of all the hotels, that one looks the most boring…” after we drove down the strip.

I think one of one of the best parts was when we first walked into the hotel. And looked up. And I think this was especially good because the girls were cranky about having to walk to Caesars palace instead of being dropped off. It also had us enter the side entrance right at the Fountain of the Gods.

Isabella of course enjoyed pointing every Greek reference around.

We had a great room (actually we decided to splurge on 2 rooms, I think this is the 1st time we’ve done that with the kids) with a great view of the Eiffel Tower and the Bellagio fountains, nicely done Edwin.

Our plan was to stay in Vegas one night and see a show. So many shows to pick from…everyone was fine with anything and after reading different reviews we decided not to see a cirque de Soleil since they come to the SF and we picked Blue Man Group. They were across the board the “best family show”….

We had tickets for 7 at the Luxor almost 2 miles from Caesars. Edwin wanted to gamble a bit and the girls and I were hungry so decided to go check out the buffet while Edwin went downstairs for a bit. The highlight of the buffet always seems to be the dessert table and the girls had fun playing judges on cupcake wars.

Then we met back up with Edwin and walked the strip down to the Luxor.

How is it Vera can walk miles in the woods, but here at mile 1 her feet start hurting?? Maybe it’s the awesome full support converse shoe choice?

Blue Man Group 💙 Fun. Entertaining. Girls enjoyed most of it. Although somehow didn’t live up to all the reviews as a must-see show that’s only in Vegas. They do have you dress yourself in some flair.

The walk back down the strip was more fun than the walk up because we had time to spare and explore.

Gotta get the pennies…

Another pretty Chinese New Year dragon

We liked the crystals in the Cosmopolitan.

Vera even inched out piggy back ride from Isabella for part of the way back

Did I mention we have an awesome hotel room with amazing views of the Bellagio fountains?? So we watched that for a bit while we got the girls to bed and Edwin and I went downstairs for a bit.

Morning time.

We biked for a whole 2 minutes to the visitor center because we didn’t realize the visitor center was connected to the campground.

We were at the visitor center and learned a little bit about Death Valley National Park.

Death Valley only became a national park in 1994, but is the largest national park by square miles in the lower 48 (one in Alaska is larger.)

It is also the hottest, driest, and lowest of all the national parks. It holds the record for highest temperature on Earth at a recorded 134 degrees in the shade. It rains less than 2” a year (desert means it get less than 10” a year)

Badwater Basin at -286 feet below sea level and is the lowest place on the entire continent.

There are 2 major valleys in Death Valley National Park, Death Valley and Panamint Valley.

There are 3 major mountain ranges to the West of Death Valley National Park, Sierra Nevada, Argus, and the Panamint range, lies directly to the west. The Black range is directly to the east.

Death Valley National Park was NOT formed by river erosion. It is part of the “basin and range” formation like Great Basin National Park in Nevada. The earth went through a period of expansion and uplift. There are vertical fault lines in the continental plates and the large blocks of land in between the faults would tilt up on one end and down the other similar to a seesaw. Badwater Basin is the “bottom of the seesaw” and the Panamint mountains to the west are the “upslope of the seesaw” of the same block of land between the faults. The Black Range directly to the East are the “upside of the seesaw”, the beginning of another fault block. These geological forces continue today and during an earthquake Death Valley continue today and Badwater Basin can and most likely will continue to drop in elevation during the next earthquake.

Mountain “ranges” are formed. The “in the beginning valleys” collect sediment from the surrounding mountains and “fill up” and “flatten” the valleys into “basins”. Hence…Basin & Range.

The towering Panamint range of over 11,000 peaks are a stark contrast to the lowest point of Badwater Basin directly at its base. The tallest mountain in N. America, Mount Whitney lies not far from here at the edge of Sequoia National Park and is an example of the greatest topographic change in a short area.

We went to the sand dunes first. We brought our saucers from Tahoe but they weren’t working. I remember renting saucers at white sands national monument years ago and it was super fun. Nobody was in the mood to walk out to the further steeper talker dunes to test it out more. So we we were satisfied snowboarding on them, rolling down the hill, and having a little rest in the sunshine.

Badwater Basin s the lowest point in North America at 282’ below sea level. It is among the largest salt flats in the world stretching over 40 miles. There are 3 things needed for a salt plain. 1. A basin 2. High evaporation rate 3. Source of salt.

To have land below sea level an extremely dry environment is necessary. In wet climates water collects in the lowest areas and flows out to the sea. A dry climate evaporates the water leaving behind salt flats. Sea level is the average elevation of the worlds ocean surface and is the standard from which all elevations are measured. Regardless of tides, sea level remains the same. (Fun fact: the Caribbean is higher in elevation than the Pacific)

Edwin was a good sport and was the large Panamint mountain range.

Death Valley National Park has very clear examples of an “alluvial fan”. “An alluvial fan is a triangle-shaped deposit of gravel, sand, and even smaller pieces of sediment, such as silt.”

We stopped by the “devils golf course” on the way back to camp and we hung out at camp. No one was up for any big walks today. The girls did junior ranger books, rode bikes, Edwin and I made dinner, and we had a fire and watched the stars. It is a great night sky here and the moon is a small crescent.

Happy with our day “in” yesterday and we were ready to do more exploring today. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day.

We went to Moro Rock. The road to get there is closed in the winter so we hiked the 2 mile drive out there. Moro Rock stands at 6,725’ tall after climbing the 350 steps up. Going up this narrow staircase brings us back to Angels Landing and still not quite sure how we did it.

It was a nice walk out there only seeing a handful of people, the sun was out, and walked by some other notable big trees.

These first few are on Auto Log, a downed Giant Sequoia that people used to drive on top of They closed it many years Ho because of decay on the tree.

The next few are from tunnel log. 275’ long 21’ at base.

Then we climbed up to the top of Moro Rock.

You got us 🙂 … this next picture makes me laugh because Edwin and I often offer to take pictures for people and somewhere along the way we always do a quick surprise selfie of ourselves. We met this couple on Saturday and Edwin must’ve done it because when we ran into them up at Moro rock and they took a family pic of us. Only just noticing the pic now as I’m going through pics and posting on the blog.

Ok just showed to Edwin after I wrote the post and he said he did NOT take a picture of Jake and Lauren the other day. So it looks like Jake you have the same MO as Edwin. Ha 🙂

Oh and our campsite at Potwisha campground.

We left the park, returned the car, and we are currently driving to Death Valley.

Sequoia National Park. 21st National Park.

It’s raining here and snowing up top so we all decided on an RV day. So reading so far, math, and Vera brought me lunch in bed.

We ran down the hill for some dinner additions…and the candy store.

…and just got into reception and read about Kobe Bryant & daughter. ❤️ goes out to his wife and girls. and fans. What a bummer. Saw this rainbow as we drove back into the park. Rest In Peace all those who died.

The run down to town was worth the fondue dinner.

It was Friday night last night and more than 1/2 the campground was full so the best spot left still left us at an angle. Edwin woke up with it still bothering him and since we had the rented truck he ran down into town and bought some blocks for the RV. The parking spot was a little slanted but the campsite itself is great.

When Edwin got back with the blocks the girls and I drove the few miles down to the visitor center for an hour while he re-parked the RV.

We got a little bit of a late start up the hill, but we made our way up the hill to the Giant Forest to the big trees. Sequoia National Park has the 1st and 3rd largest tree by volume. The General Sherman Tree at 274.9’ tall and 36.5’ in diameter and the President Tree.

Even up close it hard to fathom the size of these trees. The picture below helps put the General Sherman into prospective. At 180’ up in the air the diameter of the tree is still 13.7 FEET. Again, that at 180 feet up in the air. The largest BRANCH is 6.8 feet in diameter. Just craziness. Back in the 1940s a branch fell off the General Sherman tree that was 6 feet in diameter (a branch almost as big as Edwin wide) and 130 feet long. That’s bigger than any tree east of the Mississippi.

The immensity is just unreal.

It the General Sherman Tree grew in the middle of freeway…

If you laid the General Sherman Tree down on a football field…

If you put the General Sherman Tree on a scale…

My 2 other favorites are the President and Chief Seqouyah.

Look at this crazy tree, looks pretty normal from one side…

Here’s the other side…completely burned out…and still alive.

Here’s another cool burned out tree.

Giant Seqouias are a resistant to fire, drought, and insects.

Chameleon, turtle, rhino?

Talked about the importance of fire yesterday…here’s a visual. The seeds of a Giant Sequoia only the size of an oatmeal flake, so it’s important that they gave bare soil and sunlight in order to begin growing.

View of Mt. Whitney (the tallest mountain in the lower-48 at 14,505’ tall) on the way down the hill to the campground.

We got to camp and enjoyed the evening. The river ran right next to the campsite.

We had another lovely day at King’s Canyon. Another bonus of it being an empty park is instead of driving down to the General Grant Tree parking lot we walked the 3/4 mile down the hill and then did the trail.

See We are really happy this is the first stop after Truckee. Everything is lovely here. The Giant Sequoias are magnificent.

What’s crazy upon first arrival is seeing trees that were giant in the campground a mile above are dwarfed by these true giants.

So big. They’re just so big. But it’s deceptive too. They look like regular trees with fire scars etc…but as you get closer it just becomes intense.

The General Grant Tree is the 3rd largest tree by volume. (The 2 largest are in Sequoia National Park, the General Sherman Tree, 1st, & the President Tree, 2nd. However if you include the branches in the volume, then the General Grant Tree would be 2nd. The largest branch on the General Grant Tree is 4.5’ in diameter. That’s Vera (well almost, Vera minus 4.5”) hanging off the side of the tree over 100’ in the air.

The General Grant Tree is 40’ in diameter (at its widest point) and 268’ tall. That’s our behemoth of our RV sitting INSIDE the trunk of the tree.

??time… How many basketballs 🏀 could you fill inside the trunk of the tree? How many ping pong balls? 🏓

The General Grant Tree was commemorated in 1956 as a living shrine to the men and women in the Armed Forces.

The hollowed our downed tree was very neat to walk through. The girls and I were playing around fantasizing about what it would be like living inside this enormous trunk. It was very fun for a minute…or 30.

159,000 🏀 basketballs. 37 million 🏓 ping pong 🏓 balls

Something new I learned about Giant Sequoias. Giant Sequoias do NOT reproduce by sprouts like the Coast Redwoods. The Giant Sequoias are also not as tall as Coast Redwoods but are much thicker trees. The height of the Giant Sequoias reach up to 311’ tall and can have a diameter of up to 40’. Coast Redwoods are taller at 379’ but only (ha) get up to a diameter of 22’. They are in the same family but do NOT share the same genus. Giant Sequoias Sequoiadendron giganteum and Coast Redwoods Sequoia sempervirens. Coast Redwoods grow along the Northern Californian coast and a bit of the Oregon coast and reproduce by seed (like a tomato seed) and sprouts from the parent tree. Giant Sequoias grow along the western slopes of the Sierra and reproduce by seed (like an oatmeal flake) only. Another real interesting difference is Giant Sequoias have much thicker bark, up to 31” thick compared to Coast Redwoods at 12” thick. I really thought these two trees were more closely related and similar, just one was a coastal tree and the other was an inland tree, but they are not.

We went back to the RV, packed up and left the campsite and drove the 8 miles down to Hume lake.

The road down to the canyon floor is closed until spring and we’d all like to come back here and check it out the river at the bottom of the canyon. We are liking it here at King’s Canyon.

From there we drove back up the hill and down towards Sequoia National Park. Unfortunately the road connecting Kong’s Canyon and Sequoia are closed so we had to drive back out, down, and then back in. Which we probably would’ve had to of done anyway because vehicles longer than 22ft can’t really access the park. We stopped in Visalia to rent a car, did some grocery shopping and entered Sequoia.

Sequoia National Park. 20th National Park.

The drive already in was hairy so I’m happy we rented a car. No one wants to build a fire so we’re just hanging out in the RV being silly. And with silly of course also comes annoying. The girls were being silly but could tell it was about 5min from somebody crying or getting in a bad mood so we shut it down. Of course that’s when Edwin starts getting hyper and I can see Vera’s now getting irritated. After we reminded her that she was pretty annoying herself 5 minutes ago and this is just dads sense of humor I’m pretty sure the funniest moment was when Vera then just nonchalant said well then he should “Buy a better one.”

And that’s the end of the night tonight. Girls are writing in journdd as is abs I’m writing this. No internet here but I’m saving it as a draft. Determined not to stay far behind like I have this last month.

What a beautiful day we had. How lucky we are!!!

Blue skies, crisp snow, plowed streets and campground spots. And I think we saw a total of 12 people today including the 3 employees at the visitor center, 1 at the market, 1 at the gift store and 1 at the lodge. And yes, we spoke to each of them individually.

We walked up to the visitor center, but it didn’t open until 10am, so we farted around the market and the gift shop till it opened. Spent our usual hour or so in the visitor center talking to the employees, watching the movie, and going around the displays.

King’s Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park are connected and although they are separate national parks they’re almost treated as one. I did not know this but King’s Canyon is a larger canyon the the Grand Canyon. Huh? King’s Canyon also has the 3rd largest Sequoia.

The trail up to Panorama Point (King’s Canyon overlook) isn’t plowed so it is closed to cars…but also means it’s open for hikers and snowshoers. The snow wasn’t so deep and fresh that we didn’t have to rent snowshoes. We did bring our Sorels from Tahoe so we went in those. It was a super fun 5 1/2 mile round trip hike with a constant gentle uphill slope. It was a beautiful mostly sunny day and it was a great little hike.

The overlook was beautiful and it made me want to go down into the canyon even more.

The hike back down was even more fun since it was an easy downhill in snow boots.

We walked back to camp and Edwin wanted to go down and check out the big General Grant tree, but we ended up just enjoying hanging around at camp…being the ONLY ones 🙂

Dinner of leftover Chinese and I’m busy catching up on the last 2 weeks of this lovely blog.

Bye Truckee.

On the road again. Even though we were all packed up, “staged”, and ready to go, it was still noon before we left the house.

To be in the RV again. Underwhelming. Annoying. Unstable.Literally. Sad. We don’t want to leave Tahoe. It’s so nice to go weekday skiing in amazing snow. But we’ve already been here 2 weeks and if we don’t go now I feel like we’ll never leave. We could easily be here till June and not blink an eye. Plus a wise friend so poignantly told us this morning, “you know you guys are leaving one vacation for another vacation, right?” Yes, we feel silly.

It’s going to be a bit before we get back into the groove of things. There is not this immediate “yay we’re back in the RV”. It’s more like a ok, wow, back in the RV. Everything moving and shifting around as we drive through the neighborhood. ISABELLA… LOCK the FRIDGE. Is the fridge locked? Quick, go lock it. Ok everyone, we know we’d all like to be skiing today or back at the house but…we’re going…we’re off.

Oh and this was Edwin’s fortune at Chinese tonight.

It was a long drive to King’s Canyon National Park. 19th National Park.

It was dark and late when we arrived at King’s Canyon after we stopped for dinner along the way. The hours of being in the car and the uncertainty of the trip creeping into all of our thoughts was almost immediately wiped away after driving by a giant Sequoia. Pretty incredible. Then going outside. Smelling the air, breathing it in. And looking up at the dark sky. The stars are amazing tonight. There’s not a huge sky because we are camping in a grove of giant trees around us, but the sky was so dark the contrast of the stars were amazing.

We were just up in Truckee, not too different of a place, but very different energy being an RV than a house. There is one tent camper on the other side of the only campground in the park. We are essentially camping alone in this giant national park. It’s nice to be on the road again.

Oh, and…