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Olympic National Park is my favorite park yet.  We saw 3 distinct areas of the park: mountain, beach, and rain forest.  Each area was amazing on its own.

We started the day hiking on Hurricane Ridge, known for high winds, freezing temperatures, and large snow falls, but on our day, the weather was chilly, dry, and calm; perfect for hiking the ridge line of a mountain.  The hike had 360 degree views of snow capped mountains.  We cut the hike a few miles short because Danielle was uncomfortable with us walking on some snow with cliffs on both sides… its not like I have our son in a backpack or something.

We then headed down to Marymere Falls and within an hour… BOOM… we are now in a rain forest with moss, ferns, and waterfalls everywhere.  On the hike, we met an Australian Nanny (~28 yo), Georgia, who was traveling around the US in a converted 1980s blue school bus with some Church name on the side of it.  She was a reminder that in about a month, we will be in the land down under… and there is lots of planning to do.  She also volunteer to babysit for us while in Sydney, which could be  nice break as long as she doesnt steal our child.

We wrapped up the day with a sunset on Rialto Beach, a rugged pebble beach where the huge pine trees approach the rocks and waves.  The pictures never do the scene justice.

The next morning, the three Davis’s embarked on a 7 mile hike through Hoh Rain Forest.  I am pushing Danielle and Bryce to see how far we can go before our team falls apart.  So far 7 miles is still good. One day, the coolest site in the park might be 9 or 10 miles hike (hint, hint).

It was remarkable that 24 hours earlier, we were on a ridge at 5400 ft and now we are in a rain forest.  Bravo Olympic… Bravo.

Seattle welcomed us with open arms. The drive from Leavenworth along rt. 2 was stunning with waterfalls, snow capped mountains, and pine forests.  We did a quick tour of Seattle’s Pike Place Market, panicked at the overwhelming number of tourists, walked to the Space Needle and I had some non-Starbucks coffee. 

We spend the evening with Catherine and Joe at their awesome home overlooking Seattle Harbor.  Relaxing by a fire with good wine, good beer and good friends while my kid obsessively and quietly played with magnetic trains for hours, was exactly what we needed.  Sunday, we spend the day with Billy, Katie and family.  Billy and I have been friends since elementary school and spent a lot of time doing nothing productive together in high school. After ~10 years since we last saw each other, it was great to catch up and watch our kids play together.  Danielle and I felt at home in Seattle… we will certainly visit more often.

The ferry over to the Olympic Peninsula had one of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen… this was just the beginning for our time in Olympic…

The journey from Jackson WY to Seattle is over 13.5 hours drive and 860 miles (similar to New York to Atlanta for the east coast peeps).  We broke the drive into 3 days: one night in Boise, one night in Walla Walla (wine country) and a spontaneous trip to a Bavarian town in the mountains.

Night in Boise: Ate Taco Bell and went to bed.  Sad to see that Taco Bell discontinued the Grilled Stuffed Burrito…

We arrived in Walla Walla early and set up camp at a cute RV park walking distance to the tasting rooms in downtown Walla Walla.  Walking distance was a must since I am not going to have a sip wine and drive that beast of an RV.  After 3 tasting rooms and a stroller full of wine, Bryce lead the way back to the RV camp.  We stopped at El Sombrero Mexican Restaurant on the walk back… poor choice… Danielle might not eat Mexican again until we hit San Diego.

We got a late start on Day 26.  On a run, the stroller tire blew out and we needed to get it fixed.  Our plan was to hike at Cougar Mountain and then find a place to stay (with the backup being the casino parking lot).  There was an accident on the way to Cougar Mountain and it had our arrival close to 4pm, which limited our ability to hike.  So we audibled…   we had 2 recommendations to visit Leavenworth, a Bavarian styled town in the Cascade Mountains.  This stop was a winner.  We drank great beer outside in the mountains then had a variety of Schnitzel and Brats.  The next morning, we headed to Seattle.

CLOSED.. booooo.

Jackson, Wyoming brought some very special guests… Grandma and Grandpa!  Everything seems so clear when I watch Bryce with my parents.  All of life’s annoying minutia and worries about the future disappear and what’s left is all that truly matters: family, love, and the present. 

The weather in Jackson was not in our favor. Three days of snow, rain and ice. Despite some great pictures, an attempted hike at Jenny Lake in the Grand Teton National Park turned out to be too cold for the little man. We resorted to Jackson’s third most popular attraction (behind National Parks and Skiing)… drinking Beer and eating red meat.  Snake River Brewery and Local Steak hit the spot on this chilly day.  Danielle and I enjoyed two runs along the Elk refuge even though the Elk don’t arrive for a few more weeks, we explored Jackson, ate a home cooked meal, and washed some much needed laundry. 

I’ll have a separate post about Yellowstone…

The first 2 weeks of the trip were very park intensive.  We drove close to 2500 miles and saw 12 parks as just the 3 of us.  Beginning in Northern Colorado, we will be joined by some very special people in our lives… and spend a bit more time using real showers and sleeping in real beds!

In the Northern Colorado, the Davis’s were welcomed with open arms by the Odesser’s and Sambur’s, friends since I was born!  The company and the hospitality was amazing.  Justin picked a perfect day at the pumpkin festival (pig racing, corn pit, rug slide, bounce pit) that allowed Bryce (and other little people) to run around after weeks in the car seat and hiking backpack.  Great times.

Danielle and I have been aligned on 95% of our travel decisions, but when Danielle wanted to get a pumpkin for the RV, we needed additional discussion.  In the end, she agreed that a 15lb slowly rotting piece of fruit in the RV was not a great idea. 

Thanks for the love Colorado peeps… on the Wyoming

We are nearing the end of the season at some of the northern parks, which means the weather is “hit or miss.”  The first day at Rocky Mountain was a hit.  We did the full Bear Lake Loop of 7+miles.  The weather was perfect with sun and clouds in the low 50s.  We thought we would only do 3 miles so we didn’t pack lunch… by mile 6, Hangry Danielle came out and we consumed all of our emergency snacks. Overall, an amazing hike. 

One small opps… Lake Haiyaha is supposedly one of the stunning lakes in Rocky Mountain Park… Danielle and I were completely underwhelmed by what looked like a mostly dried up swamp.  On the bus back, a family was raving about the lake.  It turns out that we needed to go 200 meters further over a small rock formation to get to the actual lake.  That half dried swamp was… an irrelevant half dried swamp.  I am proclaiming this to be Davis Swamp and will be petitioning the Parks Foundation for the naming rights.

Hiking on Day 2 was a miss.  The weather was not in our favor.  Team Davis set out to do Cub Lake, a 6 mile hike.  During this hike the weather turned fast from sunny to icy sleet and high winds.  The little man was not enjoying this ride and voiced his disapproval of our hiking choice.  We booked it through the back end of the hike to arrive back at the RV with a large orange parking warning sticker.

There were limited campgrounds close to the Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado so Davis’s attempted our second Boondocking night… smashing success.  The internet recommended a small Bauru of Land Management road at the base of the Rockies where the dessert becomes mountains.  The only people within 20 miles was a couple living the #vanlife with a custom van and their dog Cooper.  The sunset and sunrise were spectacular and the price was right.

The Great Sand Dunes is an unbelievable piece of earth.  Nestled between the dessert and the mountains is a perfect Sahara-like dessert landscape.  There are no trails… Just climb the highest sand dune.  After almost a mile of 1 step forward ¾ of a step back we had reached as high as we wanted to go.  We spent the next hour watching Bryce play in the sand and then the next 30 minutes cleaning sand out of our mobile home…

Winter is beginning to show itself.  As we began our hikes at the Black Canyon, there was snow on the ground… and over the next week or two, its only going to get colder and snowier.  The Black Canyon of the Gunnison was forest hiking.  We have been dessert hiking for the pat two weeks and a little tree cover is a welcome feature.  We hiked the Uplands and Oak Flats trails, which dipped into the canyon for some amazing views and the Warner Point hike for the best view of the canyon and surrounding landscape.  Next, we have a long drive to the Great Sand Dunes of Southern Colorado.

Mesa Verde National Park in Southwest Colorado was created to preserve thousands of archeological sites, three of which are large cliff dwellings.  On this Monday morning, we took a tour of the Cliff Palace with 50 of our senior citizen friends.   Ranger Drew did an outstanding job providing true historical perspective. It was humbling and disturbing to learn that many native peoples were displaced when some of the national parks were founded. The tour was running very long due to the large number of steps and ladders and our very inquisitive group of senior explorers.  Bryce began to disapprove of the questions being asked so we made an early exit.  We hiked the Petroglyph Point Trail viewed a few more sites and hit the road.

Route 145 from Mesa Verde to Black Canyon was absolutely stunning!  We crossed into the Rocky Mountains and through the San Juan National Forest.  If we had more time, I would have loved to explore the area and camp on some of the US park land.  A national treasure!

Canyonlands has 2 distinct areas located 3 hours drive from one another, so we focused our visit on the Island in the Sky section.  Again, anxiety about parking drove an early wakeup to see the mesa arch… and again, my neuroses proved unwarranted… plenty of spots.  The Mesa arch is awesome primarily due to the view of the canyons through the arch.  The Mesa arch is accessible by a short walk from the parking lot so we had to aggressively move into position to prevent the hoards or tourists from clogging the archway and preventing pictures.  Our next stop was the White Rim Trail.  A lesser know trail that the internet told me about.  This trail was amazing and possible the highlight of Moab.  The sparsely populated trail wound along the cliff with views off the plateau from multiple angles culminating at an astounding panorama of the white rim canyon and the other canyons below.  We also scored the only RV parking spot with a private picnic area.  Bryce ran around playing in the sand and rock while I broke out the grill.  This relaxing lunch with sensational views was a definite highlight.  We then couldn’t get a parking spot at whale rock or upheaval dome and decided to move on.

Arches and lots Sand.  The word on the streets of Moab is that parking is tough in Arches especially the weekend of the Moab half marathon.  Since we are driving the rig into the park, I wanted to get there by 7.  When we arrived at the first hike, the delicate arch, an hour after the scheduled time there were… ton of empty spots.   The delicate arch hike and view was pretty cool.  Taking arch photos is challenging because you need to angle your camera so your head blocks the fools standing in the center with there hands over their head. 

We then made our way to the devils playground area to see the Sand Arch, Tapestry Arch, and Broken Arch where we lucked out with a great spot.  This loop is completely underrated.  The sand arch isn’t much, but it is located in a canyon that is covered in pink sand.  Bryce had a field day playing in the sand, which made this arch my favorite spot.  The hike to the broken arch only had a few people, which was a welcome relief. When we went through the broken arch toward the tapestry arch, it felt like we were the only people hiking this beautiful path through the desert.

After 7 miles of desert hiking, Danielle reluctantly agree to see some more arches.  The double arch and windows view were overrun with people. The only place in Moab that had more people than the double arch was the City Market Grocery store…

The drive on Utah Route 12 through the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument is half terrifying and half marvelous.  This is a winding road with steep grades, large drop-offs, and open ranges (where cows are just chillin on the road) and has some of the best views of any drive I have ever taken.  The red cliffs of Capital Reef rise up as you approach the park.  We quickly learned that our 30ft rig couldn’t go to the Cassidy Arch hike we had planed so we had to audible.  We did 3 miles on the Chimney Rock trail, which ironically, did not have good views of Chimney Rock.  Instead, the views of the landscape were outstanding.  Inside the park, there are a variety of fruit orchards, the Fruita Orchards, that are available for picking.  Bryce had a blast picking and eating apples.  Danielle had a blast making sure he didn’t eat the apples off the ground.

After I consumed more apple than could possibly be healthy, we picked a hike along a dried riverbed.  For the first time, Danielle volunteered to carry Bryce in the pack… The 30-35 pounds was harder to carry now than 19 months ago.  Not sure she is going to volunteer for that again anytime soon…

Another sub-freezing morning.   Today was a later start as to avoid frostbite. After a quick run through Dixie Forest, we were off to the park.  Our hike, which included parts of the pick-a-boo trail and Queens garden trail, was sensational.  Multiple tour groups passed us on horseback.  Bryce would get so excited he almost leaped out of the carrier.

Today was a big day for the Bryce Canyon Visitors Center Gift shop.   All of Trump’s cuts to the National Park System were offset buy our spending on Bryce labeled merchandise. 

We conclude the day with 50 pictures of Bryce in front of the Bryce Canyon sign and hope that 1 of those pictures has him looking in our general direction.

Winter has arrived… We awoke to temperatures in the mid 20’s.  The wind shaking the RV woke up the little man around 2:30am making for a less than optimal sleeping experience for mom and dad.  By 8am we were on the road to with the mission of getting pictures of Bryce in front of everything that said Bryce.  We hiked the rim trail from Bryce Point to Inspiration point.  This was supposed to be an easy mile walk, but the wind on the rim of the canyon pushed me around making for a terrifying experience.  We then did the popular Navajo loop trail and then found the Bryce Canyon City local park for Bryce to stretch his legs.  We finished up the day with a glutinous experience at the Ruby’s Cowboy Buffet where the little man ate a big man potion of ice cream.  Nonna and Marlene must have been training him…