Our top ten national park travel moments

February 21, 2011 By

Posing on the brink of the Angel’s Landing knife edge.

The Pit Stops for Kids family does our best to do more than ‘talk the talk’ of family travel: we pack up the kids and walk the walk…through rainforests and woods, deserts and beaches, striving to take our kids beyond the boundaries of what they know of our corner of the natural world. I suppose it’s no surprise that our top travel moments have occurred on just such ‘foreign’ soil as our own national parks, a land which, despite many visits, remains largely undiscovered:

10. Watching Toby canoe across Grand Teton’s Jackson Lake under a mid-morning sun.

9. Feeling swallowed whole in the cold and eerie gloom of the Oregon Caves’ Passageway of the Whale.

8. Nate’s absolute joy upon dipping his bread into Many Glacier Hotel’s famous Swiss fondue.

7. Toby’s deep breath before disappearing into an ancient kiva within Mesa Verde’s Puebloan ruins.

6. Coming to a ‘black bear traffic stop’ on Glacier’s Going to the Sun Road.

5. Sweating in the rock solid desert heat under Arches National Park’s Double Arch.

4. Spending a lazy afternoon escaping Yellowstone’s crowds in the Firehole River.

3. Attempting to traverse the ‘knife edge’ on Zion National Park’s Angel’s Landing (and failing to find the nerve).

2. Standing amid the utter isolation of Death Valley’s empty landscape.

1. Watching my kids sworn into 12 junior ranger programs in two years.

This post has been entered in the Grandtourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition in conjunction with HomeAwayUK.

 

Great Basin National Park

February 17, 2011 By

View from the Alpine Lakes Loop Trail, Great Basin.

Near the Utah-Nevada border, at the end of the ‘Loneliest Highway in America’ (Hwy 50), in the midst of the stark Nevada high desert, lies Great Basin National Park. Arguably one of the furthest destinations off the beaten path featured on Pit Stops for Kids, Great Basin is remote enough that the greater national park area only boasts one tiny town, a scattering of motels and RV parks, and a few restaurants, never mind a large grocery store. Oh, and those ‘Last services for however many miles’ signs? You’ll want to pay attention to those.

Is Great Basin worth the drive? Definitely. Especially if you pair it up with a road trip to or from other Utah or Nevada destinations, such as Arches National Park or Reno. The geography of the park is quite amazing: you’ll climb from the basin floor to 10,000 feet up Mt. Wheeler in a matter of minutes as you drive through the park, and the terrain alters from desert to high alpine and back again.

What to do: Great Basin is best known for Lehman Caves, the entrance of which is adjacent to the park’s main visitor center (another center with additional exhibits for kids is below the park near Baker). Visitors must sign up for a guided tour to see the caves, and it’s recommended that you reserve tickets prior to arrival in the busy summer months (we saw people being turned away). Ticket prices are $8 for visitors 16 and up, $4 for visitors 5-15, and free for anyone under age five. We chose a 60 minute tour, which was just long enough to hold our four-year-old’s attention. Guides make it fun by offering geology lessons, historical anecdotes, and spooky stories throughout the tour, and the cave interior really is amazing. After your tour, be sure to take the short hike around the side of the visitor’s center to see the site of the originally discovered entrance to the cave. (Extra tip: bring a jacket for the cave, no matter how warm it may be outside!)

Toby is ready to hike on Mt. Wheeler.

Mt. Wheeler towers about the Great Basin, and due to access on the paved scenic drive, visitors can tour past the 10,000 foot mark of this 13,000 foot mountain. Stop at the Bristlecone Parking Area near Wheeler Peak Campground to hike the Alpine Lakes Loop Trail (2.7 miles), a fairly strenuous climb past two pristine lakes and through high alpine forests. If that’s not for you and your family, other hikes are available. Take care as you climb in altitude: drink lots of water and take it easy until you get used to it!

Stargazing is a major facet of Great Basin National Park’s junior ranger and campground programs, so be sure to attend one of their nighttime presentations or night walks. As (bad) luck would have it, our arrival brought overcast skies, so we missed out on this wonder during our visit!

Where to stay: There are few choices in Baker, NV, so plan ahead! If you’re camping, consider staying in the alpine area of the national park; it’s beautiful, but gets unexpectedly cold at night! If you’re looking for a motel or cabin, your options are limited. We stayed at the Border Inn, which was comfortable enough for a 1-2 night stay (although the rooms are very small). The grounds are nothing to look at (a service station/restaurant/motel complex right on Hwy 50), but the full-service restaurant was friendly and offered a good breakfast, and the stars at night made up for any lack of landscaping or decor. A few other motels/cabins exist in Baker, but after driving past them several times to and from the national park, we felt they were all more or less cut of the same (serviceable) cloth.

Inside the Lehman Caves.

Where to eat: A great dinner spot can be found at T&D’s, a friendly Mexican/Italian/American restaurant. Yes, all three! We had Mexican food, and found it quite good. If I recall, the kids ate pizza. There’s a small grocery store attached, but if you’re only in Baker a few days, it’s better to eat out or bring your own food in; grocery prices are high and the selection is limited.

Directions: From U.S. Highway 6 & 50, turn south on Nevada State Highway 487 and travel 5 miles to Baker, NV. In Baker turn west on Highway 488 and travel 5 miles to the park.

Standing Alone

February 11, 2011 By

Inspired by our travels to Arches National Park.

The only downfall of Moab, Utah? In summer, it tops 100 degrees by 11 am.

But during our visit, we got a fairly early start and hit Arches National Park before ten. I’d never been here before, and I can say with solemn reverence that it was nothing short of stunning. I’m not usually the type to ohh and aww over geological wonders (I’d much rather learn about the people of a place, for instance, than how old its rocks are), but Arches certainly accommodated me in keeping with my recent travel theme of perspective and scope.

Walking through its canyons (or scrambling up them, as the case may have been as I chased after errant children), I was once again made painfully aware of my insignificance. Just as I had felt inside the vast caverns of Great Basin a week prior, staring at stalagmites millions of years in the making (quick, are those the ones hanging down or the ones pointing up?) Moab’s arches reminded me that the universe does not care that I, a random human being, chose the 23rd of July, 2009 to tread upon these particular coordinates of earth. Or any other, for that matter. The arches were there countless years before me, and will likely be there countless after me.

I think, if only for my own benefit, that I need to repeat that: does not care. That’s hard for us to grasp, isn’t it? I think this may be why time as a concept feels so elusive to us, and distance, for that matter: earlier in this road trip, I could barely wrap my mind around The Loneliest Highway in America, let alone the distance between a single star above my tent’s canvas and the path of its light to our planet. Our entire perspective is limited to such a tiny pin drop of experience.

We’re so self involved, the human race.

So in keeping with that theme as well, I can only offer these words. Of mine. And these photos. Of my family. On this date. In this place. Where, for the briefest of moments (brief to the universe, anyway…long as only a car trip with a four-year-old can be to me), my microscopic blink of an existence made contact with the impossibly long span of earth’s history, touching ground upon the smooth desert sandstone of dusty Moab.

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Moab, Utah and Arches National Park

February 16, 2010 By

Since not all great places to stop with kids are along the major interstates, Pitstops for Kids! has added a new series called Off the Beaten Path.

First up, beautiful Moab, Utah and its surrounding areas. We had the pleasure of visiting Moab while touring national parks of the southwest, and quickly realized we could have happily spent many more than the one night we’d reserved in the town. Located 45 minutes from I-70 in Utah along US Highway 191 (2 hours from Grand Juncton, Colorado), Moab is one part champion of the arts, one part gateway to adventure and three parts sun-baked natural beauty.

Moab, Utah and Arches National Park:

Double Arch in Arches National Park…great for climbing and hiking!

Why it’s worth the drive: Moab is home to both Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park, which showcase some of the most stunning geological formations we’ve ever seen! Arches in particular is breathtaking, and offers many easy hikes and vista points for kids to explore. We started at the overlook for Delicate Arch (an easier hike with great views), then drive the short distance to Double Arch. You’ll see the visitor’s center directly after entering the park, but do that last when the temperatures rise. (General Tip: whatever your activity, get up and go early; later in the day, temperatures can be unbearable in summer.)

The town of Moab has much to offer in and of itself. If your kids will tolerate such activities, there’s ample shopping (for everything from boutique clothing to high end outdoors equipment to fine art). If you’re up for some adventure, rent bicycles and explore the area on the many trails or book a dune buggy or Jeep expedition to see more of the desert. Read more about our impressions of Moab.

Chuck-wagon style dinner at the Bar M

Date last visited: July 2009

Distance off the interstate: 45 minutes.

Hours and Admission Prices: The National Parks charge $10 per vehicle. Hours vary by season. Check the official websites for more information. There are many hotel and motel options. We stayed in the Days Inn Moab (426 N. Main), which was in walking distance to restaurants and shops and had a nice pool and free wi-fi.

Food Services: Moab is known for both its fine and casual dining. Our favorite spot was a small cafe called the Wake and Bake (57 S. Main), where you can get homemade crepes with a multitude of fillings and eat out on their sun-touched patio. We also ate one dinner at the Bar M Chuck Wagon, a fun wild-west themed dinner show located a few miles out of town. The BBQ offerings and entertainment were family-friendly (and the pre-show ‘shoot out’ was great), but very young kids might get bored (ours did). If you go, be sure to get reservations!

Website: http://www.moab-utah.com/

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