Moab
Our first stop after leaving Colorado was Moab, Utah. We stayed at the Sun Outdoors Canyonlands Gateway RV park, which was a typical commercial campground with sites packed close together, but it was clean and had a pool. And thanks to some pretty hot and sunny days, the pool became a favorite amenity rather quickly!
We visited Dead Horse Point state park our first full day in town. The short hikes from the visitor center provided awesome views of the canyons down below and the main overlook at the end of the park road did not disappoint. The girls all worked hard and earned their first junior ranger badges of the trip. We finished the day back at the RV park with some swimming and bike riding.
The second day started off with a trip to Canyonlands National Park and a hike out to Mesa Arch. After some amazing scenery (whale rock was a favorite of the girls) and a couple more short hikes to various overlooks we found ourselves back at the visitor center where we asked a park ranger about kangaroo mouse footprints, a type of buckwheat flower, and got more junior ranger badges. The day finished with, you guessed it, a swim in the pool.
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For our third and final full day we visited Arches National Park. We spent a lot of time hiking around the windows area and saw a lot of really cool rock formations throughout the park. The girls favorite thing ended up being a sandy hill just off one of the trails where they played for close to an hour while Julie hiked up to another arch and then waited with me at the bottom of the hill while they burned off more energy. At the visitor center Reagan fell asleep during the park movie, but still managed to get her book filled out so she could get her junior ranger badge along side her sisters. We went into town after leaving the park for some lunch and groceries before heading back for a swim at the RV park.
Julie and the big girls woke up early the last morning to hike to delicate arch before we had to leave. She took the girls to see the dinosaurs at Moab Giants while I finished loading up the trailer and headed to Salt Lake.
Salt Lake City
We left Moab and headed to Salt Lake City, Utah where we had a 3 night reservation at a KOA that was nestled in the city just outside of downtown. The sites were once again packed in but this time we had nice big shade trees and grass between each site. Another pool meant that this campground was also kid approved. After setting up the trailer and getting in a quick swim we headed up to Park City to catch dinner with a college friend. We took a winding route through the mountains to get back to town and were rewarded with a baby moose and her mama hanging out in a small meadow next to the road!
The rest of our time in the city included trips to the zoo, a butterfly sanctuary, a children’s museum, and an evening at the natural history museum. We even got to look through a fancy telescope and see the moon really close up. On the way out of town Julie and the girls stopped at another children’s museum and the Great Salt Lake State Park where they earned another junior ranger badge.
Elko and the Sierra Nevada’s
Because of the planned activities for Julie and the girls the morning we left Salt Lake we didn’t want to drive very far. I managed to get to our destination of Elko, Nevada in the early afternoon and got the trailer set up in time catch up with a high school friend of mine who lives there before the girls arrived. We had a lazy evening in the trailer to avoid the windstorm outside and actually got to bed at a decent hour!
The next morning we hit the road headed for Stockton California and chose to drive over the Sierra Nevada’s via California Highway 88 by turning south off of I80 in Fernley Nevada. It was a beautiful drive and I was happy to stare out the windshield at mountains for a change after so much desert scenery had dominated our drives to this point. We got the trailer set up at Julie’s aunt Debbie’s house which would be base camp for the next week or so as we explored this part of California. The girls were once again most excited to have access to a pool!