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Another Big Bite

Another Big Bite

Tag Archives: road trip

The Golden (um, actually RED) Arches

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by anotherbigbite in On the Road Again, Out of Doors, The "Joy" of Parenting

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Tags

Arches National Park, double arch, hiking, moab, outdoors, road trip, Travel, traveling with kids, utah

After leaving Zion National Park, resting up at a hotel in Richfield, Utah and getting back on the road, we beelined it for Arches National Park.

Between Richfield and Arches, we wound through a stretch of I-70 that looked pretty nondescript on the map.  It was actually pretty neat; though we drove through it on the way to Disneyland, most of it was after dark.  We managed to stop at the Black Dragon Canyon Overlook while we headed west; it was dusk and Nathan was aching to see what Eagle Canyon and Ghost Rock looked like during the day.

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On the trip back east, Nathan broke out his GoPro and we snapped away.  In various stages of undress.  Hey; the kids had a complete outfit between them.  And we were literally in the middle of nowhere, so neither Nathan or I much cared.

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Had I been a person with lesser morals; I would have stolen as much flagstone that I could fit in the car.  There was tons of it; everywhere, and it was begging me  to vacation in Colorado Springs.

Once we had filled our bellies with Wendy’s in Moab, we drove through the front gate of Arches.  It is immediately amazing; we wound up the switchbacks until we were happily nestled in its red sandstone towers.  Nathan and I were drooling; oohing and ahhing at everything around us.  The kids didn’t even want to get out of the car.

Whose children are these?  They sure aren’t ours.

Finally, we managed to get Finny out to snap a few pics.

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We headed deeper into the park to check out The Windows and Double Arch.  There were scads of people hiking The Windows Trail and only a few on their way to Double Arch.  Double Arch it was.

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The kids climbed and scrambled up the formations until I couldn’t take it any longer…  And as more people arrived behind us, my stress levels skyrocketed as I imagined them falling, too.

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I never had a fear of heights; but the last few years I’ve suddenly become a nervous wreck anytime I see someone, anyone, getting too close to the edge of their possible demise.

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We gathered the brood as my heart started to pound from the seemingly parentless children dangling their legs over the back of Double Arch (which Nathan made sure to let me know was a sheer plummet to more rocks below).

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The trail back was short, though I made sure the kids and I were downing plenty of water.  I was not going to be waving at any vinyl decals of dogs like I had a Zion.

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We stopped at the visitor center on our way out…  Where Alice fell deeply, madly in love.

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“But I WANT him, I want him, I want him, please, please, please!!”  She has all the making of Veruca Salt, that one.

“Alice, let go of the goat.  We’re leaving.”

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Finn was a little more partial to the bronze crows.

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And that was the end of our journey.  We piled back into the truck and spent the last seven hours of our trip home a little bummed out that it was all over.  All the castles, canyons, waterfalls, arches, mountains, princesses, pixie dust, mice and bronze goats were on the road behind us as we made our way back to reality.

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Faith, Trust, (a reasonably large sum of money) and Pixie Dust – Disneyland Part 1

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by anotherbigbite in Nerd Alert, On the Road Again, The "Joy" of Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

california adventure, disneyland, disneyland with kids, road trip, Travel, traveling with kids

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Brilliant Plan:  Roadtrip!  Colorado to Southern California.  Two days in the car. Sixteen hours of drive time. Two kids. Concoct biggest surprise said children have had in their short lives.

Chalk this one up to “seemed like a good idea at the time.”

By all accounts, the actual trip was awesome.  The little people were relatively well behaved, Nathan and I were in good spirits (most of the time), and we only realized that the air conditioning in our road trip car was non functional once we reached the desert.  Nice.  Yeah, and we had to replace a set of tires in the middle of nowhere, Alice face planted at Walmart and just barely escaped without stitches in her lip… And that massive surprise was kind of a bust.  But other than that; good times.  Good times.

We headed straight out to Disneyland in complete secret.  Finn thought we were just out for another camping trip while I was busy sneaking autograph books, Mickey ears and Disney pins into my suitcase.  We planned on walking him into Downtown Disney, seeing how long it would take him to notice where we were and then blow the top off the whole charade.  In my mind, I pictured Finn bursting into heaving sobs of joy; hugging and kissing his parents and showering them with gratitude…  Kinda like this kid whose mom reunited him with his best friend after three years of separation.  I seem to have forgotten that my life is not a movie.  And Finn is five.

As we walked, Finny began to notice the signs for Disneyland.  And the monorail.  And when he saw crowds of people walking back to their hotels carrying Disney bags, we thought the cover was blown…

“Wow.  All those people must have just gone on vacation to Disney.  That is really weird.  Look at their bags,” Finn remarked as yet another monorail passed overhead.  And still, completely oblivious.

We sat him down, asked him where he thought he was and braced ourselves for an onslaught of gratitude.  Instead, we got a, “Oh.  That’s cool.”

By the time we were on our way to the actual park the next morning; enthusiasm seemed to pick up.  Finn’s never been to Disneyland (but has been to Disney World), so he knew what was in store, but also knew that there were things in California that he’d never seen in Florida… The Matterhorn.  Cars Land.  Monsters, Inc.  And he knew he was now tall enough to go on Tower of Terror.

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Once we were tucked away into the confines of the Happiest Place on Earth, it was an all-out scramble for Finn to get on as many rides as he could.  We took in the Matterhorn, Dumbo, the Storybook Land Canal Boats and the carousel while all anyone else seemed to care about was scrambling for a place in the two hour line to see Anna and Elsa.  Spoiler:  I have better ideas on how to spend 120 minutes.  We skipped it.

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Alice got her own Mickey ears while Finny and I went on the Matterhorn.  I felt like she was officially inducted into the family.  Sure, she’s two-and-a-half.  And our own flesh and blood.  But now she BELONGS.

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Finn is crazy for the Haunted Mansion…  The video game version, that is.  When we got to the real thing, he was ready to be done.  “Why do they have to make this place so scary???” he pleaded.  All the while, I was hoping that the whole ordeal would scare him enough that he wouldn’t want to try The Tower of Terror.  So far, no success after visiting the 999 happy haunts.  No matter his fear, he was still hell bent on flinging himself (and me) down a thirteen story elevator shaft.

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We stopped for lunch just after riding Winnie the Pooh (best lemon and honey cupcake EVER!!) and headed back to to hotel for a nap soon after.  Both kids crashed hard…  And Nathan and I had one of those moments where we almost cried we were so happy.

Well… I did.

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“Do you want to go back to Disneyland?” I asked as soon as the kids woke up.

“YES!”

For once, they agree on something.

“But what about breakfast?” Finny asked, a slight panic in his voice.

“Finn.  It is still the same day.”  This child is NOT accustomed to taking naps in the middle of the day.

via DisneyTouristBlog.com

Later that evening, we headed over to California Adventure to check out Cars Land.   It really was a sight to behold; Finn and Alice thought it was “really, really, cool” with all the rock formations from the movie.  Nathan and I rolled our eyes since they had zero interest in the real rock formations we had spent hours driving through the day before.  The rides were surprisingly a kick in the pants; I figured bumper cars, spinning tractors and a street that looked exactly like Radiator Springs would be pretty standard faire, but it was awesome.

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While waiting in line for Luigi’s Flying Tires, Alice decided she must braid my hair (just as the two teenage girls were doing in front of us).  She’s got a ways to go before we send her to beauty school.

Alice’s favorite ride of the day was the bumper cars in A Bug’s Land…  Those were exactly as much fun as I remember bumper cars being.  Only slower.  But the kids got to drive, and neither one of them noticed the lame-ness.

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We finished off the night with World of Color (a light and water show) and another trip down the main drag in Radiator Springs.  Every Disney vacation we take, without fail, Nathan always manages to get oddly overexcited about some beverage container…  We have a collection of light up mugs, blinking ice cubes and glowing Buzz Lightyear drink clips awkwardly shoved into the cabinets.  This time, it was the construction cone mug. (By the way, Nathan is not happy with me putting this “stupid picture” of him on Facebook or here.)

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By the time we stumbled back to the hotel that night, we were all cashed.  And still had two more days to go…  On our second day, I managed to showcase my complete lack of coolness – three times – on an epic scale.  One of them involved completely rocking out to “Jump” by Cyprus Hill (a staple of my junior high days) at the Mad T Party… So much so that Finn asked what the hell I was doing.  And that is the tame one.

You’ll just have to wait to see the other two.

See ya real soon!

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Congress Blows Goats. So Let’s Go on Vacation! (Part 1)

08 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in On the Road Again, Out of Doors, The "Joy" of Parenting

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Tags

black canyon, camping, colorado, family, government shutdown, gunnison, monarch pass, nature, ouray, outdoors, park, road trip, rv, rving, Travel, traveling with kids, vacation

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Like nearly a million other people, we found ourselves with some extra time off last week.  Never one to pass up the opportunity to hit the road, we decided to get out of Dodge again.

After toying with (and sadly abandoning) the idea to truck out to Arizona to see my dad, we decided to stay a little closer to home and check out Ouray, Colorado.  Ouray is the ice climbing capital of the world, apparently.  Since it is past Labor Day, and nowhere near ice climbing season, we figured it would be a good time to visit.  And whoo-hoo, we were not disappointed at all.

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We took our time getting things together on THursday, and consequently only made it two hours to Buena Vista.  Since we had such a great time when we went there a few months ago, we decided to check out the same “free” campsite we had found.  Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a soul around for miles and we backed in around midnight.  When we woke up the next morning, the rain I thought I had heard was actually snow…  Finn was mighty pleased and was thrilled to be back at the same campsite.  Writing your name in the snow with your own pee may have had something to do with his excitement.

After breakfast at the Brown Dog Coffee Company in Buena Vista (seriously the best raspberry scone I had ever had), we pressed on to Gunnison.  We passed this amazing display of playground awesomeness; holy crap!  How could we not stop?  Three story tube slide?  Don’t mind if I do.

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The slide was awesome; and even Nathan and I were grinning ear-to-ear and racing back up to the top for more.  It was FAST… Alice could have done it all day, but one trip for Finn was enough.  He had his eyes on the rock wall.  And loved going down the swirly slide…. Which knocked him on his ass more than a few times.

Wipeout in 3.... 2..... 1....

Wipeout in 3…. 2….. 1….

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After a disappointing lunch at Pizza Hut (shock; I know) and hitting three separate Walmarts in 24 hours, we finally managed to inch our way up Monarch Pass.  A temporary road sign alerted us to the icy conditions ahead.  No more than three minutes later, we were driving through a decent snow…  And when we saw a bunch of cars and a crew of people milling about the pull out just shy of the pass, I thought of one thing.

Shit.  We didn’t bring chains.  It is barely even October.

Nathan must have been thinking the same thing; he pulled over to get the latest from the folks coming the opposite direction.  They all looked pretty grumpy and were furiously brushing off the snow from their vehicles.  When we got a little closer, and I started rolling down my window to talk to the nearest guy, I got that feeling that something was a little off…

All the cars were blacked out; Mercedes and tank-like trucks were surrounded by a clan of guys decked out in tactical gear; fatigues, guns, knives, bullet-proof vests.  Holy shit.  What had we just rolled up on?

“Uh… Is it really bad?  You guys needed chains?”  I sorta muttered to this guy who was obviously NOT in the military but had enough weapons to make it through the third round of the zombie apocalypse.  I start to notice the truck behind him is armoured and clearly ready to plow through a shower of bullets, machetes or anyone else, alive or dead, that stands in its path.

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“Nah..  Just a little slippery,” he tells us with a ridiculous level of nonchalance considering all the heat he is packing.

Nathan chimes in (in his “I’m an official bad-ass, and I know something is amiss” voice), “Are you a cop?  That pattern on your uniform is the new Special Forces stuff.”

A few more seconds into the conversation, and we’re told that they are in Monarch Pass filming The Fast and the Furious 7 (Whaaaaat?  THE SEVENTH MOVIE?  I must be living under a rock, and not following Vin Diesel’s career as closely as I could be.).  The snow has made it impossible to film.  After Nathan and I breathe a sigh of relief,  Nae asks him about the knife holstered in the front of his vest.

“Nah, man.  Just rubber, he bends the handle in half and I am amazed at how real it looks.  And how bizarre it is that this guy just “bent” his knife in half.  “Guns, knives, all of it is just rubber.”

“Are those trucks the real deal, too?” I ask.

“Nah, they’re empty.  No heaters, no radios, just shells.  Sucks, man.”  He smiles.

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When he asks where we’re headed, and we tell him we’re really not sure, he wishes us well, and tells us it isn’t too slippery up ahead, but we’re gonna get pretty dirty.  Of course, they’re worried about getting dirty.  We didn’t care.  He wishes us well and gives us a very cliché thumbs-up.  We wish him luck for the movie and drive off.  Over the next half hour, we pass three or four sets of identical black cars in triplicate – bigger trucks, and THE Vin Diesel car (or so I think, I’ve stopped caring about Fast and the Furious since I’ve had kids).

“If I cared about Facebook, I would totally put this up there,” Nae tells me.  I totally agree.

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Alice drifted off to sleep, and we got to see evidence of Congress’ work ethic.  Every pull-off for the recreation areas, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, was shuttered up.

Fuck you very much, Congress.  Three cheers for our Nation’s leaders.

We stopped by the Dillon Pinnacles…

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And the Blue Mesa Dam.

And took in the sights of the Black Canyon.  From the road.  Since that is the closest we could get.

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By late afternoon, we pulled into Ouray and were taken aback at how picturesque it was…  It was like living in a movie.  Only not The Fast and the Furious.

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We took a quick tour around town and decided we would come back the next morning when everything was open.

Stay tuned for more!

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The Mountain Beach

24 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Nerd Alert, On the Road Again, Out of Doors, The "Joy" of Parenting

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Tags

camping, colorado, great sand dunes national park, lathrop state park, road trip, rv, rving, spanish peaks, Travel, travel with kids

Dunes NP 7

Oh, it has been a while.  The blog hasn’t exactly been riding shotgun the last few weeks…  I would like to tell you it is because we have been up to something really spectacular; maybe renovating the house or traveling the globe.  Then I would be lying.  I haven’t really even been super-duper busy.  You see, a few weeks ago, I had a major nerdgasm after watching The Hobbit…  The next day I pulled the book off the shelf, blew off the dust, and when I had finished that, I decided to re-read The Lord of the Rings.

Alice and Finny have some major geekage in their genes.

I’m only 60% of the way through the book(s), but I had to watch the first movie (extended edition, obviously) after I finished the first book.  That took Nathan and I a few nights and a weekend.  Now I remember why I was pining over Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen in my early twenties.

I can whip through all the Twilight books and movies in a single weekend, but, whoa – you gotta be a dedicated individual to geek out over Tolkien…

All that is neither here nor there; and it isn’y particularly interesting; listening to me wax philisophical over whether Legolas and Gimili are the original Bert and Ernie (if you catch my drift).  The real excitement came last weekend, where we broke out The House With Wheels for the first time this spring.

Wagons ho!

We packed everything up on Friday afternoon and around dinner time, treated ourselves the kids to McDonald’s, changed them into their jammies and headed south.  Within twenty minutes they were both asleep, and Nathan and I had a glimpse of our younger years – back when it was just the two of us speeding down the highway in the middle of the night…  I loved road trips with that man then, and I love them with him now.  Even with the four complaining mouths we drag along with us nowadays.

By the time it was midnight, we were almost to Great Sand Dunes National Park.  We were the only people on the road – but we had company.   Lots of hooved company.  We saw the first deer about forty miles out from our destination and by the time we saw the third one (with an entire herd in tow), we slowed waaaayy down. Nathan drove like a grandma the rest of the way.  We easily passed over a hundred animals on or immediately next to the road – deer, hares, a massive herd of even more massive elk, and a moose…  Hot damn, it was a very tense forty miles – inching away at thirty miles per hour.

We were settled in by two in the morning and were promptly awoken at six by another herd – a bajillion Boy Scouts – playing football as the sun was cresting the mountains (because why wouldn’t you??).  Holy shit, I wanted to strangle them.  But as I peeked out of the curtains, I was aghast at how BIG the dunes were.

via National Geographic

This, by the way, is my favorite part of road-tripping.  Making camp by light of a headlamp and being completely surprised at where you’ve ended up when the sun comes up.  It is like Christmas; only you are the present and you can’t WAIT to get out of the box.  It dulls the urge to want to throttle sixty fourteen-year-old boys, anyway.

As Nathan busied himself with a spectacular tantrum after Alice flung an entire packet of instant strawberries and cream oatmeal on the floor of the trailer (“In BEAR COUNTRY, Lisa!!  Do you have any idea how much bears love berries??  I’ve seen grizzlies just sitting in strawberry batches gorging themselves until they were drunk on them; Christ, do you have any idea of how serious this is?!??!”), the kids and I did a few laps around the campground, throwing evil glares at any Boy Scout who crossed our path.  At least I did.  I’m pretty sure Alice was, too.  It was chi-chi-chi-chilly.  Finn and Alice didn’t mind.  They were just happy to be playing outside ALL DAY.

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After a good traipse around the area on foot, we headed over to the dunes and had lunch.  After a nice hot bowl of Top Ramen and peanut butter sandwiches, we packed Alice into the backpack and headed out into the sand.  I have no way to describe just how enormous the dunes are; the pictures don’t do them any justice whatsoever… I realize now that I totally should have paid attention when my dad was trying to teach me about choosing the correct exposure when photographing sand and snow…

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But see those little black specks way off in the distance?  Those are people.  

We didn’t hike all the way to the top (a four to six-hour round trip – in the sand, with the kids?  Not this time.), but we make Finny happy…  He had fun at the “mountain beach.”  He kept urging us forward; “C’mon, let’s go vay-cay-sh, guys!!”  Vay-cay-sh, I’ll have you know, is what you do when you are on vacation.  I learn something new every day.

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It was all a little much for little Alice.  She crashed five minutes into the hike.

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After a healthy romp in the sand, a second lunch and a few miles, the kids both pooped out in the car and Nathan and I had some time to ourselves again.  We headed back towards the Spanish Peaks to travel The Highway of Legends.  Oh, it was AMAZING… We started in La Veda and were blown away with how amazing the landscape was.  Green pastures gave way to giant, rocky outcrops; I didn’t take any good pictures.  We were too busy getting excited over the wildlife – “Ah!  Bighorn sheep!  Like, right effing there!!  Oh my god!!”  We saw pronghorn and mule deer, more elk and whitetail deer.  This time, in the daytime, so we could appreciate them and not think of them as potential road hazards.

The Spanish Peaks – via byways.org

We spent Saturday night at Lathrop State Park.  We shared the entire campground with two other people.  We cooked up brats for dinner (sorry – we don’t eat vegan when we are on mini-vacation) and were snoozing by nine thirty.  When we woke up the next morning, we had a lazy breakfast and watched Finny play with rocks and sticks for two hours.  We explored the bathroom seven or eight times – to its full extent; such is the life of a four-year-old.  By the time we packed up and headed home, it was lunch time.  Of course we ran into the pack of Boy Scouts at Wendy’s on the way home.  Ugh.

Now that it is starting to warm up (sort of; it snowed all day today), I am getting the urge to get back on the road… Again.  Even though it means sixteen extra loads of stinky campfire-laundry.

Which begs the question:  Does anyone have a recipe for adolescent boy repellent?  I’ve spent hours looking and haven’t found a THING on Pinterest.

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