Big Sur anniversary trip~

We drove up to Big Sur to explore the central coast for our anniversary. It was unbelievable! First, driving along the cliffside is actually terrifying. The road gets super narrow and the drop is hundreds of feet down into the crashing waves. It makes for a beautiful and adrenaline-filled ride.

Our first stop was Pfeiffer Beach. We needed to let the pups stretch their legs after the three hour drive, and the beach was completely pet friendly. After a bumpy ride down a dirt road and a $5 entry fee, we arrived and took the short walk down to the sand. Correction, down to the PURPLE sand. That's right, Pfeiffer Beach has PURPLE SAND! (you can see it better in the second photo below.)

It got more and more purple as you dug deeper in the sand. So cool. The rock formations in the ocean were really unique too, and the waves thundered against them with quite a lot of power. We played in the sand and let the dogs run around for a bit which they really enjoyed. Mara wanted to chase the waves. Jack just wanted to dig holes.

We drove up and down the coast, stopping at different pretty spots and trails. Finally, we saw the view we had been waiting for: McWay Falls!

Fun fact: a waterfall that flows into the ocean is called a "tidefall." :)

We were only able to spend one day in Big Sure because of work. Our schedules rarely overlap and we only had one day off together. So it was a quick trip filled with lots of driving, but it was so nice to see the famous areas we'd heard and read about. Hopefully we can come back one day for a full camping trip!

On the way back home, we stopped at the Novo restaurant in SLO and had a lovely anniversary dinner by the river. Happy 2nd anniversary to us!

February things~

February started out.... stressful. We had to move out of the campground we've been living in on base and into an apartment. Why? Because the base we live on changed their rules. They made it so that you can only live in the campground for 6 months and then you have to leave. So frustrating! So we put our trailer into storage and moved into an apartment.

Moving out.

We found a fairly cheap apartment and moved in for the duration of our time here in California. Its not perfect, but it is a ground floor apartment, with a huge patio and a fence out to the grass outside for the dogs. The walls are grey, which I love, and there's beautiful (fake) hardwood floors in the kitchen and bathroom! Its about a 10 minute drive to work and our neighbors are nice and quiet, so it could be worse!

Bedroom

Living Room

Bathroom

Best part is... its temporary! We both found out we will be moving to Washington, DC in August! We both got assignments out there and we are ecstatic. So, we will only be in this little apartment for a few more months :) We plan to sell the trailer and the truck before we move, so we will get a really nice return on that investment.

We plan to hit a few spots on our move to make it a fun roadtrip. High priority on our list are San Diego, White Sands National Monument, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Its so exciting! Neither of us have driven through most of these states and neither of us have ever lived on the east coast before. It will be an adventure for sure.

January

January was mostly uneventful... lots of working and hanging out at home. We did get to visit Nathan's family in though, which was really fun! At the end of the month we flew up the Tacoma, WA to see them and to attend Nathan's dad's retirement ceremony. He dedicated 30 years of his life to serving in the United States Air Force! The retirement ceremony was so wonderful and paid a very nice tribute to John's hard work and dedication over the past 30 years.

We were very happy to be there! Nathan is so proud of his dad and I am so honored to be part of a family with such a long history of selfless service to this nation. I've been to quite a few promotion ceremonies but this was the first retirement ceremony I have ever been to... it set the bar pretty high. So many people came out to honor John's retirement and it was so obvious how much his airmen love him and how many lives he has impacted. I can definitely see how much he has rubbed off on Nathan and influenced the kind of man and officer he is today.

We can't wait to see where our careers and our lives take us! Who knows where we'll be in 30 years :)

Yosemite Winter Backpacking

The long awaited weekend of December 12th finally came, and we were able to go on our winter backpacking/cross-country skiing trip in Yosemite! We were looking forward to it for weeks, waiting for A) us to have an actual weekend off together and B) for Badger Pass Ski Area to finally open. Badger Pass is California's oldest ski area, and opening day was December 12th! There was a huge storm the day before and they got a ton of snow (yay!).

We woke up Saturday morning, dropped the pups off at their favorite doggy daycare place, and headed for the mountains. Its a ~4 hour drive to Yosemite, but it turned into more like 5 1/2 hours due to traffic and weather. Plus, we had to stop at REI and get some winter gloves since neither of us could find ours. Anytime I'm in REI it takes me forever, even if I'm only buying one thing. There's just so much gear to drool over.

We reached Badger Pass around 2pm on Saturday and there was SO MUCH SNOW! We stopped by the A-frame ranger station to fill out a wilderness pass (you need these for backpacking in the park) and the ranger was super nice. He did advise us though that they were expecting a huge snow storm on Sunday and that we maybe shouldn't spend two nights out there. Hmmm. After that we headed to the Nordic Ski Center and got ourselves a couple pairs of cross country skiis and boots. They gave us a military discount - completely free ski rentals for three days! So nice!

The trail: During the summer, Glacier Point Road takes you out to (you guessed it) Glacier Point, where you can see stunning views of Half Dome and the entire Yosemite Valley. During the winter, they shut it down to cars and it turns into a beautiful cross country skiing/snowshoeing trail, with multiple side trails attached to it. It's 10.5 miles out to Glacier Point and we were planning to take three days to make it out there and back. 21 miles on cross country skiis isn't bad at all, especially when you can just coast down the hills. It goes a lot quicker than hiking!

Glacier Point Road

We parked near the trailhead, donned our packs, and set off around 3pm. It was going great for the first 20 seconds before I promptly fell on my butt. Have you ever tried to roll back onto your knees/feet while wearing cross-country skis and a giant rucksack? Its not the most graceful sight in the world. I made it back up though, skied another 10 feet, and wiped out again. Did I mention this was my first time cross country skiing???

After those first two wipeouts I got the hang of it and we were soon flying down the trails. Holy cow. I can't even begin to describe how fun it was! And SO MUCH better than regular hiking with a heavy pack on your back! Skiing is way easier on the joints and you are able to go much faster. It was great.

"Pose by this squiggly sign!"

I will say this: the first mile of trail was less than lovely - hikers and snowshoe-ers had pretty much destroyed it. Past that though, it was completely pristine. There were only a few tracks from some other skiers and that was it. We made it three miles (in a little over an hour) before the sun began to set and it started getting dark - around 4:30pm. We didn't want to ski in the dark so we decided to find a campsite. We ended up near Bridalveil Creek underneath a beautiful grove of trees.

Bridalveil Creek

Our campsite

We immediately set up the tent before we got too cold, and started cooking dinner. We each had a mountain home meal (freeze dried backpacking food) - Nathan had the spaghetti dinner and I had the chili mac. Well, Nathan ate half of my chili mac too. All it requires is 2 cups of boiling water to make, so we boiled some snow in our JetBoil and had a feast. By this time (probably 6pm?) it was pitch black so we started getting ready for bed.

Tips for snow camping:
- Layers, layers layers! I wore a tank top, a wool underwear shirt, a longsleeve shirt, a fleece zip up, my snow jacket, two pairs of leggings, and three pairs of socks to bed. Call it overkill maybe, but it worked!
- Eat or drink something warm before heading to bed. It warms up your core temp! We headed to bed right after eating our dinner, when it was still warm in our bellies.
- Fill a water bottle with hot water, and pop a couple of hand/foot warmers to bring to bed to cuddle
- Use a sleeping pad. It protects you from the cold snowy ground and insulates you so that your body heat can't get sucked away.
- Raise your heart rate right before you climb into bed. If you do some jumping jacks and get your heart pounding so that you warm up a little bit, it will help you warm up your sleeping bag and tent. Otherwise, you will just be an ice cold popsicle climbing into an ice cold bed!

 We survived the first night and woke up to a beautiful frosty cold morning. We got dressed and packed up the sleeping bags and tent in record time. We didn't even bother with breakfast, we were too cold and just needed to get moving so that we would warm up. After skiing for about 20 minutes we were warm enough to stop on the side of the trail and make some coffee and snack on some breakfast CLIFF bars. JetBoil and instant coffee to the rescue. It was so, so, so yummy.

COFFEE!

 After packing back up we continued skiing but right around mile 4 it started snowing really heavily. We met some rangers on the trail that advised us to turn around if the weather got hairy because a huge storm was moving in and they were expecting 20 inches of snow.... our decision was pretty easy. We turned around. I was pretty disappointed that we weren't able to continue on and spend one more night out at Glacier Point, but we also didn't want to get stranded in a massive snowstorm, so.... ya know. By the time we got back to the truck it was snowing so hard we could barely see, with no signs of stopping. We reached the truck around noon after ~9 miles of cross country skiing and I will admit, I was glad we decided to bail.

We decided to head into the Valley and see how it was during the winter! First stop, Tunnel View:

Oh. Well, that looks a little different. For comparison, here's what it looks like in the summer:

That just shows how much it was snowing! We continued into the Valley and grabbed some lunch at the deli. It was more sleeting than snowing there and we got pretty wet and cold. We decided to make the short hike to lower Yosemite falls anyways, and I'm really glad we did. Normally that trail is absolutely packed, but in the winter we only saw a handful of other people so we were really able to enjoy it and take our time.

We drove around through the rest of the Valley while we contemplated whether or not we should camp for another night or just leave before the storm got really bad. Around 3pm when the snow still wasn't letting up we decided to just head home. GOOD THING WE DID! The roads leading out of the park were so awful. So, so, icy and the snow was really coming down hard. We saw an SUV drive off the road and had to help two other people who got stuck. It was a mess. The rangers were so busy trying to help people and get everyone safely out of there. Even people with chains were getting stuck! I'm so thankful Nathan's truck got us safely out of there! Even so, it took us 2 hours to get out of the park. I can't even imagine how much worse it got.

This was an amazing adventure!!! Yosemite is breathtaking in the winter, although probably a little safer when there's not a huge winter storm rolling in. We definitely want to go back to Badger Pass and do some more skiing. Its so nice that they offer free rentals for active duty military members because that saved us a lot of money. Even still, I think the ski rentals were only $29 a day which is not bad. Its worth it for the amazing memories!

snow lovers!

Hey friends and family! I know I'm terrible at keeping up with all of you and updating you on everything that's going on, so if you would like you can subscribe to this blog. I will be making posts about our life and our adventures we go on :)

Death Valley National Park // Days 1-2

In October we went to Death Valley to celebrate my 23rd birthday. This was the first time I was able to spend my birthday with Nathan in four years! It was a big deal for us.

We both drove our vehicles - I took my jeep and Nathan took his truck. Death Valley has a lot of off-roading trails and we both wanted to be able to take our rigs. We brought two-way handheld radios so we could talk the whole time.

The entrance to the park.

Day one we spent driving, driving, driving. It took about six hours to get there, and then we spent the rest of the day driving on trails and finding our first campsite. Inside the park, we drove on Saline Valley Road most of the day. Its a completely dirt road but can be done in 2wd for the most part. There were some muddy spots that required 4wd, though! We only saw two other vehicles on that road all day. We wound up over the mountains (7,000 ft!) and then down into Saline Valley, where we spent the night completely alone for miles.

Campsite #1

Nathan bbq'd some hot dogs for us.

Our first campsite was seriously perfect. We were surrounded by mountains, and not much else. We slept pretty well in our tent, too (aside from the desert fox that decided to investigate and wake us up. he was such a cute lil guy!). A huge thunderstorm rolled in that night, but we didn't get rained on at all. The thunder woke us up and we could see the lightning dancing on top of the mountains, but the storm never reached us. It was so peaceful here.

The next day we packed up camp and tackled Lippincott road, which runs up through the mountains we had camped underneath and into Death Valley. It took us two hours and we both had to use 4wd. The trail was so narrow in some spots and the drop was so sheer down the side of the mountain... it was scary! But so so so much fun. The view at the top was absolutely spectacular. Once again, we didn't see a single soul and we had the whole mountain to ourselves.

Lippincott Road pops out at the Racetrack, which is a cool playa where rocks MOVE across the desert floor. Seriously, they move on their own. You can read about it here. Unfortunately for us, the Racetrack was completely flooded from all the rains that had been hitting the park recently. So, no cool alien rocks for us. It was still beautiful, though.

Flooded Racetrack

Flooded Racetrack

We then followed Racetrack Road back to the main park. This. Road. Was. Awful. It was a dirt road, but not the fun off-roading type dirt road. It was just pure washboarding for 26 miles. My back was jello by the time we finished it, and I think my brain was sore from rattling around in my skull. I really hadn't realized how far out of the way the Racetrack was.

Along Racetrack Road is the famous Teakettle Junction. We didn't add a teakettle to the collection, but I enjoyed reading the ones there. Here were a few of our favorites:

From there, we continued down the road to Scotty's Castle. I don't have any pictures of Scotty's castle, but it was built in the early 1900s and is pretty cool! Scotty was an asshole, though. He was a con man to the bone. He would sell gold ore from a mine in Colorado and say it came from his land on Death Valley. He would then sell that land for millions of dollars to prospective buyers and miners. We didn't tour the castle because it looked like it was going to rain and there were flash flood warnings out.

Instead, we headed to Beatty, NV to grab some lunch. We ate at this cool bar/grill with tons of signs and dollar bills all over the ceiling (those are my fave!). While we were there, we both got alerts on our phones for flash flooding expected in the area. We struck up a conversation with the bartender, who advised us to stay in town and get a hotel. He even offered for us to stay in his extra room (which was really nice) but we opted to press on. We headed back towards the park.

We wanted to drive Titus Canyon in the morning so we looked for some high ground to camp for the night. We didn't even bother setting up our tent - we just camped out in the jeep. Good thing we did, because the weather got ROUGH. It stormed and rained and we even got hailed on!! It was dime-sized hail! Thankfully we didn't get washed away. In the morning we set out for the canyon.

That wraps up days 1 and 2 of our adventure... next post will be days 3 and 4!

Death Valley National Park // Days 3-4

Day three we woke up early (we survived the hailstorm, yay!), made some coffee, and headed out to conquer Titus Canyon. It. Was. Beautiful.

Titus Canyon trail

The trail was awesome, and not very difficult. I think you could do it all in 2WD if you have high clearance. The only times you might get into trouble is when it rains! The canyon totally floods when it rains and gets pretty muddy. Another cool thing - we saw two tarantulas on the trail.

Titus Canyon trail has a ghost town along it - Leadfield. The story of Leadfield is pretty sad - 300 people moved there in 1926 in the hopes of striking it rich. They were led there by wild tales of gold and fortunes. Unfortunately for them, it was a scam, and they went poor and hungry. By 1927 the town was gone

Just past Leadfield, the canyon gets narrower. At this point, you enter the Titus Canyon Narrows which is by far the coolest part of this drive. The walls reach up hundreds of feet and you can see where raging floods have carved away the rock over thousands (millions?) of years.

There is also a spot along the trail where you can see ancient Native American petroglyphs carved into the rock. Sadly, some modern a**holes have come along and defaced some of them with their own graffiti. But we found some that were in perfect condition too.

We emerged from Titus Canyon early in the afternoon and made our way to the main road. A couple miles down the road we encountered a couple of park rangers with a gate across the road that said "road closed." They asked us where the heck we came from because all roads in the area were closed due to flash floods and flood damage. They seemed shocked we came through Titus Canyon! They let us through, though.

We moved on to the Death Valley Badlands next, were the old Borax mines were. A short (and hot!) hike to Zabriskie point led us to some fantastic and unique rock formations. A nice older man offered to take our photo for us, which was really sweet! Now we have this wonderful photo of us all sweaty and dirty after three days of no showers. I love it!

After we left Zabriskie Point in the late afternoon, we headed out to find our last campsite. We didn't pick any of our campsites ahead of time, we just drove around until we found somewhere. You are allowed to camp off any trail in the park free of charge, which was really nice! The only things we had to pay for on this trip was gas money and food. Best kind of camping trip in my opinion. We stopped by Mequite Dunes while we were searching for a spot.

Mesquite Dunes

We ended up taking a dirt trail out along the mountains near Panamint dunes to find a place to camp. It was so beautiful with dunes on one side of us and mountains on the other. Again, we saw no other people. It was very cool! We also saw these old abandoned cars along the trail. Makes you wonder what the heck happened to those guys.

Our final campsite was quite wonderful. We stayed up late reading and watching the stars, and finally had a clear night with no rain or storming.

Campsite #3

All in all, it was quite the magical trip. Death Valley is so huge and full of such varying terrain. The rock formations and even the plants are so unique, and sometimes strange. There was large chunks of volcanic rock all around our last campsite so when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, the light of the moon made it so surreal and made me feel like I was on a different planet! Way cool.

Bottom line: If you ever get the chance to go to Death Valley - GO!!! You won't regret it, and will probably make amazing memories that will last a lifetime. I know we did :)