Walker Family Gap Year

Putting these two together doesn’t seem right as they both deserve their own blog, but by the time we get back to our accommodation each night we are just too tired to sit and write. So you can imagine how hard schooling is! In both LA and SD we decided to give AirBnB a go, and our experience was great. In LA we stayed on Hollywood Boulevard at the Dixie Hollywood Hotel, but in the owners apartment rather than a room that was bigger and as Cameron describes ‘more like a home’. An added bonus was that the hotel is in “Thai town” so we had took advantage of this by having 2 dinners at the Thai BBQ, only 100 yards away.

We spent our short time in LA doing the main tourist things, driving through Griffith Park to see the Hollywood Sign, driving along Sunset Boulevard, walking on the ‘stars’ stars and seeing if our handprints were as big as Daniel Radcliffe’s outside the Grauman Chinese Theater, all must-dos but a bit run down too. Go a bit further out of the main drag though and you are in some very nice spots. We really enjoyed the Farmers Market for some great Southern Gumbo. And of course we went to Universal Studios that was unusually quiet so we could just walk onto any ride – the joy of being here off-season! Another LA highlight was the fascinating Le Brea Tar Pits, right in the heart of the City, where they have been excavating huge numbers of ice age animal bones (including woolly mammoths and sabre toothed cats) for the past 100 years.

San Diego is beautiful. We stayed at Kimberly & Scott’s Pool House, another Airbnb home, located in the beautiful La Jolla area. With their recommendation we went swimming at La Jolla Cove and were surprised to be sharing the beach with sea lions. The big male in the photo surfed in on a wave just as Cameron was about to get it, he almost walked on water trying to get out of his way! (They will bite if threatened). We also visited the USS Midway, a decommissioned 1,000 foot long Aircraft Carrier that served as the Navy nerve centre of Operation Desert Storm in 1992. Cameron and Ollie got to sit in the “Mini boss’s” chair during the tour so that they could pretend to direct the planes landing. We are definitely coming back to San Diego again.

After an epic 7 weeks together, sadly we had to say goodbye to Dan in San Diego, since we are both embarking on the next leg of our respective journeys – we are heading back east to Miami before flying to Rio De Janeiro, while Dan has another 7 weeks in the USA where we he is planning to travel back up the Pacific coast. We left him at a brightly painted hostel at Pacific Beach, both of us reminded of our own back packing days in our 20’s!!!

Dan’s first backpackers

We found that we had become strangely attached to our “home from home” when it came to dropping the RV off in Vegas last Friday, but then again, looking at the following, perhaps it’s easy to understand why:

– 4,565 miles driven in 35 days (we planned for 2,500!);

– 12 National Parks or Monuments visited;

– 10 of America’s 50 States visited;

– 3 States driven through in one day on 2 separate occasions;

– Continental Divide crossed twice;

– Highest continuously paved highway in N America successfully navigated (it was closed because of 3 foot snow only 3 days beforehand)

– Major rock fall in Yellowstone narrowly avoided;

– 18 different campsites/RV Parks stayed at;

– 522 gallons and an eye watering $1,828 spent on fuel (memorable for not such good reasons!)

– 3 minor traffic violations early on in the trip, fortunately when no police officers were present!

What an awesome adventure, one that we hope that none of us will ever forget!

Zion is stunning, named by the Mormons during their settlement of Utah, calling it their Zion, or promised land, and you can understand why. Unlike the Grand Canyon you enter into the bottom of the canyon, and you look up at the soaring red canyon walls all around you. There are also two tunnels to drive through that were hand cut in the 1930s, one being a mile long! At one, we gave a ride to 3 cyclists (and their bikes!) in the back of the RV because it is too dangerous for them to travel through as there are no lights. They were great guys who gave us lots of travel tips for our upcoming Vegas visit.

To preserve the beauty of Zion you leave your vehicle outside and take shuttle buses to the various trailheads and that does make for a more relaxed feel then other parks. We chose the River Trail that follows the course of the Virgin River and leads to the Narrows trail. The Narrows is pretty infamous because the river has cut a narrow slot canyon (so water and wet feet for the boys!), but is also prone to flash flooding. I chose to keep my feet dry and sit by the river instead. Another trail led us to the Emerald Pools and an overhead waterfall that you walked through, very refreshing after a dusty walk.

Zion has quite a history of fatalities as there are many precarious walks with sheer 1,000 foot drop-offs, as well as floods. Sadly, the last death was only last month when a 34 year old hiker from California was caught in a flash flood in the Narrows – a reminder that even beauty has a bite!! Again, it’s hard to show either the scale or the grandeur on photographs but so far this has been my favourite spot, although Yellowstone still rates higher with the rest of the family.

We had a long drive to the Grand Canyon today, via Monument Valley that you might recognise from various ‘road trip’ movies. An ancient landscape of towering sandstone monuments and deep crevasses, awe-inspiring but also included miles of seeming desolate nothingness.   It forms part of the Arapahoe Reservation.

Describing the Grand Canyon is hard to do adequately. It is not only the scale that is breath-taking, at over a mile deep, but it is the bands of different coloured geology that run along the canyon walls, distinct hues of green, red, orange, and whites, that make this truly beautiful to behold.   Each striation containing the secrets of a distant time; as Ollie discovered when he managed to find a couple of ammonites on our trek.

On more practical matters we left the RV in the car park this time and booked into the Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge, accommodation made up of real Ponderosa Pine log cabins which was a real rustic treat (nice soft beds and full en-suite of course!).   So comfortable that Ben was the only one who could rouse himself early enough to see the sunrise!

We chose the North Rim over the South as it’s a lot less touristy and thus a quieter spot to trek and basically just stare at the Canyon. At 6,000ft it is also higher than the South Rim and we’d heard more impressive in it’s views, but I don’t think the photos do it justice.  Next stop is another national park, Zion in Utah, so more impressive views to come.

For my 8th birthday I went to a Dinosaur Museum. It was very cool because there were real fossils and bones from the local area. The area was called the Dinosaur Diamond. Dan and Cameron bought me a copper and iron pyrite rock to add to my collection. We also went to the Arches National Park, which was an ancient salt lake that has now dried and eroded into breath taking sandstone arches and rock formations. It was really beautiful.  We also saw a snake lying in the sun!

We found out that Landscape Arch lost some of it’s structure on the exact day that Daniel was born, many, many years ago. Dad said the Earth literally moved the day Dan was born!

My Mum has now joined us too just in time for my birthday which made my day!

Birthday at a Diner!

Last week, we were in Yellowstone National Park, which is famous for being the first national park in the world. It was formed in 1872. There is a super-volcano underneath Yellowstone, and the Park contains 500 geysers, which is half of the total in the world! There are thousands of other hot springs and mud pools too.

Old Faithful

We started our visit at Old Faithful, which is the best known geyser in the world because it erupts so regularly. As we were waiting patiently for the eruption to start, water started gushing out of the top, only a few feet in the air to begin with. That was the sign that the eruption was about to start. The water then shot out the geyser about 60 feet in the air for around 3 minutes. It was really wicked.

Mother grizzly bear

Another day, we were driving along the side of the road when we saw a big crowd of people looking down at a mother and a baby grizzly bear running down the side of a hill and into some trees. It was really exciting because it was the first grizzly bear that we had seen in Yellowstone. We had also encountered a small black bear on the side of the road the previous night, and on our last day we saw a massive grizzly eating an elk carcass only 60 metres away from us. My dad didn’t want it any closer than that!!!!  We also saw a Coyote, herds of elk and bison and heard wolves howling.

Professional photo of Coyote taken by Cameron

Bison Herd in Lamar Valley

On our way to a new campsite late at night, we were driving around a windy road and came across a Rangers car with its blue lights flashing. There had been a rock fall onto the road, which my dad had to maneuver through before any more rocks fell.

The next day we were up on the hills hiking, and we found lots of animal bones. Dan was putting them together in different ways to create new species, and we called one of these “Scorpadragon”! Ollie also found 3 empty bullet shells lying on the ground, and then Dad and I found 8 more!

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

“Scorpadragon”

Ollie and I enjoyed doing the Ranger Program that involves learning lots of things about the National Park to earn a Park Ranger badge. Yellowstone is fascinating because there is so much to see everywhere you look. There are geysers, mountains, waterfalls, a beautiful canyon and loads of cool wildlife. I would like to visit Yellowstone again and Ollie wants to become a Park Ranger!

My Ranger badge

Ollie’s Ranger badge

Finally back on line after a breathtaking week in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks that surpassed all of our expectations. The boys will post details of some of the highlights in a day or two, but in the meantime, I wanted to acknowledge all of the wonderful people that we’ve met on our travels in America so far. We’ve all been overwhelmed by the openness of people who have shown genuine interest in our travels, and gone out of their way to offer help and advice.

Terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone

Two special mentions from our visit to Jackson, Wyoming today; firstly to Corey, who owns and runs his amazing “open toyshop” in North Center Street (jacksonholetoystore.com). Corey is a self proclaimed “big kid”, whose claim to fame is being able to recognise Lego figures just from the feel of the packaging – he has a 95% success rate!! We left there after 90 minutes of great amusement with the boys proclaiming that “its the best toy shop that we’ve ever visited, even better than Hamleys”!  Way to go Corey!!

Cameron and Ollie with Corey

Horsey version of Gangnam Style

Second to Mike from Teton Mountaineering, who not only played a trick on Ollie with his new bandana, much to Cameron’s glee, but then spent 45 minutes explaining the best places to stop to go rock hunting on our trip to Denver tomorrow.  Thanks Mike for being so generous with your time.

View of the Tetons from the summit of Rendezvous Mountain (10,400ft)