Category: Travel

I turned 32 here! We spent the day exploring that area. It took us 2.5 hours to get there and we didn’t get home until 10pm. It was a day FULL of us four adventuring around! 

We were told about a boat ride you can take across Jenny Lake and hike back to waterfalls so we did just that! Parking right now at National parks is next to nightmare-ish but I kid you not we have gone and got parking at every single park with ease. We haven’t ever joined the morning rush, we’ve gone more in the afternoon it’s been easy peasy. 

The Tetons are big huge beasts of mountains and that seemingly pop up out of nothing. At the base of these mountains are a few lakes. We explored two of them Jenny Lake and String Lake. We took the boat across Jenny lake and then hiked to some waterfalls! String lake was like a swimming hole, we found a quiet nook for us. Jenny Lake has a trail all the way around it and an adjoining trail that leads to String Lake…a hike that is now on my bucket list! 

We stopped for dinner on the way home and Mac secretly ordered me cheese cake for my birthday 😍 it was a precious day in my books!

We stayed in Idaho a total of five nights. One on our way to Montana, and four afterward.

Coming from Utah up into Idaho you see nothing but rolling hills of farm land. We stayed the night in Blackfoot Idaho. This little gem of a town will always have a soft spot in my heart. It’s the first place I saw trees and grass green flourishing in nearly a year! We stayed at the most interesting camp site. 

It was ran by the city’s park and rec and was a parking lot with water and electric hook ups around the perimeter. It was near a tiny little air port, park and walking path. A perfect spot for the night.

And it just happened to be the “world capital of Potatoes” and housed the Idaho Potato Museum so you better believe these potato gardeners went and took a gander before getting on the road the next morning. 

On the four night stent we stayed in Island Park, Idaho about 40 mins from Yellowstone and 2.5 hours from the Tetons. We adventured to both from this spot. (more on those adventures another time!)

Camp ground reviews: 

Blackfoot City RV Park

$20/ night 

Water and 50 amps

Park and walking path near. No laundry facilities, WiFi or dump station.

Buffalo Run RV Park 

$65/ weeknight $70/ weekend night 

Water and 50 amps 

WiFi and showers. Laundry 20 mins down the road. Clean well kept, a bit pricey but next to the parks. 

This was my 9th or 10th time to Glacier Park, my second time with my husband and first time with my kiddos. And it was with the ENTIRE side of my mom’s family! It was beautiful both in the scenery and with those we shared it with. 

We had one night in which ALL of us shared a meal and acknowledged my grandma’s 80th year of life and how special she is to all of us. We all had shirts that two of my cousins made that represented our family, Grandma the sun, 4 mountains for her four kids, trees for grandkids and critters for all the great grand kids! She shared that she was told as a young lady she wouldn’t have kids….and if you could have seen our party you would have saw how much she has defied those odds! 49 of us present! God is good!! 

Glacier is special. It is just BEAUTIFUL!!! It was smoky on this trip due to the fires in Oregon, Washington and Idaho but we still had views that were worth a million words and we made memories worth a million more! 

Places we adventured to: McDonald Lake and Creek, Going to the Sun Road, Logan Pass, Hidden Lake Overlook, Polebridge, Avalanche Lake, Flathead River, and John’s Lake Loop. If you ever wanna know more of my thoughts on these places I’d be happy to share all I know! But for now I’ll just share some pictures of the pretties!! 

Potatoes 🥔 and asparagus! That’s the theme of the week oh my lanta! 

Sooooo many potatoes. Chase would drive a tiny tractor and make a furrow, the boys and I would load the row with potato seed starters then I’d rake them over. We would set a drip line and move to the next one….so far we’ve done 48 rows and planted about 1,200 pounds of potatoes!!! I’m certain we will run out of land before we run out of potato starts 😬 We had extra help one day with three other people helping and it went so much faster! Right now we have at least 16 more rows to go. Fun fact there are 28 different varieties we are planting, did you even know there were that many different types?!?

The asparagus fields- there are 10 long rows. They have chicken wire under them (so the gophers don’t get the “crowns”….aka roots/seeds….the area where the growth comes from). We were asked to cover the rows with chicken wire and then cover the newly set chicken wire with compost and then put the drip lines on the top. Sounds easy enough right….only took us 1.5 weeks to complete this task! 

Seeds that I started in the green house this week include: 

34- Dinosaur kale 🥬 

25- Banana squash  

25- Eggplant 🍆 

25- Spaghetti squash 

25- Crookneck squash 

25- Purple basil

25- Dill 

25- Cucumbers 🥒 

50- Tomatoes of 3 varieties 🍅 

Some of the seeds that were planted last week are starting to pop up so that is exciting!!

We collected lots of eggs this week. We take the clean ones to the front to be sold and we get to keep the dirty ones! 

We had a special visitor come fill our hearts for a few days!!! Auntie time is the best!! 

Animal highlight of the week: 

BIG HORN SHEEP!!!! There is a sign that says they might be crossing but we never really thought we would see them! And guess what the hummingbirds are finally here!! 

Being less than a half mile from Zion….we went again….and I’m sure we will again and again!! In that last picture of Merrick you can barely see the road and the cars driving on them….but he hiked up that WHOLE thing…(with a parent behind him of course!)…someone must be turning THREE soon!

You’ve probably heard of one and not the other.

Tombstone, AZ historically speaking is the town where the OK Corral Gunfight occurred between the good guys: Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday vs the bad guys: the Clanton brothers and other “cowboys.” And if you go there today they have it looking like you’re about to witness what happened then and there in 1881. Its a bit tourist-y but its a fun spot. You can watch a reenactment of the gunfight, ride in a horse drawn stage coach and walk down the dusty streets of the old west. You can find anything you need to be a cowboy there….and boy did we come away with one.

When you live with a 5 year old cowboy Tombstone is the best thing ever, it is where “real cowboys live” and where “I want to work when I’m a cowboy” but only after “roping all of my own horses.” So you know we’ve been living in a cowboy world even when we are not in Tombstone. He’s “roping” outside almost daily. And when the campground you work at has a rodeo weekend with pony rides…we get to see the perfect all nature smile. And yes we went back and he got to wear his full get up in Tombstone!

Bisbee is about 30 miles further south of Tombstone. It is an old mining town turned into a posh little European metropolis you would never ever expect to be in the middle of the Arizona desert mountains. It is chock-full of cafes, shops, art studios etc. It a fun little spot to grab a drink and walk around. There are string lights over the street, flowers and planters all around, murals here and there. It is neat. The downtown part is in the valley and the homes are all up the mountainsides, so they compare themselves to Italy or Greece as it kind of has that landscape and vibe. You can do a tour of the old mine and you can look down into the pit from the road. We didn’t do the tour with the littles but we’ve heard its good. We enjoyed ourselves without just as well!

It is brown and there really truly isn’t much grass. But it does have it’s own beauty.

The first cactus is seen pretty much everywhere and almost has metallic sheen. The middle picture is a prickly pear cactus. The “fruit” is used to make jellies, honey, nectar, drinks, that sort of a thing. And I found that last beaut on a hike, it was so pretty! It’s called a fairy duster!

When we do see grass out hiking it’s just fun since almost everyone’s yards and landscaping is made of rock and when they make it fancy… different shades of rock. When you see grass it’s usually a golf course. As you can see in the right picture there are ferns too, not a lot but there are some in the mountains. And that middle picture….it’s a cactus….and it has tiny thin spines (aka the pokey things) ….and it’s edible…and sold in local grocery stores.

So you know we had to try it!!! The top left picture is what was brought home from the store, you can see the white spines on it. Youtube told me I could boil it and then skin it and then chop it….or I could roast it over a fire….I choose the fire approach. Just went ahead and put that bad boy on our marshmallow roasters and roasted it over the open fire. You can see in the bottom left picture that the spines all charred…and fell off. Then I cut it up and added it to our tacos. In the tacos they added a little crunch and tasted fine….but none of us enjoyed them by themselves.

Now that we went down that rabbit hole….back to nature…

The first picture is of a cholla cactus, there are a few different types of cholla. They are known for “jumping” or “dropping” their segments as a means of reproduction. One of my favorite things we have found is the middle picture….desert mistletoe….it is my favorite colors…and it’s out in the wild…never seen anything else like it anywhere, its beautiful! And tiny deer….like we thought they were babies…but the didn’t have the spots like fawn do. Turns out these tiny adult deer are actually Coues Deer and as the internet puts it… an “elfin deer standing 32-34 inches.”

There are so many different types, shapes and sizes of cacti! It’s crazy. Short and wide, tall and skinny, singleton and tons of arms, sooooo many! We still have so much to learn!

We are thankful and grateful to be in a new spot learning and seeing a bit more of this ginormous world God is letting us live in.

It was a three day two night drive from Tribune to Tucson, or that’s at least how we broke up the 856 mile trek. 

We drove county (as in NARROW 2 lane roads) from Tribune all the way into Texas where we were finally able to get on a 4 lane highway and it seemed like we had hit gold. We also got to see this giant cowboy when we got on said road… a huge (literally) hit with the boys. It was on this road driving into New Mexico for the night that we saw our first road runner! To anyone who has never seen a road runner they do not have emu like legs as seen on Looney Tunes. They in fact stand on much shorter legs and scuttle around here and there. We’ve seen quite a few at the camp ground now, very fun to bird to watch!

That first night we stayed in Tucumcari (two-come-carry) New Mexico right off historic Route 66. We were only there one night but the Blaze-in-Sadle RV park had everything we needed with an added bonus: a field of cattle to watch during breakfast! We de-winterized here aka put water back into the camper. We had blown air through our lines so they wouldn’t burst/crack while the camper was stored during our holiday times staying with family and friends.

After Tucumcari we set sail to Las Cruses, New Mexico where we stayed for another night. This is where Chase found the gash in our tire that we got fixed the next morning before going to Tucson.

And one last fun factoid… if you are ever driving along in a desert and think to yourself…did I just see an orchard… can there be orchards in the desert… what kind of on orchard could that have been…. most likely it was a pistachio orchard!

Campground Review: 

Blaze-in-Saddle RV Park 

Tucumcari, NM

$30

Details: full hook ups, no play ground, horse corrals if you need those 😜

Hacienda RV Resort

Las Cruses, NM 

$61

Full hook ups, exercise facility, so many amenities that we just didn’t use. But it did allow children…. a pretty key must have for us. Many parks down south like this are for seniors and do not allow kids to stay😬

Okay so maybe it’s more like campsite to table…but you get the picture!!

At this campground there is a citrus tree or olive tree at every site!! We were a little too late on the olive harvest but we got here just in time for the citrus harvest! Lemons, oranges and grapefruit galore!!! 

Please take note….when you see a lemon tree and your five year old becomes obsessed with wanting to pick lemons, squeeze lemons and do all the lemon things….do NOT I repeat DO NOT pick him up and shove him into said lemon tree to pick a lemon….they have THORNS! Like legit big thorns….”mom mom put me down it has like real pokies on it” 🙈🙈 yes yes son it does. Glad we could learn that one together. 

Soooo when you want to pick the lemons, oranges, or grapefruit one should go check out a fruit picker from the front office. This will allow you to pick fresh fruit without sustaining any bodily injuries. 

We decided that we should really embrace this, you know when in Rome sort of a thing. So we are going to try to use these fruits at least once a week in some new (to us) form or fashion. This week lemon bars!! 

What was learned during this cook time……One lemon produces about 1/4 cup of juice. Poking holes in the baked crust helps the filling to stick to the crust. I might start baking over a towel….the clean up is sooooo easy! Baking your own lemon bars isn’t as daunting as I thought it would be and nor did I think it would be so satisfying to be say we picked those lemons, squeezed and them turned it into something delicious. When life gives you lemons….make lemon bars!