While we pack a lot into these trips, the over all plan is always pretty fluid. Scott and I had always left a second night at Joshua Tree as an option in our itinerary. After a great evening sunset, animal show, morning hike, and visit to the visitors center, the heat of the day had us thinking perhaps we should move on to cooler pastures. The kids however had so much fun climbing around Jumbo Rocks that they unanimously voted we stay the second night.
Our campsite was at Jumbo Rocks, aptly named being as the campground was nestled amongst big rocks.
As with any desert park, the key to hiking is to go early or late. Right after breakfast we set off to hike the Skull Rocks trail. The trailhead was within walking distance of our campsite. Since we were hiking in the early morning, we came across a few animal friends along our way.
We left the salt flats in Badwater Basin of Death Valley around 10:30am. After heading 45 minutes towards Joshua Tree we came across a road closure and had to turn around. This of course added about 2 hrs to our 4 and a half hour drive to Joshua Tree. I had found a restaurant online in Pioneertown that I had decided would be worth a little extra driving out of our way.
Don’t get me wrong. Death Valley is aptly named. It is hot. Like crazy hot. Like 95 degrees at 7am, hot. And it is desolate. Like, LITERAL MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, desolate. Not a soul in site for miles and miles. And of course the signs everywhere warning you of heat stroke and death and the need for water. I get why they call it Death Valley. And quite a lot of the park looks like this.
When we first began our quest, I assumed Death Valley National Park would be a mere checking off of a box. But, as we started planning and I began researching things to do there, I realized it really was a beautiful and unique park.
Sunday morning we started out with a relaxing morning at our hotel near the airport in Vegas. We woke up, took showers and took advantage of the complimentary breakfast.
After much saving and planning, the circus fam set off for another National Park adventure. Our mission: to visit 8 national parks (7 in California and 1 in Nevada).
Because we wanted to maximize our time at the parks, we opted to fly to Las Vegas and rent a van. We plan to camp for 12 of our 17 nights of vacation. The thing about camping is it requires the same amount of stuff for one night away as it does for 5 or 12.
The last true day of our vacation (the day before we headed home) was in my opinion the most relaxing day of the week.
We slept in, ate breakfast, (the kids did the dishes), and then we headed out for a morning hike along the beach.
The tide was out and we discovered many living creatures in tide pools on the rocky beach
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We made our way to the other side of the island and even caught a glimpse of the Boston skyline.
After our rain delay/rain out, we finally made it to Peddocks Island… one day late. After hiking the LONG hike uphill to our site, I am so glad we didn’t attempt it during the torrential rainstorm.
It was a big enough hassle getting our stuff from the van to the ferry, off the ferry, on to the other ferry, off that ferry, and then up the long hike up hill to our site… but the weather was gorgeous.
The plan for today was to wake up and prepare to catch a ferry to Boston Harbor Island to begin the camping portion of our vacation.
However, we woke to this.
And after checking the weather saw that the day was going to be off and on rain showers for the remainder. This seemed like less than an ideal setting to haul all our camping gear onto a ferry, off a ferry, onto another ferry, to our campsite AND THEN set up a tent… a tent with a screen roof none the less.
We chose Boston for a family vacation destination this summer because of our study this past year on the American Revolution. However, I had no illusions of dragging four kids through the entire 2 and 1/2 mile freedom trail on a hot and humid summer day. We are actually going to spend the bulk of our week camping on an island in Boston Harbor, but I did want to show the kids a few highlights of history, especially my oldest as he is the history buff of the crew.