TaylorHaps

STEVE Disneyland

2-6 July 2017

Steve and I celebrated our 25th anniversary at Disneyland (even though our actual anniversary was in march). Flew into Long Beach airport (small but closer to Disneyland), got our rental car (first time starting a car with a button!), and went to the beach to play in the ocean. :). Thai for dinner. Mmmm

Monday. Disneyland first thing. The rope drop at opening was cool.

The lines were pretty short. Got lots of fast passes. Space mountain is no longer Star Wars themed and has groovy music

Pirates…so awesome! The pirate band also cool.

We did a bunch of fantasyland, including Peter Pan and Mr Toad. Also saw Mary Poppins and Bert on the carousel.

We love splash mountain!

We did go back to the hotel each afternoon for a few hours but Steve still felt the need to commandeer a bench. 🙂

Tuesday we mostly spent at California Adventure. They had some neat stuff for the 4th of July, like a cool flag ceremony and a special segment before world of color.

The new guardians of the galaxy ride is cool. We went on it 4 times.

Steve’s first time on Racers. He loved Cars Land and the backdrop of Radiator Springs

We did grizzly peak river run a couple of times. Got pretty soaked the second time.

We had dinner at the Wine Country Trattoria. Yummy food. I got an iPhone 7 a few days before the trip and had a lot of fun with the live photo trick.

Steve really liked World of Color.

Wednesday was also not very crowded. We got fast passes for racers first and met a guy named Teo. Had to take a picture for my Teo.

Finally got my Dole Whip complete with the complementary hair umbrella. 🙂

Haunted mansion with its predictable hitchhiking ghost.

We had a small world boat to ourselves during the electrical parade.

Dinner at Cafe Orleans. Great pommes frites and salmon. Had a delicious raspberry macaron shaped like Mickey while watching the electrical parade at the Jolly Holiday bakery.

We saved fireworks for the last night and then they got cancelled. Sad face. But we did cram the last few hours with many rides including the teacups.

Flew home on Thursday. What a great vacation. 🙂

ALEX Glacier and Waterton

25-30 June 2017

Long drive to Glacier National Park so we stayed in Butte on Sunday night. Then we drove the 4 hours to Glacier. We stayed at fish creek next to Lake McDonald on the west side of the park. We set up camp and then went for a brisk swim in the glacier-fed lake. :). Then we took a nice long nap. Short hike around the Trail of the Cedars, to the McDonald falls overlook, to the edge of the sunset-ridged lake, and then back to camp.

It rained like mad that night but we packed up our wet stuff and drove around the south end of the park since the Going-to-the-Sun Road (the only room as through the park) was still closed. We set up camp at St Mary in the windiest campsite I have ever experienced (nice for drying out a wet tent but not so nice for sleeping!)We drove to the Many Glacier area where we walked the nature trail around Swiftcurrent Lake and then hiked to Redrock Falls (we ran into a bear last time we hiked this 6 years ago, but had better luck this time). My phone died and Alex didn’t have his with him, so, alas, no pics. 😦 Then we had apple huckleberry pie at the cafe there. Mmmm.

Wednesday we spent at Waterton Lakes. Border crossing…short line 🙂 had to ditch all our firewood. 😦

Our hike to The Bear’s Rump was a killer but breathtaking at the top!

We drove out to Cameron Lake (so cold!) and then out to Redrock Canyon (small but super cool striped red and green shale with a river running through the bottom). Alex took a short nap in the car while I hiked out to Blakiston Falls. Then I had him hike it while I chilled in the car.

Stopped for chocolate in the village and then headed back to camp.

By Thursday, the road has opened so we headed into the center of the park. Did a very long hike through the fire aftermath to St Mary Falls and Virginia Falls.

Yes, that’s the trail. Alex, did you bring the machete?

I fell on the slippery rocks at the base of the falls and hurt my arm. 😦 Next we drove up to Logan pass and walked out on the glacier and then drove the scary road to Weeping Wall and Bird Woman Falls. Then back to camp where I had a glorious shower. 🙂

Friday we did the 11 hour drive home and slept in our windless, rainless, and bird-noiseless beds. 🙂

Awesome trip!

Capitol Reef astronomy

18-21 June 2017

Julie and I attended an astronomy class at the UVU field station at Capitol Reef. Great food, super cool surroundings, and amazing dark skies. 🙂

This place is totally off the grid. Solar for all their electricity, cool building design using the buoyancy of hot air to facilitate heating and cooling, their own water treatment plant. They measure water usage and trash of each group that comes through.

I finally figured out how to use my telescope. These not-so-impressive photos don’t adequately show how neat it was to see Venus in phase and the sun with clouds moving past it using my new solar filter.

It was so great to be there with my sister. I’m so proud of how well she withstood the rigors of the class given her current medical issues. She did take breaks on the couch. The best ones were with liquid nitrogen ice cream. 🙂

ADA Grand Canyon and Bryce

13-15 June

We drove to Vegas to get Ky, Ada’s girlfriend. Ada stayed there for the night and I went to a Hampton where I had some good quality solo time with my book. 🙂

The next morning we drove to the Grand Canyon, via Kingman, AZ

and the inexplicable West Coast Chevron. Had a great time at the beach. 🙂

We set up camp first

Then drove out to the rim for a look-see. 🙂

Then back to camp for a fire for campfire pizzas and smores.

I got up really early the next morning to see the canyon at sunrise.

After breakfast and packing up camp we started the long drive back to Utah. We stopped at a few overlooks on the way and also for a short look at Glen Canyon dam.

We didn’t get to Bryce early enough for a campsite so we spent the afternoon there driving to the overlooks And then a short hike down into the canyon on the Queen’s Garden trail before we drove back home. We were way sick of the car by the end. 🙂

TEO Arches Canyonlands Moab

1-2 June 2017. Hiked to double arch. Nice photo Teo. 🙂

Slick rock is so fun to climb around on. 🙂

Canyonlands turned out to be breathtaking and scary.

Arches was closed early so we couldn’t hike out to delicate arch at sunset. The ranger suggested instead hiking to Corona Arch outside of the park. What a great hike! Definitely want to explore this area more on a future trip. Great camping sites right along the river.

There were some crazy guys who climbed on top of the arch.

We stayed at Slick rock campground in a little cabin. My stove died so dinner was entertaining. On Saturday we went on a river trip with Moab adventure center. We were in a raft with groups from Belgium, Sweden, and Austria. It was way fun. Lunch was great too, catered BBQ at a resort along the way.

We got gelato and then drove home. National donut day at Krispy Kreme capped off a great trip with my son. 🙂

TEO Goblin Valley

31 May. Great hiking through the goblins.

Here’s the view we got when we finally found our way around the big cliff on the far side of the valley.

We only stayed one night. The campground was really bare and windy. We didn’t put up a tent but just slept on the cot and the hammock under the pavilion. We had no cell service at all so we played Dimension and Perplexus, listened to music, and went hiking around the cliffs surrounding the campground. For future reference, campsite 12 is the one secluded back among the cliffs. We have it up too a nice family from Belgium but regretted it when we were surrounded by noisy families.