Ladd Photos

On the way back down to San Diego, we stopped by the Discovery Cube LA to check it out. They have some exhibits that were different than the Orange County location, so it was a nice way to break up our long drive south.

Our first day of our Colorado trip was spent driving to St George, UT. We stopped at The Venetian to show the boys the indoor canals and the amazing recreation of Venice. Then we walked down to the Forum Shops to have dinner and walk around the cool shops.

The second day of our long drive across the Western United States ended in Grand Junction, CO. We walked around their cute downtown area, enjoying the outdoor sidewalk art.

Continuing our Colorado trip, we spent the day driving though the majestic Rocky Mountains on our way to Denver. We spent the afternoon in Aspen, walking around their downtown area and enjoying the outdoors.

We continued out the back of Aspen along the “Top Of The Rockies” scenic byway. It was a 2 lane road most of the way, winding though beautiful valleys and high along the mountain tops. The views were mind boggling in their beauty. We crossed over the Continental Divide and stopped along the drive to hike a bit in the Rocky Mountain tundra.

Day 4 of our vacation was all about exploring Denver. We started off the day walking around inside of the Colorado State Capitol. Then we drove over to a different part of downtown to check out the FED’s Money Museum. The boys got to see lots of old types of money, learn about how our banking system works, and do a lot of hands on activities.

The second half of the day was all about baseball. We spent the afternoon at the National Ballpark Museum. The building was packed to the roof with tons of old memorabilia from the older “classic” ballparks and their players. We saw treasures from greats like Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, and Babe Ruth. Gavin was in heaven and Connor managed to entertain himself. I don’t think Gavin would have minded spending weeks in the little museum, soaking up every inch of baseball history.

After the museum, it was time for some baseball. We got into Coors Field the minute the gates opened and were able to see lots of the Dodgers warm up. Aliciana even snatched a baseball out of the air barehanded, like an eagle, when a player tossed it up into the stands. We were all quite impressed with her reflexes… especially the guy behind her who lost out on a cool souvenir.

After pushing through a rain delay in the first inning, and some cold weather the rest of the game, the Dodgers ended up losing with a score of 3 to 7. The game didn’t wrap up until after 10pm, so it was an extremely long day for the boys, but they had a blast.

It was a much more relaxing day, after spending all of yesterday running around downtown Denver. We spent the entire day at the great children’s museum in Denver, so the boys could play, create art, and have fun pretending.

We spent all morning at the awesome (and free!) Museum of Natural History on the University of Colorado – Boulder campus. The boys got to see a lot of cool fossils, a neat butterfly exhibit, and a big collection of Native American arrowheads.

We explored the campus next, walking around the bookstore, the beautiful college lawns and buildings, and stumbling upon a huge Lego build of the campus. Near the Lego exhibit, they also had an exhibit about astronauts who went to CU Boulder.

After leaving the university, we walked around downtown Boulder and found a nice place to have lunch. Then we make the drive to Fort Collins, where we were staying the next few nights. We walked around downtown Fort Collins after dinner, but it was too dark to get any good pictures of their cute downtown area.

We headed up into the Rockies for what turned out to be an adventure. Our morning was spent wandering around Estes Park, a cute town at foot of the Rockies. After lunch we headed further into the Rockies to the national park.

Our plan was to enjoy the amazing views on the drive up to the Alpine Visitor Center in the Rocky Mountain tundra, the highest Visitor Center in all the National Parks at 11,796 feet in elevation. But, the weather blocked most our views on the way up. I ended up having to drive 10mph up the winding road through zero visibility fog. It was stressful, to say the least.

When we got to the summit, Gavin and Aliciana ran through the freezing rain and fog to see if you could see anything in the Visitor Center. Connor was asleep and I waited in the car with him, calming my nerves. All the views were completely fogged in, but Gavin did learn that it was 42 degrees outside.

On the way back down, the weather cleared a little bit, so we took advantage of the break to walk down a little trail and see some of the tundra. Then it started raining again, so we made a dash back to the car before we all froze to death.

After leaving the park and driving back though Estes Park, we stumbled upon 3 elk just hanging out by a creek off the main road. So, we did get to see some elk after all, and the boys enjoyed watching them. They are larger than they look in my photos, so rightfully acted like they own the place.

We started our day off by driving north to Cheyenne, Wyoming. The State Capitol there was closed for renovation, so we could only look at it from the outside. Close by was the Wyoming State Museum, where the boys got to learn more than they would ever want to know about the history, animals, and resources of the state.

Once we were done in Cheyenne, we drove east to Kimball, Nebraska. None of us had ever been to Nebraska, so we got to experience the wide open spaces filled with nothing for the first time. At Kimball we turned South, and drove through the Pawnee National Grasslands.

Our plan was to get out and hike some trails, but we didn’t see any point of interest signs until we had almost driven through the entire area. We finally saw a sign for the “Pawnee Buttes” so we decided to explore. It ended up taking 60 minutes of driving down unpaved roads, further into the middle of nowhere, until we finally got to the buttes. We got out and walked around a bit, enjoying the views and feeling like the only people for hundreds of miles. In fact, we almost ran out of gas trying to get back to civilization, so it was quite an adventure.

It was time to start heading back to the west coast. We stopped by the beautiful town of Vail up in the Rockies. We don’t ski but it would be awesome to stay there some summer, to hike and enjoy the fancy hotels and shops.

Back on the road and almost out of the Rockies, we stopped at a rest area that had access to the Colorado River. The boys enjoyed putting their hands in the river.

We spent all day in the awesome, but extremely hot, Arches National Park. We started off the trip in the visitor center, where we all learned how the arches formed. Then we headed deeper into the park, hiking around Balanced Rock and Double Arches.

We finished the day off with a mile long hike back to Landscape Arch, seeing some other formations on the way. The boys were done with hiking and the heat by the time we got back, but it was worth it. Everyone was glad for the long, air conditioned drive to St George, UT, which was our stop for the night.

To break up the drive to San Diego, we spent the afternoon in Las Vegas. The boys had fun exploring Excalibur, Luxor, and Mandalay Bay.

We were in Utah for a cousin’s wedding, but we decided to make it a mini-trip and see lots of the National Parks in the area. Our first full day in Utah was spent in Zion National Park.

We started our visit with a hike up to Weeping Rock, an alcove carved out of the sandstone cliff where water soaks in from above the cliff and slowly drips out. All the alcove walls are covered in hanging gardens of small plants. It was lightly raining, so the water dripping from overhead didn’t make much difference to us at the time.

Next we rode the shuttle to a different part of the park and hiked along the Virgin river to the Lower Emerald Pools, which are formed by a couple small waterfalls. On the way back from the pools we saw a mommy and baby deer, which the boys enjoyed seeing.

We finished our day riding the shuttle to the back of Zion Canyon, and hiking along the river as the canyon narrows. We didn’t make it all the way back to “The Narrows“, which is where the canyon is only 10’s of feet across and you have to walk in the river to go deeper into the gorge, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

Our second day of touring National Parks was spent at beautiful Bryce Canyon. We started off at the visitor center, learning about how the iconic hoodoos form. Then we walked along the rim of the canyon by Sunrise Point and hiked down into the canyon a bit on the Fairyland Trail.

Once we turned around and hiked back up to the rim, we started walking towards Sunset Point, but it started raining heavy enough to make us retreat to the car. We drove down to the back of the park, to a place called Rainbow Point, experiencing tons of thunder and lightening along the way. It was raining so hard that we couldn’t see much from Rainbow Point.

We drove back and took refuge in the visitors center, so the boys could finish up their Junior Ranger workbooks. They earned their badge and were sworn in as Bryce Canyon Junior Rangers.

The rain let up and we finished off our day at Sunset Point, taking in the amazing views. I think we all agreed that Bryce Canyon was much more beautiful than Zion, and highly recommended.

We spent our third day in Utah driving down to Arizona to see the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We have visited the South Rim but never had the chance to make it to the North Rim, which is easiest to reach from Utah.

We spent some time enjoying the amazing views from the patio of Grand Canyon Lodge. Then we went for a short hike along the rim and out to Bright Angel Point.

The Grand Canyon is awe inspiring, in both beauty and size, from either side. But, Aliciana and I both agreed that the South Rim had better views, along with much more to do. However, now we can say we’ve been to both sides, so it was worth the trip.