August and the Final Summer Roadtrip

If you had asked me last May, I would have sworn we didn't have much planned for this summer. Turns out we actually stayed pretty busy! Our kids have been begging to go to Lagoon for two years, and we knew we wanted to go this summer. It seemed like July was nearly over before we realized we were running out of time to go.

Arthur really wanted to ride all the toddler sized rides, even the ones that he has to ride by himself, but you'd never know it from the look on his face. He took it very seriously, but he did ask to ride Bugly the Whale several times.

Paul was able to ride basically everything, so he tried out all the big rollercoasters. He didn't really like the Spider or Wicked, but he loved Colossus. He decided he wasn't quite ready for the Cannibal and will give it a try next summer.

Laszlo was just super excited for every ride, but especially the one or two rollercoasters that he was tall enough to ride. I think he went on Bombora about 10 times.

Maybe I am just used to the crowds of Southern California parks, or I didn't have as much patience back then, but I seem to remember long lines at Lagoon as a kid. Maybe we were just there on a particularly uncrowded day, but it didn't seem like we had to wait very long for any rides.

We also got some rain and overcast weather, so maybe some people saw rain on the forecast and decided to choose a different day.

We also did a little camping trip up Ogden canyon. The kids had so much fun playing in Grandma and Grandpa's camper, we went on a really nice hike, and obviously made s'mores.

We did one final road trip before school started back up, this time to Great Basin National Park. Great Basin is one of the lesser parks as far as visitor numbers are concerned. In fact, they don't even collect an entrance fee because they get so few visitors. There are a few campgrounds, 3-4 hotels near the park entrance, with maybe 2 restaurants, and one very expensive gas station. If you are driving in from Utah, I highly recommend you stop in Delta for gas and groceries.

We opted to stay at the Hidden Valley Ranch Hidden Canyon Ranch. It was, indeed, very hidden. Down a dirt road that twisted its way down into a small canyon, completely invisible to passersby on the highway.

Arthur learned that these aren't dogs, they are deer. He started saying, "look, deer deer!"

Great Basin is very isolated, sitting right on the Utah/Nevada border in the middle of exactly nowhere which, it turns out, provides one of the best things about it: dark night skies. Our first order of business upon arrival was to take the kids to the pool to splash and cool down. After dinner we drove the 20 minutes to Great Basin to attend a ranger led astronomy talk.

The walkway was lined with red lights, which don't affect your night vision like white light does, and we listened to some history of astronomy while waiting for the skies to get dark. There were a couple telescopes set up so we could all see a few objects up close, and the ranger had an epic laser pointer so he could show us satellites, constellations, and planets.

The kids kind of hated it. Not because it wasn't interesting, but they were so very tired. The program went from 8-10 Nevada time, so they felt like it was an hour later. We had to practically beg them to look at Saturn through the telescope. It was awesome, and they were too tired to care. 

The next day we focused on Great Basin's other most popular program: Lehman Caves. If you book in advance, and I recommend you do, you can take the tour of the cave and it is a showstopper. We spent some time at the visitor's center--Arthur loved playing in the cave exhibit--and watching the film about Great Basin. We took a short nature walk with views of the surrounding mountains and had a better-than-expected lunch from the cafe. Really, I was expecting a crappy cafeteria style, but it was made to order and tastier than it had any right to be.

We loved watching the baby birds get fed while we were waiting for our tour to start.

Grandma Jamie, Paul, Laszlo, Lee, and I took the 90-minute grand tour of Lehman Cave, Pa Duane and Arthur took the 30-minute more mobility and baby friendly tour. Apparently, Arthur loved it when it got dark, and the ranger used their flashlight. He said "Ooh, wow" about everything and walking along with Grandpa holding his backpack leash.

I was that guy, just taking a hundred pictures, alternating between my phone and my camera trying to get the best shot in the dim light. I regret nothing. 

There were some tight spots that required ducking and turning sideways to avoid touching the cave, and you definitely don't want to touch the cave and damage it. Lehman is a living cave, meaning the formations are still actively growing and changing. Just a tiny touch from oily human skin can disrupt that process.

Some of my video footage was pretty cool, you can check that out here: 

There is also a colony of bats here that need protecting. Shoes, clothing, any object that has been in another bat habitat needs to be disinfected before entering the cave. White Nose Syndrome is a disease that has been hurting bat populations across the western US, and they are trying very hard to keep it from infecting the bats at Great Basin.

The next day we planned to drive up to Wheeler Peak and hike to visit Great Basin's other most famous resident: the Bristlecone Pines. Bristlecones live for thousands of years and then stand for thousands more. There are some trees that have been there for 5,000 years so far. In this area they only grow at high elevations, so if you want to see them you need to be acclimated to being 10,000 feet above sea level.

We first did a little warm up nature walk, nice and flat and short. 

It was decided that Grandpa really ought not try to do a nearly 3-mile hike over rough terrain, so he stayed behind to nap and chat with other passersby. And so the seven became six...

We hiked a little over half a mile and decided to take a short detour to Teresa Lake. Grandma Jamie sat down for a rest.

By the time Arthur was done throwing rocks in the water and we'd made it back to Grandma, she'd decided it was a bit to rocky and the air a bit too thin. She was going to head back down to the parking lot. Paul begged to go back with her. And then there were four.

Lee, Laszlo, and I carried on while Arthur was carried and eventually fell asleep. It was rocky, it was alternatingly sunny and chilly, but Laszlo only expressed regret at continuing on with us a few times. He mostly had a pretty good attitude, even when he got tired. Were the trees worth it? To me they were!

We arrived, nestled in Wheeler Peak, at the grove of Bristlecone pine trees. Laszlo got to sit on the bench and eat a bunch of snacks, we'd made it! But almost as soon as we reached our end goal, the weather changed on us.

We knew rain was a possibility, so we'd come prepared, but I hadn't really expected hail. Fortunately, it was short lived, and it wasn't lighting. Arthur slept through the whole thing in a cozy carrier under an umbrella and Laszlo toughed it out in his poncho.

Our hike back down the mountain was much faster than the hike up and we didn't lose a single party member! We made it back to have a late-ish picnic lunch.

Once we started hearing loud cracks of thunder, we figured it was the mountain telling us it was time to go home. We descended several thousand feet in elevation, just making a few stops for views of the mountains.

We were graced with one more night of clear skies and so were able to sit outside our room and do some more star gazing after the kids went to bed. Hidden Canyon turns off exterior lights at 9:45 every night to protect the night sky, but even with their lights on we could see the milky way.

In the morning we packed up and started the caravan home! We stopped off in Delta for a picnic in the park and visited one of the more sobering sites in the area. I saw the Topaz Museum as we had driven through Delta on our way to Great Basin and decided we needed to stop there on our way back home.

Growing up in Utah, I did learn about the WWII era Japanese internment camps in schools, but it is apparently not widely taught in other places. I read Journey to Topaz as a kid, so I knew that Topaz was an internment camp here in Utah. It is actually located just a few miles from Delta, though not much remains of it. The museum is a small but excellent collection of artifacts and historical exhibits.

There are two films, including one shot on this very camera in the photograph. Filming was not allowed (unless you were a government propaganda crew I suppose) but one of the camp directors was able to procure the personal cameras of an internee and return it to him so he could take pictures and video.

The kids may have enjoyed playing at the park far more than visiting a museum, but somethings are important enough to have a serious moment on your vacation.