This tour de national parks was originally planned for last summer, but didn't get to happen due to COVID. We are so thankful that we finally got to go, and we were able to be mask-free almost the entire trip! What a gift it was to be able to explore our country's beauty together.
The temps reached around 110 degrees during our trip, but Carlsbad is a perfect summer destination because it was about 56 degrees inside the cave!
There was a small city waterpark in the city of Carlsbad, so that was a fun way to spend our evening (and stay cool!) after exploring the cave! The next day it was on to Guadalupe Mountains. Our family has done a LOT of hot, long hikes together, but this one at Guadalupe Mountains was by the far most brutal. There were these huge, incessant horse flies that swarmed us the entirety of the five mile hike. I wish I were exaggerating for effect, but they were ruthless and made the hike pretty miserable.
{this picture was taken after our hike with the horse flies....you can tell how we were all feeling by that point!}
Our final destination for this trip was Big Bend, and we are already talking about when we can go back again! We loved it!
{DQ is a must for us post-hike or when traveling!}
{These kids were troopers in the car! We listened to lots of audiobooks together that we checked out from the library on our drives.}
{Hard at work on the their Junior Ranger badges for Big Bend}
{Our favorite hike of the trip...The Window!}
It was amazing to us how vast Big Bend really is. It was about a 90 minute from our park lodging to the Santa Elena Canyon to see the Rio Grande, but it was well worth it! We were shocked by how muddy it was there, but the kids had fun playing in it!
{View from our room at the lodging at Big Bend}
{getting sworn in as Junior Rangers at Big Bend!}
{mailing postcards from the Big Bend post office!}
I don't have any grandiose pictures to show for it, but one of our favorite parts about Big Bend was getting to see the sunset & the nighttime sky. Because Big Bend is so isolated, the stars at night were breathtaking & we were able to see Mars as well! Such a cool experience--the kids loved it! It also meant they didn't get to bed until around 10pm on our nights at Big Bend...which is why we've been sleeping in until 9am since we've been back home, ha!
Another memory I don't want to forget is our last evening in Big Bend, we went for a leisurely 2 mile hike after dinner. Hadley and Brady were enjoying racing ahead, each taking turns getting annoyed about who was first. Derek stayed close to them to mediate. Shelby and I hung back and enjoyed chit-chatting while we walked and planning out our next visit to Big Bend {hopefully at a time of year that doesn't have temps reaching 110 degrees!} and other future vacations. That may seem like such a random anecdote, but it struck me as something I didn't want to forget. I'm not sure when or how it happened, but our kids are getting big on us!
It was such a fun adventure together. Can't wait to cross more national parks off our list in the years to come!
