The Great Szerminski Adventure

       Dead Horse Point State Park was really fun (despite its name), but I wish I could have switched our four nights staying there with two and stayed four nights at Needles Outpost instead. Needles is a branch of Canyonlands National Park, a park that we had visited recently during our stay at Dead Horse Point. We had visited Island in the Sky, but Needles was really different. Our campground, Needles outpost, was a privately owned little place right next to a huge wall of rock. There were zero rules against climbing it.        One thing that I miss about home while on the trip is my rock climbing lessons each Monday. At Dead Horse Point, we visited Arches National Park and got to climb a bit, but then Mama said it made her to scared and we had to stop. But here we could climb. We weren’t allowed to right away because Mama and Daddy were going to look at other campsites, and they wanted to be able to watch us while we climbed. (They were looking at other campsites because many

After the Grand Canyon trip and a night in the Jerome Grand Hotel in Jerome AZ we drove to Picacho State Park. The Saguaro cacti along the drive and then at the park are incredible. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for where they grow arms. The cactus lives for 100 to 200 years and only sprouts arms past age 50. It grows flowers at age 40 though. For me, it does not get tiring admiring the different variations of this amazing plant.    The next day we took it easy in the hot morning and then headed to Biosphere 2, an hour away. It was great to see B2 in person since I talk about it when teaching ecology. The lung room (actually there are 2 for redundancy) was very cool. The several 1000 pound disk that is attached and surrounded by the 1/4” rubber membrane is supported by the fact that the pressure inside is just 1 psi greater than outside. The lung allows the air inside to expand without breaking windows everywhere. We got to see it move down a few inches when the tour guide

Today (April 28) is our ‘half-trip-aversary;’ 9 weeks down and 9 weeks to go!  In many ways it seems like the trip has gone by quickly, while in other ways we can’t believe that half of the trip is over already. We are (and this wasn’t planned on purpose) in Las Vegas for the occasion. We arrived today and it is a huge shock to be in this crazy, decadent place after so many days spent hiking and camping. I feel like a fish out of water here, but it is sort of amazing to see what humans have built here in the desert. I told the girls it’s like Universal Studios for grownups, which is sort of true. I don’t want to talk about Las Vegas though. I’d much rather do a mid-trip check-in. Easter in the Grand Canyon was probably the first day we all felt a little homesick. We usually see our extended family every couple of months, and we have never been away from them at Easter time. The excitement of being in the canyon definitely dulled our homesickness, but as we packed for that part

On April 12 we went on a really fun day-long adventure in Utah. We took a ‘Rim to River’ trip with a company called Red River Adventures that involved canyoneering on the morning and rafting in the afternoon. We had to be up really early...it was dark and cold and we ate oatmeal in the car. We met our guides Mitch and Dan in Moab, and our driver for the day was Charlie who is also a manager. We drove to a drop-off point where Mitch and Dan led us and the four other clients (Dan and Amy from Washington, Dawnette from Louisiana, and Cory from Texas) on a hike across lots of sandstone to our first rappel. We were all very excited, particularly the girls, as it is the closest thing they’ve had to rock climbing for quite a while.  The first rappel was beautiful; we took turns dropping down into a beautiful narrow canyon. It was only 8 or so in the morning so the light was amazing. The girls did a great job leading the way, and Mitch and Dan did a great job helping everyone feel saf

It was months ago that I played the Grand Canyon lottery to try to get a backcountry camping permit for our family. This involved faxing our itinerary request to the backcountry camping office (hand delivery or mail are also acceptable methods to apply). I was so excited when we got the permit that I actually cried; some people have tried and failed to get a permit several times, and I felt so fortunate that we would be able to make our trip to the Grand Canyon an epic one. The girls had expressed an interest in backpack camping during the trip, and we knew that it would be very cool to camp in the canyon. We hiked down the South Kaibab trail (about 12 km) on Easter Sunday and camped at the Bright Angel Campground which is just across the Colorado river. Hiking down sounds easy, but it certainly isn’t. I think the climb down was harder on our bodies than the climb out. On Monday we hiked half way up (about 8km) the Bright Angel Trail and stayed at Indian Garden campground. Today

Our first camping spot in Utah was at Dead Horse Point State Park. As we were driving up to the park and gaining elevation the temperature kept dropping (this would occur the next few days). It was snowing, around 0 degrees Celsius, and the picnic table at our campsite had about 15 cm of snow on it. All this is NOT to say that we weren’t super impressed and loving it. The canyonous view along our campground was out-of-this-world. Upon arrival before setting up we took a quick drive to the actual point known as Dead Horse Point. Unbelievable panoramic view.        Seeing as it was actively snowing Amy and I made the executive decision to make dinner for all and that we all have dinner in the car. We then told the girls we’d put their seats down and they could stretch out in Highlander and sleep in the car for the night. They were excited and this worked well. Amy and I waited until the forecast said the wind would die down (around 10pm) to set up our 2-person tent. As the campsite ha