Tag Archives: Nature

Noah’s Delawarean Adventure

It’s been 8 years since we took our first grandchild on their Adventure with Grams and Pops the summer they were 10. We’ve been to Washington, DC, Baltimore, Lancaster, Knoebels, Niagara Falls, Toronto, and Williamsburg, VA.  Each one was unique and special and made sweet and lasting memories.  For them and for us! This summer, as we were anticipating taking grandchild number 4 on his (our first boy!) adventure, we reviewed what we had learned.

  • Spend more time in one place. Spending days driving in the RV isn’t really that exciting for a 10 year old.
  • Be flexible with your planning. SO MANY things can impact plans.
  • Don’t shop for food until after you pick up said grandchild.  And don’t be surprised if they order chicken tenders each time you go out for a meal.
  • Throw in some educational activities, but make sure there’s some good adventure options available too!

Given our logistical constraints and a bit of input from Noah (he was interested in amusement parks, the beach and scuba diving (!!!)), we decided to spend our week doing All Things Delaware.

Wait, Delaware?

I know – it doesn’t sound all that exciting, but as I checked into Delaware options it really seemed to fit the bill.  It’s got  historic/educational (it is the first state, after all) value, it had beach options (with boardwalk amusement rides), and while we couldn’t manage the scuba diving, we did venture high up into the trees with an almost four hour high ropes course.

We started our adventure with a bang (or a leap as it were) at the Go Ape Adventure course located right in the state park where we were camping. Since Noah really wanted to do the Treetop Adventure (“This is the big one! Our original Treetop Adventure in the canopy. Looking for 50 foot high tree-to-tree crossings, super long ziplines and heart-stopping Tarzan swings? Search no more. A 2-3 hour adventure like no other awaits you.”) and he needed an adult to accompany him, we decided that both of us we take the plunge.
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To say that this was outside of our comfort zone would be an understatement!
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We were stretched to be sure – but we all lived to tell the tale.
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(I’m going to add high ropes/ziplines to my bucket list just so I can cross it off!)
The middle days of the week were filled with museums
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Children’s Museum of Wilmington

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Air Mobility Command Museum


and nature walks
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and mini-golf!
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We filled our last full day with Beach Goodness –
Time at the ocean,
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on the boardwalk rides,
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and finally at the waterpark.
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Where we would wait patiently at the bottom of the big waterslides to see which chute he would come out of! (Well, when we weren’t floating down the lazy river ourselves!)

Phew. What a day! So fun (and minimal sunburns!).
Saturday we left our sweet parking spot (Lums Pond State Park) and regrouped back at Potomac Park, our August SOWER project location. But before we returned that beautiful boy back to his parents, we had one final bit of fun – spending the evening with his newly discovered (for him – not for us!) second cousins (thanks to that family reunion in July) who live nearby.
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Such a sweet finale!
Sunday morning we packed him up (along with miscellaneous items (like those Cocoa Puffs) that we’d collected for him along the way)
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and returned him to his parents.
It was a grand week! It was wonderful to spend that one on one time with Noah and many precious memories were made. We’ve definitely noticed that we’ve aged some since we devised this plan 8 years ago, but I don’t think we’d trade it for anything.

Maybe just factor in a few more naps!

Thanks for coming along on our Delawarean adventure!
Steph
PS – The whole batch of Noah’s Delawarean Adventure photos can be found HERE!

‘Shrooms and other Forest Treasures

One of the things I’ve been trying to do every day is take a nice long walk. (After all, the call of the ice cream stand in town is LOUD).
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As I’ve been taking these walks I’ve been delighted to find, if I take my time and look closely, a lovey variety of mushrooms and other forest treasures.
This one looked like it could be used as the swimming pool for some teeny-tiny fairies.
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This little community seemed to doing a little urban sprawl.
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I’m pretty sure the one in the foreground will eventually look like the one in the rear, but don’t hold me to it! It’s a great color, though, isn’t it?
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This pure white one was all by its lonesome. Well, as far as I could tell, at least!
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At first I thought this was a slice of wood,Mushrooms-09
but sure enough, there was the stem!
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I’m not sure if this would be considered a mushroom or a fungi. Or something else entirely!
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This little family was no bigger than my index finger. So tiny!
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Here’s another colorful community –
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And then there was the mother of all mushroom logs –
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which even came with its own tiny fauna.
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I’m sure I’ll find other forest treasures as I explore in the days to come.  And I’ll do my best to keep you in the loop!

P.S. Any idea what those things are on the tree on the left?
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Catching up – Second installment

We still had a couple of National Parks to check out before we made that final dash to Waco –
Canyon DeChelly
This was another one of those ‘lesser known’ parks in the Four Corners area of the country, but we’re glad we stopped!
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Here’s the opening blurb from the website –
For nearly 5,000 years, people have lived in these canyons – longer than anyone has lived uninterrupted anywhere on the Colorado Plateau. In the place called Tseyi, their homes and images tell us their stories. Today, Navajo families make their homes, raise livestock, and farm the lands in these canyons. The National Park Service and Navajo Nation actively work together to manage park resources.
Because we were stopping here on our way to our next campground, we opted to do the driving tour rather than a more extensive tour of the valleys. Once again we were treated to beautiful views and lots of pueblo ruins.
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Here’s a bit of a zoom-in at the base of the canyon wall –
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Pretty impressive views all around!
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It was a great stop and we’re glad we put it into our itinerary!
(More pictures of the Canyon deChelly HERE) 🙂
Next up – The Petrified Forest and The Painted Desert.
WOW!!
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The petrified wood was so interesting –
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and very beautiful!
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The drive through the painted desert
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was spectacular, and the combination of the painted desert and the petrified forest
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was pretty amazing.
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Lots more pictures of this area can be found HERE. (Funny story about first world problems with the picture taking on this trip. Theoretically it was daylight savings time and I made sure my phone and big-girl camera were set to the same time so when I combined the pictures they would all be in order. HOWEVER, since Arizona does not do daylight savings time, every time we drove into AZ, my phone would change – but of course my camera would not. And then, if we were also in Navajo land, where they do do daylight savings time….well, let’s just say, getting these pictures in order was quite a task. Every park we went into in that Four Corners area had three clocks – Arizona time, whatever state we were in time, and Navajo time. Crazy!)

After the Petrified Forest, we put the pedal to the metal, and pointed the RV to Waco!
Back to Gary’s Journal –
[Following the Petrified Forest] we reconnected the truck and drove to the NM Welcome Center and stayed the night.
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UntitledLeft NM Rest Area @ 6:30. Stopped @ Denny’s for breakfast, drove East I40 to Rt 84. Stopped at Walmart in Lubbock, TX.
Left Walmart and drove East on Rte 84.
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Arrived Waco 2:30PM

And that finally wraps up our very long drive from California to Waco long, long ago…..

Thank you for your patience – and for coming along!

Now where were we?

Right – just leaving the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and heading to Page, AZ for our next National Park visit.
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And what a beautiful drive it was!! Most of it was a very scenic drive along the Vermillion Cliffs,
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across the Colorado River
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up a couple of ‘hills’
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and then down into Page, AZ.
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Page is a fairly new city, having been founded and then developed only during the building of the Glen Canyon Dam.
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And of course, the dam created Lake Powell, which is a huge recreation (boating, camping, hiking, etc.) area.
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Now we didn’t take in ALL there was to do the area, but we gave it our best (scratching the surface style) shot!
There was the Dam Tour –
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which was made all the more interesting by our tour guide, who was a Page ‘native’ and had lots of stories from ‘back in the day’. Like when he and his buddies would cut school and explore the inner tunnels of the dam, before security shut that down. (He was also a retired policeman, so that added a bit of interest too!)
We took in one fairly long hike to find some “slot canyons”.
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It was not only a beautiful drive to GET to the hike –
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(more of those beautiful Vermillion Cliffs)
but since the hike was through a “wash’, there wasn’t much of an elevation change to deal with (our nemesis!).
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Although the slot canyons at the end of our Wire Pass hike were probably not as impressive as perhaps the more well known Antelope Canyon (Wire Pass – Free. Antelope – almost $100 for the two of us), we certainly were impressed!
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We absolutely love the sculpture of these rock walls

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A wonderful reminder of the creative beauty of our God! (And the power of moving water!!!)
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We checked out a bit of lake shore camping,
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(maybe next time!)
enjoyed another short hike
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and just generally enjoyed the beauty of the day.
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As the sun was beginning to sink and hoping to catch the sunset, we checked out another highly recommended (and short) hike – Horseshoe Bend.
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We were not alone in our thought process!
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(I confess – this picture really cracks me up!! And – they are ALL too close to the edge!!!)
I guess I’ve seen more beautiful sunsets –
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but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen more people hoping it would be (more beautiful)!
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So that about wraps up our time at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. There was so much to see and do here (not to mention that it might have been nice just to sit on the beach and stare at that lake) that it might warrant a trip back! But for now – it was pack ‘er up and move on down the road.  Still to come – Four Corners, Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, and the Petrified Forest.

Next time, okay?

As always, thanks for stopping by. And thanks for your patience as I work on getting this ol’ blog up-to-date between lovin’ on these cutie pies!
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I’m sure you can understand my distractions!

Steph

Oh – and if you’d like to see some additional photos from our time in and around Page, Arizona, you can check them out HERE!

The North Rim

Back in late April of 2010, Gary and I did what we affectionately called the Grand Rock Tour. We took two weeks and visited the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Arches, Capital Reef, and any number of lesser known National Monuments, Navajo sites and other POI’s along the way. But since it was, after all, late April, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon was not open yet for the season. So as we made the trek to Waco from California, it was one of our very first stops. Now you might think that seeing the North Rim is just like looking into the Grand Canyon from the “other side” but it really is quite different. Well, we thought it was, anyway!
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The South Rim is certainly the more developed area, while the North Rim is definitely the “road less traveled”. We were there during the last month of the season, and some hospitality areas were closing the next weekend. We were thrilled with the beautiful yellow Ash that lined the roads as we made our way to the canyon, not at all disappointed with the lack of crowds and traffic!
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Our day started cloudy and gray, and we were worried about how the ‘viewing’ would be, but all was well! We took in a couple of hikes, followed all the roads we could and were just.plain.amazed at the beauty and majesty that was before us! Here is just a sampling of those amazing views –
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(Just for the record, we did hike to “Angels Window” – that big hole in the rock!) Can you see the Colorado River peeking through the window?
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It really was a spectacular day and to remind us that the season was just about over, what started out as a late afternoon shower
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ended up as this –
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One last picture – not so much of the canyon but of the view from the other side of the plateau –
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Ahhhh…..
So you know I took a bazillion pictures and I did my best to whittle them down to a manageable number, and then only shared a couple in this post. But if you’d like to see more of the beautiful ‘less traveled’ North Rim, you can check them out HERE!

And if you’d like a little refresher of that Grand Rock Tour of 2010 – here is a link to one of the first posts in that series. Feel free to check it (and others in the same time frame) out!