After falling in love with Glacier National Park and the town of Whitefish, MT, we headed south to Wyoming.  During the planning stage of this trip, I read several suggestions about the Grand Tetons.  To maximize our travel time, I settled on a ranch that rested between Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons.  The main building housed the office and a restaurant and then there were about 10 individual cabins spread out across the property.

We stayed at the Turpin Meadow Ranch for 3 nights.  The longest stay along our entire trip!  It’s location allowed us to head South one day to visit the Tetons and then North the next day to explore Yellowstone.  The Tetons were breath-taking!

We spent the day just driving around and pulling over whenever we found a place to take pictures.  I snapped this photo as we were driving away from the mountains, heading back to our cabin.  The water was so calm and the area was so quiet because no one else was around.  We welcomed the change of pace from our visit to GNP.

I am so excited about today’s post!  This stop on our anniversary road trip was probably my favorite.  I fell in love with northern Montana and Glacier National Park was absolutely breath-taking.  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

As you can imagine, the weather was quite a bit cooler than it was in Utah.  We welcomed the opportunity to wear light jackets and I personally enjoyed not sweating while we hiked. 🙂  I can’t wait to take our kids back there someday.  I think they would really enjoy it!

I am slowly but surely getting caught up on my travel blog posts.  The month of August just kicked my butt and I didn’t have time to sit down and blog at all.  Now that the kids are back in school, I finally have some time during the week to sit down at my computer.

Yesterday I shared about our journey with Young Living and how my family and I are using their products in our home.  Today, I’m jumping back in time to last summer when my husband and I took a two week road trip for our 20th anniversary and visited 4 national parks.  I’ve already shared about the first one, Arches, and our unplanned detour to Willis Creek Narrows.  Today, we’re headed to Zion National Park!

We spent the majority of our only full day in the park climbing to the top of Observation Point.  You’ve probably heard about Angels Landing.  Well, I heard that it was very strenuous and that you had to walk up the last part of the hike by holding onto a chain.  That terrified me!  So my husband suggested that we hike the Observation Point trail.  Well, let me tell you something.  I didn’t have to hold on to a chain, but I still walked up the side of a mountain in 90 degree heat and we ended up looking down at Angels Landing!

Looking down at Angels Landing

Observation Point sits at 2,148 feet in elevation and it took us about 2 1/2 – 3 hours to hike to the top.  The views were breath-taking and oh so worth it though!  We sat down and rested for about 20 minutes before making the trek back down, which was just as difficult because it was pretty steep and curvy.

After we made it back to the bottom, we caught a shuttle to our lodge and got cleaned up for dinner.  After dinner, we decided to drive around and enjoy the views from the rest of the park.

We really enjoyed Zion National Park, but I would recommend not going in mid-July.  It was so hot there!  But the next stop on our road trip brought some much-needed cooler weather.  We left Zion and drove north to Glacier National Park in Montana.  Stay tuned for that adventure!

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Okay, I know that I said that our trip to Zion National Park would be my next post, but I forgot that we made a pit stop along the way and the photos are just to beautiful not to share. 🙂  On our drive from Arches to Zion, we made a little detour and ventured into the Grand Staircase-Escalante.  We weren’t sure what we would find, but we were pleasantly surprised when we stumbled across this little gem!

If you’ve never been to a slot canyon, you need to add it to your bucket list!  This one wasn’t very long and the water was never more than an inch deep.  I’ve seen photos of some that you have to wade through waist-deep waters!  This was more my speed. 🙂

Part of the canyon was blocked and we had to hike up the side and scale along this ledge before we could get across.  Lucky for me, this guy is pretty agile and he helped me get up and over.

We can’t wait to take the kids back here one day!  They would have so much fun making their way through the canyon and splashing in the water long the way.  It really was an unexpected treat on our road trip.  Up next, Zion National Park (for real this time!).

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My husband and I celebrated our 20 year anniversary last July.  We flew to Denver, CO, rented a car, and then drove to 4 different national parks in 12 days.  We put a lot of miles on that rental, but it was an unforgettable trip!  We can’t wait for the kids to get a little older so that we can take them back.  Maybe not all 4 in the same trip though! 🙂

Up first on our itinerary was Arches National Park in Utah.  I will say this about each of the parks that we visited – my photos don’t do them justice.  If you ever have a chance to visit any of these in person, DO IT!!  The scenery was breath-taking.

This was the entrance to the lodge that we stayed at the first two nights.  All decked out for the 4th of July holiday.  We got up early the next morning and went horseback riding.  It was really hot that day, but I’m so glad that we decided to do it.  We were able to wander through the mountains and get a different view of the area.

After our horseback riding adventure, we drove over to Arches National Park.  Let me tell ya, it did not disappoint!  The entire area is so beautiful.  I wanted to take pictures of EVERYTHING!  Here are a few of my favorites.

Is it just me or does this remind you of the Flintstone’s? 😉

Next stop on the tour is Zion National Park.  Stay tuned!

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