This trip, yall. One for the record books! It started as a basic tag-a-long plan for another one of Nathan’s work trips at the end of July that quickly grew into a 9 day road trip in a rented minivan to Lake Tahoe and back. We decided the experience to cost ratio of driving it far surpassed that of flying and we were right! I broke it down into 3 days to get there, 3 days to hangout at Lake Tahoe with Nathan and 3 days to get home via a different route. We allotted 10-12 hours of travel per day and Ashlyn quickly supplied an awesome list of “along the way” sights. Nathan flew out the Friday before his week long class and on Saturday, I loaded up 3 kids and a dog at 5:40 in the morning and we were off!

Day one, as you could imagine, was spent just getting out of Texas. Our set up in the minivan was proving quite comfortable and the boys got some napping in while Ashlyn stayed strong as copilot. Before we departed, I decided our fueling rule would be to start looking for gas every time we hit half a tank. Which was put to the test right away in West Texas. We passed Ozona with over half a tank thinking we would make Fort Stockton without problems, but we didn’t account for our bladders! Miraculously, an Exxon station appeared on the horizon like a mirage about half way to Fort Stockton and we were very grateful for the clean bathrooms and “on brand” fuel! The joke became to never skip Ozona, but if you do, there is some hope haha. We were entertained the rest of the drive to El Paso by “dirt devils” and distant mountain ranges. (Which we would be visiting a month later!)

We topped off one more time in El Paso and stopped twice more in New Mexico before reaching our hotel for the night in Deming. The first stop was for that typical state line sign and the next was unplanned, but when you see a tourist attraction sign touting a TRANSFORMER you have to check it out! Ashlyn and Weston darted inside the giant souvenir shop and did a great job not getting distracted by all the trinkets to get the photo op 😉. That night, we enjoyed Burger King and History Channel shows in our comfy Best Western room and were all sacked by 9pm.

Day 2 we were up, ate breakfast, loaded and back on I-10 by 7 am. An hour later, we were in Arizona! So fun how quickly statelines get crossed once out of Texas! We had a little bit of fun at the rest stop (note the sign? Yea, the kids did too. VENOMOUS people, not poisonous haha).

As we rolled into Tucson, Ashlyn noticed a sign for Saguaro National Park and said, “Hey! Aren’t those the old western style cactus??” Her google search while I got fuel confirmed it and also confirmed just how close the west side park is to the interstate. We decided the detour was too easy to pass up! We spent about an hour and a half in the park coupled with 30 minutes getting to and from the interstate, so it added 2 hours to our day, but it was worth it! It’s such a unique park and you truly felt like you were transported to a typical western movie. We could’ve just taken in the visitor center and been happy, but Ashlyn saw 2 other trails that looked interesting and were short. However, it was heat of the day in the desert and not safe for Sally to be out. So the boys, Sally and myself posted up in the shade of a picnic site and watched Ashlyn as she had a little solo adventure up a hill to look at some petroglyphs! She got some great photos while up there and learned that some historians theorize that the images may not hold any particular meaning but were rather created by “bored youth” of the tribe 800 years ago! Kids will be kids not matter the time period!

Four hours later, after some tough driving in traffic around Phoenix then blazing hot and monotonous scenery in Western Arizona, we finally crossed into California. Since it was approximately 115 degrees out, we didn’t get out to pose with this sign. The scenery didn’t improve much and was very desolate, but our fueling strategy was holding up well.

We finally made it to the Twentynine Palms entrance on the north side of Joshua Tree National Park and began our drive through tour around 4:30. We stopped and got out to explore the area around Skull Rock and it was a welcome break from all the driving. The temperatures had significantly cooled down with the time of day and the mostly 4,000 feet elevation we were at that Joshua Trees thrive in.

It took us another 2.5 hours to finish driving through the park then 30 more minutes to our hotel in Indio on the outskirts of Palm Springs. I paid $50 for our Dairy Queen dinner and we were in our room by 9:30pm with daylight and 100 degrees still outside! The next morning when I took Sally out at 6am, the sun was already up and it was in the 90s. Not much appeal to Palm Springs for me!

Day 3 (Monday) we gave ourselves a later start after the previous day being longer than expected and were on the road by 8am. Our goal by the end of the day would ultimately be meeting up with Nathan in Minden, NV. But, first! A driving tour of Yosemite National Park that was practically on the way. It was quite an interesting drive through middle California seeing farms and orchards for miles before climbing into brushy hills that turned into wooded mountains.

We entered at the south entrance and were initially seeing remains of wildfire destruction, but the further north we drove on the winding narrow roads the more we became covered in towering pines and sequoias.

But we had no idea what we were about to pull up on when we exited the tunnel over looking Yosemite Valley. I was completely shocked and overwhelmed and quickly pulled into a parking area so I could dry the tears in my eyes and the kids hopped out to take some pictures. Which ABSOLUTELY do it no justice.

Once composed, we made our way into the valley and found another spot to pull off near the river to touch the frigid water and enjoy another perspective photo op.

After that, we started to make our way out of the park via Tioga Road and about an hour later stopped at the Olmsted Point look out and enjoyed more views amongst the remnants of ancient glaciers.

An hour more of driving after that we were officially exiting the park in complete awe of what we had just witnessed. I absolutely have to go back. So many trails to hike and places to just sit and take it in that I need more time with. To date, it is the most beautiful landscape I’ve seen in the U.S. We made it to Nathan’s hotel in Minden after 8pm that night where he had burgers waiting for us and we slept hard that night. We were excited to not have a 12+ hour drive the next day. Instead we would be beginning our exploration of Lake Tahoe for 3 days!

To be continued in Part 2!

-Lindsay