For #throwbackthursday, this is one of my most favorite places to camp and hike.
Great Basin National Park is in Nevada. At 10,000 ft., Wheeler Peak is one of the tallest peaks in the country. It’s full of bristlecone pines and turkeys and solitude and serenity.
Here’s a beautiful alpine lake:
California is beautiful.
Everyone should go on a road trip vacay and drive down (or up) the coast through the central coast along Highway One.
It’s spectacular.
The scenery is amazing and the views are breathtaking, BUT driving around Big Sur, the twistywindytwolanehighway is SCARY, more so if you’ve previously experienced a near death event.
One one side, there’s the vertigo-inducing views of the Pacific Ocean beneath a precipitous embankment, and on the other side, close enough so that if you open a window and reach out, you could almost touch the mountain.
“Mom, why is your lip bleeding?”
“Because I’m biting it to keep from screaming.”
“SLOW DOWN. SLOWDOWNSLOWDOWN!”
“See the red lights on the car in front of us? That is your very obvious CLUE that you need to react and SLOW DOWN.”
“Sssllllooowwwwdddooowwwnnnn…” says the crazy backseat driver.
“Heeheehee.” That’s Angel Boy chuckling at my terror.
“How about leaving a little more distance between you and the car in front of us?”
“Would that be too much to ask?”
My right thigh was becoming numb as I constantly phantom-braked during that entire death defying journey.
I clutched the dash so tightly, I thought they’d have to pry my fingers off of it.
In the back seat, DIL was listening to music and texting, observing this exchange between mother and son.
(I think she was laughing, too.)
My son lives his entire life by multi-tasking every single moment of every single day.
Even while driving, he’s eating, talking to his GPS, and carrying on two conversations.
His new name is Dr. Distracto, because the ONE thing he needed to concentrate on — DRIVING — what should have been his primary focus — was third or fourth on the list of what garnered his attention.
“Geez, pay attention to the traffic, would you?”
“STOOPPPPP!”
I was hyperventilating, fanning my face, telling him, “Do you want to give me a heart attack?”
Remember that film I liked, Guilt Trip, with Barbara Streisand and Seth Rogan?
(Read my review HERE of the best Jew-mom film EVER.)
This was OUR version of a road trip.
It was actually pretty funny. In reality, my son is a good driver in spite of being an absent minded professor.
When it was all over and we were once again on wide, straight roads, I apologized for my bout of insanity and praised his patience and even tempered disposition.
I highly recommend camping with one’s adult child and spouse.
I haven’t heard about too many other people who’ve done this. Let me know if you have and maybe we could start a club.
Popping a squat side-by-side on the trail with one’s DIL makes for a great bonding moment.
They had thoughtfully packed two tents, a huge family-sized Hobitat, and a smaller one in case I wanted to sleep in my own tent, and not with them.
I chose the “mother-in-law” unit because I didn’t want to disturb anyone or crawl over them if I had to get up and to to the bathroom at 3 a.m.
Two highlights of our road trip were day hikes to Jade Cove and Julia Pfeiffer State Park.
I’ve always wanted to explore Jade Cove but I had no idea that it was going to become the challenge of a lifetime.
I had no idea that the only way to get down to where the jade could be found was by rope. THIS was where the EMPOWERMENT really kicked in.
NO WAY was I gonna do that.
Nope. Never. Not in a million years.
It should have been an absolute dealbreaker, but my desire for jade and serptentine treasures made me think I MIGHT be able to take the risk.
It would have been such a shame to come all this way and give in to my fears.
My son patiently coaxed me and DIL all the way and made sure we safely descended the nearly vertical bluffs, while he scrambled down like a mountain goat.
I AM EMPOWERED.
(My hair looks HORRIBLE, but I’m grinning from ear to ear.)
The Jade Cove Trail is a simple flat path that loops out to the coast with a steep but short path down to the water where you can hunt for jade (please follow local regulations about collecting rocks.)
From the top.
Animal print kelp?
Treasures from Jade Cove!
After that, we drove to Julia Pfieffer State Park for a day hike. This state park is named after Julia Pfeiffer Burns, a well respected pioneer woman in the Big Sur country. The park stretches from the Big Sur coastline into nearby 3,000-foot ridges. It features redwood, tan oak, madrone, chaparral, and an 80-foot waterfall that drops from granite cliffs into the ocean from the Overlook Trail. A panoramic view of the ocean and miles of rugged coastline is available from the higher elevations along the trails east of Highway 1.
Overlook Trail and the cove with famous turquoise water.
McWay Falls, one of only two coastal waterfalls in California, where McWay Creek falls 80 feet over a granite cliff onto a sandy beach, or at high tide directly into the Pacific Ocean.
McWay Creek
Majestic redwoods
Squint your eyes and you can see Angel Boy and DIL at the base of the gigantic redwoods.
Bottom line: Empowerment is empowering. At any age.
Read the rest of my Empowerment Series here:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Hiking at Montana de Oro.
After a horrible night of not much sleep thanks to a bunch of obnoxious college students who must have been too drunk to understand that, to most people, camping means peace and quiet, not a beer binged free-for-all, we embarked on a day hike.
Our goal was Valencia Peak, but we first made a loop up Oats Peak Trail.
Valencia Peak is a coastal mountain located within Montana De Oro State Park. This trail offers gorgeous views of the Central Coast, great views of Morro Bay, Cayucos, and on clear days, you can see Cambria and beyond — with amazing views of Spooner’s Cove to the south.
It’s an easy trail with gentle elevation gain; I didn’t even need the alpine walking sticks I packed.
The spectacular views begin right away as you ascend up onto a saddle, and the rest of the hike is before your eyes.
The trail gets a little harder the closer you get to the top.
DIL and I stopped shy of the peak; my son wanted to run to the top and back, so we took a break, ate lunch, and admired the view of the ocean.
There was cell service, so I called tugboat man to say hi and to let him know we are DEFINITELY going to spend a few days here when he returns.
The views are beyond breathtaking. It feels like you’re on top of the world.
The hike down is much easier, but watch out for rattlesnakes. We saw a baby, whose venom is more potent than the adult rattlesnake.
Not too difficult, right?
Ah-may-ZING
Kind of a hazy day, but perfect hiking weather.
My little goat boy.
A narrow passage.
View from the Visitor’s Center.
Part Four: Jade Cove, Julia Pfeiffer, Cambria, and Costanoa.
We had one last detour before our final destination of the magnificent Zion National Park.
Our goal was to pack in as many sights as we could on our ten-day trip.
We were up early for a short hike to a lookout at Lake Powell.
Lake Powell, with hardly any water in the middle of this drought.
Beautiful cliffs.
Back on the road, we turned off the main highway and set out on a dusty, bumpy, red-dirt path barely wide enough for one vehicle — more like a wagon train trail — several miles off the main road to a trailhead that would lead to an amazing slot canyon hike.
The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, at 1.7 million acres, dominates southern Utah.
It’s unique in that it is the first monument to be administered by the Bureau of Land Management, rather than the National Park Service.
The Grand Staircase is a geological formation spanning eons of time and is a territory of multicolored cliffs, plateaus, mesas, buttes, pinnacles, slot canyons, and world-class paleontological sites..
After hiking for about and hour or so, clambering up and out of narrow and shady slot canyons that seemed to go on forever, passing a random cow or two, the “cathedral” emerged in a open space bathed in sunlight.
It was really, really, really, REALLY special. Words can’t describe it and my pics don’t do justice to its beauty.
I don’t know why it’s “secret” except that a couple of experienced hikers we chatted with at the trailhead shared a few of the highlights of the area and cautioned us not to be TOO specific when we talked about where we were to avoid it becoming overcrowded. 
Spectacular. WOW.
This is supposed to be one of the longest slot canyon hikes in the country, if not THE longest. We hiked for about three hours in, a six-mile round trip.
ME! 
Next stop, ZION!
Monday, April 14…7:00 a.m.
Coffee, check. Dressed in cute hiking outfit, check.
Ready to take on the day with Chanel and sturdy but stylish hiking boots when my prudent tugboat man decided to re-investigate the source of the squeaks under the hood.
He walked over to O’Reilly Auto Parts, conveniently located next door to this five-star establishment, chatted up the problem with the auto experts, and determined that the sounds are associated with the possibility that a bearing could freeze up and shred all the pulleys and belts and we’d be really in a pickle. (See, I do listen to him some of the time uh, hardly any of the time.)
Ever the prepared captain, he brought tools with which to perform the delicate repair which means I have an hour to sit in the hotel room and enjoy this fine view.
Stuff like this — abrupt changes in plans — don’t really bother me when I’m on vacation; I’ll read for a bit, write a bonus post, and re-pack my gear.
What are you guys doing today?
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I forgot to include this photos from yesterday’s drive around Palm Springs and Coachella.
There’s still a bit of snow on Mt. San Jacinto.
Look at all these windmills!. There are thousands of them. It’s too bad so many birds are killed by the wind generating system.
Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud 
