Tuesday, February 12, 2008

California ideas

My wife and I have often talked about duplicating a trip I took with my parents growing up.

We loaded in our old Club Cab Ford pickup with a truck camper on the back and drove across the country to visit my grandparents in San Diego. I think I was about 10 at the time and my sister was 13 or 14. It was at least a 2-week trip and we took our time getting out there, stopping every night to camp and taking time during the day to see some of the most incredible sights like the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, Yosemite National Park and Sequoia National Park, just to name a few.

I'll never forget that trip. I will always remember seeing the Grand Canyon, the waterfall at Yosemite and the size of those trees at Sequoia. I'll also never forget how long we were in Texas - man, that is one big state!
So, this June when we go to California we're thinking of making it a mini-replica of that trip. We won't be driving across the country - we'll definitely fly. But, while we're out west we'd like to drive around to some of the sites that I saw on that trip.

The Grand Canyon is definitely on the list, but what other sites do you think we should see? We'll probably take 3-4 days after our time in San Diego to do this and ultimately end up in Las Vegas for our flight home. Have any of you done trips like this before? Any suggestions on what we can see during those 3-4 days?

3 comments:

Wuksachi Staff said...

Hello Dan,

There are two different routes I might recommend for you. One would be to fly into San Diego, then travel north and spend a day in Sequoia National Park. If you come in through the south entrance you can exit out the west side of the park and hit Yosemite National Park the next day. After you're done there, leave Yosemite through the west entrance and continue on to San Francisco and fly home from there.

Your other option would be to travel to the east like you had mentioned. Going that route, you can see Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and/or Zion National Park. All of these locations are fairly close to Las Vegas so it's up to you in what order you want to visit them. Either way you choose to go I hope you have fun on your trip - sounds like it's going to be a blast!

Anonymous said...

WARNING:
Trying to cram TOO much into 3 or 4 days can create cranky kids (and sometimes a cranky wife)...depending on the family (especially the wife) :)

We've traveled quite a bit lately and have learned the hard way that this wife gets cranky if we overdo it.

Anonymous said...

i'll second the bryce canyon/zion park mention ... we went there on our honeymoon. ask melissa w. and heather, since they now live in cali ... you can find their blogs/email info linking from my blog.