We left for Krispy Kreme at 8:45 am. We ordered 12 donuts and got five free. It was a good breakfast. Afterward, we got lost for an hour trying to avoid a major accident and the traffic that it caused on I-10, then we drove to El Paso. Do you know how boring I-10 is through this part of Texas?!? On the way there, we spent our time programming in Scratch and I created a game. Then we took a tour through the Franklin Mountains SP. We hiked up a cool trail to an even cooler cave, then drove back to El Paso. After that, we ate more Mexican food at the L&J cafe.
I highly recommend the tacos picadillos or tacos deshabradas. This place has been around since 1927 for a reason, folks! My little brother loved the sopapillas, too.
A Team 2015 Road Trip Part 1
We got a late start to our roadtrip.We took a 3 to 3 1/2-hour drive to Sea World, San Antonio to check out some whales and ride some rides. Sam and my mom rode The Great White once, and rode The Steel Eel 6 times before getting kicked off because Sammy’s peace signs looked like double barrels. (Their camera really timed it perfectly; his peace signs were on their way up.) We also saw two pretty cool whale shows, Azul, and “The Sham-Smash”. Azul was all about synchronized swimming, and “The Sham-Smash” was all about the whales. The second was better. Afterwards, we finished the day with gourmet Mexican food from La Margarita at Market Square. What better way to finish off day 1!
Salomon shoes rock !
My whole family wears Salomons for trail running and hiking (except for my youngest brother because we can’t find them in his size). I have bought the same model of Salomon trail shoes, Speedcross 3, four times, but in different colors and sizes, as I’ve outgrown each pair. I also recently purchased a pair of Salomon hiking boots. Every time I buy a pair of these I find that it is well worth the investment. For example, the last time I was out chasing Bigfoot, my Salomon trail-running shoes helped me run through the snow to catch it. It turned out to be my dad after he hadn’t shaved for a month. Anyone could make that mistake. But I go out training for my Philmont trek with my troop and both my running shoes and my boots make training on mount Hockley that much more fun.
This is a picture of my brother and me in action sporting our Salomons and another shot of my family showing off their kicks on the Appalachian Trail.
This is all the pairs of Salomons we currently have in the house. (Two other pairs had to be thrown out due to the swamp smell emanating from them.)
Guess who didn’t wear his Salomons.
If you need a pair of boots or trail running shoes, I recommend Salomons as they have served me well and they will probably do the same for you. In the Houston area, we recommend a visit to Ground Up Athletics. They were the first to introduce us to this great line of trail shoes.
Disclaimer: We don’t yet receive any kickbacks or discounts from the companies that we brag about, but we are certainly willing to change that…
You can reach us at info@roadtrippingforkids.com Peace out yo!
2014 Road Trip – White Water Rafting – New Mexico River Adventures
To end our 2014 Road Trip, we went white water rafting in New Mexico with New Mexico River Adventures.
They are the best rafting outfitter in New Mexico.
We rafted the racecourse section which is smaller than the Taos Box. Our little Brother Wile went with us and he is not big enough for the Taos Box. We will come back later for the bigger water. We also want to come back do a multi-day trip on the Rio Chama.
Along the way on our racecourse trip, our guide brought snacks and stopped off so we could have a picnic with chips and salsa and cantaloupe. She also let us put our heads in front of the raft on the big rapids. At the end of our rafting trip we were allowed to jump off of rocks jutting out of the water. During the trip, our guide told us geological stories about the features around the river. She was the best guide ever!
Here are some really cool pics from our trip.
Check out my pics on Yonder. Look for pics by BenHornSheep.
2014 Road Trip – White Water Rafting – Canon City, CO
We love white water rafting and there are few better places than Colorado and Canon City.
We always raft with Echo Canyon as they do the best job and make the trips fun.
Here are some awesome pics from our trip in June of 2014. We went on the Big Horn Sheep Canyon Trip and as you can see from the pics, it was awesome.
All of us were able to raft even our 4 year old brother Wile. Wile is riding in the front in the middle in the princess seat. He loved it and cant wait to go back.
Rock Climbing at ERock with Rock About
On May 15 and 16, I went camping with my boy scout troop at eRock. We went backpacking into the primitive area in the back and camped at Walnut Spring and Moss Lake. It is a beautiful place. The trail was not tough at all. We took over 60 people into the primitive area and all had a blast.
On Saturday, we went rock climbing with Rock About. They are a great outfitter and did an awesome job helping us learn the right way to rock climb. I finished the entire Rock Climbing Merit Badge. I would highly encourage any troop to use Rock About if you are at eRock or any of the nearby parks with rock climbing options. Adam and the crew did a great job. Thanks.
Here some pics that my dad took while I was there.
Go rock climbing with Rock About if you get the chance. You will love it.
I love erock and want to go back and spend more time hiking and backpacking around the park. My dad and I camped right on Moss Lake under some awesome oak trees. It was the best site. We had a breeze the entire time.
Go out to eRock and hike into the back primitive area. You will be glad you did.
The main picture of eRock with the lake behind it is from our camp site. It was a great site.
Follow our adventures this summer on https://www.facebook.com/Roadtrippingforkids or here on the blog.
We will be backpacking all over California and Hawaii and will be posting great pics the whole summer.
Take Care,
BenHornSheep – I also post lots of great wildlife pictures on Yonder.it. Get the app.
5 Rules of Road Tripping
The Five rules of road tripping
1. Every time you see a cow you must hold your nose and say cow alert.
2. You must have at least 3 articles of junk food in the car at all times. Buccees is a great place to get these 3 articles.
3. Every time you see a volkswagen bug, you must punch the person next to you in the shoulder and say punchbuggie no returns.
4. Every time you pass a graveyard you have to hold your breath so you don’t swallow ghosts. Ghosts are very scary and swallowing would be freaky deaky.
5. You cannot mention any bathroom urges until after you are in the middle of nowhere with no civilization in sight. It is rude to actually stop at a real bathroom duh!
We posted this list as a permanent part of our site at http://www.roadtrippingforkids.com/carfun.htm
April 2015 – Backpacking Lake Georgetown – Texas
Over the weekend of April 3rd and 4th, we went to Lake Georgetown for a backpacking trip.
https://georgetown.org/pdfs/LakeGeorgetownSanGabrielRiverTrailGoodwaterLoop.4Oct07.pdf
We hiked from the Russell Park Campground trail head to the Tejas Camp Campground. This section is 6 miles one way. There is a primitive camp, walnut camp, on the way to Tejas. Walnut camp was really cool, but we already had a plan in place.
We saw lots of amazing things on our hike.
One of the amazing sights that we saw was the cave below. We saw this natural crevice as we stopped to let the little man(Wile)rest
We had an amazing view of the river from the trail.This was the best view of the river,besides the river crossing farther up the trail.
This was the most perfect Indian paintbrush I’ve ever seen.We saw it at the Tejas campground.There mere millions of them!
We camped at the Tejas Camp Campground which was nice as it had water and the best smelling vault toilets on the planet. 🙂
We hiked back from Tejas Camp to Russell camp on Saturday. The hike back was 6 miles, making our round trip roughly 13 miles.
Once back at Russell, we fired up the grill and had some steaks that we left behind as a reward. We had a dinner of juicy steaks, crispy brussel-sprouts, and grilled sausage.It was both delicious and refreshing after a long, hard, hike.
If you are looking for a cool backpacking experience in the Austin area, take a look at Lake Georgetown and San Gabriel River Trail / Goodwater Loop.
Peace-out! :=])
2013 Road Trip – Part 8 – Acadia National Park – Part 1
We finally made it to Acadia National Park and our parents have not mailed any of us back yet. At this point, we have been roadtripping for almost 30 straight days and have seen some of the most beautiful spots in this great country!
We camped at the Seawall Campground in section D in site 13. Our mom chose the Seawall Campground as it is more remote and filled with fewer tourists. Our campsite was amazing and we had tons of room to run around and attempt to injure ourselves.
We were right by a nice trail and we had a great place to make smores and campfires.
This was one of our all-time favorite spots to camp.
We wish we could have done more wilderness survival practice, but this campground did not allow that in the area where we were camping. We are going to Baxter State Park next and wilderness survival will be on like Donkey Kong.
The Seawall Campground has no showers so you need to find a swimming hole to was off the dust. We went to Echo Lake and took a dip in the nice cool water with all of the other stinky people. It is ok to be stinky as long as the other people around stink just as bad.
Wile was determined to dig down far enough to find some cool creatures. He never found anything, but he did almost get stuck. The beach was really nice and the water felt great. What a pretty lake.
This lake is close to the campground and has several hiking trails that lead out from the parking area by the lake.
After a trip to the lake, we drove over to the Visitor Center to get more information and to drive up and see up the view from Cadillac Mountain. The view was spectacular. Many people hike up to the peak to see the view and we plan to do the same.
Looking for creatures in the Tide Pools was fun. As the tide went out, we could go out and look around for cool sea life. We always left no trace and after looking at creatures, we gently put them back in their homes. We never took any creatures nor should anyone else.
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2013 Road Trip – Part 7 – New Hampshire
On our way to New Hampshire, we stopped off in Vermont for a tour of the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream factory. We watched a short video and learned all about the history of the company. We love running our own shaved ice stand in the summer so learning more about a company that makes awesome ice cream was really cool. The ice cream was the best and the WilE loved the bathroom. Free samples rock and roll. We had milk and cookies for FREE! What can you say – Ice Cream is really good and Ben and Jerry’s makes some cool flavors of ice cream.
Franconia Notch State Park was one of our favorite spots on this road trip. There was so much for all of us to do.
The Flume Gorge Hike was really cool as we were able to walk down into a live water fall. It was cold and the water was blowing everywhere. Wile loved the cave, but it was wet and creepy.
We camped at the Lafayette Place Campground in site 19. The site was great as it was a large camp site that backed up to the mountains. We had awesome neighbors minus the crazy lady with the dog and beer breath. She scared Ben so bad he almost wanted to go home. We loved the open field and all of the soccer games with Ellis and his big brother from Massachusetts. Our hot dogs were really good as well as we got to cook them on the fire once our dog got out of the way. He almost ate all of the dogs.
The state park rents bikes all over and you can bike from spot to spot throughout the park. We really wish we had done this, but our little brother is too small. Maybe next time.
We saw the illusive pigmy bear that only exists in Franconia Notch. It kept trying to steal our oreos.
It did rain on us a bit, but it was not a big deal. It actually rained on us on all of our camping spots but 1 this summer so we were used to it. Our Marmot tents have held up really well and have kept us dry the whole way no matter how much it has rained.
We rode the Mt. Washington Cog Railway to the top of Mount Washington. Wile is in love in trains and he loved this ride more than anything else on the whole trip. It was really cool and we all loved it. This railway is self-maintained and does not get any funding from any state or national level. Great job guys taking care of your business!
Acadia is up next and we will stay in Maine for 8 days!
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