Great Basin National Park

 Can You Hold My Skunk for a Second? 

Saturday June 18

Quotes from my four year old daughter make the best titles. Today was another travel day, but we took a short detour to check out a national park in the area. Great Basin National Park is huge park that spans from Utah through Nevada and into California. We stopped at the visitor center, watched a cool video, learned about the wildlife in the area, and did some shopping. We now have three national park stamps in our passport book which is really cool! Dave gave each kid a budget for the trip and they could purchase whatever they wanted up to that amount throughout the whole trip. Annabelle chose to use up the rest of her money today on her new stuffed skunk. She was so excited about it and named it Chocolate Chip. 

After our trip to the visitors center we took the scenic drive up to Wheeler Peak. The drive was twisty roads with mountain on one side and a drop off on the other. Annabelle kept yelling “hang in there guys!” When we arrived at the summit trail the elevation was over 10,000ft! When we got out of the car it was so cold! We had to dig through our bags to find our cold weather clothes and closed toe shoes that we didn’t take to Hawaii with us. While we were changing it started to snow! We couldn’t believe it! It was just a few flakes, but still crazy. We were truly at the top of a mountain! We hiked just a little bit on the summit trail. It was windy and cold, but so beautiful. Liam walked on his own this time and he loved stepping on every rock he could find! On our drive back down we stopped at both Wheeler and Mather Overlook for more amazing views. This park felt like such a hidden gem. It was a little out of the way to get to, but totally worth it. Next time, we’d love to tour the Lehman Caves that are at this park as well. 

After our wonderful detour we drove a few more hours and stopped for dinner in Salt Lake City at a funky Mediterranean place called “Spitz.” After all the traveling and fast food, I was super grateful for a yummy salad. We’re spending the night north of Salt Lake and will continue our drive to Montana tomorrow.