Family Adventure- RV Trip through National Parks

Planning an RV Trip with Kids through the National Parks? 
Here are a few tips to get you packed and going...

just follow this link----> RV Travel with Kids

Crater Lake is a HUGE lake created by a volcano. You can't camp right on the lake, but the Manzana campground is not too far away. My son actually biked from our campsite to the lodge at the lake (as it was UPHILL and IN THE WIND the whole way, I only made it to the visitor center, puff puff).

There was snow on the ground in JUNE, but it was shorts weather (25 years ago, on my last visit to Crater Lake, the snow was piled so high, they hadn't yet plowed out the roads IN JULY). Watch out for Mosquitos, they seem to love it in the campground.

The Lake was beautiful, we had a nice hike and a picnic lunch. The little one got her Junior Ranger Badge.

There are miles of hiking trails, and you can take a Ferry out to Wizard Island in the middle of the Lake. Hiking down to the lake is not easy, but it's possible. 

Wish we could have spent more than one night.

From Crater Lake we drove north to the Columbia Gorge. I wish we had planned to spend more days there... but it ended up being a drive through visit.

The Columbia River is much bigger than I expected, and busier. Train tracks on one side, freeway on the other. We ended up staying in a small campground on the Washington side called Bridge RV Park and Campground. This was our first night of hook-ups, and we were all excited about having hot showers in the camper, and electricity without running a generator. Waaahoooo! The site was clean, well maintained, and right on the river.

In the morning we took a short hike and found the world's LARGEST Dandelions. Naturally, we all made wishes.....

In Idaho, we stopped at The Silverwood Theme Park because we thought the kids would enjoy a day of Roller Coasters and Water Slides before heading into the wild. Silverwood has a campground, and I was pleasantly surprised how nice it was. Clean, enough space between sites, lots of trees. All in all, a good experience. The campground fills up early though, so be sure to call far in advance. We did luck out. Originally we just had our name was on the waiting list. The day before we left we got a call... a space was open for us. Yahooo!

I grew up in Southern California, so I'm no stranger to Theme Parks. We didn't know what to expect at Silverwood, since we'd only seen ads on the internet. We loved it. Clean, big enough to be exciting but small enough to be comfortable. Not too crowded, lots of interesting rides on the roller coaster side... and a lot of rides for little kids. The Water Park side was great, especially since it got warmer as the day went on. All of my people loved the wave pool, and really loved the slides . I loved that there were enough grassy areas with shade for me to sit and relax. And the Huckleberry Shakes were out of this world!

When we travel, I try to mix natural wonders with the fun of theme parks... this was a great fit for all of us.

I had never seen glacier, and I wanted to. Really wanted to. Glacier National Park was on my list of places I had to see.

We reserved a campsite at Fish Creek Campground, right on Lake MacDonald. The site was shadowed by trees, and quite wild feeling. We were in Loop C, and there were no generators allowed in this campground, so it was quiet. Deer wandered through our campsite. Lovely.

The Going to the Sun Road is an important MUST SEE. You can't drive it in an RV (thank goodness), so we took a tour in one of the historic Red Buses. It wasn't cheap, but it was well worth it. The buses are open on the top, and have huge windows. The Jammers (drivers) are knowledgeable about the history and nature of the park. Best of all, you don't have to drive that narrow, hair-raising road.. they do it for you. Even the kids loved it. We saw mountain goats, sheep, and the Continental Divide.

Camping on Lake MacDonald was so much fun. We spent a day playing in the COLD glacial run-off, kayaking, and basking in the sun. A few extra days at this campsite were so worth it. My only regret is that we didn't make it to the Canadian side of the Park.

Going to the Sun Road - a Family adventure. 

One of the group activity stops we chose was Gem Mountain Sapphires. Our family loves to dig and collect. We've got a museum (well, cabinet with glass doors) of bits and pieces, rocks and feathers, nests and fossils, shells and snakeskins. When we stumbled on this place on the internet, we couldn't pass it by. At Gem Mountain Sapphires, you buy a bucket of tailings from a mine, and you get to wash, sort through, and find actual SAPPHIRES. OK, so we weren't going to get rich doing this.... but we did have a fantastic, wet and dirty time. We found some great shiny treasures, and even had a few sent away for cutting. Everyone in the family was able to enjoy the activity, it wasn't too expensive, and the people working there were SUPER NICE.

That night we stayed at the Fairmont RV Park. It was a bit off the beaten path, but it was clean, and the people were friendly. BONUS... it was next to the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort, so we got to go over and do a little swimming in the warm water. They even had a water slide. Sort of cleaned the kids off from the dirty fun they had digging Sapphires....

Millions and billions of words have already been written about Yellowstone National Park. Seriously. This is the Mother Park.... Our campsite was in the Bridge Bay Campground. We chose it because it was centrally located, and because they TOOK RESERVATIONS. We were lucky to get a spot in the trees, and not on the meadow. It definately had a better, less crowded feel. Take along bug spray.. the mosquitos are ravenous!

Our family covered as much of the park as possible in the time we were there. We saw the Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Falls, and of course, Old Faithful. Yellowstone is crowded. When we were there, every campsite in the park was FULL. As a result, there were crowds everywhere, and loads of traffic. We were constantly running into congestion and packs of people with camera... all you had to do was look in the same direction as everyone else, and you'd see the deer-buffalo-is that a fox- that they were looking at. I swear, the buffalo LOVED creating traffic jams.. every now and then one would shuffle down the road. You could practically hear them laughing about the frustrations they were causing with the drivers. Got to wonder if they keep score.

Yellowstone is beautiful, but the best part for me was the family hike we took. All of us... off the beaten path... away from the crowds.... through fields of lupine and into the woods. Wonderful. Relaxing, serene.... until we saw the fresh bear scat. YIKES! time to head back the other direction!

I admit... my tolerance for soggy weather is not so good. Growing up in Southern California, we used to put on sweaters when the temperature dropped to 70 degrees. Granted, I'm not that whimpy anymore, but still... camping in the rain is a drag.

We arrive at Grand Teton National Park, and it's POURING. Uggh. People have gone on and on about how lovely the mountains are. We read reams, saw photos.... but once there... all we saw was clouds. Sigh....

Now, we hadn't planned to stay long in the Tetons, but the idea of hiking around in rain brough on the threat of mutiny. Soon we were off to our next stop...

Our next stop was the most expensive campground of our trip, the Snake River KOA. We chose it because we'd been without hook-ups for a few days, and we wanted to recharge.

The campground was clean, but the spaces were a bit tight together. The Snake River flowed right behind the campground, so we could hang out by the water. This was a good central location for a few different activities for our family.

My boys love fishing, and the Snake River has some excellent fly-fishing. We got them signed on to go along on a half-day adventure with a local guide. They had a ball! And we heard some serious fish stories when they got back. While they were gone, the girls spent some time in Jackson, we restocked our groceries, and found a fantastic used book store where we happily passed an hour finding treasures.

In the afternoon, the girls walked across the street from the campground to the horse stables, where we took a trail ride for a few hours. The guide took us way up in to the hills. We were all given horses that suited our abilities, the guides were friendly and knowlegable about the area, and we all walked with an extra hitch in our giddiup at the end of the ride...

The campground is also the headquarters of a rafting company, so if you and your family want to go river rafting, it's perfect. They have all of the equipment there at the campground, and they make sure you get to, down and back from the river, in one piece.

Our final stop turned out to be a favorite for all of us. Fossil Butte National Monument, just outside Kemmerer, Wyoming. The visitor center to Fossil Butte was small but so well done. As you travel the road in from the main entrance, there are signs along the way marking your passage through geographical time. Once in the parking lot, the signs got closer together, and we learned when fish appeared, when insects started crawling around, and when the Baja Peninsula was formed.

Inside the visitor center we saw amazing fossils. The whole area was once an inland lake, and now they are digging ancient fish out of the shale. It was amazing to realize how old these creatures were... There were a few activities for the kids, and a there was a video about the area that explained how all these fossils were formed.

Kemmerer, right outside Fossil Butte, was not really geared towards tourism. Its major claim to fame is being the home of the world's FIRST JC Penney's. I liked how their town square is a triangle. Shows creativity.

Camping in Kemmerer was sort of an afterthought. The RV Parks were really not geared for fun family camping, there were a lot of permanent residents in the parks. But, it worked. People were nice. It wasn't fancy, but it was fine for one night. Plus, we had plans close by for the next morning....

The National Parks are very popular these days. We can thank a slow economy which keeps people in the US for travel. And we can send special thanks to Ken Burns for making his wonderful documentaries on the National Parks.

Make reservations far in advance. As soon as you know your vacation dates, get online and start booking campsites. For one trip, we started booking in March, and a lot of places were full, so we had to do some crazy rearranging. This trip we started booking in early February, so we got the spots we wanted.

Xanterra handles reservations for the National Parks, and it's a pretty good site. You can see the layout of the campground, and in some parks even chose the exact site.

Get yourself an accordian file, and keep track of all of your itinerary, reservations, confirmations, maps, and ideas that you find online or in magazines.

We are always on the lookout for Roadside Attractions, and sometimes we get lucky. This time we were near Burney Falls in northern California and we found this stone man, along with a giant dinosaur, a huge penguin, and a monster ant, in front of a rock and construction materials company. Fantastic!!

One Day we found the WORLD'S LARGEST Elkhorn Arch!!! It went across a 4 lane road!

Other days we'ver found caves where for a small admission price you can view glow in the dark rocks, we've visited restaurants shaped like giant oranges that sell the BEST orange shakes, and once we saw a an acutal jackalope exhibit.

Keep your eyes open for the unexpected!