Past Camping Adventures
Here is a collection of our favorite camping adventures we embarked upon during our first six years of marriage - from newest to oldest. I'm documenting these here mainly for us to have to look back on, but also to share with whomever stumbles upon this post and is looking for some road trip inspiration! My goal is to camp in every national park in America, and to collect a unique patch from each park park as I do :). I hope to keep updating this section of my site with new adventures and exploration as they happen, but here is our 'best of' camping recap for those that have already taken place. (I'm sorry if it takes an eon to load all of the images.)
x Jessie
Joshua Tree National Park, CA
August 2017
It was a normal Saturday morning. After returning home from the farmers market I was putting the produce away and an idea hit me. I said to Scott, "want to drive to Joshua Tree later this afternoon for the night? I need to get out and sleep under the stars." He replied, "That could be fun!". We decided it would be even more fun if two of our greatest friends, Maggie and Joel, who lived an hour away went with us too. I wrote Maggie, "want to go on a spontaneous camping trip and meet us in Joshua Tree tonight?" She replied, "Heck yes we do." We both arrived in our cars outside the park just before sunset, which was around 7:30pm. We found a spot easily, seeing as the temp that day was in the 100s. It was a cool 75F when we arrived, set up camp, and hung out around the fire. Once the flames died down and the moon lit up the ground, we went for a night walk under the stars. It was just what my soul needed. Fresh air, a dirt path, stars, and good friends. We fell asleep staring up at the sky through the netting on our tent that night, and went for a morning climb on the rocks after breakfast the next day before hitting the road back home. 15 hours well spent.
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15 hours
Death Valley National Park, CA
March 2017
This is one of our favorite National Parks to return to, having visited once previously for two nights of camping back in 2014. Death Valley commands a kind of respect when you enter it's vast beauty. It's peaceful, rugged, and vivid in a harshly beautiful way. We always feel so at peace here, as there is little movement (i.e. stimulus) to distract you from its quiet valley and towering peaks. The park is a five hour drive from our home here in Orange County, so we typically leave in the afternoon and arrive by sunset on the first day. The following day is our only full-day, and we begin by doing a hike in the early morning before driving down to walk Devil's Golf Course and Badwater Basin. We typically hide in the Visitors Center during the hottest part of the afternoon (always thankful for the cold AC, and the movie theater there plays a short documentary on the valley). The evening is spent climbing on the rocks by our campsite to view the sunset, and sitting around the fire to roast some mallows for s'mores. We wake up on our last half-day to drive out early to the Mesquite Sand Dunes for a morning walk in the sand before hitting the road back home.
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Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Yosemite NP + Redwoods NP + Point Reyes, CA
September 2016
We could hardly believe we never left California for the entirety of this camping trip. The goal was to make it to Redwoods National Park in the far north of California, so we broke up the (thirteen hour?) drive by staying in Yosemite our first night. I have a deep love for Yosemite. Technically my first time in the valley was when I was six months old, in a carrier on my mom's back when she and my dad hiked up to Nevada Falls. This was Scott and I's second time camping here together, the previous time being in the spring of 2014. We hiked the evening we got into Yosemite, and headed out the following morning to book it up to the northern California border where the redwoods awaited us. We camped at our favorite campsite yet, Gold Bluffs Beach in Redwoods National Park, where the towering redwoods met the black sand beach. The campsites were set in the sand with the seagrass, and the drive into the campground was through a wicked looking fern forest that was awesomely creepy. We saw bear paw prints in the sand in the morning, elk wading in the stream that flowed from the mountains to the ocean, a beautiful fern canyon, and some really big trees. The fog on the beach made for the most epic sunrises and sunsets, we were especially taken by this place. On our way home down the coast we camped in Point Reyes at Olema Campground and were in awe of the beauty of this place, it really caught us off guard! We are still scheming to return and explore more of that beautiful protected coastal area.
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Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Arches National Park, UT + Crystal River & Silvan Lake, CO
September 2015
We headed out from our then-home in Denver, CO and drove through the state to Arches National Park in Utah. We camped in the park at a surreal campsite, had a beautiful day of hiking and exploring the park, plus Moab and the Colorado River, and a star filled two nights under the Milky Way. After a short sunrise hike on our second morning there, we left to head back into Colorado and dipped south to our next destinations. First we spent the night in a KOA along the Crystal River outside of Carbondale, CO. The next morning we hiked in Carbondale, drove to Aspen to explore on foot for the day, and returned to our Crystal River KOA for the night. The following morning we headed to Silvan Lake and spent the most beautiful day, night, and morning in that peaceful nook of the Rocky Mountains before driving back to our home in Denver.
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Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Pawnee National Grasslands, CO
July 2015
I picked Scott up from the airport outside of Denver on a Friday night at 9pm after he had been out of town on a work trip that week. I packed a change of clothes for him and a small cooler with some snacks to get us through the following day, and we drove to the north east corner of the state to the Pawnee Grasslands. It was pitch black as we drove into the grasslands, and there wasn't another soul to be found. We eventually pulled over and parked in a rocky pull off, reclined our seats, and fell asleep in the car listening to the coyotes howling in the hills outside. We woke in the morning to the most beautiful scene of the sun rising over the rock formations in the grasslands. We had the granola bars and ice coffees I packed for breakfast, and spent the morning hours walking through the grass and climbing the little piles of rocks. We saw nothing but grass and hills in every direction. A little vacation for our souls, to reconnect after being apart, and to start off the weekend feeling free.
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Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO
March 2015
Two of our good friends, Maggie and Joel (who were adventure photographers at the time) invited us to Great Sand Dunes National Park with them to be their models for a shoot they were doing for an outdoor brand's clothing. All four of us are big time outdoors/camping fanatics, so we knew it'd be a good time. We drove out in the afternoon and ended up staying in a cabin at the park, due to the super cold digits it was suppose to reach that night. Our time there was spent climbing on the dunes the following morning, afternoon, and evening before driving back to our homes in Denver after sunset. This place is wild. There is a shallow river that runs in the sand between the dunes and the pine tree covered mountains (still snow capped at the time).
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Day 1
Day 2
Yosemite NP & Big Sur, CA
June 2014
For my birthday I asked to go camping in Yosemite and Big Sur, having been to neither in my adult life. I had been talking about Yosemite all year, and it stole my heart. I cried when we got home, thinking about how I wouldn't wake up in that valley the next day. Here is what we did. We reserved a spot in Crane Flat campground, outside the valley and at slightly higher elevation, for one night to get us into the park. The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn and sped down to Camp 4 campground in YosemiteValley to stand in line for a campsite. We made it in time, and were paired with two other sets of travelers to share a site with for the next two nights (best camping experience fo my life). We hiked to Mirror Lake that afternoon, explored the Upper and Lower Falls, visited Bridal Veil Falls, and found a meadow to spend our time in at sunset. The next morning we hiked to Vernal and Nevada Falls, putzed around the valley for the afternoon, and spent our last sunset back in the meadow. (Both nights were spent talking around the fire with our campmates, and it was the highlight of the trip for me.) We woke up on our last morning and left at dawn. We stopped to make coffee on the side of the road and watched the sunrise from Tunnel View. We drove straight across the state to Big Sur, went for a coastal hike, and then decided to keep driving down the golden coast at sunset until we reached home.
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Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Death Valley National Park, CA
April 2014
This was our first time in Death Valley, and while we had anticipated a rugged adventure in a sweeping valley with jagged, towering peaks - what surprised us was the amount of peace we felt. There is a 'quietness' to the life here, and the stillness in the dry dusty air helps your heart slow down a few beats. We arrived in the evening at sunset with high winds. We couldn't nail our tent into the rock-hard ground, so we opted for setting up our sleeping bags in the back of our Jeep. We left the trunk door open both nights, and the cool 70 degree air was the most refreshing. We hiked in the Golden Canyon near our campsite the following morning, and ventured down to explore the Devil's Golf Course and Badwater Basin before it got too warm. We cooled off by sneaking into one of the hotel's swimming pools that afternoon (shhh ;)) and hung out in the Visitor's Center. In the evening we watched the sunset from atop the rocks around our campground, and made s'mores over the campfire. The next morning was our last, and we woke up early to drive to the Mesquite Sand Dunes for a barefoot walk in the sand before hitting trails back home.
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Day 1
(We drove out the night before.)
Day 2
Palomar Mountain State Park, CA
March 2014
I was looking for a mini-escape to help reset us from a tough week at work, so I found this little campground south of us at Palomar Mountain State Park. We left Friday evening and got in late at night in time to set up a little campfire. We slept in the back of our Jeep and woke up to bluejays singing and refreshing mountain air. After coffee and breakfast we went for a hike to an overlook. It wasn't the most beautiful place we had been, but it was nature and that was all we needed. We drove home afterward and started our weekend feeling refreshed.
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Lake Powell & Zion NP, UT
September 2013
My family was heading to Lake Powell for a few days and invited us to join. They drove up from Phoenix, and we came over from southern California to meet them at Lone Rock beach to camp. This is where Scott and I took our first camping trip together after getting married a few years before. We love renting kayaks in Page, Arizona to bring to the beach for lake explorations. This place is super special to us, and the sunsets here are unreal. We decided on our last day to leave early in the morning and pop up to Zion National Park for a hike in the Narrows before trekking back home.
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Lake Powell
Zion NP
Beach Camping in San-O, CA
September 2013
We drove down to San Onofre's campground about 45 minutes south of where we live for a night of beach camping. The camping isn't anything to really write home about, but the sunsets and sunrises on the beach with the bluffs behind you (and good waves) is what we came for. Scott did a sunset surf the night before, we had a chill night by the campfire, and then barely slept due to some rowdy neighbors. We woke up to our entire tent being covered by ants (on the outside, but still creepy) and after cursing and shaking them all off, had a pretty nice morning on the sand. Scott went for a sunrise surf while I read sleepily on the beach at sunrise. We then made our way back home. It was another one of those short-and-sweet resets.
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16 hours
Sequoia National Park, CA
July 2013
Scott came down with a fever on our way up to our campsite, but was a total trooper and insisted we stay for at least one night. So a three day exploration of this national park turned into a 24 hour one, but it was still so beautiful and special. We camped by a river in the sequoias, and hiked to Muir Wood the following morning before driving back home to get Scott healed up. We definitely want to come back and explore more of this area one day!
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24 hours
1500 Miles to Yellowstone NP & Back
June 2013
This was my request for my 24th birthday, to camp in Yellowstone NP. It meant lots of driving, so I planned some other epic stops along the way. We began by driving from our home here in Costa Mesa, California, to Zion National Park in Utah. We stayed the night and hiked Angel's Landing in the morning. We then drove north passed SLC and stopped at a KOA in Brigham City, Utah. In the morning we booked it to the west entrance of Yellowstone. We arrive at our campsite in Norris Campground and set up camp before exploring some of the trails around the geysers nearby. We were rained out of a fire that night, and woke up to sunshine and blue skies. We drove to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and did one of the rim hikes. We climbed the stairs down to the waterfall, and visited the lookout of the waterfalls on the opposite side too. After we drove to Yellowstone Lake and hung out by ourselves on it's black sand beach while watching storm clouds move about over the lake. We made it back to our tent early to beat the rain and enjoy s'mores over a fire. We made it just in time and tucked into our tent with our bellies full just as the rain rolled in. We woke up to snow flurries and figured we should probably make our way south. After visiting Old Faithful and walking a trail around another huge geyser, we hit the road and went out the south entrance of the park. We stopped to take in the Tetons, and drove straight through to southern Idaho where we camped at a KOA. In the morning we booked it down to Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah and hiked into the hoodoos at sunset. One last night of s'mores and a fire under the stars. In the morning we left early to hit up Zion one more time for a hike in the Narrows before making the final stretch of the drive home.
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Days 1&2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Days 6&7
Mogollon Rim, AZ
October 2012
This was our second camping trip as a couple, and just a short drive away from our then-home in Phoenix, Arizona. We stayed one night at Woods Canyon Lake and enjoyed some of the fall color and cooler temps up at the rim. There were lots of elk around, and we spent our time walking the trail around the lake or climbing around by the shore. It was cold in the morning so we lit another fire and enjoyed breakfast warm before packing up and making our way back home. A quick weekend escape.
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Lake Powell, UT
September 2012
Ah, our first camping trip together as a couple since being married. This was my first time planning one of these for us, and as you can see, it really jumpstarted our love for adventuring and camping. We stayed for two nights on Lone Rock State Beach on the Utah side of Lake Powell. We love it here because you can camp on the sand, right up against the water. We picked up some kayaks in page (rentals) to explore the lake on while we were there, and they were awesome to take down the canyons. The sunrises and sunsets are unreal at this place, and every night when the sun goes down a huge flock of bats migrate across the sky - amazing!
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