Thanksgiving trip ideas
11/11/07 08:44 AM Filed in: travel
Thanksgiving is coming
up and working at Mattel that means a nifty four-day
weekend is approaching! November 22nd - November
25th.
Every Thanksgiving Chris & I have spent together, since 2001, has been a traditional xbox holiday for us, playing all our favorite games while spending half the day in the kitchen prepping the bestest meal ever. I seriously make a mean turkey and awesome homemade, garlic mashed-potatoes from scratch! This year we're ready to switch it up a bit and plan a little car-camping trip but we're having a hard time nailing down what to do, between these two choices:
Death Valley National Park & Pinnacles National Monument
Death Valley we've been to already in March 2005 during the wildflower season, so if we go again we're going to try to see things we didn't get to last time we were there; such as the Race Track and possibly hike / summit Telescope Peak at 11,000+ ft if weather permits. If we can't do Telescope Peak I'm sure we'll just take a million scenery photos and find some off-roads to go Jeeping around on. The weather will be pretty decent, highs still in the 70's, lows in the 50's at normal elevation - Telescope Peak would be freezing since the hike starts at 8,000 ft.
Death Valley - Race Track
Death Valley - view from Telescope Peak
Pinnacles looks really cool, it's somewhere new all together and there's a lot more wildlife there we can expect to see, such as spotting the California Condor is a big possibility there. They also have plenty of resident hawks and eagles! There are really cool geological formations, and there's also a cave there to explore. The weather is not as favorable as Death Valley, Pinnacles' highs are in the mid 60's with lows in the high 40's. Pinnacles, because of it's location offers other options of places we can explore nearby or on the way.
Pinnacles - landscape
Pinnacles - California Condor
Both National Parks are about 5-6 hours north of us; generally the same distance. I'd imagine traffic around Thanksgiving to Death Valley would be less since it's way out in the middle of the desert away from most cities, vs, Pinnacles is off of RT5, on the way to San Francisco, which is notoriously traffic heavy around the holidays. That could possibly be avoided depending on when we leave LA, but knowing us, we'd probably plan for that but get stuck in traffic anyway, lol!
I'll keep you posted on what we decide :)
❀jenn
Every Thanksgiving Chris & I have spent together, since 2001, has been a traditional xbox holiday for us, playing all our favorite games while spending half the day in the kitchen prepping the bestest meal ever. I seriously make a mean turkey and awesome homemade, garlic mashed-potatoes from scratch! This year we're ready to switch it up a bit and plan a little car-camping trip but we're having a hard time nailing down what to do, between these two choices:
Death Valley National Park & Pinnacles National Monument
Death Valley we've been to already in March 2005 during the wildflower season, so if we go again we're going to try to see things we didn't get to last time we were there; such as the Race Track and possibly hike / summit Telescope Peak at 11,000+ ft if weather permits. If we can't do Telescope Peak I'm sure we'll just take a million scenery photos and find some off-roads to go Jeeping around on. The weather will be pretty decent, highs still in the 70's, lows in the 50's at normal elevation - Telescope Peak would be freezing since the hike starts at 8,000 ft.
Death Valley - Race Track
Death Valley - view from Telescope Peak
Pinnacles looks really cool, it's somewhere new all together and there's a lot more wildlife there we can expect to see, such as spotting the California Condor is a big possibility there. They also have plenty of resident hawks and eagles! There are really cool geological formations, and there's also a cave there to explore. The weather is not as favorable as Death Valley, Pinnacles' highs are in the mid 60's with lows in the high 40's. Pinnacles, because of it's location offers other options of places we can explore nearby or on the way.
Pinnacles - landscape
Pinnacles - California Condor
Both National Parks are about 5-6 hours north of us; generally the same distance. I'd imagine traffic around Thanksgiving to Death Valley would be less since it's way out in the middle of the desert away from most cities, vs, Pinnacles is off of RT5, on the way to San Francisco, which is notoriously traffic heavy around the holidays. That could possibly be avoided depending on when we leave LA, but knowing us, we'd probably plan for that but get stuck in traffic anyway, lol!
I'll keep you posted on what we decide :)
❀jenn