Travel Planning This Month
We did continued trip planning for our California trip we were on, but then we started to really plan out a lot of our weekend hikes in NW Arkansas for our back-to-back hiking weekends. We also have started playing around with destinations for our Anniversary “just us” trip – nothing is set in stone yet, but we are pricing out flights for different destinations that are on our list.
Another big part of trip planning right now is building our travel savings account back up. We keep a separate account specifically for travel, with a goal that we don’t go anywhere we can’t pay for – aka, not going into debt for a trip – but after 80-something travel days so far this year, that account is getting low. So we have been trying to do more budget-friendly things to save up for adventures next year. Some of the biggest things we do for this are: eat at home, coffee at home, spend less on activities, spending diet – we’d both gotten bad about clothes shopping for a hot minute – and I’ve been trying to pick up extra hours and making more crochet animals to sell on the side! All the small sacrifices we make to get to be on the road more.
Travel This Month
We started the month out continuing our time in Yosemite National Park. The highlights of our days in Yosemite in October, were spending time with my parents there, hiking to Taft Point together, touching El Cap’s Nose with my dad and most of all, my parents gifting Matt and I a date night there. We opted to not do dinner or drinks at the fancy restaurant, like many others would do. Instead, we did a sunset hike to Sentinel Dome and came back down to watch climbers on El Cap light up the cliffside like stars and the Milky Way was visible over El Cap was well. It was just such a special thing to see!
We took a brief morning trip down to Joshua Tree, which was simultaneously fun and underwhelming after having just been to Yosemite, Sequoia and Grand Canyon National Parks. But we went to the World Famous Crochet Museum which was super cute and perfect for me and my crochet hobby. We drove through the majority of Joshua Tree, but it was hot after having been in the mountains for two weeks, so we ended up only do the Cholla Gardens Loop, which was lovely.
We spent a couple days in Big Bear, but instead of truly sightseeing, we spent time with my family. Many family members had made their way out there for my cousin’s wedding to his beautiful soulmate. It was such a beautiful wedding and I was thrilled to get to support one of my favorite people on the planet.
We had a brief camping weekend in Ponca the weekend we got back from California. We didn’t do a whole lot because I was sick, and we actually cut out a day early because of that, but we still got to do a short hike to a waterfall, and I hiked to the top of it for the first time. We saw the elk and went for a couple scenic drives.
The next weekend we went back down to Ponca, Arkansas and it was such a perfect fall weekend! We had a gorgeous sunset on Friday, ate delicious soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and just hung out. The next day was a full one. We did the Steel Creek Overlook hike, came back to the camper for lunch and a little hangout – Matt even got to watch part of the OU game – and we got back out to hike to Hawksbill Crag. The leaves were hit and miss, but when they were a hit they were stunning! The next morning, we got up and saw the elk surrounded by fog. Also, we had a family win on this trip! Charleigh slept in her bunk the whole weekend, so Matt got to sleep in our room in the camper for the first time! It was pretty exciting and felt like a milestone in her growing up just a little bit – not that it didn’t have some bumps.
We spent the last weekend of October down in Ponca as well. This was our last camper trip of 2023, and it was so bittersweet. In many ways it wasn’t the weekend we wanted, but it was also all we’ve ever wanted from camper trips… if that makes any sense. It was chilly and poured down rain all weekend, so there weren’t any hikes happening because, well, babies. But we took several scenic drives to leaf peep. We had lunch in Jasper and found the coolest Christmas ornament for our “Travel Tree” in a local shop down there too. The kids napped beautifully Saturday afternoon, so Matt and I spent a cozy afternoon listening to the rain pour overhead while we worked on our own passion projects. It was what we dreamed of when we decided on the floor plan of our camper.
Travel Laughs & Mishaps in October
We had our first major yucky moment of road tripping with our kids. As we were leaving Yosemite, Charleigh was being exceptionally fussy, but she’s also a toddler, so she has those moments in general. But suddenly, she opened her mouth and just threw up all over herself and her beloved sloth blanket. So we had to pull into a campground and get her cleaned up, console her and I had to try not to also vomit… I don’t do vomit. Luckily, we think it was just motion sickness because that was the only time she got sick and was just fine afterward, but ew. It was gross and another moment I was grateful we have a truck to put these clothes and her favorite blanket back in the truck bed away from our noses!
Blog Posts from October
A Monthly Recap: September 2023 – Just like this post, it’s a look into all the things we got into in September + have coming up in the following months. This is a special one because we had such varied adventures in September.
Is a National Park Pass Worth It? – I get asked a lot if I genuinely think a National Park Pass is worth it. In this post, I listed out a handful of questions I think you should ask yourself to figure out whether or not a National Park Pass is worth it.
Back from Out West – This is the introduction to our upcoming series on our 18-day road trip out west.
Our Guide to Sequoia National Park with Toddlers – Our guide to Sequoia National Park is geared specifically to those parents traveling with toddlers. While we still got to see quite a bit, what we did was very much dictated by our kiddos. We hope this helps encourage you to get to Sequoia National Park, even with kids!
Most Popular Instagram Reel + Post This Month
I’ve had my first ever “viral” Instagram post (the reel below). It has been so surreal and amazing and kind to have had so many views of a really genuine reaction to seeing Yosemite Valley for the first time. At the time of writing this it was at just over 900k views and I’m just so moved!
Best Thing I Ate in October
Truthfully, we barely ate out this month, as I mentioned above. Trying to tighten up on our spending to save up for more adventures next year! BUT I would say that the pizza, but especially the garlic bread at Jasper Pizza Company was the best thing we ate out this month! It was our last camping weekend treat!
Favorite Local Find
I’ve not been the best at this because we’ve been out of town so much! But, Alaina, Charleigh and I went to Pagination Bookshop in downtown Springfield and I fell HARD. This bookstore is so cute! I especially loved their kids’ section because it is decorated so sweetly and there are so many interesting books, inclusive & multi-cultural books. I spent way too much money here…
Life Updates in October
We felt like we hadn’t been home much at all in September, so we really treasured being home more in October this year. We cooked at home a lot, especially loving soup season, and tried to spend some time cleaning up, purging some things and just getting the house set up for more of the upcoming cozy season.
We now have a couple of super cute passport holders! Liam and Charleigh got their passports in the mail and it has me so eager to get them filled with stamps and visas from international adventures.
Halloween was a smashing success this year! Charleigh was Frida Kahlo – inspired by all of her little feminist + shero books and Liam was a chicken – because the costume was cute. We had a blast trick or treating with our kids and my nephews.
What’s Coming in November
Our sweet little Liam is turning ONE in November! That doesn’t even feel possible. The last year has just blown by and we’re going to have a National Park Themed birthday party for our “One Happy Camper”. So, don’t mind me as I cry over the fact that my last baby isn’t a baby anymore, but I can’t wait to share photos of his birthday party.
November 1st starts what I like to call Christmas. Haha. Yes, I’m one of those people that decorates for Christmas starting November 1st. To be fair, though, we have 6 different 7-foot trees in our house, small trees in the kids’ rooms and loads of other decorations too, so I want to be able to enjoy them.
As far as travel goes, we’ve got the camper put away for the season and now we’ll just count down the days until it’s camping season again. Also, you know I’ll be looking at winter forecasts to see if we get one of our random warm weekends to get away, even if it’s just for the day. But we have a trip to Asheville coming up this month! We’ll be spending a little over a week in Asheville around Thanksgiving! We’ve got plans to see friends, get outside some, eat at all our favorite places and even go to the Grove Park Inn Spa one day!
I hope that you, dear readers, all had a wonderful month of October and that you have nothing but coziness + wanderlust combined in the most beautiful ways in November. (All green things + wanderlust if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, I should add.)
2 Comments
Nahya
November 7, 2023 at 11:16 amSuch breathtaking captures!
Paige Wunder
November 7, 2023 at 7:20 pmThank you so much! Hope you had a great October!