TGIS 2023!

After another challenging year in education, Mike and I were particularly excited for summer and getting to spend some more time adventuring with the girls in CK/Chirp. After blowing it out last summer in Costa Rica and New Mexico/Colorado, we decided to spend some dedicated time in Texas in June before venturing out on adventures farther afield in July. For our longer July trip we used a family reunion in Arkansas and the return of the SNIT (!!) in Wisconsin to design a road trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a place we had heard was beautiful and well worth a visit. 

But first! I had been looking forward all year to my first backpacking trip since having kids. I'd wanted to do a trip in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico along the West and Middle Forks of the Gila River, and a frisbee friend Maureen "Mo" McCamley, a native New Mexican offered to come along! So here's a photo dump of that: 

The Gila Wilderness was the first Wilderness Area in the U.S. and is celebrating it's 100th anniversary next year! Wilderness Areas have the highest restrictions of any type of protected land in the U.S, so you can't take any mechanized vehicles into them, even bikes. 

The day we got there, the ranger told us that there was a wild fire just a few miles north of the trail, and headed toward the trail. We changed our plans by knocking off a day and switching the direction of our loop, and headed out into the smoky air hoping it would clear up and we would make it past the danger zone in time. Above is the annotated map of our trail with the extent of the fire as of the last day. 

Most of the hike was like the views above, with constant river crossings and the trail winding through high walled canyons. Every time we turned a corner, we would strain our necks to look up in awe and exclaim that it couldn't get more beautiful. We were lucky that the wildfire smoke was only hanging around each day for a few hours, and then would blow off. The first day we hiked 9 miles to Jordan Hot Springs. The second day we did a big haul of 12 miles, and up to the arid pass between the Middle and West Forks, when we could see the wildfire just a few miles away. The last day we had a short 6 miles back to the cars and were fortunate to thumb a ride the last couple of miles back to our cars. 

The next few weeks were a mix of Canyon Lake, Austin, and Houston to hang with friends and family. Photo dump from that time below: 

Summertime Sno Cones at Canyon Lake! 

 

Cousin time at Nana's! 

Doppelgängers Sybil and Aunt Ellen! 

Staying in Austin for a couple of weeks during the summer was definitely the right call for the girls, who spent entire mornings playing Lego, creating fashion shows (above), and playing together. Almost every afternoon involved a trip to a local pool. 

Baby Reid! 

Finger painting turned into body painting for Parker at Canyon Lake.  

Sybil spent a fun week at an Austin Parks & Rec summer day camp with her best friend Harriet, so we got to spend some quality time with Parker and spend some time purging and cleaning the house. After a month of staying around Texas however, we were itching to get on the road and excited to start our road trip to the Upper Peninsula!