We went on another road trip with Elizabeth, Phillip and their three sweet children. It was incredible how much we saw in seven days. We covered four states and five national parks during that time. Elizabeth is amazing at planning trips. I offered to help this time with the planning. In doing so, I got some insight into how she plans these adventures. I won’t call it a vacation, because it is not restful. These trips are adventures that are intended to enrich our lives. Goal accomplished! Lots of memories were made that will last a lifetime! I personally learned a great deal during this journey as well, which I will share in future blog postings.
To plan the trip Elizabeth used http://www.roadtrippers.com. It is a free website that will let you route your trip and will tell you the mileage and driving time between each stop you plan for your trip. When you add a destination on your route the website will add details and information pertinent to that location. For example, for the National Park stops it provided info about the park such as hours, highlights, website links, and more. The website will map it all out for you, which will clearly show your intended route and stops. It is a very useful site, and it is an added bonus that it is free!
After routing the trip on the roadtrippers website Elizabeth then input all the details for the trip into Evernote. This app is one of the best apps I have ever seen! I am now a user of this app since she recently showed it to me. It allows you to create notes to share with others, but has features much like Microsoft word. For example, you can upload photos, web links, and text into the document to then share with others. It syncs the note onto all of your devices (as long as you have the app downloaded on these devices). You can even use the app on a desktop; they send a link after you sign up. Once again this is a free site. Of course there are upgrades, but for my simple purposes the free site works great. It is a wonderful and easy to use site. Sharing the documents you create is very easy. Below is an example of the note that Elizabeth created for our trip. I took a screen shot to share the itinerary of just one of our travel days, so you can see how this app is so very handy. I love her attention to detail! Of course, the itinerary was not set in stone. We made adjustments according to the kids’ needs, our own need for some extra sleep, and such. For the most part we did follow the itinerary, as we wanted to see as much as we could in those seven days. The kids seemed to go with the flow and enjoyed our high energy, adventure seeking week.
These are the National Parks we Visited over the past seven days:
- Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado
- Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado
- Capital Reef National Park in Utah
- The Arches National Park in Utah
- The Canyonlands National Park in Utah
Below: A Screenshot of the Itinerary for Sunday using Evernote (just an example of how the Evernote app is so useful)
I will share about our traveling adventures on the blog over the next week. I like using my blog as a digital scrapbook for my family memories. I also want to share tips and things I learned in the process, so that others who want to visit these National Parks can use the information to make their own journey more enriching, enjoyable, and easier to plan.
Below are some of the photos from our adventure these past seven days. I will share more in the days to come.
