San Diego {Cabrillo National Monument}

The first thing I noticed when we arrived in San Diego, were these gorgeous purple Jacaranda trees lining the streets, too bad they aren't native. 

Cabrillo National Monument is a favorite of ours, so of course we took our friends there to see the views and creatures within the tide pools. While tide pooling is better in winter when the tides are larger, we still saw some cool stuff.

Found Western Gulls and a Black Oystercatcher (lifer)!

When driving to Cabrillo, you pass a beautiful final resting place, Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery,  overlooking the San Diego Bay on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.  More than 140,000 veterans and family members have been interred here.

While in San Diego, we stayed in the dry camping section of Campland on the Bay. It was the cheapest place we could find in the area, and it's in a great location extremely crowded. As you can see it's a parking lot with paint delineating sites. We actually seemed to have more space than many of the more expensive full hookup sites, where RVs had to be parked rear to rear only inches apart. 

The campground is like it's own little town with a restaurant, bar, activities, and the most technologically advanced laundry room I've ever seen. Check out this app you use to pay and control the machines! It shows how many minutes until your laundry is done. No more waiting in laundry rooms!

Chiricahuas {The Heart of Rocks}

The Chiricahuas. 

I've seen friends post from this "sky island" finding birds, snakes and amazing views, so this was high on my list to explore. The Chiricahua Mountains are just east of Tucson and reaching an elevation nearing 10,000ft, a place where four ecosystems meet: the Rocky Mountains, and Mexico's Sierra Madres, Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts. For this reason an abundant diversity of plants and wildlife can be found here, including Mexican species you may not find elsewhere in the US. We began our visit at the Chiricahua National Monument Visitor Center where we were greeted by bold Mexican Jays.

We decided along with our Israeli friends to hike to the Heart of Rocks Loop, arriving via the Lower Rhyolite Canyon Trail, a 7 mile round-trip. Pretty ambitious for our first big hike in a long while. 

We had hardly been walking for 10 minutes when we heard a rattle... A Banded Rock Rattlesnake was just off trail a few feet from us. No worries, it was just telling us he was there as he tried to escape all the scary people! Asher found 2 others during the hike but was unable to identify them.

Pretty soon the trail left the forest and we hiked along the side of the mountain, soon we could see the rock pinnacles standing tall above the canyon. 

 

Once we reached the Heart of Rocks Loop, the kids found some fabulous rocks to climb. The group enjoyed a few snacks and posed for some family photos.

Everyone else was ready to head back, but I was determined to complete the Heart of Rocks Loop, so I continued on alone...in the wrong direction! After about half a mile, I came across a couple, the only other people on the trail, who for some reason told me I was not on the loop trail. I don't know how this conversation got to this, because I had just stopped to take a photo of a lizard, I know it was a God thing! I returned back to my family and then found the actual beginning of the loop trail. I learned a lesson- always double check my GPS location with my phone! It was a beautiful detour, but now I needed to move even faster. 

The views were wonderful and the rock-formations quite interesting. Some have names like "Kissing Rocks", "Big Balanced Rock", and "Punch and Judy", all pictured below.

This place reminds me of Bryce Canyon and its many hoodoos.

The loop took me about 40 minutes to complete and then we began our long hike back together towards the Visitor Center.

We decided to spend the night on the mountain in our rooftop tent. See the next post for more.