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Southwest Family Adventures

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Category: Roadtripping

10 Articles
Matt Holmes June 11, 2023

2023 Utah Road Trip

We just returned from a fantastic family camping road trip to southeast Utah. This time we kept our plans fairly open and flexible. We had a list of possible spots and regions and activities, but avoided putting any specific dates or expectations on anything. In the end, our overall route

Matt Holmes June 01, 2021

Oregon Roadtrip (a coda to covid)

In April we did a two-week roadtrip to Oregon for some conventional fun—we stayed in rentals, visited museums, ate at restaurants, visited relatives, walked on the beach. To me it represented a coda for Covid, now that Karen and I are fully vaccinated and we’re all trying to safely emerge

Matt Holmes July 27, 2020

Utah Spring 2020

This past May we drove to Utah to meet up with Jon and Sarah and their 6-month old, Mason, for his first ever camping trip. It ended up being a lazy car camping trip, without any of the usual canyoneering adventures. The Holmes’s hit up Muley point again on the

Matt Holmes August 17, 2019

Crested Butte is Awesome

The title pretty much covers the whole point of this post. Once upon a time, I lived in Crested Butte, for two years. I taught high-school science and math at a now non-existent private school, Crested Butte Academy. The first year my salary was $12,000. The second year my salary

Matt Holmes May 12, 2019

Utah Roadtrip, Spring 2019

Once again, it has taken a long time for me to finally post this trip report. This is a post about a trip we took during the first week of May… Highlights included lots of beautiful campsites, copious fantastic thunderstorms, the boy’s first real slot canyoneering, super remote roadtripping, and

Matt Holmes May 09, 2019

How to prepare for Summer Camping

Every time we prepare for a camping trip, I (Karen) find myself amazed and annoyed that I still have not conquered some relatively easy tasks that would make trip-prep a heck of a lot less exhausting. Matt. of course, already has his system and has had it down for years.

Karen Holmes August 19, 2018

Good times at Hoots in Albuquerque

No, NOT the infamous “Hooters”! Ha!!  While perhaps poorly named, “Hoots” is nevertheless a fantastic indoor play area on the northwest side of Albuquerque, near the Balloon Park.  I’ve made a point of stopping here after a long day of running errands in ABQ or doing other parent-directed activities, so

Matt Holmes June 09, 2018

Utah Roadtrip

We just completed a surprisingly successful ten-day family roadtrip around southwest Utah.  The whole family, all of us jammed in the xterra, camping at 8 different campsites in 10 nights, driving every day but one.  It was a lot of driving, but we managed to split it up over the

Matt Holmes May 11, 2018

An Extra Gas Can is Not Necessary (aka Crossing Escalante)

I have checked it out for you–I have driven across the emptiest stretches of the map, those maximally bereft of gas stations, and I have determined that you can ALWAYS get from one gas station to the next. Just last weekend I traversed the longest empty spot on the map

Matt Holmes December 30, 2017

I love Crested Butte

(written 1/17/22 about a trip 12/30/17) Did I already use this as the title for a blog post? Well, even if so, it bears repeating. Once upon a time I lived in Crested Butte, teaching high school at a a private boarding school for competitive skiers and snowboarders. The teaching

We’re a homeschooling family in Los Alamos, New Mexico, hoping to give our boys a love for the great outdoors and provide them with skills they’ll enjoy for life. When it comes to camping, we are experts at getting off the beaten path, away from crowded campgrounds.  And adventuring to us can be as simple as checking out a local park or as ambitious as hiking a Colorado 14’er.

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