Plan the Best Snacks and Meals for your Grand Canyon Backpacking Trip

This is an article that I recently published on Associated Content

If you are an avid backpacker, you probably already have a system for planning snacks and meals for your trips. But, if you are like me, you have done plenty of day hikes and camping, but only a little backpacking. You may benefit from what my husband and I learned about food and food prep on our recent backpacking trip down Hermit Trail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (and back up)!

Sunrise Surfing

This is a pretty picture-heavy post…because that’s really all it’s about. Tim took me and my camera along with him when he went surfing on Saturday morning at River’s End in Seal Beach. This is a bit of a photo journal of that morning:

Up and at ‘em early…although I’d already been awake for almost 3 hours by this time : )

My post back on the beach:

My post on the jetty to try and get shots of Tim on the waves:

Here’s a succession of one wave…

A view of Long Beach:

It’s the warmest water around, but not always the cleanest…

I tried to jump in my own picture to prove that I was actually there. Tim still dominates the shot, though. : )

Donuts taste better after surfing…or so I hear…

Avenue of the Giants

We didn’t get to spend much time in Eureka, but we tried to make the best of what we had. Mindy suggested that we drive down the “Avenue of the Giants” on our way back, and I’m glad we followed her suggestion!

The “Avenue of the Giants” is a portion of old Hwy 101 in Humboldt County. It’s a very pretty scenic detour from the new Hwy 101, and there are some nice spots along the way to get out and wander around. Click on the map to see a zoom-able version from the original website. : )

Redwoods are pretty any time of the year, but this drive was super gorgeous with the yellow, orange, and red autumn leaves- not to mention the recent rain, which made everything glisten with dew.

It would have been worth the drive even if we didn’t get out of the car, but Carter wanted to go lizard hunting, and we all needed to stretch our legs…

These trees are soooo tall…

We came across a cool tree that was missing most of the inside, and Tim told Carter and Lily that if they passed through it, they would step into an imaginary land…

Carter asked, “We will be in heaven?!?!” After clearing up the misunderstanding, they stepped through the tree-hole and proceeded to find lots and lots of old dinosaur bones. At least this is what I’m told…I was too busy taking pictures of everything. : )

Stanislaus River Rafting & Camping

In September, we went on a little weekend trip to Knight’s Ferry with Matt and Heather. The weather was up in the 100s, which I thought was perfect. Our tent was just a couple feet back from where Tim is fishing…nice and close to the river…and the mosquitoes (Sometimes I feel like I really have turned into a city girl, yikes!).

I love things that look like hearts. I do, I do.

Coffee, apple turnovers, and turkey bacon for breakfast- gotta fuel up! : ) (Also notice the multiple cans of bug spray on the table. Bug spray is gross, but the bugs were grosser).

All 4 of us hopped in a sturdy raft to head down the river…We put in at Knight’s Ferry and hopped out at Orange Blossom a few hours later.

Heather and I were no slackers in the paddling department. We paddled til our shoulders and arms burned…of course, the guys went on their own the second day and told us they had discovered that we didn’t really need to paddle so hard after all…

If you go after Labor Day (which we did), they speed up the flow rate in the river so that it goes a bit faster. That was nice, but it would’ve been nicer if the rapids were a little further from the start point…after we got the hang of what we were doing…

Tim and Matt used their paddling terms from dragon boat racing, and Matt sat in the back to steer and give steering-related instructions. We had a pretty good system worked out.

Thankfully, we never needed to take the advice of this lovely sign. Remember to breathe, relax, and breathe.

Heather was rockin’ out in the back of the raft.

After rafting, we walked across the covered bridge in Knight’s Ferry and wandered around taking pictures of the pretty scenery. All in all, it was a pretty nice trip. : )

Labor Day at Santa Monica Pier

I have to work every other weekend (which means Friday night and Saturday night), and that makes Tim pretty sad. He gets tired of spending his weekends alone, and who can blame the guy? I don’t like bring home alone either. I had to work Labor Day weekend, but Tim and I both had Monday off work. So, to “make up for lost time,” Tim got a discounted rate at a fancy shmancy hotel on the beach in Santa Monica. Here are some pictures from our “weekend.”

The view of our hotel from the beach:

The view of the beach from our hotel:

Has anyone else noticed that the more expensive a hotel is, the less you get for free? We had to pay an extra 30 bucks to park in their parking lot…

Speaking of extra costs, here’s the food tray and the stocked mini-bar we were careful not to touch. (We called to ask how much the m&m’s were, and when the guy told us they cost 8 bucks, we decided not to ask about the rest…) However, we did take full advantage of the complimentary coffee and tea “pods” they provided for us. Yumm…

Here is our view of the pier from our window. We got a free upgrade to a “partial ocean view,” because they accidentally booked us a room with two double beds. No thanks, man…we want a king! : )

In the morning, we took our breakfast (coffee, blueberry muffin, yogurt, and odwalla smoothie), and lounged in this neat round “chair” by the pool with the ocean view.

Ahh, coffee, reading, sunbathing, and lounging to the new music Tim put on my ipod…

Tim was obviously too relaxed to open his eyes for my long-arm shot.

We headed down to the beach before the crowds so that Tim could play on the playground…err…I mean workout equipment. I didn’t even try…didn’t want to show him up, you know.

I always tell Tim he should be a gymnast- he got to show me all his mad skills that morning. : ) I think all these things were more difficult than they looked…on the monkey bars (or whatever they call them), you have to swing like crazy and use your shoulder muscles to pull yourself back for momentum. Tim was wishing he brought his rock-climbing chalk for the slippery metal handles.

We need one of these playgrounds in Long Beach!

We walked around the beach and headed to the pier around sunset:

We tried to go to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. for dinner, but the wait was 1 hr., so we found some free wi-fi and used my killer ipod to find other restaurants in the area. We ended up walking a few blocks to Buca Di Beppo, and it was quite nice.

We had lots of fun making different shapes of bokeh in the twinkly lights- more on that when we perfect the technique! (well, as much as we can, anyway).