Great Basin National Park

This marks our 8th National Park this year.  

Mark had took a week off and we went to Nevada.  

Holy cow I was cold! 

 We knew it would be cold so we packed for it but seriously, it's Nevada, how cold could it really get?  REALLY COLD!

There are many people who haven't heard of Great Basin so I will tell you a bit about it.

This is the home of Lehman Cave along with some other caves and to the second highest peak in Nevada, Wheeler Peak (elevation 13,063'), and it grows Bristlecone Pine Trees which are the oldest living organisms in the world.

Sounds pretty cool, right?!

It was but I found it hard to fully enjoy myself because of the cold.

Mark and Scott don't mind the cold as much as I do so they enjoyed themselves.

I think we are going to go back in the spring and try it again.

We really would love to try hiking to the top of Wheeler Peak.

It's also kinda on the way to Yosemite National Park.

It's about four hours from Salt Lake City so not too far.

Enjoy the pictures.

Mark is loving our new camera and loves to take pictures of EVERYTHING 10 times so sorry if there is an over load of pictures. :)

 Scott was still tired at our early morning departure so he pulled all the pillows on him and eventually fell asleep.

  Mark loves to take pictures of the road.

Pretty much annoying.

But the roads in Nevada or on the way to Nevada are pretty comical to me now.

Long stretches of road into the mountains with not much scenery around.

I used to hate the drive but this trip was kinda funny making it with Mark.

 Mark is getting pretty good at taking pictures.

Starting to get an artistic eye.

He likes to go on hikes by himself now with the camera.

Every time he comes back the pictures are better then before.

 Me helping Scott cross the stream.

He has my balance luckily because we had some close calls.

 Wheeler Peak

 A Bristlecone Pine Tree.

They don't have bark and they look like they are dying but really they are alive and have been for millinia in some cases.

Crazy

 Don't you love how knotty and swirly they are.

 Scott was able to go on vacation but he had some work to do still.

He loves that ipad and has learned so much form the games on it.

 I came across this while on a hike.

I wondered how all these pine needles could fall in a perfect pile with no pine tree above it.

But on closer inspection I we found huge red ants.

Biggest ant pile I've ever seen.

The rest of the pictures are from Lehman Cave.

It was by far the coolest part of the trip.

We were so lucky to have gotten to go through the long tour that went through all the rooms instead of the shorter tour that we paid for.

Since we had Scott with us we could only go on the shorter tour because they don't let children under five into parts of the cave.

But when we would have turned around the tour guild said she would just this once, because she was in a good mood take us all the way through the cave.

I think it was because we held Scott the whole time and wouldn't let him touch anything.

Oddly enough he was great when Mark held him but not so much when I did.

The last three pictures are from the furthest room of the extended tour.

AWESOME!