We spent the first day of our 4×4 off-road trip through Death Valley National Park in the south side of the park. After visiting Saratoga Springs, we joined the main road to see Artists Palette, Badwater from Dante’s Peak and Zabriskie Point.
Our visit to the north portion of Death Valley National Park included a tour of the historic Scotty’s Castle and a 4×4 drive to Eureka Dunes. We enjoyed the solitude and beauty of the sand dunes as we explored them and camped there at night.
The last portion of the trip to Death Valley was spent in some of the most remote parts of the national park. We visited The Racetrack, exploring the rocks that move across the dry lake bed. After a beautiful drive through Hidden Valley, we spent the night on Hunter Mountain.
After spending time in national parks, arriving in a big city like Chicago was a big change. During the three days we spent here we visited several museums and saw a Chicago Cubs baseball game.
With our trek in the Himalayas over, we made our way back to the airport. On the way to Delhi, we saw Kanchenjunga from afar (the third highest mountain in the world) as well as Everest from the plane window.
We took a 17 day family trip to Japan in June 2002. It was the first time the girls had been to Asia, so it was a quite different experience for them.
Nearly everyone has heard of Japan’s famous bullet train. Our first experience was not actually riding one. Instead our first experience was in a train station. We were waiting for our train to come when, whoosh, one flew by at full speed.
Our last stop before returning to Tokyo was in Nagano, the site of the 1998 Olympic Games. In addition to visiting this city and large temple, we took a day trip to Matsumoto to visit one of the few surviving castles in Japan.
As most people know, Japan is a very homogeneous culture. An interesting contrast from the people who live here is the cars they drive.
We took a three-week trip to five countries in Europe, using the train and bus as our primary modes of transportation. Our children were six and nine during this trip, which was their first taste of extended international travel in a hostel setting.
