National Parks Trip: Coming Home


Day 42: Friday, August 9, 2019

I woke up earlier than I wanted so that I could try to get a short run done in the oppressive Phoenix heat. I really love the desert (and missed it), but I did not miss running in this heat!



Sean got right to work at pulling everything out of the RV storage areas and getting things ready to clean and pack. I worked on packing clothes and kitchen stuff and we had things pretty well done on the inside of the RV by 8:30 am. I did not forget to pull down our magnet collection that we’d acquired over the course of the trip!


By then the kids were waking up and I had promised to take them to breakfast and some errands so we headed out and left Sean to his organizing. We had a yummy breakfast at Panera and then got a few things at Old Navy before going to Barnes and Noble, which was a highly anticipated stop on the trip. The kids had been reading and logging books all summer for two different summer reading challenges so they had earned a free book from B&N. Since we rarely get to go to the bookstore in the states, we were all excited to browse and pick out books. I am proud of these kiddos for all the reading they did throughout the trip and that they chose books at a lot of the gift shops. Raising readers over here!

After our errands, we headed back to the RV and Sean was just about done with his chores so we decided to go to a movie to get out of the heat. We saw the Dora the Explorer movie and between the tickets and popcorn, we almost had a heart attack at the prices—this is one thing where we REALLY appreciate Mexico pricing because it does not cost an arm and a leg to take our family to the movies like it does in the US! Needless to say, the movie was pretty good and it was a nice way to decompress at the end of the trip and get out of the heat. We had an early dinner at Chili’s—a family favorite (love the bacon cheese fries-yum!!) and then went back to the RV for our last night.

We spent some time at the pool in the evening, went for ice cream, and played our last Skip-Bo game of the trip (Kinsey was the grand champion!)--doing everything we could to savor our last moments of the vacation. 




On this last night like many others, the kids were being goofballs in their bunks. I think they will miss this sleeping arrangement where they could pester each other until they were tired enough to sleep!


I taught the kids the word “bittersweet” because that is exactly how I felt about the trip ending. It is so sad to have such an awesome experience come to an end, but we know how fortunate we are to have had the opportunity to do it (and that things went so smoothly!)…and that we also get to return to our wonderful daily life in Hermosillo.

Tomorrow the adventure comes to an end (for now!).


Day 43: Saturday, August 10, 2019

We got up and did our last packing and cleaning before hitching the RV up for the last time—again, a little bittersweet. Sean was thrilled that we (and the Yukon) made it the whole trip despite some difficult drives in heat and mountains and was glad we were successfully turning the RV back to its owner in good condition and that we had all survived the trip!

We met up with the RV owner, Justin, and did the walk-through, shared a few tales of our trip, and then unhitched for the last time. He was so great to rent from and offered us an incentive to rent from him again, so we would definitely consider that for whatever we decide to do next summer.


We started down the road back to Hermosillo under gray and stormy skies. By the time we reached Tucson it was monsooning and we surely knew we were on our way back to northern Mexico in August. We did a quick stop at our favorite Safeway in Nogales, grabbed some lunch, and made our way across the border. We arrived home late that afternoon and were pleasantly greeted by our sweet pups!!


What a trip!!



Location: Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico

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