Thanksgiving 2016

This year the Choose Adventure crew decided to take REI's #OptOutside one step further and actually celebrate our Thanksgiving in the beautiful Anza Borrego Desert State Park.  It's been a couple of years since we've enjoyed the Blair Valley/Little Blair Valley area, so we loaded up the van for a single over-nighter - just 26 hours of adventure, but it was great!

California Coast Road Trip

Some of my fondest memories as a child were of the epic multi-day road trips we'd take as a family.  Dad would drive us across the desert to see Arizona's natural and archaeological wonders.  Mom would blast through Nevada in an effort to maximize the number of days spent fishing in Colorado or Montana.

Annika has proven to take after her mom a bit - prone to motion sickness, and not as enamored of long car rides as her old man.  That notwithstanding, I figured we were due for a good old fashioned Family Road Trip.

New Year's Day Hike - Miner's Ridge Loop

Unusually cool temperatures convinced us to delay our planned camping trip to Anza Borrego for the New Year's weekend.  Instead, we spent New Year's Eve tabletop gaming, followed by our "consolation hike", a brisk New Year's afternoon closer to home.  This was our first trip to the nearby Miner's Ridge Trail on the North Face of Black Mountain in Rancho Penasquitos.