Pining for the Fjords

To take advantage of the long New Year's weekend, all four of us (Chris, myself, and the girls) headed to Roper Lake State Park , in what would be both our final camping trip of 2023 and the first one of 2024! A family photo from the on-site, off-leash dog park - super convenient! When planning this trip, we tried to find a spot with partial or full hookup camping within a park or forested area that also was just a few hours drive from home and wasn't too far north or high in elevation - Roper Lake fit the bill perfectly!  It's a state park about 3 hours away (the closest town is Safford, Arizona, which is about 175 miles due southeast from Phoenix), two of the three camping loops offered water and electric hookups, and although nearby Mt. Graham tops out at 10,000 feet, the lake itself is at just 3,000.  That means that while it would be cold overnight, it likely wouldn't snow or be too cold during the day to enjoy being outside.  The park also has lake-related activit...

Don't forget to read Part 3 , in which we ate and drank our way through the world famous Napa Valley! Hanging out in Sausalito (guess who left his sunglasses in the car?)! Tuesday morning started very similarly to Monday; Chris and I were up early, so we grabbed coffee at the Napa Valley Coffee Roasters downtown, and we chatted with the proprietors of the Old World Inn , our home for the past few days, while we waited for Mom to join us for breakfast in the dining room (spoiler alert - it was delicious again). The Cabernet House, in all of its daytime glory. The Merlot House, where our room was, is slightly behind and to the left. Banana caramel french toast with bacon and fruit! After breakfast, we headed back to our room to finish packing, and before too long, we were on the road toward San Francisco.  Our phones were sending us weather alerts for dense fog in the area, and we drove through some of it: Vines in the fog Mom's view from the backseat - as you can see, while it ...