State Parks – Summer 2023

As a way to encourage myself to “get out there” when honestly, I’d really rather just stay in, I picked up a Nevada State Park Passport and NV State Parks Junior Ranger Workbooks. We also have a 5th grader, so we got a free NV State Park Pass too! (I do love free stuff.) I decided to challenge our family and see how many passport stamps we could collect between March 2023 (when we got the pass) and August 2023 (when the pass expires).

We started our self-imposed challenge at the end of March 2023. In the past 5 months we visited 5 Nevada state parks, plus, a bonus California state park as well:

• Fort Churchill State Historic Park – we attended a Ranger led history hike and learned about how soldiers lived during the civil war and saw wild horses
• Lahontan State Recreation Area – we saw three powered paragliders having fun in the sky and one of them showed off his skills for us around the shoreline
• Dayton State Park – a very small park with 2 very short trails preserving a riparian habitat
• Empire Mine State Historic Park – California – we got a glimpse into an old underground mine shaft & learned a lot from watching the blacksmiths at work
• Buckland’s Station – we participated in a gold panning instruction event and we all found at least one very very small gold flake!
• Spooner Lake – a small, marshy, bog-like lake with signs posted warning of leeches. We didn’t stay long but there is a nice trail around the lake for biking so we’ll be back!

Lately, we’ve been trying to have a “family adventure Sabbath”. This is a tradition that we started while living in our RV full-time and kind of got away from us when we settled down into traditional houses. We recently got around to reinstating our Sabbath hikes. Being outdoors and enjoying God’s creation is something I grew up with. When our family attended the Paradise SDA church before the 2018 Camp Fire, there was even an outreach group called Sabbath Walks and Co. The group organized hiking opportunities for church members and guests to participate in. Sometimes our family Sabbath adventure takes us in a more cultural or artistic direction, but oftentimes they take us out in nature. I hope you will give this tradition a try! God’s creation is amazing and it feels good to connect with others and connect with God through nature.

One of the funniest stories from our adventures was someone mistaking my husband for a park Ranger. He was wearing olive green pants, hiking boots, a button front shirt, a dark grey vest, a grey beanie and sunglasses. I think the kiddos and I were in the museum and he’d stepped out for some fresh air. An older woman approached him and asked where the visitor center was located. He replied, not impolitely, “I’m sorry, I have no idea”. She became slightly annoyed and asked again, pointing to a brochure she’d found in the museum indicating that there was a visitor center. He repeated, not impolitely, “Sorry, I really have no idea.” The poor woman was visibly frustrated and my poor husband had no idea why she was having such an attitude with him, a complete random stranger. When he told me the story an hour later I looked at his clothes and realized that he was, kind of, dressed like a Ranger. We both had a good laugh over it. My husband felt bad for the lady and said if he’d realized what was happening he would have told her that he didn’t work there! We found the real Ranger and told him the story. He laughed so hard over it and offered my husband a seasonal job at the park! We hope the poor lady found what she was looking for and that she didn’t write a bad review for the “Ranger” who didn’t answer any of her simple questions!

We hope this post inspires you to “get out there“ and have an adventure!

💚 heavenstobetty