“Caution: Trail not maintained. Use not recommended.” I think that is an accurate representation of my family vacations. My mom has always been a huge fan of a good adventure, and so far in my life I’ve been swimming in the ocean with manta rays at midnight, stuck on a dogsled at the center of a snowstorm, and driving through lighting bolts in Nowhere, Idaho. There was one particular trip, however, that was even more hilariously cliche and “what-were-we-thinking” than the others. Mom had just proposed to the family her newest quest: a mission to hike all of America’s National Parks. For my family, this was like a challenge. Us versus the National Parks. So we said, “Bring it on!”, and we headed for Mount Rainer in beautiful Washington State.
QUARTER-FINALIST 2015 FTF TEEN TRAVEL WRITING SCHOLARSHIP
Actually, we were just about to leave for the airport when my brother, Jack, and I decided to take a short bike ride and Jack challenged me to a race. I watched him quickly take the lead, and then, a couple houses away from ours, hit a bump in the road and flip over his handlebars. Jack broke both of his arms, and came home from the emergency room a couple hours later with bulky temporary casts and tear-stained cheeks. But, being his mamma’s boy, he insisted on still taking the trip. We rescheduled our flight for that evening and headed for Mount Rainer with a total of six functioning arms. The next morning dawned with potential. The trail my mom decided we would take was deemed “treacherous” by the visitor’s brochure and the somewhat-chubby park ranger warned us that people normally take about six hours to complete it. “Psh, what does he know,” my mom said, “People are not this family!” We drove out to what seemed like the very edge of the park, with no other cars in sight, and pulled up alongside the trailhead to a sign that said “High risk of bear encounters.” We started hiking along the edge of a dense forest, then forked off and began to climb over huge boulders through a canyon—my brother’s casted arms above his head like he was in a stick-up—trying to guess where the actual trail was. After half an hour, we spotted the one-foot-wide trail entering the bear-infested forest. Then, after two more hours of hunched-over walking and holding on to tree branches to keep from sliding downhill, we came to a sign announcing that we had reached the end of the “maintained” part of the trail. By that point, none of us were too enthused to continue on, but my mom reminded us that “this part is what our family does best!” I was convinced that this was not the part that I did best, but my dad had already begun to follow my mom, with the food and water in his backpack, so I followed. Then we came to the bridge. The bridge was straight out of an Indiana Jones movie: It swung about five hundred feet over a canyon and was built with wooden planks each spaced about five inches apart. I don’t remember much about crossing the bridge, but I will always remember the look on my dad’s face as he started to make his way across to his family. He was closing his eyes, and I thought he was trying to show off like he always did, but I later learned the truth: maybe my family was a danger-loving superfamily, but my fearless, superhero dad was afraid of heights.
Dear Reader: This page may contain affiliate links which may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Our independent journalism is not influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative unless it is clearly marked as sponsored content. As travel products change, please be sure to reconfirm all details and stay up to date with current events to ensure a safe and successful trip.
0 Replies to “Superfamily”
Comment on this article
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Hi! I’ve been reading your site for a while now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Austin Texas! Just wanted
to say keep up the great work!
Quite informative article!! Gives hopes for getting onto a plane again soon.
I had a wonderful experience this summer in Croatia. It’s part of it, called Istria, and the city is Pula. Beautiful city! I was there for ten days, with my family, and we wanted to explore a little bit of the area so we used Google to find out what we can do. The first thing we found was a boat excursion with https://www.vacation-istria.com, and we decided to take a tour. What I can say is that it was great! We took a day tour around the islands of Brioni near Pula, two hours on the boat with lunch, and two hours of swimming on the nice small island! Beautiful nature. Brioni National Park looks great! I just want to tell everyone, not to waste time, let yourself go and enjoy it! I intend to visit that area next year again, and I will do it for sure!
We visited Disneyland Orlando in October 2019. Had a super-duper time. This article reminds me of those days. Thanks for sharing !
Indeed a great article with loads of holiday choices ! Thanks for sharing.
Welcome to Morocco, Atlas mountains and Sahara desert trip
i love it.. This is amazing information
Thanks
Its amazing. i have to share with my friends and family
Thanks admin
Nice read, I just passed this onto a friend who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch as I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch! “But O the truth, the truth. The many eyes That look on it The diverse things they see.” by George Meredith.
Hello! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say
I really enjoy reading your articles. Can you suggest any
other blogs/websites/forums that deal with the same subjects?
Many thanks!
Great post.
My brother recommended I might like this blog.
He was entirely right. This post actually made
my day. You cann’t imagine simply how much time I
had spent for this information! Thanks!
After trying a few car hauling services we found online, I was getting very discouraged about moving my mother-in-law’s car from Florida to Philadelphia. Then I heard about this service and found out they were reasonably priced (within $100 of the car hauler rate) and very communicative. They emailed me a contract, plus the driver’s info so we could add him to our insurance (turned out to be Luke, a really nice guy). We paid their fee plus the cost of Ubers to and from the airport so Luke could go home and voila — the car was there in less than 72 hours. Perfect shape, they had checked out tires, oil and water etc before they left Florida and then had it washed. I was really delighted. They put my mind at ease. Highly recommend them.
Wow! I found your content here very creative and helpful. Thank you so much. I also found some great information here I will keep checking back for more great content. Very happy to read this.
Booking cheap flights for vocation is a great saving for students. Thanks for sharing these tips, all tips are very useful to students.
Vail and the other Rocky Mountain resorts are absolutely phenomenal in the summer time. They are definitely better value during the summer season, and there might actually be more to do in the summer than in the winter! (I’m a Vail Valley local of 10+ years btw)
I am glad we are able to travel this summer and the COVID thing is somewhat under control. Thanks for the great article, will share it on social.
If you are ever at a loss for things to do in Michigan’s Upper Thumb, you found the right spot. We went looking for a dozen neat and interesting things to do and came up with this list of free things to do in Michigan’s Thumb.
Wonderful article, but it should be noted that Longwood Gardens is in Pennsylvania!
Wow! I just love how detailed and extensive this blog is! This makes planning a beach vacation so much easier! Thanks for sharing!
I’m extremely pleased to uncover this web site.
I need to to thank you for ones time for this particularly fantastic read!!
I definitely appreciated every bit of it and I have you bookmarked to see new stuff on your
blog.
A very interesting article! Great ideas to make stay-at-home fun. Thanks for sharing!
I am in fact pleased to glance at this blog posts which contains plenty of helpful data, thanks for providing these kinds of information.
My family loves games
Howdy! This post couldn’t be written any better!
Looking at this post reminds me of my previous roommate!
He continually kept preaching about this. I am going
to forward this article to him. Fairly certain he’s going to have a good read.
I appreciate you for sharing!
Travel is gaining momentum again, opening up the knowledge of exceptional experiences. Travelers have the opportunity to get to know the area better, see nature and discover local attractions. Try to get to know the entertainment created by the locals and get excited for a lifetime. More optimism when choosing unique trips, as it is an ideal opportunity to get to know the country by getting to know the locals.
Hola! I’ve been following your site for a while now and finally got the bravery to go ahead and give you a shout out from
Kingwood Tx! Just wanted to mention keep up the excellent work!
Loved this post! Another great family trip idea just south of there is a canoe camping trip down the Colorado River! I just went and it was amazing. https://lovelyandlimitless.com/2021/03/17/colorado-river-canoe-trip/
Hi Cara, feel free to follow us @familytravel4um on most social networks. Having some bugs with our Twitter feed but hope to be back online soon. Thanks for your comments! Kyle, the editor
Hello there! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be ok.
I’m absolutely enjoying your blog and look forward
to new updates.
Terrific article
Hello ratuplay, Thanks for your interest and comment. Get in touch if you want to share any of our content and we can provide original docs and images. Please use the Contact Us page at https://myfamilytravels.com/Contact_Us
Do you mind if I quote a couple of your articles as long as I provide credit and sources back to your site? My blog is in the very same area of interest as yours and my users would genuinely
benefit from a lot of the information you present here.
Please let me know if this alright with you. Appreciate it!
Perfect work you have done, this web site is really cool with good information.
It’s a pity you don’t have a donate button! I’d certainly donate to this brilliant blog!
I guess for now i’ll settle for book-marking and adding your
RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to fresh updates and will share this blog with my
Facebook group. Chat soon!
That’s really nice post. I appreciate your skills, Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this detailed article. It was very helpful when updating our travel visa database
I had the best family trip in Egypt that winter. Egypt really has some of the best beaches in the world. Read about it: https://www.ootlah.com/en/blog/egyptian-beauty-the-best-beaches-in-egypt.html
Disney cruises are excellant for families, kids simply love it. Me my hubby and 2 children – 15 and 12 went during halloween time . Children were so excited with so many games, shows and surprises offered. Grub was awesome too. It’s a must do!
An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a co-worker who had
been conducting a little homework on this. And he
in fact bought me lunch because I stumbled upon it for him…
lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!!
But yeah, thanx for spending some time to discuss this
topic here on your internet site.
This is something we always play!
Hi! This is my first comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say
I truly enjoy reading through your posts. Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that deal with the same topics?
Many thanks!
I had the opportunity to be Pere Margueette Park, something amazing. I highly recommend !!
really good article
Getting a positive report these days seems like a negative response because of the infestation of coronavirus. So one must be careful while travelling and must use precautions so that the person doesn’t catch up with the covid virus. A thought from a website designing company