Great Basin National Park

Three day weekends are the best. I'm sure I'm not the only one that's extremely sad it's almost over, but we did as much as we could to enjoy the entire weekend! We left on Friday to drive to Baker, NV, around four hours away, to go camping and explore Great Basin National Park! Thought I would share some of the photos and details from our trip. :)

It was my first time in Nevada, and the first park my husband and I had visited in NV, too! There are only two of them, though.. :) One more to go, and it's close to Vegas. Need I say more?

Crazy dog loves road trips and has to see where we are going the entire time!

First time to the state! 

Beautiful drive!

Baker, NV, is a tiny town. And driving there, you go at least 100 miles without gas stations or signs of life, and then another 100 miles until you reach Baker, which has very few signs of life outside the park. It's a beautiful little town, though, and it's known for the park and ranching. Sometimes I wish I could live in such a small town without major restaurants, stores, etc., around me. Would be a simpler life. :) The park is gorgeous. It's known for preserving these beautiful, ancient bristlecone trees. These trees live for thousands of years, and once they die, they still stand. They're above treeline, which means they are normally protected from flood, fire, and other natural causes. So cool to see such prominent pieces of nature!

Hiking to see the bristlecones!

One of the beautiful, ancient bristlecone trees!

Love every adventure with this man! :)

Another thing this national park is known for is this beautiful cave (named Lehman Caves, even though there's only one). It is the most amazing cave I have ever been in! So many features, from the "cave bacon" to the "cave popcorn" to the "soda straws" to the magnificent stalactites and stalagmites. So many things to see! We loved it the tour, and the tour guide/park ranger was great!

Baker, NV, is one of the only places in the U.S. where you can experience total darkness, too. We went to an astronomy program put on by a park ranger, and even with a cloudy night, we saw thousands of stars. I love looking up at the stars, but it's been years since I've seen that many! Around big cities, we barely see a hundred or so!

It was an amazing, relaxing weekend, which both my husband and I were in need of! We ended the trip driving through and seeing the Bonneville Salt Flats for the first time and then letting Honey swim in the Great Salt Lake. More pictures from that later. We were planning on using our last day to go on a hike (Mount Olympus!), but I didn't feel well, so we'll save that for another day off. So many things we want to do!

Hope everyone had a great long weekend, and here's to the short week ahead!