Zion National Park Scrapbook Cover Page

Last August our family took our annual National Parks vacation and this year we headed out to Utah. There are 5 national parks in Utah, as well as many other National Monuments, but the seeing "Mighty 5" was our goal: Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, and Zion. Zion has been on our short list for a while now, and it did not disappoint. It was simply gorgeous.

I had a little bit of a hard time choosing a paper collection for these photos. I had previously purchased the We R Memory Keepers High Five collection, but wasn't sure about using it on these photos. The main colors are black, white, green, and yellow, and I wasn't sure that it would work the best with these photos - the rocks of Zion have so much deep red and brown in them, and I thought maybe I should use papers that highlight that?

But I loved the collection and I thought it had a bit of a southwestern vibe mixed with a bit of nature and that it could work. I was able to coordinate a bunch of other nature and outdoors themed papers with it so that I could mix and match, and have enough to do the full album.

For this cover page, I kept things fairly simple: a big bold heading, one large scenery photo, and one photo with a little more detail. And with a tag, some washi tape and a few embellishments, the page was complete.

This was my first time using washi tape and I have to say...I love it! I used it as a border to frame out the 5x7 photo, and used it again to frame out the title.

This was a fun layout to make and came together in less than 30 minutes. I think my favorite piece is the heading with the big block letters. 

Thanks for looking!

Mountain Biking in Moab Scrapbook Page

This summer we took a trip to Utah to visit their National Parks and Monuments, and while we were there we spent 3 days in Moab. Since we like to mountain bike, we thought it would be fun to try mountain biking there. So we booked a tour at Dead Horse Point State Park, whose trail system is well known out there for mountain biking. The trail was hard. A lot harder than we thought it would be. But it was quite the adventure and we did have fun. Although I wasn't able to stop often or take many photos on the trail since we were with a group, I was able to get a few good shots before and after the ride, and at one of the overlooks we stopped at.

Scrapping these photos was so much fun! I had been keeping an eye out for any biking themed papers or supplies for a while, and had picked up a few things that I wanted to use including some metal gears, wooden cut-outs and bike themed paper. I was able to find paper with bikes, gears, and tire tracks that fit the color scheme I wanted to use.

The pattern in the yellow paper reminded me of the inner spokes of a bike tire.

The color scheme I used on here - kraft, grey, blue, yellow, and white, I used throughout the Utah albums. I was able to mix and match papers that were not bike themed with those that were to keep the same feel as the rest of the layouts in the book. These layouts also have some black accents in the tire tracks.   

We stopped at one scenic overlook in the park where we were able to do some photos, which turned out really nice. Our tour guide even took family photos of us all together.

I tried to add the wooden and metal bike related accents where I could on the pages, and I was able to download a few Moab pieces of clip art and printed those out to use as well. I used several wooden cut-outs on these laytouts, which I haven't used a lot before. I wasn't really sure where to place them, but ended up layering some of them on journaling cards, and I really liked the look of that.

Here are the final layouts, thanks for looking!

Wind Cave National Park Scrapbook Layout

After leaving the Badlands and Wall, SD, we headed for Custer State Park. On our way, we stopped at Wind Cave National Park, which borders Custer on the south. We arrived early in the morning to secure tickets for a cave tour, and had no problem getting tickets for a tour that started about 45 minutes after we arrived.

We spent a little time in the visitor center while waiting for our tour, and looked at the exhibits and worked on my son's Junior Ranger booklet. We picked up our map, passport stamps and some souvenirs, including a postcard that I knew I would use in the scrapbook. I took a photo of our tour ticket and a few signs along the way.

The cave tour was great! The ranger was so friendly and knowledgeable, and we stuck close to the front of the group - the boys got to lead the group a few times when the ranger hung back for stragglers, and they thought that was the coolest. Wind Cave is known for it's unique geologic formation called boxwork, and has 95% of the worlds known boxwork. We got to see quite a bit of it.

After the tour we walked back to the Natural Entrance of the cave - the original entrance that the ranger had showed us, so we could get some photos and feel the cold air blowing out of the natural entrance. After that, my son finished up his ranger book and got his badge, and we left the visitor center. 

I created 4 2-page layouts for Wind Cave. Taking photos in the cave was very challenging, the best photos were taken with no flash but since I didn't have much time to adjust the manual settings during the tour, they tend to be just a little blurry due to camera shake. But several of them still turned out good enough to include in the scrapbook.

We all loved our visit to Wind Cave, and even though it was not our first cave experience (we had been to one cave back home) it was a great experience. From here we continued North and left the border of Wind Cave and went directly into Custer State Park, where we spent the next three days exploring.

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Scrapbook Page

While we were visiting the Badlands, we also visited the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, which is literally right across the highway from the entrance to the Badlands. This was one of the more complex national sites we have visited, as it is spread out among 3 different locations, and getting tickets for the tour can be tricky. So we got up early and made our way to the visitor center to get in line!

We arrived at 7:30am and the line was already long for tickets for the tour, but when the visitor center opened at 8am we were lucky enough to get a tour later in the afternoon - we were actually the last tour of the day! Each tour only takes 6 people so we got lucky that day! We first toured the visitor center, and my son worked on his Junior Ranger booklet and got his badge. We had about 5 hours until our tour, so we went back into the Badlands again and hiked some more, got lunch, and drove the scenic loop again. We left there and headed over to the first part of the tour, the Missile Silo, and looked at that on our own and then went to the Launch Facility for our guided tour.

Here they took us down into the actual underground Launch Facility and we learned about the missile program during the cold war. Hundreds of these underground bunkers were scattered all over the midwest. We learned about the men who lived and worked here, and got to see the control panel where they would have launched a nuclear missile if the order would have been given. It was a very interesting tour.

I created 3 2-page layouts for this site (one page for each of the sites, and also used the park guide, passport stamps, and a photograph of our tour ticket (we had to hand in the tickets so I always try to take a photo of the ticket beforehand):

For these layouts, I tried to choose papers from the collection that seemed to fit a little better with the theme of the site - stars, arrows, and triangles - they look a little bit like rockets! 

After finishing up the tour, we headed back to Wall, SD, where we stayed for our last night before heading over to Custer State Park.

Badlands National Park Loop Road Scrapbook Layout

The main attraction at Badlands National Park is to drive the Badlands Loop Road - a 40 mile loop through the park. Along the way there are many scenic overlooks, pullouts, and trailheads to stop at. We were lucky enough to have 2 days in the park and drive the road twice, which allowed us to stop at many of the trailheads and hike a little bit, and also stop at most of the overlooks.

I took tons of photos in the Badlands along the drive, and narrowed it down enough to only make 5 2-page layouts for the drive. We stopped at many of the overlooks and really enjoyed looking at the rock formations and looking for wildlife. At the end of the Loop Road, another dirt road branches off called the Sage Creek Rim Road, and this section of the park is know for it's wildlife spotting. We spent about 2 hours driving that road and saw quite a bit of wildlife.

For these layouts, I tried to keep the color pallet very simple and accent the landscapes. Since it all tends to be shades of grey or tan, there is not a lot to choose from! The thing about the Badlands is that it feels really desolate, especially when your standing out in it or hiking through it. I wanted the layouts to kind of have that same feeling - just simple and uncomplicated.

We loved our 2 days at the Badlands! It is such a unique area, the we really njoyed hiking among the rocks and looking for wildlife.

After the Badlands, we stopped at one other NPS site, the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site that is just down the road from the Badlands. We'll go there next!

Badlands National Park Hiking Scrapbook Layouts

Badlands National Parks isn't necessarily known for it's hiking, but there are some short and easy hikes that will get you out into some areas of the park that you just can't see from the road. 

We hiked (and sometimes just walked) 6 trails in the park, including:

• The Window Trail
• The Door Trail
• Notch Trail
• Cliff Shelf Trail
• Saddle Pass Trail
• The Fossil Trail

All of these, with the exception of maybe Saddle Pass & and the Notch trail, were easy hikes, some of which were along boardwalks.

The two days we were here it was extremely hot and dry. The thermometer in our truck registered at 99 degrees, but that is as high as it goes! So luckily the hikes were short and we kept a lot of water at our vehicle. The only hike in that park that has any trees or vegetation at all is the Cliff Shelf trail, which goes through a Juniper forest and smells amazing!  

I created 11 2-page layouts of our hiking in the Badlands, and I tried to keep each of the trails looking a little bit different from each other in terms of color scheme and accents on the pages.

Here are the full 11 layouts together (click to view larger or view as a slideshow):

We hiked here over the course of 2 days, and made different stops along the Badlands Loop Road to do these different hikes. The last scrapbook pages for the Badlands are the pages from that scenic drive...and they're next! Thanks for taking a look!