(Day One of Our trip can be found here) Waking up on Sunday wasn't easy...

In honor of National Park Week, yesterday we began posting our National Parks Top 10 list. Today we share the other top-five national parks according to WhereGalsWander.

The sky reflected our moods, and we could see the white-topped peaks just out of our reach, lining the ring around our valley. I convinced my husband to go for a drive "to the top of the hill" just to get a better view. It will get us out of the house. We had been stuck inside for days because of rain. The same rain was making snow just 10 miles north of us. Why not?

Along one of the turns, we saw a crashed van pulling a boat on the side of the road where yellow caution tape was up. We all had our theories about what possibly could have happened. Did the van get too close to the edge? Did foul play happen because it looked like gunshots in the windows? We’ll never know. We pulled over by the lake for a picnic lunch and enjoyed the serene views. When we got to the dam, we stopped and marveled at the history of all that this land holds and tried to imagine riding this trail via stagecoach. It was an adventure even by car.

JD has dreams and has goals: part of those intersect with her Venice dreams and parenting goals.  It was time to check visiting Venice Italy off the bucket list, so JD set off to visit Venice Italy and experience it with her daughter.