This was the part of the trip I was most looking forward to. A glimpse of California. I lived in California for about 8 years, plus we went often during the year on vacations and trips when I was a kid. My Aunt Janet used to live there before she moved to Washington, and we went to Disneyland every year. We had our sailboat docked at Shelter Island in San Diego, too. So it's easy to see that I may have missed beautiful Calfornia. All of it, from the southern tip of San Diego to the Northernmost parts of the Redwood Forest.
I was so excited to take the boys the giant redwoods, and also to the beach. They have been to the beach before, but not the California beaches, not the Pacific Ocean. And yes, there is a huge difference. When I was a child, I could tell when we were getting close to the ocean. I would keep my eyes open and directed at the horizon, patiently (probably not patiently) waiting for the first glimpse of blue ocean water to pop up through the winding roads of the highway.
And you know what? Time didn't change that. I kept telling Justice "WATCH, WATCH! ANY SECOND NOW!" just like I was a little kid. Ha. Some things never change. And I was not disappointed.
First things first.
And there it is…
We checked in at the campground, and went straight to the beach. The kids played for hours.
After we played at the beach, we dusted off as much sand as possible and hit a beachside seafood diner.
Clam chowder and not-southern fish and chips. I mean beer-battered cod style fish and chips, not cornmeal breaded catfish. Don't get me wrong, I love catfish. I mean really love it. But I really wanted the boys to try a different kind. And clam chowder. Oh yum. That was Jack's favorite. He ate his and then he ate mine.
Justice loved the fish. He ate that entire plate plus half of mine.
This kid loved it too. Jack? Nope. He prefers catfish.
Good grief, that's Jack. I bet you thought I had a daughter I never mentioned. Nope, that's just Jack with really long hair. It's not that long anymore, I cut it some when we got home. I cut six inches off the back and it's still long enough to put in a ponytail. I will note though that he likes to wear it up like that, so I was instructed to leave it just long enough to put up.
This is one of my favorite pictures. I had the kids cover their eyes, and stand under the tree. Then I stood back, and told them to open their eyes and look up. Complete silence. They were in awe, as they should have been. There is nothing quite like the giants of the Redwood National Forest.
Bo: "WOW. THAT'S A BIG FRICKIN TREE!"
Jack had been saving his money because he wanted to buy a shirt from the gift shop. This kid right here wanted this bear in a bad way. 450 dollars of bear stayed right there in the gift shop.
I bought Justice a pocket knife. He was thrilled beyond words. His other knife broke a few weeks earlier at scout camp, and he was pretty happy with this. I figured it was a good gift for a kid that had worked so hard on the trip, with the camping aspect of it and the atlas. He deserved it.
I had pigeon holed a little money and set it aside to buy a wood bowl at the gift shop, but since we broke the windshield on the way (I think I forgot to mention that the windshield got a crack in it in Arizona) I figured I'd just save the money and replace the windshield when we got back. But, a funny thing happened while I was at my Dad's. He hasn't sold the house he shared with my Mom yet, and he wanted me to go over and go through it again to see if there was anything I wanted to take back with me. Ugh. Do you know how badly I did NOT want to do that? I'm sure you can imagine. Well, I was going through the closet in the guest room when I happened upon a shopping bag. It had some sort of writing on it about the Redwoods, and it was from a gift shop. I opened up the bag and lo and behold, there were three wooden bowls from the redwood gift shop. Years old, but brand new, still wrapped, with the faded receipt from many years ago still in the bag. Big, beautiful bowls. Exactly what I would have picked out myself.
I sat straight down on the floor, with a thud. Just let that sink in for a second. I'm really not kidding when I say everything went perfectly on our trip.
I mean really, what are the odds of that happening? Amazing, really.
The campground at the redwoods was in the redwoods. It was so pretty.
There were some goats and other random animals at the campground. Bo was really interested in the goats for some reason.
Road to the campsite
It was chilly at night. I was afraid we would be cold, but it stayed toasty in the tent. The kids wore their hoodies and snuggled in their sleeping bags and we were all fine. It was perfect. Well, until I had to get up and use the bathroom in the morning. It was dang cold once I had to leave the tent. I ought to mention that whenever I got up to use the bathroom is when we packed up and left. It was always between 4:30 and 5 am. I figured if I'm up, we ought to just go. So I'd use the bathroom, change and while I was getting Bo changed Jack and Justice would take the tent down and off we would go. By the time we hit this campground, Justice could take the tent down and have everything broken down in less than 15 minutes. Impressive. And quiet too. All of it was done silently so we wouldn't disturb any other campers. No talking in the mornings.
Wow, the winding roads were awful. I mean really hairy. The entire day was like that going to the redwoods, and most of the day leaving them and heading into Oregon was like that.
And poor Jack was down for the count, again.
We left the redwoods and headed through Oregon towards Utah. We stopped in Nevada for the night. We got their early enough for the kids to spend the afternoon playing in the pool.
No eating in the tent. Not Bo's favorite rule, but I made him stick with it.
Sweet kids.
We left for Utah bright and early the next morning. We were on our way to see our good friend Megan. My boys (and me, of course) really love Megan. Megan was a missionary that was assigned to our ward about six years ago. We have stayed really close since then and try and see each other once a year.
Hey look, it's Utah!
Her family has a cabin at Bear Lake, so we went up there and spent the night at her cabin. Wow. It's beautiful up there.
The view from her deck.
We went to the beach, then went to a local place famous for their raspberry milkshakes. I see why, they were awesome. She also took us to Deseret Book, which for all you non-Mormon folks is a Mormon bookstore. I let the kids pick out two books and a game each. It was great, we got lots of kids books and left with a gigantic shopping bag full of stuff.
At some point on this trip we went through Wyoming. I'm pretty sure it was right after Utah, but you know what? We didn't stop there so it's a little fuzzy. We went to Yellowstone two summers ago, so it wasn't on the itinerary this time.
At this point in the trip, all the scheduled stops were over. The boys were starting to really miss their Dad and were ready to head home. The first stop after Utah was in Colorado. I was excited about it because we were staying right at the entrance of the Rocky Mountain National Park. Oh my goodness, what a beautiful drive. There was a stream that ran right along the highway all the way there and it was so pretty.
Bad picture. There wasn't anywhere to stop and take pictures, so this is the best I could do, other than Justice hanging my camera out the window and trying to get a better shot. Ha. Not gonna happen. You can sort of see the stream though.
That night we camped at a Jellystone. That was a surprise for the kids, and they were happy to see the familiar Yogi at the campground.
The view was incredible.
In addition to a pool, the campground had mini golf and an arcade. The kids had plenty of stuff to do to entertain themselves.
I could live in this area of Colorado. It's so pretty.
This is the campground with the bear. No big deal, really. Keep all your food in the truck, yada yada. I mean this bear is around every single morning before sunup. So chances were good if I walked from the tent to the bathroom when I normally have to use the bathroom I was going to run into the bear. Ha. No, I don't think so. Whenever I woke up to use the bathroom, we did things in reverse order. We packed up, then DROVE to the bathroom on the way out of the campground to minimize any bear sightings. No bear, thank goodness. The path to the bathroom is behind out tent, right through the woods. No, really. It is. Tragic. Ha.
We had one more night to go, and we drove to another Jellystone in Kansas City.
Somewhere along the way Bo ended up with a stuffed Yogi. He loves that thing, and slept with it every night on the trip and held onto it for dear life in the car.
The campground in Kasas City was beautiful, and peaceful. Well, it was until we got there. My three boys will suck the peaceful right out of a place. No way I could corral all of that into a hotel room. This was by far the best way for us to travel. I have zero retreats and would do it again in a heartbeat.
The kids were so happy to see this last sign. We were all ready to be home, to see Dad. We missed him like crazy and wished he could have been with us.
And that's a wrap, folks. Three weeks of awesomeness.
I wonder where we will go next summer? :)
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