Road Trip 2013, Week 4

 Week four was pretty good to us.  No breakdowns!  Well, the car didn't break down but the two youngest finally did.  I'll get to that fun stuff as it happens chronologically.  Here is the crew finally enjoying a campfire in Georgia.  We haven't had once since so I'm glad we got at least one in on this trip.

 July 2nd we ventured into Atlanta to see the sights and see my Braves play!  We bought tickets early so we would be sure to have seats (no where near a sell-out but I wanted to be sure), and then we drove around the city looking for something to do.  It seems like the best place to be in Atlanta is the well-visited tourist areas.  We got off track a few times and it was a bit scary for us country bumpkins.  We visited the Martin Luther King National Historic Park, where Mason and Drew were interested in seeing his and his wife's tomb.  They learned quite a bit about him at school on the last MLK Jr holiday so it was good for them to experience it.  After driving around crazily looking for some fast food before the game, we finally found a McDonalds and then headed to Turner Field for the baseball game!

 Here we are at the field!  I was so excited.  I grew up watching the Braves play in the 80's when they were really horrible.  Mom wouldn't let us get MTV so Cori and I would stay up on Friday nights to watch music videos "Night Tracks" on TBS.  Inevitably the Braves would be on and inevitably the game would go extra innings and they would lose, cutting into our video time so we watched and waited.  I have loved them ever since and I was thrilled to actually be in Atlanta watching my Braves play.  The game didn't disappoint!  We beat the Marlins11-3.  We got to do the tomahawk chop a few times too.  The first hour was absolutely miserable with the hot sun beating down on our sensitive faces, but once it went down I think we all had a pretty good time.  Since we are cheap we didn't buy any souvenirs at the stadium but Drew and Paul picked up 7 commemorative plastic Braves cups people left behind.  Works for me!

The view of the city was beautiful from where we sat.  I have seen the Braves play 3 times now so I told Paul we could take a break from them and not plan our next vacations around their schedule.  I had such a good time and I guess I owe Texas a big thank you for wasting so many of our days so it worked out I could see the Braves in Atlanta.

 Heading north on July 3rd we took a very short detour into South Carolina.  Paul and I both started out this trip each needing only 5 more states to be able to say we had seen all 50.  South Carolina was one I needed so we took a small detour and crossed the border.  It had a nice little turnaround so we took the picture, slapped the sticker on our map, and headed off on our way.

The next stop was the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee.  North Carolina was the first state that was new to all  six of us.  This park is the most visited National Park in the US, probably because is has a highway running through it.  It was absolutely pouring rain as we arrived at the park and it rarely let up.  Rain in the east is not like rain in the west.  When it rains it is in torrents here, not nice, gentle, never ending showers like we are used to.  I'm sure this park is great, and we caught glimpses and outlines of distant mountains that made us believe if we were there on a clear day it would be a beautiful place.

 You can see some of the wispy clouds that give the Smoky Mountains their name.  Its actually formed by output from the dense foliage in the forests.  And these forests are dense.  I thought Oregon had a lot of trees, and we do, but these forests are different.  I thought where we were in the Appalachian mountains, around the place where Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia meet is one of the prettiest places in the whole country.

 Here we are at the state line.  You can see how overcast and wet it was.

At the top of the Appalachians we found the Appalachian trail.  I was excited to see it.  I absolutely love experiencing in person all the things we read and hear about at school and just in life in general.  Its kind of like a living history, Americana tour.  If it wasn't so wet I would have insisted on hiking some of it, maybe not all the way to Katahdin, Maine, but a little bit to get the true feel of it.  Paul, Mason, and I were the only ones brave enough to get out of the car and get a little wet to say we have been on the trail.

That evening Paul and Drew drove about 45 minutes north to hit the Kentucky border.  Yep, Paul needed Kentucky.  They stopped a the Cumberland Gap and as horrible as it is to say, I'm glad the park was closed so they really didn't see anything more than the sign.  I would have kicked myself if they had really been able to see the Cumberland Gap.  Some day when Mason has every state in the continental US filled in except Kentucky I will remind him how much more important it was to him to stay in the trailer and watch Spiderman than to visit Kentucky.  Live and learn, buddy.

This is just a picture of an interesting plant they have in some of the south eastern states.  Its kind of like ivy but its called a creeper or something.  It takes over trees and bushes and leaves them looking like something out of a Dr Seuss story.  Its kind of cool looking.

July 4th found us in North Carolina.  We needed to head east to get out of the rain and find some fireworks before Mason and I came to blows.  ALL he could talk about for 2 days was fireworks.  Even when we were talking about other things he would say, "wait, did you just say fireworks?"   I was so tired of it and I was about to explode like one myself if he said it one more time.  We bought sparklers but didn't find a place to light them which set off a million more questions, suggestions, and hints from him.  Crimony!  Enough!  We dropped our trailer in Durham, NC in a more than somewhat undesirable RV/trailer park, and visited the Duke campus.  Once again, trees everywhere!  I had no idea there were so many trees there.  I couldn't even get a good picture of any of the buildings because they were all hidden by trees.  Duke was pretty but we liked the University of North Carolina better.  Lots of trees again but not so crowded.  While at UNC we saw signs for Fireworks parking so we decided to stay there for the show instead of driving 30 minutes south to Raleigh.  We got to sit in the UNC football stadium and watch the fireworks show.  That was actually the first time we have taken the kids to see fireworks.  Horrible, I know. Usually we are at my parents' house with a bunch of family setting off wussy Oregon fireworks and we never go to the good show in town.  So this was fun for us all, and thankfully Mason hasn't mentioned fireworks since.

 The fifth of July we headed north through Virginia into Maryland to visit with Paul's cousin, Laurie, and her husband Eric and son Logan.  It was good to see family again and stretch out in a beautiful home.  And Logan was nice enough to share his toys with the kids so they were happy.  They also thought Logan was a pretty good guy to call second cousin.  He's a cutie!  And Laurie and Eric prepared a delicious home-cooked meal for us too so it was a really nice visit.  Laurie and Logan were able to join us the next day in DC for the hike around the National Monuments.  They were smart enough to head home after about 3 hours in the sweltering sun, but we were glad they joined us for some of it.

 The 6th of July was my birthday.  I was so not looking forward to it and I wouldn't let my family sing to me till 2:17pm when I couldn't deny that I was 40 any longer.  UGH!  I woke up that morning to these fun posters and streamers Drew and Paul came up with to decorate the trailer.  I love my family.

 We drove into DC that morning and toured all the sights, starting at the White House.  Our plan was to see the monuments before it got too hot and then go indoors to the Smithsonian museums in the afternoon when it was warmer.  Well, there was no such thing as less than too hot.  It was so stinking hot and humid that we were all dying.  My poor kids.  Notice in the White House picture how Darcy is missing.  The first stop of the day and she is already throwing a fit and refuses to be in the picture.  That was par for the course for the day.  Either Darcy was making a horrible scene or Bree was.  At one point in one of the museums Paul had to stand in the hall and man-handle Bree to keep her from flipping out of his arms while she stiffened her body and threw a major fit.  I understand they were hot and tired but jeez, happy birthday.  It seems they know when Mom is doing something important to her and then it sets off a break-down alarm in their heads.  They freak out and there is no stopping it.

 Thankfully Darcy graced us with her presence for the picture at the Lincoln memorial.  We saw many of the monuments but skipped the FDR and Thomas Jefferson ones because they were just too far to walk to for my family's little legs.  We saw Lincoln, WWII, Korean (one of my favorites), Washington (which looks nothing like it should as its covered in scaffolding for work being done on it to fix the cracks from last year's earthquake), and the Vietnam memorial which I missed because Bree was throwing a fit and I didn't think she needed to be bothering others trying to experience it.  Thankfully I had seen in before.

 After lunch at the Reagan building we headed to the Smithsonians.  We visited the Museum of American History where Drew found this robe worn in Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (She's a huge HP fan), though I'm not sure why it was there since Harry is British.  Oh well, she was thrilled. There was some great stuff in there and I can't even remember it all right now.  Oops!  I do remember feeling like I couldn't believe all those things were really there and they weren't just replicas.  Those museums are awesome.  We also went to the Museum of Natural History with all the dinosaur bones.  Mason was in heaven! I swear he took 500 pictures of bones in there.  I'm glad he found something he enjoyed.  He also admired the mummy in the picture below which came from Egypt thousands of years ago.  Good stuff!  Unfortunately we had to race around that museum, which was extremely hard to do since it was a zoo in there.  There were so many people, all with the same idea as ours I guess, get inside to beat the heat.  We had tickets at 4pm to tour Ford's Theater where President Lincoln was shot.  We had to miss the Air and Space museum but thought it was OK since we visited NASA earlier in the trip.  DC is just too big to see all in one day and we had to pick and choose our stops.

Ford's Theater was so neat, as weird as that sounds.  I have been into Lincoln and Civil War stuff lately so I was thrilled to be there.  The chair on the right in the picture is where President Lincoln was sitting when he was shot.  The museum had the actual suit he was wearing the night he died, and I was very surprised to see the actual gun Booth used to kill him.  What a great stop.  Drew, Mason, Darcy, and I went next door to the boarding house to view the room and bed he died in.  Wow.  What an experience.  

Bree threw another fit in the car about buckling her seat belt and I was wrestling with her so hard I started to cry!  It was a long, hot, day that was hard on all of us I guess.  My phone logged us walking 7.4 miles in 8 hours in 95 degree heat with I swear 200% humidity.  No wonder we were all exhausted.  Paul drove all over Maryland it seemed trying to find a Dairy Queen for me to get an M&M blizzard for my birthday.  It was a very full day and hopefully the kids got something good and memorable out of it all.  I think Drew and Mason did.

 Today we drove north to Pennsylvania to visit Gettysburg.  Yes, it was the last day of the 150th anniversary celebration, but we were surprisingly able to find a parking space for our huge caravan near the visitor center.  Well, Gettysburg was an experience.  I didn't realize it was so commercialized I guess.  They actually charged $12 per person to watch a movie about the battle and to enter the museum.  At a National Park!  And my pass wouldn't get us in.  I was really disappointed at how it was run.  We all were.  We were able to get a magnet and a hat pin for Mason but that's about all we got out of the vistor center.  We attempted to drive just a bit around the battle field to get a sense of it.  Thankfully we were able to make it through pulling the trailer but it was close.  I "enjoyed" it though, for lack of a better word.  I have been to Antietam and Vicksburg battlefields so I guess I was OK not touring the whole place.  Maybe when Paul and I are old and gray we can go back and experience all of it.  Darcy was throwing a fit again and she refused to pose for the picture.  The bottom picture is a bit of the battlefield.

Tonight we are in Hershey, PA.  We plan to visit the Hershey amusement park tomorrow to celebrate Darcy's 5th birthday.  Even if she does throw a mean fit she is still my sweetcheeks and deserves a special birthday.  You don't turn 5 every day!

Here is my weekly installment of things I have learned on the road:

1)  Shorts in the South are SHORT and TIGHT.  Yikes!  I don't know if its the new summer style or if its just a southern thing but let me just say I am glad I live in the Northwest where capris are prevalent.  And body type doesn't really seem to play in anyone's decision to wear the shorts.  Yikes.

2)  We are silly northwesterners.  I insisted on carrying sweatshirts to the baseball game in case it got cold when the sun went down.  HA!  And we took sweatshirts and blankets to the fireworks show in case it got cold.  HA!  That's how it works at home.  When will I learn it doesn't EVER get cold here!?

This is the quote of the trip so far:

Bree:  Mom!  Drew is a mom.

Me:  Drew is a worm?

Bree:  No!  Drew is a MOM!

Me:  No, Drew isn't a mom but she will be someday.

Drew:  I'd rather be a worm.

Me too, sweetheart, me too.

Erickson Road Trip 2013 Week 3

 When last I checked in, we were still stranded in Brackettville, TX, observing the fascinating world of dung beetles to while away our time waiting for Max to be fixed.  We were able to swim in the big pool and that evening we got Max back.  We were so happy to say goodbye to Brackettville the next morning!  On the 22^nd of June we headed toward San Antonio where I was able to cross an item off my bucket list, the Alamo!  For some reason I have always wanted to visit there.  It was small but interesting I thought.  My family was over-heated and I got the impression they weren't too impressed.  I was thrilled to be there though.

We walked the beautiful River Walk downtown where I was just sure Bree would wander off the little path straight into the San Antonio River.  As we were trying to leave a policeman parked his car directly behind us and then took off on foot looking at the rooftops of buildings around us.  After we waited a few minutes in the parking lot in our car in the sweltering heat for his return, I walked a block or two where I found quite a bit of police activity and a guy in handcuffs and told a cop he needed to move his car.  I probably shouldn't have approached the situation but we were hot and desperate to move on.   The next day we found a ward that started at 8:30 so we attended church.  While there we met a missionary from my sister’s home ward.  Small world!  After church we hooked up the trailer and headed toward Houston.  After consulting my National Geographic Guide to National Parks, Guide to State Parks, Guide to Scenic Highway and Byways, and 1000 places in the US and Canada to See Before you Die, along with the internet, Paul and I felt like Houston was a city we could drive through without stopping and not miss much.  Well, Max had other ideas.  He decided to poop out yet again.  This time we were stranded in Brookshire, TX, about 40 miles west of Houston.  We called another tow truck and this time the ride wasn't so fun.  Our driver had only been in America from Palestine for 5 years.  He was nice enough but there were language barriers and he was more concerned with showing us pictures on his phone while driving in stop and go traffic with a ball on his truck that was too small for our hitch so it was only hanging together by chains.  I was secretly hoping Max would accidentally fall off the truck so insurance could replace it and not us pay for more repairs.  No such luck.  Our driver miraculously delivered us safely to an RV park and then took Max to a dealership up the road for us.  The next day we spent in the sweltering heat in the trailer, even with our AC constantly running, waiting for a diagnosis on the car.  It turned out to be a high pressure oil leak that would take a few days to fix.  GRRRRRR!  On the 25th we rented a car and decided to see some of the Houston area. 

With this newest glitch, we decided we would eliminate southern Florida and the Everglades so we needed to find some alligators.  Brazos Bend State Park south of Houston was our destination.  We were able to walk around a small lake, where we found our alligators!  But before that, and I will lose my mom of the year nomination here, Bree had us all in hysterics.  In the shade on the path were thousands of large, blue dragonflies.  They didn’t bite or sting or attack but they were big and Bree was freaking out over them buzzing by her, letting out little yelps and screams every time one came near.  At one point I turned around and she was running as fast as her little legs could carry her, crying at the top of her lungs as she made her way through a swarm.  Maybe you had to be there, as hot and tired and fed-up as we all were about our situation, but it was hilarious!  “I don’t like attigators!  I don’t like bugs!  I want to go home!”  My poor baby.  As soon as she got through the dragonflies and actually saw the gators she was happy.  We found a mom and dad and some babies which Mason was lucky enough to see.  It was pretty impressive being so close to those awesome animals in the wild.  There were also tons of beautiful birds.  Unfortunately we never did come across an armadillo as advertised.  I was desperate to see one and had heard they were all over the Houston area, with many as road kill, but we were never able to find one.  Very disappointing.  After the park we headed north of Houston to visit with Paul’s Uncle Larry and Aunt Barbara.  We had a great visit with them and their place on the lake.  We swam and then they treated us to dinner and ice cream with homemade cookies!  It was nice to see some friendly faces and stretch out a bit.

 

 The 26^th we went to NASA’s Johnson Space Center.  That was so cool.  We took a tour and were able to see the communications room where the first words from the moon were received and also “Houston, we have a problem.”  The rockets are launched in Florida but the communication all takes place in Houston where they are in charge of manned missions.  It was a pretty neat place, we were able to see some actual space ships, the training facility for the Space Station, and we also got to touch a real moon rock, one of only eight in the world you can touch.  That was a great stop and I think the three oldest kids plan on being astronauts now.  But Mason has to decide if he wants to do that or be a National Park Ranger like he said he would be the first few weeks of the trip.
 

After the space center we headed about 20 miles south to Galveston to see the Gulf of Mexico and take the ferry we had planned on taking east before our car broke down and made us change plans.  That was fun.  We saw pelicans diving very ungracefully for fish, and dolphins playing alongside the ferry.  We also caught our first glimpses of the standard for homes on the Gulf.  They are all built up on stilts!  Not very aesthetically pleasing, but I guess if you are trying to survive the floods of a hurricane being practical is what counts.  We found a beach in Galveston and waded a few minutes in the Gulf.  Just long enough for all the kids to get completely soaked after they were warned not to. 
The 27th Paul turned in the rental car at 11 and then made his way walking miles in the sweltering heat to the Ford dealership where he learned the car would be ready by late afternoon.  He turned around and walked to a movie theater to kill a few hours waiting.  The kids and I were sweltering in the trailer having a “Gods Must Be Crazy” marathon.  Good times.  Paul returned around 7 that evening with Max, thankfully.  The 28th we took off as quickly as possible and headed east to get out of Texas once and for all.  We ended up spending 12 nights in Texas.  I thought San Antonio and Houston were both nice cities and if the weather wasn’t so beastly, might be nice places to live.

We made it all the way to a camp site just south of New Orleans that evening, after having driven through Cajun swam country in western Louisiana.  The swamps and trees and bayous and Spanish moss and alligators out in the water were just so cool to experience.  What an amazing mix of terrains and vegetation we have driven through on our trip.  This country is so different in so many places but through it all we have found that the people are all the same.  Very nice and helpful and interested in our travels.  Americans are great people!  We also drove by a couple plantation houses from the 1800’s along the Mississippi River.  So cool.

Paul and I honeymooned in New Orleans so we had seen most of the famous parts of the city but we planned to take a pedestrian ferry across the Mississippi to the city to walk around a bit with the kids the next day.  We woke up to a thunderstorm with torrential downpours so we left the trailer and drove it instead.  And I am thankful it worked out that way.  Bree would have been miserable walking miles yet again, but we saw a few families like ours, with the dads carrying backpacks full of water bottles and fruit snacks while the moms kept turning around to make sure all their squirrelly kids were still following behind, and none of them looked happy.  A few of them were being bothered by street people.  We saw Bourbon Street on a Saturday morning and it stunk as I rolled the window down to take a picture.  We drove on beautiful Canal Street and saw the Superdome and then headed out of town.  That was enough of New Orleans.

This is a cemetery in New Orleans.  Since they are below sea level they can't dig a grave so people are buried in tombs above ground.  Its kind of creepy.

Canal Street in N'awlins.











Back at the camp site as we were going potty before taking off, Mason, Darcy, Bree, and I came face to face with an armadillo!  We were thrilled!  They are funky looking things.  I sent Mason to get the camera and Paul and Drew, but in the hubbub the little bugger wandered off and we lost him.  Paul refused to believe we had seen one, even though there were 4 witnesses.  Though Bree’s witness wasn’t very reliable when she said she saw a pink “armandillo.”   I really think Paul was just jealous.  Since then we have seen a few as road kill along our route. 

We drove the gulf coast of Mississippi and into Alabama where we camped at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, Alabama.  We swam in the Gulf on a white sand beach at 7:30 that night while it was 85 degrees.  The water was warm and it was just beautiful.  It was a great evening, except for the little black bugs that attacked Mason on the way home and freaked him out so much he gave himself a huge scratch on his neck thinking they were all over him.  Yesterday, the 30^th, we drove over the border into Florida so Mason could say he actually went there since that’s where he told everyone he was going on this trip, and then up into Alabama again and on into Georgia.  Paul had a tiny green inch worm “attack” him a couple times while driving and Drew had a little green frog jump on her window out of nowhere which freaked her out.  I guess Darcy and I have gotten lucky when it comes to critter confrontations this trip.  That night we pulled into Stone Mountain Camp Ground in Georgia where a very nice man informed us we had a flat tire on the trailer.  Paul was getting us registered and the man brought back his truck with all kinds of nifty tools to help Paul change the tire.  It wasn’t until afterward Paul told me the Good Samaritan couldn’t pump up the jack because of his chemo treatments.  What a blessing he was to us at the perfect moment, and I just know he will be blessed for his kindness.  Like I said, we have met some really great people on the road.  Stone Mountain is a huge granite rock formation just outside of Atlanta.  We saw a laser light show on the side of the rock and also some fireworks.  Before the show we were treated to lightning bugs by our campsite.  So cool.  The kids had never seen them before and I had only seen them once in Michigan.  We caught a couple and then released them.  We have been treated to some awesome experiences with nature so far this trip.  We decided to stay in the Atlanta area for 2 days because our time in Texas messed us all up and we would be arriving in D.C. on the 4^th of July, which would be very cool but also a bit ridiculous to attempt, and also, with our messed up Texas time schedule, we probably weren’t going to make it to Philadelphia in time to see the Braves play on my birthday.  Instead, we get to see the Braves play in Atlanta tomorrow night!  I am sooooo excited!  Bucket list!  I love my husband very much and appreciate his ability to see through my attempts at playing the martyr and giving me this amazing gift!  What a guy I married.

Tonight was the first night of the trip we were able to be outside with a camp fire due to previously extreme weather.  Mason is thrilled and he got to light it!  He said this is the best day of the trip since we swam and had a fire.  Huh.  He must have a short term memory to forget all we have seen and done.  I was actually hoping we would never be able to have a camp fire.  Now we will all be smelly for days and so will the trailer.  The things we do for our kids.  They deserve it though, they have put up with a lot of adult "fun" on this trip so I'm glad they are happy campers right now.  

A few more things I have learned this past week or so:

11)     My sweet, sensitive nosed Darcy can’t stand the smell of “beef turkey” when Paul and Mason snack on it in the car.  She just doesn’t get that its called Jerky.  The funniest part of this story was when we were at the Guadalupe Mountains Darcy found a display with a stuffed wild turkey.  She called me over and asked if it was a beef turkey!  Love that girl.

22)      Texas doesn’t look like its hurting any from the recession.  We were amazed at all the new construction everywhere, with large, dine-in restaurants lining the streets.  McDonalds were few and far between.

33)      Instead of Starbucks on every street corner, Texas has “Twice the Ice.” Little stands that sell icees.  Makes sense, its too hot in Texas to drink coffee.

44)      I have horrible posture.  In all the pictures of me on this trip I am bent over like a hunchback.  I need to work on that.  And also my tan.  I thought I was getting a pretty good one till I see myself glowing in pictures.  I must have started out almost transparent.

55)      Bree LOVES water towers of all things.  She calls out every one she sees, and there have been many.  She hasn’t seen a pink one yet but is on the lookout.  She does claim to have seen pink bunnies in Louisiana though.  Maybe she had too much fun on Bourbon Street.  She is also a connoisseur of toilets.  She admires them whenever we stop to pee.  She says most of them are “so cute and little.  Just like me.”  She’s a bit conceited too.

66)      I need to keep my mouth shut and never give a definitive answer to any of my kids questions about where we are going or what we are doing next.  9 times out of 10 what we thought we would be doing has ended up being nothing like what we end up doing.  This has been tough on Drew and Mason especially since they are just like me and need to have things planned out to the minutest detail.  It has been a learning and growing experience for all of us with still 4 plus weeks to go!

P.S.  Sorry if this is formatted crazily.  I had to copy from Word onto here because the internet was spotty and I couldn't stay connected.  Thanks for bearing with me ;)

Road Trip 2013, Week 2

 I know week 2 isn't quite finished yet but since I am bored out of my mind and the remaining day of the week looks to be the exact same as the previous few, I thought I would kill some time posting about the awesome week we have had (heavy sarcasm here).  The beginning of the week started out great.  We left behind "beautiful" New Mexico and headed into Texas for some big adventures.  Our first stop, and it was a very short stop, was Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  This park is mostly for hard core hikers who hike the mountains and find fossilized shells way up at the top.  A sea used to be in the valley millions of years ago and it is pretty cool that the fossils are at the top.  Luckily this park was right along the route and we didn't go out of our way for it.  At least I can say I've been there!

 Big Bend National Park was the next stop.  This park is at the very southwest corner of Texas.  It is completely out of the way and it has been called one of the largest but least visited parks in America.  I believe we were there in the off season, its too darn hot right now, or maybe what they say is true but we didn't meet many other people out there.  At the visitor center the ranger was talking about a lot of trouble with bears that day so we were hopeful we might run into some, but no such luck.  My family has been to so many parks with bear warnings but we have yet to see any.  Very disappointing.  Paul and I saw a grizzly in Denali in Alaska but I really want the kids to see a bear in the wild.  Someday.

 So Big Bend is down on the border of the US and Mexico.  We took a hike along the Rio Grande and looked over across the river into Mexico.  It was pretty cool.  There were signs posted everywhere about not buying things from the Mexicans across the river because then they would be illegals and we would be caught with contraband.  We didn't see any Mexicans out the day we were there because again, I think it was too darn hot.  Instead, we found copper and bead bugs sitting on rocks along the trail with a money jar next to them, asking for $5.  They were pretty cool and I wanted to get one but I had to set a good example for my children.  We do not purchase Mexican contraband!  Paul managed to maim more wildlife in the national park. He hit a warbler that only lives in the park area in the US and down into Mexico.  Hopefully by the time we visit the alligators in the Everglades he will have learned how to swerve ;)  Big Bend was an interesting place and I am glad we were able to experience it.

Here are the bead bugs we found.

The Rio Grande with Mexico on the other side of the river.

We never found a good place to dip our toes in the river but I was able to find this dilapidated dock type thing where we were all able to dip our fingers into the murky water and touch the Rio Grande.  Whoopee!

After Big Bend we were on our way to San Antonio.  Well, the Excursion (Maximus) felt like pooping out right outside of nowhere city Brackettville, TX.  We were only 5 miles out thankfully and were able to get a massive tow truck to haul both Max and the trailer and all of us at the same time back to town.  The driver dropped our trailer at the Fort Clark Springs RV park, within the walls of this historic Fort-turned-private community place, and then took Paul and Maximus to the shop.  This was the afternoon of Tuesday the 18th and we have been sitting here ever since!  Stewing in our own juices.  Shut up in the trailer with no escape.  Just looking at each other.  With no chocolate and no way to get some.  Until today when the shop said we could rent their work van which we promptly did and went grocery shopping.  We were out of milk and water bottles and we were dying.  I am a water snob I guess and I cringe when I have to drink out of the trailer's tap, even though Paul was nice enough to buy a filter for it.  I am a true Oregonian and I feel horrible for the trail of unrecycled water bottles we have left behind us but I want clean water thank you very much.  Tomorrow we will try swimming in the third biggest pool in Texas(!) which was being cleaned today.  Its fed from a stream so I don't know why they bother cleaning it but I won't argue with them.  Maximus is supposed to be fixed by tomorrow night or Saturday morning and then we can say hasta la vista to Brackettville Texas.  

A couple more things I have learned out on the road this week:

1.  I will never choose to eat a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich just for the fun of it once we are home safe and sound.

2.  The key to a successful road trip is to keep the kids on the brink of starvation.  They are lethargic and sit quietly and don't argue with anything you say.  Once they get food in their stomachs watch out!  They are pinging off the walls with their new found energy.

3.  Make everyone pee whenever you stop.  Even if they don't have to and  just peed 20 minutes ago. Go again.  I guarantee it will be worth it.

4.  My kids are awesome road trippers and they have adjusted to our being stuck in nowhereville very well.  I am so proud of them and so thankful that it hasn't been any worse than it already is.  Hopefully this week coming up will be full of fun adventures for them as we make our way back into civilization.

Road Trip 2013, Week 1

 A few years ago as Paul was coming up on being eligible for his 8 week sabbatical, we decided we wanted to spend it on the road, touring our great country.  I love National Parks so we plotted a general course and put off the sabbatical for a year and half in order for the kids to get just a bit older.  But not too old, we didn't want to deal with surly teenagers who didn't want to be around us.  I would much rather deal with my little ones I think.  On June 8th we headed out on what we hope to be a 56 day cross-country road trip.  I say hope, but I really think we can do it.  The first day we made it as far as Heyburn, ID.  No excitement, just a long day of driving to break us in.  Day two we made it to Utah.  We took a short sight seeing trip through the BYU campus in order to show the kids my old stomping grounds, but I couldn't make much sense of campus anymore with all the changes so it was a very short trip.  That evening we made it to the West entrance of Zion National Park, where we explored for about an hour and then found our camping spot in Hurricane, UT.

 Zion was absolutely gorgeous.  Its like the Grand Canyon in reverse.  Instead of being on the ridge of a canyon looking down, you are on the bottom of the canyon looking up.  It reminded me a lot of Yosemite except with red rocks instead of granite.

 Here is our mode of transportation for our trip.  A 36 foot long travel trailer.  So far it seems to be fitting us well and we make use of every inch of the space.

We hiked the riverwalk trail in Zion Canyon all the way to where the trail ends and you reach the narrows, where the canyon walls close in on you.  The people behind us are crossing the river and hiking upstream to the narrows.  We felt like the kids weren't old enough to take that on so we only went as far as the end of the trail. It would be fun to go farther someday when little legs have grown into big legs.  Zion was hot out of the canyon but our walk was pretty doable as long as we stayed in the shade.

Night two Bree fell out of her top bunk and cracked her right eye on the ladder I think as she fell down.  She has been sporting a lovely black eye for a week now.  Her lips are also severely chapped and she won't let me treat them, and her hair is a horrible dry mess in this ridiculous heat so not many of the trip pictures have her looking her best.  Ah well, this is how goes.  

June 11th found us on the road headed south towards the Grand Canyon.  We stopped at Pipe Springs National Monument to see what it was all about.  Good thing I bought the National Parks pass before we left so we get into all the National Parks and monuments free.  This would have cost us $25 but it totally wasn't worth it.  It was an old tithing ranch for Mormon settlers, with the house they built as the focus of the tour.  The best part of it was watching the ranger try to entertain my kids while trying desperately to hold in her anxiety about them touching her precious relics.  Skip that one if you ever come across it.  We drove along the Vermillion cliffs (pictures above) and they were just amazing.  Absolutely beautiful.  Its hard to believe rocks can be so interesting but for a week now we have been in awe of just that.  Rocks.  We made it to our camp site in Cameron, AZ that night where we ate our Navajo Tacos at the Trading Post.  YUM!  Paul and I ate there 11 years ago on our road trip together.  It was fun to revisit it.  But the camping there was awful, which we expected.  There is a reason I live in the northwest.  I can't stand the heat and the dryness is killing me.  The southwest is stunning to experience as a tourist but I could never live here.  I have bottles of lotion staged in each room of the trailer and I feel like bathing in it still isn't enough.  Its driving me crazy and I really don't know how people live here.

 June 12th we made it to the Grand Canyon!  Or the Can Canyon as Bree called it.  She talked about it for days leading up to it.  She gave it a rating of "beautiful and amazing."  She was fearlessly hanging on fences next to drop offs into the canyon, while Paul and I were trying to block her and scoop her up if she got to close to things, which happened often.  I don't know if she is fearless or oblivious though.  It was hot here too.  We got up early to try to beat the heat but when its 85 at 9am there really is no such thing.  We loved it though, and I think the kids did too.  One of my favorite National Parks.

 Mason has been humoring me all trip listening to my limited knowledge on rock formations and kindly looking out his window when I call out yet another formation that pretty much looks like all the others I pointed out to him.  He is sitting right behind me and he has turned out to be my traveling buddy.  He puts up with me the best I think.  What a sweetheart.  He bought this cool hat at Zion and is now collecting pins at all our stops to fill it up.  He seems to be just the right age to appreciate all this and is having a great time.  I think.

Mason held up the world at the Grand Canyon visitor center.

 The 13th we were supposed to be headed south to Phoenix and Tucson, to Saguaro National Park to see the giant cacti, but the weather report was for 111 in Phoenix and we just didn't feel like our bodies or our vehicle could handle the heat.  Mason was severely disappointed because he was really looking forward to those cacti, and Paul and I really wanted to head south, but we had to choose the unpopular route.  It turned out to be a good choice though.  We headed north east and saw Monument Valley, where all the old westerns were filmed.  It was beautiful rock formations once again!  You can see it was also very windy by Bree's hair.

 After the valley we stopped at Four Corners.  The three youngest are now able to say they have been to Colorado!

 Darcy wasn't having a good time at Four Corners.

 We hit the Continental Divide in New Mexico on the 14th.  We also drove into Albuquerque in search of the Mormon temple, which we like to find along our route, and that was kind of a disaster.  We were able to drive by the temple and snap a picture and then Paul maneuvered our beast of a vehicle through the streets till we found a Wal Mart to stock up on supplies.  Can I just digress for a minute and say what an amazing guy my husband is?  He has been put through the ringer driving our massive caravan around but he has been awesome at it.  He got us through the city, he drove us safely through a blinding dust storm that threatened to blow us off the road, and he can back-up on a dime.  I am totally impressed by his driving skills.  And his putting up with me skills.  But we won't get into that.  We saw tumbleweeds roll across our path in the windstorm which excited all of us.  Simple pleasures.  For most of New Mexico I was wondering what earthly reason it had for existing.  Totally ugly worthless desert.  Even the cactus are ugly.  Mason and I nicknamed one species "the Big Uglies."  They are really a species of Yucca I think.  Appropriate name.  Southern New Mexico has some treasures though we have found.

That evening we pulled into our camp sight in Alomogordo, NM, dropped the trailer, and sped to White Sands National Monument.  We were trying to get there before the visitors center closed so we could get a stamp in our national parks passports, and so we could get the obligatory fridge magnet and Mason's hat pin.  It closed at 7pm and we got there at 6:53.  I told you Paul was amazing.  White Sands was a great find.  It was beautiful, soft, huge sand dunes out in the middle of the desert.  We were out there for an hour and a half just enjoying the sunset and the kids had a blast rolling down the dunes.  Great place for kids and sunset is the best time to visit.  I think the kids would rate that as their top spot so far.

Today we made it to Carlsbad Caverns.  I didn't really think about how being 750 feet under the earth might effect my kids until we were already down the elevator into the caverns.  Thankfully no one was claustrophobic but Drew and Bree were pretty uneasy at times.  I even caught myself thinking about what would happen if the roof caved in.  It gave me a greater appreciation for what trapped miners go through.  The caverns were amazing though.  Spectacular.  Crazy that we could be down there.  Bree refused to walk so she got a piggy back ride from me the whole 1.25 mile trail.  Little stinker.  I didn't want her to cry because it would echo off the walls.  She played me pretty well.  Little stinker.  The caverns really were other-worldly.  I would recommend visiting if you aren't claustrophobic.  Its quite an experience.

 On the way back to our camp site from the caverns we saw a tarantula crossing the road!  Not this guy though, he is still living.  I believe Paul squashed the first one we saw.  On accident of course.  I still feel horribly guilty about maiming wildlife in a National Park.  We saw this guy on the road on our way to watch the bats all fly out of the cavern at dusk.  Unfortunately it wasn't a mass exodus like some of the pictures out there, but it was still pretty cool to see them all flying around.  Tomorrow we head south to Texas!  Hopefully I can find the time and the internet service to blog about this upcoming week.

In the week we have been out on the road I have learned a few things:

1.  Mason has been blessed with the gift of tongues.  I don't know when or where he picked it up, but he seems to speak in a sort of Jabba the Hut jibberish constantly.  He's probably still starting all his conversations with "what if" but I just don't realize it.

2.  Bree is partial to female singers.  Only female singers.  And she does a mean Christina Agulerra impression of "I Just Want to Feel This Moment."

3.  Darcy is an excellent traveler.  Until she decides not to be.  All of a sudden she turns "flopsy mopsy" and won't move another inch.  She is done!  Fortunately it hasn't happened too often but when it does, watch out!

4.  As I said before, Paul is the man.  I would trust him driving anything anywhere.  He's a stud.

5.  Shampoo that works in the northwest doesn't work in the southwest.  Our hair is just dried out rats nests.  We will all be due for a cut when we get home.

6.  I should have taken college courses on geology, history, sociology, geography, religion, and just about every subject under the sun before we left.  It seems the role of walking encyclopedia has fallen on me.  Sometimes I just spout stuff and I have no idea what I'm talking about.  The kids don't even realize it.  That's because I'm mom and I am smart.  And now I'm off to bed so I am well rested for our next adventure.