Disclaimer: If you wanted the Reader’s Digest version of our trip…sorry.
So we decided to take a trip this spring break. Everything looked really good on paper. Maybe if we had given it a second thought, we would have realized we had “over planned” the trip. We must not spend enough time together as a family, because we found it was a little difficult to spend 24 hours a day for six days together. We had some rough patches but those memories are starting to fade now and we are remembering the fun times. We left early Sunday morning and drove all day to Sequoia National Park. After we got into the park, the ranger said there were two camp sites open. One was 4 miles away and the other that we had planned on staying at was 24 miles away. I said, “Maybe we should stay in the camp site that is close by.” Other people said , “No let’s just go.” Twenty-four miles on curvy mountain roads is a very long way. I became a little concerned when half way up the mountain; we started to see snow…the higher we climbed, the more snow we saw. It took a little over an hour to drive those 24 miles. We saw the most amazing giant sequoia trees on the way up. They were really unbelievable. We stopped at the visitor’s center and used the restroom. I told the girls that I had come to the conclusion that we had to just say NO, to camping in the snow! There is just no way that I could bring myself to set up camp in the snow. We drove the hour back down the mountain which made our travel time that day about 10 hours. We stopped at a picnic area and had dinner, and then left the park and pulled into the first lodge we saw and bought a hotel room for the night. Sticking to my tradition, when I am away from home, I stayed awake all but about three hours of the night.
Monday we got in the car and headed for San Jose. This trip didn’t start out this way but kind of became a memorial trip of my past. I was so excited to see the two houses we lived in when I was growing up in California. We found both houses and my elementary school and middle school. Jennifer asked me to check the light post in front of the house to see if her initials and the boy she liked were still carved in it. Sure enough, as clear as could be, but a little rusty, was a carving from 25 years ago. Against the wishes of the rest of my family, I was overcome with my sentimental feelings and rang the doorbell of the Caballo court house. A lady answered the door and I told her that I grew up in that house and would she mind if I walked through real quick, just for fun. Without any hesitation she told me NO, I could not walk through her house. I felt a little bad as I turned away and started walking back to the van. A mean old man in his bathrobe had come out of his house next door and was standing there. He yelled at me, “Excuse me, who are you, and what are you doing here?” I was a little startled and told him I grew up in the neighborhood and was just taking some pictures. He stood there with his arms crossed and his beady little eyes glaring at us until we drove out of the neighborhood. We drove another hour to San Francisco and got checked into our hotel.
Our family use to go to S.F. a lot when I was growing up. I wanted to make sure the kids got to do all the things that I had done. We walked along Fisherman’s Wharf, rode down the curviest road, drove through Chinatown, visited Golden Gate State Park, bought sundaes at Ghirardelli square chocolate shop, and ate sourdough bread on the wharf. The one thing we didn’t have time to do was ride the trolley car. I felt bad about that. We also took the tour to Alcatraz, which was great. Tuesday night we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. Todd, Megan and Aaron went under the bridge and out onto the bridge. Ariel, Zoey and I were too cold and tired to bother. Then we drove an hour north and stayed the night in Santa Rosa, Ca. San Francisco was too expensive to spend more than one night.
Wednesday we left for the Redwood National Park. We drove through wine country. The country side was very pretty with green rolling hills and grape crops on both sides. Our camp site was beautiful, a creek was running behind it and I loved the peaceful sound of the moving water. We set up the tent, got the air mattresses blown up and the sleeping bags laid out and headed out for a hike that we really wanted to do in Fern Canyon. To get to the beginning of the hike we had to drive 8 miles up a gravel windy road. We also drove the van through two small creeks. I am sure the canyon was as beautiful as the description, a place where the ferns grow out of the canyon walls. Unfortunately we never got to see this part. The creek was too difficult to keep crossing back and forth so we gave up. Todd and Aaron went a little farther up than us, but they got wet up to their knees to do it. They each had two pairs of shoes. I could not afford to get my shoes wet since they were my only pair. Of course it started to rain during our hike. When we got back to camp, I got the stove set up and fixed up dinner in the rain. I was a little frustrated that all my camping dreams were being foiled. This was only the third time we had camped in 20 years. We use to camp all the time growing up and I realized after this particular night of camping, that I liked the “idea” of camping, but maybe not actual camping. The wood we had bought from the camp manager would not burn. We tried everything. I had spent so much time thinking and making lists of all the supplies we needed to bring, but somehow missed lighter fluid. Strangely, I forgot to put flashlights on the list too. We had a little LED light on a key chain to help us see as we traveled up to the bathroom and to have in the tent with us. With the steady drizzle coming down, making a fire the old fashioned way, was not going so well. I went to our neighbor next door (who must know a lot about camping, because they were in a camper) and asked if he might have a little bit of lighter fluid we could use. He gave me a torch and showed me how to use it and said that would do the trick. Went back to camp, Todd was busy with something and I was impatient and just fired up that torch myself. I held the flame on the log and the fire looked like it was burning but the second I moved the torch, the fire was gone. After several attempts I gave up, and they went back to lighting the matches to the kindling. Our camper neighbor came over about 20 min later and saw that we still did not have fire. He gave the logs a good, long 5 minute blast from his torch and the wood finally caught fire. I forgot to bring the chocolate bars that I had bought for the s’mores, so the kids just roasted marshmallows.
I came to the conclusion that Zoey must have a bionic bladder. She would not go to the bathroom all day after we left the hotel that morning. She is very scared of riding in the car and would barely eat or drink anything all day as we traveled. I walked around and around in the rain in the dark hoping she would go before we went into the tent but she would not. When we got in the tent, Ariel had re-arranged the beds a little. She was not going to sleep on the outside wall, she moved Aaron over there. He was not going to sleep on the outside wall, so he took my spot on the queen mattress. I discovered I was sleeping on the twin mattress on the outside wall. Unfortunately there was a leak coming from somewhere and half of my bed was already wet. We moved it to another location (by the other tent door) I thought it would be a good spot, this was before I discovered our water proof tent wasn’t really water proof after all. We only had four sleeping bags and they were all taken by the time I got into the tent. I had two blankets a soft sheepskin one, and my Mexican blanket. There is no other warmer blanket on earth than a Mexican blanket. I don’t know how I forgot to put on my warm sweater, gloves, and winter cap, but I did. I had Zoey under my blankets with me trying to keep her warm. I was afraid if I got up and tried to get my warm gear, I would disturb her and she would make me walk her around again in the dark, rainy forest. I was so cold. It felt like I was lying on a cold marble slab. I knew there was water under me from the coldness that seeped up through the mattress. I usually like the sound of rain but listening to it all night against the tent was like a form of Chinese water torture. It was literally almost driving me crazy hour after hour after hour. I finally put my IPOD in and dozed off two different times. I could tell because I remembered the last song I heard when I was conscious. When I woke up again, I would look back on my playlist to see how many songs I was able to sleep through. Finally around 4:00 a.m. I could not take the cold anymore. I got up and got my warm sweater and winter cap, I was able to sleep for about an hour and a half after that. I was never so happy to see the first light of morning had arrived. Ariel asked before we went to sleep what we were having for breakfast. I told her if it was raining, we were having pop tarts and if it wasn’t, we would have pancakes. They ate their pop tarts in the van while Todd and I took down camp. When we pulled out the air mattresses the whole floor of the tent was covered in puddles of water. It was quite the adventure. Everything was wet and muddy. We shoved it back into the roof carrier and that ended our camping days. We had originally planned to camp three nights and stay in hotels three nights. We ended up camping one night, hotels four nights, and came home a day early. We were able to walk a little bit onto a trail (in the rain) to view the redwoods. They were spectacular and worth the suffering endured the night before. Aaron and Megan turned back a few minutes before us. Aaron informed us he could not walk any more, he thought he was bleeding between his toes. He was wearing socks with his flip flops, because both pairs of shoes were wet. Coming out of the redwood forest, was the most difficult part of the driving. The roads were very wet and it was about 120 miles on curvy mountain roads. Todd drove that day because I had been awake all night and had a migraine. We were all car sick even with the Dramamine. We drove to a little town called Sutter Creek. We loved this little town, it was very cute. We decided that night that instead of going home through Reno and Tahoe, we would stop and see Yosemite on the way home.
After a night of sleep, we came to our senses and realized we did not want to drive either two or four hours (we weren’t quite sure how long it would take) to Yosemite on more mountain roads. So we headed straight home. It was a 10 ½ hour ride home. Megan was done with the trip by Thursday and thought we should have driven 15 hours home that day. She didn’t see what the big deal was, and said we could take turns driving. When we got to Primm, NV, it was decided that Ariel would drive. She needs some practice driving on the freeway. I was nervous for several reasons: she was not use to driving the van, it was really loaded down with a roof carrier and packed as full as humanly possible, and it was a Friday night driving with the California traffic coming to Vegas for the weekend, and it was very windy. I sat in the back seat and let Todd help her. I put my IPOD in and closed my eyes and covered them with my hand. I stayed in that position for the rest of the way home. I figured if I didn’t know about a crash coming, I might have a better chance of survival. Everyone was of course offended by me closing my eyes and “plugging” my ears, I was trying to be discreet. I just went away to my “happy place” in my mind and before I knew it we were home safe and sound. Ariel did a really good job. I just get nervous when other people drive, especially fairly new drivers. In the end we drove 2,087 miles and spent 44 hours in the car. It was a week to remember.
Friday night was prom. Ariel looked beautiful. Her friend's mom made her dress for her. There were really no options at the mall of a "suitable" dress. It was fun going through the "prom experience" with her. It took me back many, many years to my own prom and the fun I had. I am very sentimental. The only thing that is similar now days to my prom days is that it is still called "prom" everything else has changed. Most kids don't actually go to the dance at all. Some don't even take the pictures at the school. They go in huge groups and do activities instead of going to the dance. First, they meet at someones house and all the parents show up and take hundreds of photos of them. There were 12 couples in Ariel's group and a huge party bus arrived and they all piled in. They went to a Japanese restaurant where the food is prepared in front of you. They were going to ride three roller coasters, which is one of Ariel's least favorite things to do. Prom day was an extremely windy day here in Vegas. Good news for Ariel, the roller coaster rides were closed down...bad news the wind made it a difficult hair night. My favorite pictures are the three of Ariel alone, texting, holding her hair out of her face, and showing me she was "done" with me taking pictures. Of course we all had to have a photo with the prom girl. Since they couldn't do their original plan, they went to the Bellagio conservatory, M&M world and game zone down on the strip instead. She had a lot of fun and woke me up at 1:30 a.m. to tell me all about it. She had to tell me again in the morning, since I had forgotten everything by then. I can't believe my little girl is about to graduate. I don't know how the time went by so fast, I wish I had more.
