The April after
Padon was born Walter and I were
jones'n to go on a road trip for our Anniversary. Short on cash we took a weekend trip to
Westport, WA via community transit, a 9 hour ride one way, and dubbed it
The Warren Holiday! The next year, determined to make the Warren Holiday an annual tradition we drove to
Anacortes, WA and Leavenworth, WA. This year, for the Third Annual Warren Holiday, we had saved enough money to go on a true road trip. Walter had never been to Yellow Stone National Park and even though I had been it was a must do! So we planned for it and purchased an inflatable roof rack for the car, to tote the poles for our canvas tent; our truck being way too old and unreliable for that long a trip. We reserved a non-refundable hotel room in
Missoula, MT cutting the driving time down to 6 hours a day and mapped out where we were going to stay in the park.
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The Friday before we were set to go I checked the weather for Wyoming and for the Yellowstone park and it was a horrific 27 degrees at night, 60 degrees during the day, and thundering and lightening for the next three days of our trip. Did I say we were camping this trip? There was no way we could subject
Padon and Sophia to those temperatures and Walter and I knew from previous camping trips just how miserable that cold felt to an adult and so we put our heads together and decided we would go to California instead.
Now with an extremely open ended trip, having lost the money on our hotel room, and with no camping reservations available a head of time, we bought a map of California and based on some quick
Internet surfing and a recommendation from a friend set out for Southern California. Twice the distance of Yellowstone, Sequoia National Forest was four hours from LA. We decided since we no longer had the budgeted hotel money we would leave Saturday night, instead of early morning, pack the kids in the car, and drive it straight through. This was a funny concept to try to explain to a three year old, but Walter did a great job explaining how a day was when the sun went up and then went down and how we were going to be in the car for two days!
Padon was his regular enthusiastic self and excited for the trip.
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We ended up leaving later then we intended and were driving away from
Marysville at 8pm but our excitement must have been contagious because the whole family, Sophia included, were pumped up and ready to go. The kids slept awesome and
every time we stopped to get gas, or take a bathroom break, woke up and greeted us with smiles.
I took the first shift and drove 9 hours straight into northern California. Walter picked up there and drove on another 10 hours. At one point we stopped at a gas station and as Walter pumped gas he looked over and noticed that seated in the car next to him was the one and only
McLovin! Walter didn't know what his name was in real life, but having a Hollywood actor, and one from the movie we enjoyed,
Superbad, had Walter squealing inside like a school girl. So much so that when he attempted to whisper "Look, it's
McLovin! Isn't that
McLovin?!" it came out in an overly loud whisper, one that had
McLovin glaring out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to be absorbed in his iPhone. And one so loud that other people also peered around their gas pumps to see. It was indeed
McLovin and funny enough I ended up holding the door for the guy that played the police officer in the movie as I made my way towards the gas station bathroom to change Sophia. The funny things in life that make you feel like your 20's are definitely gone and you are definitely a Mom. Awe, California. Giddy, Walter got back in the car and we continued on our drive.
Tired and hungry and about three hours outside of Visalia, CA we stopped at the Black Bear Cafe. A nice reprieve from our long car ride the kids were excited to get out. It was the first I had seen that Sophia had gotten old enough to sit in the high chair all by herself. It made me teary thinking how big and fast she has grown up this year. Ah, my little Pia.
We stopped in
Visalia (56 miles from Sequoia National Forest and the closest town with good shopping) bought groceries and moved onto Sequoia National Forest. We purchased a pass for our estimated two week duration, and the ranger at the gate recommended we stay at Buckeye Flats. At one of the lowest elevations it ended up being the most awesome camp site and one we are so glad we had stayed at.
21 hours from the time we left
Marysville, our camp was complete. We were told by the campsite host that we had the most unique tent she had ever seen.
Sophia and her campsite play pen. She loved sitting in this chair!
Padon climbing on the "Monkey Tree". A great collection point for the kids in the campground and right next to our campsite.
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With two kids that slept great in the car there was no rest for the weary (Walter and I). We set up our campsite like a temporary home, all our food in our site's Bear Vault (a first for me), we packed ourselves up to hike around our campground and check out the river that ran around it; one that we heard was awesome for swimming.
Digg'n the warm California weather we changed our clothes to shorts and T-shirts and we tried out our new
Kelty Child Carrier and loved it!
We took the most round about and not safe for carrying a baby on your back way down to the river, but it was worth it for the view. We were so glad we drove down to California and so happy that we had two weeks to just bask in it.
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Originally we thought we would camp at Lodgepole Village. It had a visitor center, market, laundry mat, and showers but a drive up there that afternoon changed our mind. At an elevation of 6,720ft it was surprisingly cold especially with how high the sun was in the sky. Buckeye Flats was only 2,820 ft and the temperature difference was big. We arrived in shorts and t-shirts to visitors in long pants and fleeces. And while having showers and a laundry mat would have been nice we never went back to Lodgepole after perusing the Visitor Center and buying some firewood that we realized later we paid WAY too much for.
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The center did however have a gift shop. When Walter and I went on the trip to
Westport with
Padon we purchased a crab shaped piggy bank. The story behind the piggy bank is humorous,
Padon loves putting money in it, and I have developed warm
fuzzies about the bank; so much so I declared we had to buy Sophia a piggy bank on her first road trip too. And as I was looking over the gift shop items I caught
Padon (pictured below) squeezing his hands, crab like, over his eyes again and again as he looked at the items. It looked like he was snapping a picture. I asked him what he was doing and then tried really hard not to laugh as he explained he was looking with his eyes and not with his hands. Walter had already stopped him a few times from picking things up and had told him to look with his eyes and not with his hands. Supposedly this was how you did it; love it! No piggy banks were to be found by the way.
Our campsite was really dusty, dirty. The kind of fun dirt that when you stamped on it, it
floofed up in the air. The kind that created a nice wave of dirt around you when you laid on your stomach in the gully next to your camp and body surfed down it. The kind that made you look like a child that no one cared about. Just ask
Padon. We spent three days telling him to "get up, stop sitting in the dirt, stop playing in the dirt, stop hitting the dirt with the stick, where did you get that stick..." Finally we gave up.
There was also the issue of bringing back every little piece of garbage and
debris left over by the previous campers. And I realized about 5 days in that I was compounding this problem as I picked up after the mess left around the
communal sink but it seemed we were constantly asking
Padon "Is that food!?" To which he would respond "No...." and take what ever grossness it was out of his mouth. It took about 4 days and
Padon woke up in the middle of the night
retching and vomited all over his sleeping bag, on his air
mattress, and much to Walter's disgust and distress, on some of Walter's down sleeping bag too. We spent the next day driving into
Visalia to the local laundry mat (cheaper then
Lodgepole) to wash our dirty laundry and to wash and clean the poor sleeping bags. Much to our dismay and worry
Padon vomited all over the laundry mat floor (luckily no one else came in while we were there) and Walter and I wondered what we would do so far away from home and how much sicker
Padon might get. Lucky for us and
Padon that was it and he had gotten it all out of his system. By the time we got back to our camp site he was asking for dinner and feeling much better. The awesomeness of the experience was going forward all we had to ask was "Do you want to throw up?" and he would give anything gross a nice wide
berth.
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On our second night a nice family set up camp next to ours. They had three little kids: a 6 year old named Caleb, a 3year old named
Hedessa, and a 5 month old whose name I can't remember.
Padon was fast friends with their kids and we all spent a lot of time in each other's campsites as they stayed for a few days before the Memorial weekend.
Walter and my goal was to experience the whole park. We were really pleased that the park offered a shuttle service to every major area and that meant less wear and tear on the poor O
ldsmobile that had so reliably and comfortably gotten us so far on our trip; not to mention a savings on gas. At one point we got on the shuttle, that entertained
Padon to no end, and due to the large number of people getting on and off the shuttle throughout the day had developed a slight funk. As we squeezed our selves into the available seats
Padon took notice of the odor and announced to the whole packed Shuttle, "Uh, stinky! Mommy tooted!" to which I replied, slightly horrified as I sat down with Sophia, "Um, no, I didn't." To his credit the powdered cheddar broccoli soup mix we had purchased had me keeping myself warm at night but at that moment I could honestly say it wasn't me.
One of the first places we took the shuttle was to the Giant Sequoia Tree Forest. Had we driven our car there we could have driven through the
Tunnel Log; one that had fallen down and was so large that a car size hole had been cut through it and a road paved through. The visitor center, once a large market surrounded by 300 cabins in the 1920s
thru the 1980s in the heart of the forest, was a wealth of information about how amazing the Sequoia Forest was and how much the park had learned about what it takes to take care of this fragile
eco system.
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Originally the Sequoia National Forest was only reachable by the military armed forces. But a captain in the 30's was so taken with its beauty he had his
troop build a road so more people could come and visit. By the 40's it was an incredible tourist attraction and one with no knowledge of how to approach the trees and animal habitats. Bears were a scheduled attraction, people went whenever and
whereever they pleased, and until the 90's forest fires were
deterred instead of planned. It wasn't until then that the forest rangers were able to track how the development and natural character of the animals had changed and how much the forest had been
depleted and grow had been
halted. It took 10 years to remove the 300 cabins and clean up the chemicals left behind by asbestos and waste. They learned that the Sequoia trees thrived off the forest fires and how the charcoal was
beneficial to their growth and cycle of life.
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And they learned that the bears, in particular, had changed and were teaching their young to change, their sleeping habits so they woke at night and slept during the day so they could forage the waste left by campers; including breaking into anything that had the remotest smell, like a baby wipe left on the floorboard of your car. This had resulted in a number of controlled deaths of local bears in the National Forest that really grieved the rangers and had them patrolling the campsites daily.
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With all walkable paths paved, to better help hikers stay in designated areas, it was easy to show and explain to Padon why he needed to stay with us. By the end of our visit to the Giant Forest he was talking about and pointing out animals homes, and excited to see and tell us all about the charcoal on every single tree within eyesight.
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The trees were amazingly giant. And it was here that we realized that traveling with a 3 year old is loads of fun! There isn't anything that you can show them that won't make them incredibaly wowed and in awe and for Padon it went on this way for our whole trip. He was a complete delight.
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The Sherman Tree, a massive 275Ft tall, and all the other giant trees prompted the question from Padon as we hiked along "Where are all the dinosaurs and rinocerous?" Caught off guard by this question I said "There aren't any." Absolutely positive that with trees this large there must be dinosaurs and rinocerous he asked again, like I didn't hear him correctly, "No, where are the dinosaurs and rinocerous, Mommy?" Pondering this question and thinking, well there probably was once dinosaurs in this area, I said "Oh, well, baby, they're all gone." To which he replied so sweetly, "Oh, that is so sad."
With perfect Padon style he would reiterate what we were teaching him about the forest and act out, with sound effects, these giant and fragile trees falling, crashing, and breaking apart. We had read an account of a visitor who had witnessed one of these giant trees falling and they likened it to a freight train going by. Incredible!
Note who is examining the charcoal. :)
We tried to take moment to take a family shot of ourselves but with my arm only as long as it is, I only captured Walter and I. It was a great shot in either case.
Padon had discovered, via the "Monkey Tree" that he could climb rocks and as out trip went on he climbed more and more things becoming more and more brave. At one point he asked me to take a picture of him being very tall. What's funny is I think I will always look back at this picture, think "Awwwwww, look how small he is....."
The only activity that we had to pay to experience was Crystal Caves. Walter really enjoys geology and this cave was said to be made out of Marble, a very rare find. We learned in purchasing our tickets in advance that the usually lit cave was out of power because some animals had chewed through the wiring and that we would need to bring flashlights or borrow one from the tour guide. Still excited to go Walter and I pondered what effect this might have on Padon. He slepts with a night light because the absence of light makes him loose his mind; screaming in terror. Walter ended up with the fantastic idea of telling Padon that we were goin to see the Dark Crystal.
The Dark Crystal is a Jim Henson movie that came out in 1982 and a movie we have on DVD and that Padon has seen a bunch of times.
Excited to see the Dark Crystal Padon happily hiked the half mile down to the cave where the cave entrance had this giant rot-iron gate in the shape of a spiderweb, complete with giant spider in the middle. Awed and impressed Padon wanted to know where Spiderman was. To which I replied "Gone, off to save people." That answer satisfied Padon for about 15 minutes and then he asked again and again and again.
Worried about the space of the passageways we were going to be walking through, having overheard that if you were wearing a fanny-pack on your side you wouldn't fit, I had Walter help me put Sophia on my back so I would have my hands free if I fell on the slippery rock. I think we must have done it wrong because the poor thing looked like this. And while she tried to hold out ended up whining to be let out of the maya-sling and I ended up wearing her on my front instead.
The stalagtites were really neat and the tour guide was humourous and informative. At one point she described how animals in the cave evolved to maximize the energy needed to live in a place that was completely void of natural light. One of these animals noted was a scorpion that had no tail, just long hairs and it's stingers in its claws. It was at this point that it dawned on me that if scorpions could come into the cave and evolve over only 4 life cycles that there must be scorpions outside and ones that could climb into our tent and therefore our sleeping bags. I felt my anxiety level sky rocket and immediately flicked the switch on that idea, with the thought, out of sight, out of mind, therefore it can't happen. Stupidly irrational but it worked. Well enough that when a nice, fat, and healthy black widow spider took up roost in the top of our tent I didn't freak out and go sleep with the kids in the car for the last 3 days of our trip. She happily stayed there eatting yellow jackets until we dropped the canvas to put the tent away.
In the Crystal Cave there were a number of rooms with great names like The Chandaler Room, and in the second to last room the tour guide wanted us to turn out our lights so we could experience the feeling of our eyes and mind trying to find light that was completely non-existent. I think there must have been a number of people afraid of pitch black dark because it was suprisingly hard to get the group to cooperate and when they finally did, and we did, Padon lost his marbles. Screaming to turn the light back on, turn the light back on! His que was enough to have other people flick their flashlights back on which only gave the group maybe 30 seconds in the dark and the tour guide was dissappointed. As we walked out of the Crystal Cave, Padon said, "Where is the Dark Crystal Mommy?" To which I replied, "Didn't you see it? It was when they turned the lights off." "He said "Oh..." Like Oh, I missed it, oh well... and we left. Walter and I were over all really impressed with Padon for hiking all the way down, hiking through the cave, for being excited for what he saw in side, and for hiking the whole half mile back up to where the car was parked. Padon liked the "Dark Crystal Cave" so much that he talked about it every day for the next week.
The hike down and back up from the cave was kind of brutal. The cave was cold and we had dressed accordinly but the hike was really steep and so when we got back to the car where it was near 103 degrees, we were really hot and sweaty. It was the perfect excuse to go back to camp and take the Paradise Creek path, recommended by our camp host, to where there was good swiming in the river!
With out suits on we made out way down to the river where there was about 80 feet of river between a river and a waterfall that slightly stopped up on each end, naturally, by boulders under the water. Run off from the mountains, the water was cold, but after such a hot day deliciously so. At least for me. Walter, sat in the shallows with Sophia, while Padon splashed next to them, sometimes laying down for 10 seconds before jumping up.
I on the other hand was out in the middle, where the river was about 15 feet deep, swimming around and around. The water was so clear and refreshing. Even at the deepest point you could see straight down to the bottom. Which later ended up working to my advantage because at one point my headband fell off without me realizing until much later. It was the last headband that I owned and that hadn't been broken by Padon and I was really bummed to have lost it. A couple days later and another refreshing trip to the river with Padon, I caught a glimpse of it while swimming around and I was able to dive down, see it, and grab it. I was so glad!
I need to note, because it was such a fun part of our trip, that Memorial Day weekend at Sequoia National Forest is like a weekend in Disney Land. Not only did the park become so crowded and full of people that we couldn't find a place to park our car ANYWHERE but at our own campsite, but the campground went from an allowed 6 people and one car per site to 16 people and 2 cars per campsite if they could fit another car on the site. It was though LA had decended upon us and we were literally the only caucasion family there. Besides the two Korean families it was as though one giant hispanic family had arrived, all wanting to know if we were leaving and if they could have our campsite. They were all so hospitable and were not only amazed by our tent but by the fact that we had the intention to camp for 12 days. One gentleman walked up as Walter was building our fire and lit it for him with a blow torch. Another gal lent us their lanturn when ours kicked the bucket. And what tickled me the most was that there wasn't that stale air that you needed to stay in your own campsite. Mother's yelled at their children that way that Mother's do with no embarrasment and Walter even got invited to play poker and drink a shared bottle of vodka, SCA style. It was so awesome to have them all around.
This picture was especially funny because one night while Walter was making a fire Padon picked up this piece of wood and declared it was a radio like Daddy's. And that he was talking to Aunt Sarah about her birthday, cake, and singing Happy Birthday to You. He was very adamant that it was Sarah he was talking to and we hadn't been talking about her. It was so nice to hear that he was thinking of her.
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On our 8th day of camping Padon declared that he was "all done with the camping." We tried to get the excitement rolling again by asking, "but don't you like to sleep on the air matress, isn't it fun?" To which he answered "no...all done with the air matress..." To be honest Walter and I were starting to get a little tired of camping too. Mostly it was because of the air matress and our camp site that was on this awkward hill. Walter was able to sleep ok, but if I didn't get up by 8am or go sleep in a chair my back would hurt so bad I could barely get out of bed. And at this point we had pretty much done the whole park with the exception of Moro Rock and Crescent Meadow. We had tried going the day before but because of the tourists and the need to get more diapers we had lost the day to driving in congested traffic and running erands. So we talked to Padon about how it was ok that he wanted to go home. That we wanted to go climb this really big rock, and what did he think about climbing a really big rock to see the mountains. He was all over that and kept asking again and again when we were going to climb the mountain! It was great we got a whole two more days out of him just because of Moro Rock.
At the base of Moro Rock is Beetle Rock. A really neat rock formation that curved over the landscape like a colossal beetle shell and that dissappeared so steeply that even Padon was nervous about straying too far from Walter, for fear that he would fall. Near Beetle Rock was the stairway up to the top of Moro Rock. Just a little over 400 steps people were huffing and puffing going up and coming down from the top.
I would like to proudly say that Padon walked all the way up by himself and not due to any pushing by Walter or myself, but by his own determination. I kept worrying that maybe he was getting tired or that his little thigh muscles may be getting sore due to how high he had to lift his leg to step up onto the next adult sized step. So I would check in with him every few minutes to ask him if he was ok, or if he wanted to rest as he would pass yet another adult sagging across a handrail and he would answer "Pannie fine".
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It turns out that Walter is afraid of heights. After 10 years I had no idea and he was very bravely controlling his thoughts of Sophia, who was riding in the carrier on his back, and of Padon walking in front of him and in front of me, plunging over the edge. If either of them had gone over both Walter and I agreed that in a heartbeat we would jump after knowing full well that at the height we were climbing neither of us would be coming back.
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At the top the view was spectacular. With the smog coming down into the valley from LA there was no way to capture on camera the fantastic views of the mountains. It was as thought the human eye had a better way of filtering the colors then my camera did but I couldn't walk away without taking a few anyway. From Moro Rock you could see a complete 360 degree view of the park.
It was really cool to see the road that we had to drive in on to get to the park from Visalia and to get a picture of how windy the road was that you have to drive on to get anywhere in the park. that would be the very thin white line below.
That very long road went from one end of the park to the other and went up the steep elevation relatively quickly. About an eighth of the way up the road construction had the road down to one lane and you could count on sitting on a hill, in the sun, for as much as an hour. The passing of the cars was managed by two stop lights set up by the construction crew and funny enough through the 9 days that we camped there we never hit the red for more then 15 minutes. Just about everytime we came down or went up the hill the light turned green.
We got a great family shot and Padon was very excited to get to use Walter's rinocerous a.k.a. binoculars.
Sophia, over the course of our trip, was given the compliment that she looked like the Gerber Baby three times! Feeling like such a a proud Mamma, considering she looks so much like I did when I was a baby, I would say thank you and beam inside. Teehee!
On the way down I carried Padon on my back in the Maya Sling. He wasn't too thrilled about it because he had gotten great joy and was very proud of walking all the way up by himself. But up was one thing and down was another. The walk was so steep that even as an adult, if you tripped you would roll a good distance before you would stop yourself and we were really afraid of Padon falling. So once he was tied to my back Padon gave up and succumbed to his humiliation. I made sure to tell him how proud we were of him, though, all the way down. We just couldn't get over how well he had done climbing up to begin with.
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A mile from Moro Rock was Cresent Meadow. I really wanted to go there because it had been described as stunning and untouched. As a visitor you weren't allowed to walk on your own in the meadow but pathways had been built so that you could walk out a ways to experience it. As we were being drivin to the Meadow by our shuttle bus driver he pointed out a big black bear standing in the middle of the meadow as we driving up to it. The Meadow is so large that you had to really look to then say "Oh! Man there's a bear!" Only for us this was our 5th black bear that week. We had been at our camp site two days when Walter got up at about 11pm to use the bathroom. As he walked down into the shallow gully between us and the bathrooms he felt something to his right. He turned his flashlight in that direction to see a big black bear bottom about 15 feet from him, making his way toward our neighbors campsite where they had left their unwashed dinner dishes out. I woke up to Walter yelling "Bear! Bear in the camp!" This roused a handful of people wealding pots and pans to loudly intimidate the bear away from the people. It seemed to work, although at 2am I got up to go to the bathroom and as I reached the top of the gully I looked up to see another, if not the same, black bear making its way towards the bathrooms. I really had to go and so
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I followed it toward the bathrooms by about 80 feet until it rounded the corner. I then gave it about 30 seconds and walking as quickly yet quietly that I could I dashed in the bathroom. Coming back out, and as stealthy as a moose, I snuck back out and beat feet back to camp feeling how fragile our canvas walls would be to a bear. When we left the Crystal Caves we were driving down the road to be stopped by a car in front of us. At first we were thinking, what the, but then we saw the adorable bear cub in the road examining the car. We too thought "aawwww" and then with a little more realisim then obviously the car in front of us "Where's Mamma?!" Our question was answered about 30 seconds later as she came tearing up the hill side, onto the road, where she grabbed that cub by the scruff of his neck and chucked him up the other hill side. I found it humorous to see this animal mother treat her toddler in the same manner that we like to pretend we don't treat our toddlers and that was totally to bear like say "Get out of the road! Don't I always tell you to get out of the road! Come on!!" And so toddler like, when we slowly drove by the bear cub had come back down the hill side a little to just get one more glance of the cool cars driving by in the road.
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So while we hiked around the Cresent Meadow we were hyper aware that there was a big bear in our near visinity, even more so when Walter stopped to point out that we were walking over bear skat, which Padon gleefully announced to anyone that we passed that we had seen Bear poop!
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Slight tangent in this story - earlier in our trip we had been talking about how cute Sophia's buns were and how cute Padon's buns were. Padon likes this and shows us from time to time how cute his buns are, which in itself is super cute. We also had been talking alot about the manners involved in walking in crowds and on paths. More specifically, "you let people pass; you don't make them have to walk around and trip over you!" So as we passed the bear poop, Padon excited that bears poop, two gals came walking towards us on the path, to which Padon said as they were passing, "let the ladies, pass, let the cute buns pass." I felt the blood shoot to my face but at the same time how can you not think that is freak'n adorable? So I think all that came out of me was a nervous chuckle/ laugh while at the same time I thought, "That's my boy!" And in the end I'm not sure they heard him.
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Back to the end of the story, before the tangent: So as we were walking around keeping out eyes open for the bear we rounded the corner and walked about 1o feet from a mother deer and her two fauns. It was mind boggeling. Our whole lives we have ever been this close to an animal but at a zoo and while she was cautious you could tell she was used to seeing a lot of people. I took a number of pictures but later accidentally deleted them and so now only have the one below and it just doesn't show how close we actually were. It really was seareal.
Half way around the meadow a Sequoia tree had fallen or been felled (is that how you say it) so that it fell across the middle of the meadow. You were allowed to climb up on the tree and walk out onto the meadow on it. This was tree had been so tall that it went across the whole meadow except for about 30 feet that had been lined with rocks so that you never really stepped into the tall grass and marsh.
You can barely see below but if you look carefully you can see Walter walking with Pia on his back and holding Padon's hand. That was the middle of the tree.
Called "The Gem of the Sierras" we had to stop in the middle and get a family shot. I wish we could have seen the meadow in the spring when everything was in bloom instead of the 1st week of September. It was beautiful nontheless.
On our last night a couple from Quebec set up camp next to us. They were very hospitable and stopped by asking where they could buy some firewood. Having over paid twice already we were a wealth of knowledge of where and where not to go for firewood. It turned out that this couple was traveling from national forest to national forest camping each night in a different location and their next stop was Kings Canyon (the only place we didn't make it to). Kings Canyon was north of Lodgepole and so we knew it was going to be cold. Walter and I had purchased 7 bundles of firewood, as well as inhertited some from the family that had stayed in the camp next to us for three days and it was at that point that we realized we had more firewood then what we needed to get us through the night. So Walter went and offered them out firewood. We had received such wonderful hospitality from so many people on our trip it was the least we could do to pay it forward. They were wowed and grateful and offered to pay us back in espressos the next morning from their portable espresso maker. Relishnig the idea of coffee in a form other than instant was said in in so many polite words "Damn right!" and totally took them up on the offer.
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At this point the camp ground was nearly empty. Labor Day was three days gone, the volume in our campsite was pretty much a 1/4 of what it had been and it seemed the yellow jackets and flys didn't know what to do with themselves but bother us. Walter was at his wits end, washing his hair and body thinking maybe it was body odor, wearing his shirt over his head, dousing himself in bug spray, yelling, but nothing worked. The kids and I just sat quietly brushing our faces from time to time, trying to kid ourselves that the flys landing in our eyes, ears, and noses wasn't horrifically bothersome. That night I made dinner and as I was nearing the end about ready to serve the yellow jackets desended on me, and not like in just a bothersome way, but in a way like someone was shaking a nest over my head. If only there was a video of me diving in and away from the stove with a whirling dish towel to scoop and serve food on the plates. They were literally everywhere and not shy about it. I served us up as fast as I could, almost threw the pot at the closest tree away from our site and we piled ourselves in the car to eat. In my haste I had spilled some of our dinner on the stove and bear box that we had been using as a counter. When we finished eatting and waited for the yellow jackets to die down we got out of the car. And I kid you not, they had cleaned the stove and bear box of food. It was incredible. Were talking whole kernals of corn and rice, gone! This was our final que. We had just about seen everything, were felt satisfied in coming home two days early, we had actually found a black bear piggy bank for Sophia after 5 gift shop visits, and had enough gas money to get us home and to buy meals along the way.
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You can see the flys around Padon's poor little face below.
Packing up wasn't difficult and it was another long 19 hour drive back home. Walter and I, again, were very impressed with our inflatable roof rack. We had a severe side wind for a long time and the tent poles barely wobbled as I drove the 70mph speed limit.
It was a really fantastic trip! We would still like to go to Yellowstone and talked about doing it in a a couple years, although maybe in a couple years we will go to Disney Land, who knows. We couldn't believe how absolutely fantastic our kids were. They never complained! I don't count saying that you are all done with the air matress as a complaint, just an expression of being justifyably exhausted. Sophia was pleased as punch to go where ever, when ever, and took nap upon nap in the camping couch or on the air matress. Padon was wowed by everything he saw and I think the trip would have been half as much fun without him. It was a wonderfully memorable trip.
With a purchase of 1/4 yard of velvet I had a shimery fairy top, her tutu (all most too small) a shimmery fairy skirt, and flower tights just perfect for a fairy princess. The stop at the fabric store and their surprising 50-75% off sale had me equiped with a Fairy head dress, pirate eye patch and earing, stripped black and white tights and......
Walter's costume was another great internet find from Jane. She sent a funny email about going as a natural disaster and it screamed Walter so loud we had to do it. With various animals, cars, trucks, trees, and fences found through out the toys in Padon's bedroom sewn at different lengths from his arms, chest, and legs, Walter was a tornado. As he spun (equipped with a squirt bottle) the items would fly out with the centrifical force. This so pleased a Mom at one of the trick-or-treat houses that the woman laughed hysterically and then gave Walter candy as well as Padon.
After six rides or so, a corn dog/ corn on the cob/ BBQ lunch, the kids definitely started to wind down. The rides were still fun but loosing their 
