Spring Break Road Trip

Go on a road trip.  It will be fun.  Give the kids an experience from the good old days.  They can see part of the country, random road side attractions.  It is so much cheaper than buying plane tickets.

These are things that went through my head when Dave and I decided to take a road trip over spring break.  Usually we do nothing.  In that sense, my kids get a classic spring break experience --abject boredom, chores, rain.  With Dave's new job, he gets paid time off (woo-hoo!).  Being a novel, new experience, we decided to take advantage.  I moved a few appointments around and bam! we could take a road trip.

The plan was simple.  Feed the kids dinner, bathe them, put them in jammies and drive south at 6 pm.  Drive through the night and eat breakfast in Monterey, California.  We packed lots of snacks, a Boogie Board LCD writer for each kid,  Kindles loaded with new books from the library, a 14 hour audiobook (Inkheart by Cornelia Funke) downloaded onto audible.  Missing: ipads, dvds, any sort of gaming device.
                                       
                                         Optimistic about the adventure ahead.

We lucked out and had pretty much zero traffic through Seattle (weird), Tacoma (weirder), and Fort Lewis (unheard of!).  I fell asleep just outside Portland.  I woke up when Dave asked me to see if there was gas nearby.  I looked at the gauge and saw this......

Not cool Dave.

We were in the middle of nowhere, sort of near Drain and Cottage Grove, Oregon.  Nearest gas was 10 miles. I tried not to panic.  The first gas station we found had the store open, but pumps turned off.  The attendant told us to try a ways up the road.  Prayers and fumes got us safely to a gas station.  I saw the distance to empty read zero.  I hope to never see that again.

Newly gassed up, I took over driving.  Mount Shasta is quite beautiful in the moonlight at 3 am.  The kids actually did a pretty good job sleeping.  The kids had their first Denny's breakfast experience somewhere outside San Francisco.

We made it to Monterey later in the morning.  Eileen was excited about all the sand dunes.
We spent the majority of our day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It lived up to the hype.  It was definitely worth the price (it was not cheap).  Everyone's favorite parts of the aquarium were the blue ocean exhibit with the sea turtle, the jellyfish exhibit, and the area where the tides could wash over you.

      They actually willingly posed for this photo.  Only 1 looking into the camera.

      Linus has loved sitting in alcoves of aquariums since he was an infant.

Due to the late planning of our trip, we weren't able to stay in a cheap motel, or even mid-priced motel.  We ended up at an airbnb cottage in Pacific Grove.  I loved its location--walking distance to small grocery store, coffee shops, restaurants, and the beach.  Another bonus?  No tv.  The kids read so much on this trip.

Eileen and I went adventuring before dinner.  A cool thing in this area is the miles and miles of running/biking trail along the water.  It's totally the kind of thing that would be fun to do as a date sans children.

The next day we ventured out to Carmel.  It turns out that Carmel is designed to look like a Bavarian village but is mostly just art stores and wine shops (not ideal for kids).  Instead we drove a little further to the Carmel Mission Basillica.  Linus was very impressed.  I wasn't sure what kids would think of touring a church, but they really liked it.

We did the 17 mile scenic drive through Pebble Beach and ended up at Carmel Beach.  These kids were ready for beach time.  We saw some puffins out on a rock.

After a long day at the beach, complete with sunburns, we hit the hay and woke up to drive to Fresno.  The coast had been relatively cool upper 50s, low 60s.  I was looking forward to slightly warmer weather as well as seeing our friends, Katie and Chris, and the chance to meet their new daughters.

In Fresno we went for a walk at a wildlife refuge.  The kids complained about the walk, but once we got to the river, they didn't want to leave.

After our hike, we met up with Katie and Chris at a playground and met the girls.  They are so cute.  Linus was smitten with the 3 year old (who I admit was a bundle of joy and love).

We stayed at the Comfort Inn and Suites in Fresno.
    Side Bar.  The Comfort Inn rocks. Seriously.  I've never stayed at one before.  The rooms were nice.  The complimentary breakfast was really impressive.  The pool clean.  The whole place was just really well put together.  We stayed at another one Salem.  We were equally happy and that time the room had 3 queens, meaning we had a room to ourselves and there was still a sleeper sofa.  The cost was only $147.  We will be staying there again.  I used a website for large families to find places to stay.  On the other end of the spectrum...do not stay at Super 8.  I repeat, do not stay at Super 8.  It was gross, gross, gross, and seriously lacking (including enough beds, blankets, or pillows) despite what our reservation said.

Here is me relaxing at the Comfort Inn during the complimentary happy hour while Dave took the kids swimming at the indoor pool.  Did I mention they filled my glass to the top?

It was great to learn the kids could handle sharing a bed (as long as a pillow separated them down the middle) and that we could all successfully sleep in the same room. Robin got pretty snuggly.

Heading north from Fresno we took a detour through the college town of Chico.  It is a seriously cute town.  Inside an amazing toy store is the National Yo Yo Museum.

We stayed a night in Medford in order to visit the Oregon Vortex.  It is a 45 minute tour.  I learned that the presentation doesn't really change.  After 5 minutes it's just the same thing over and over again.  I was not buying the notion that everything is caused by a refraction of light.  It was still fun.

We surprised the kids when we pulled off the freeway in Salem to visit Enchanted Forest.  They awoke from naps to find themselves outside a castle.  The whole place is pretty amazing.  It's like 1960s Disneyland meets Never Never Land from Tacoma in the 1980s.

Robin shook with excitement.  We pretty much had the place to ourselves due to the rain.  There were no lines.  I was impressed by Robin's bravery on the roller coasters (that he may or may not have been quite tall enough for, it was debatable).

We made it home midday Sunday.  There was still 6 minutes left in Inkheart.  I still don't know how the book ends!

Lest you believe things were all blissful and perfect.....the kids fought nonstop.  They could not keep their hands off one another.  At one point Linus went Three Stooges on Eileen and poked her in the eyes with two fingers.  There was biting, screaming, and lots of backtalk.  It was crazy making.  The kids lost all screens and digital technology (except their Kindle readers) for a month and Linus for an additional week.

After one day, Linus wrote a long thoughtful apology where he recommended his siblings be punished for one week and he for two.  Since he gave himself a reasonable yet harsher punishment I agreed.  The first day back (Monday) was rough.  Tuesday was better.  Now Wednesday, things seem to have righted themselves.  Linus keeps trying to trick us into giving him screen time.  Sorry buddy.  We know what you are up to and it ain't gonna happen.

In conclusion, the road trip went as expected and slightly better than expected.  I'm glad we did it.  I'm sad we couldn't squeeze in the Redwoods and the Trees of Mystery.  No one puked which was a surprise or wet their pants.  It makes the idea of another road trip seem plausible although I'm in no hurry to do it again right away.  I'm really glad we left the screens behind.