Day 23: 6/24/24 From: Chatham, Ontario, Canada To: Reading, PA Distance: 514 miles
This post isn’t worth much. Our final day is a long drive, and we’re on the road by 7:15 a.m. Border crossing at Buffalo, NY this time and the border guard is unimpressed with us, which is, of course, always a good thing. We smuggled in a couple of giant Kinder eggs. Shhhh.
Late lunch at a Wendy’s somewhere in north-central Pennsylvania. Younger Child laments we still have 4 hours to drive…until I inform them we’re only 2 1/2 hours from home. The smile that appears on their face stretches from war to ear and they excitedly inform their friends via text that they’re almost home.
I wish I could be so excited, but I have other plans tonight. We pull in right at the time I’m due for a board meeting, and to avoid rushing back out again, I call in. Vacation is officially over.
Day 22: 6/23/24 From: Chatham, Ontario, Canada To: Wallaceburg, Ontario, Canada Distance: 21 miles
We sleep in. Husband and I wake one kid at 9 for breakfast. The other refuses to wake and says they’ll eat later.
So it’s a breakfast at the hotel for 3 of us, but we’re shocked to find the dining room packed. Apparently there was a wedding here yesterday and pretty much everyone has shown up for breakfast. After breakfast, we head back to the room to read, relax, and nap the morning away. Younger Child goes back to bed and I follow suit an hour later. It’s kind of nice not to be running out the door for the car.
At 2:30 we head to Friend’s parents’ house to spend the afternoon and evening with all of them. We’ve never met them before, but they are every bit as lovely as Friend and her husband and kids. Of course. Then Writing Friend (who happens to be the cousin to Friend) and his wife and tween show up to say hello as well, and it’s a full on party. Air hockey, Oregon Trail, Shut the Box (which we now *have* to get, lots of talk and laughter (much of it about fishing…go figure). The day is very much like spending a day with my own family. And they’ve all brought Canadian treats we don’t normally have in America for us to try.
Aero, Caramilk, ketchup-flavored potato chips, Smarties (NOT the American kind), Tim-bits, creme-filled maple cookies, butter tarts, and more. We like these Canadians. It’s hard to leave, but at 10 p.m., we finally call it a night, realizing that we still have a long drive home tomorrow. But do we go back to the hotel? No. Of course not. We head to Friend’s house where they have a bait & tackle shop so Husband can stock up. They refuse payment, but we’ll find a way to get them money somehow… Their generosity can only go so far, and this is their business! We want to support small business!
At 11:30, we finally say goodnight and head back to the hotel, our vacation just about over. We’re ready to be home, to snuggle some cats, and to sleep in our own beds.
When the guy in the middle has to kneel to be the same height as the other two in the photo…We always have a terrific time with this family. Even 5 years after seeing them last.
Day 21: 6/22/24 From: Fort Atkinson, WI To: Chatham, Ontario, Canada Distance: 472 miles
Another long drive today, but one that crosses an international border. Our passports have been waiting patiently for this day in the trip. (Too bad they don’t get a stamp…)
We wake shortly after 7 and are on the road by 8:30. The skies are mostly overcast today, but I think I see the sun way up there. I can’t be sure as it’s been several days since I’ve seen anything but gray clouds and pouring rain.
I drive the first 3 hours, plus an extra half hour in horrendous traffic south of Chicago that’s really due to construction in Indiana, but is backed up far into Illinois. Husband drives the next 5 hours, stopping only for lunch and to see the Joseph F Weber House in Detroit at Younger Child’s request because it was featured on the album cover of one of their favorite artists. It adds only 10 minutes to the drive, so we approve adding the stop to the itinerary.
The GPS brings us into a not-so-great part of Detroit and it reminds me of all the bad things said about this city. I can see where it gets its reputation. (The buildings are run down, boarded up, and empty, and the homeless and drug addicts are present.) The neighborhood changes for the better as we approach our stop, but we still don’t stay long. Younger Child is thrilled to see the house, then we’re back on the highway again and making our way to Ontario. I had no idea the entrance to Canada here was a tunnel! I assumed we’d be crossing a bridge. The neat thing about the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, though, is where you cross the border and there’s a giant flag on the way on either side of the border line. A maple leaf on one side and Stars and Stripes on the other.
The border crossing is much quicker than we’ve ever experienced at either of the other two places we’ve crossed, the border guard asking us what’s in our top carrier and probably wondering at us when we said sleeping bags and a very wet tent…
Forty-five minutes later, we’re at the hotel in Chatham, Ontario. It’s earlier than we expected so I text my local friend to see if she’d like to join us for dinner. Of all the local places, we choose Boston Pizza because of its array of gluten-free options. Friend is about a half hour away, so we make plans to meet at 8:15 and we pull in within 15 seconds of each other.
We chat and laugh with Friend while we eat and it’s so good to see her again 5 years after we last saw her. We look forward to spending tomorrow with her and her family again. The last time we saw them was a shared family vacation in Huntsville, Ontario in 2019. Our families got along well then and we look forward to spending more time with her whole family tomorrow.
We head back to the hotel at 10:30 and sleep is all I can think about. But Husband decides to do laundry first. I, on the other hand, pass out before he returns with folded clothes. I look forward to NOT setting an alarm in the morning.
Day 20: 6/21/24 From: Garretson, SD (Palisades State Park) To: Fort Atkinson, WI Distance: 469 miles
I wake after 4 hours of sleep and see a message that came through on my phone an hour or so after we left the campground. (I should still be sleeping right now, I’m exhausted, but my body says no, apparently. Adrenaline memory?)
We made the right decision.
Now, we just need to go back this morning and find out if we still have a tent and clothes to collect or if it’s all been washed away… We eat breakfast at the hotel, take showers we weren’t expecting to have this morning, and get dressed in the clothes we came in. Then, it’s back to the campground to see if we still have a tent, sleeping bags, and clothing. I know I said we were done camping after this night and that I looked forward to a few days in a hotel, but I didn’t mean I wanted to give up all of our tenting supplies for the future.
By the light of day, we can see the creeks and rivers in the area are absolutely flooded. The rain is still coming down, though with less force.The roadways back into the campground are passable, including the bridge that was flooded last night. (Though it’s covered in debris.) We get back to our campsite and are shocked to find most of the runoff creek water has subsided off the site, though it’s still flowing swiftly and carrying a lot of water into Split Rock Creek. Most importantly, though? Our tent is still standing. And everything in it is (mostly) dry. The tent is actually fairly soaked through from all the rain, but we don’t think the floodwater ever came all the way to the tent. We pack up as quickly as possible since the current forecast calls for more heavy rain and even the possibility of isolated tornadoes. No thank you. We’re ready to leave.
The GPS takes us a strange route back to I-90 (dirt roads that are called “streets” and “avenues” despite being dirt), which we can only assume is due to closed, flooded roadways. And we must be right. Because when we finally do make it back to I-90, we see more devastation. Every creek (and there are many) is flooded so far over its banks, it looks like a full-blown river. Have you ever seen a tractor trailer on its side in the middle of a river? As of today, we have. We pass several more accidents due to flooded roads. As a result, the westbound side of I-90 is shut down, but the eastbound side remains open. We are grateful for that at least.
But the rain isn’t finished with us yet. Husband drives through alternating downpours and light rain for the next two hours. We finally drive out of it, only to drive back into it again an hour later when I’m driving. We are absolutely astounded that a storm this big can be dumping this much water for this long. And it continues for most of our way to Wisconsin. The skies are dark and dangerous and I miss the Pennsylvania mountains that break up this kind of weather so it never lasts so long. We marvel again and again that we’re still driving through this horrible weather.
We finally reach our hotel not far outside of Madison, WI and we are relieved to be off the road. (And the hotel has the sweetest antique tap bell I want to grab for an uncle who collects them… I refrain. Barely.) The last 24 hours have been quite the ordeal. We still have a few more days and one more destination before we head back to Pennsylvania, but I think it’s safe to say that as much as the last three weeks have been an incredible adventure, we’re looking forward to returning home.
We watch a little television, I catch up on the blog, and Husband and kids take off for the jacuzzi for a half hour before bed while I read. I don’t know where they all find the energy to hop in a hot tub at 10 pm, but this trip is about seeing and doing, so have at it, fam.
Day 19: 6/20/24 From: Badlands National Park, SD (Cedar Pass Campground) To: Garretson, SD (Palisades State Park) Distance: 290 miles
We “sleep in” today. Though we wake often in the tent, we manage to ignore the daylight until 8:30. It’s been raining on and off all night, too, but the tent has held up well. Fog covers the rugged peaks in the Badlands and we’re supposed to hit significant storms on the way east today. It’s going to be a tedious 4-5 hours on the road, especially with the incessant wind.
We pack up camp and head out to the gift shop, which has a diner where we expected to eat breakfast, but neither kid wants anything on the menu, so we leave with the intention of stopping somewhere else along the way.
We make a quick detour to a prairie dog “ranch” we saw when we came into the park, where we proceed to watch the critters poking their heads out and running around. You can buy peanuts in the store to feed them, which is probably why they are so tame and easily photographed.
There’s just one problem with relying on our own plans for breakfast. There’s nothing “along the way.” We end up at two different gas stations, both insanely busy. Is Summer Solstice a holiday in South Dakota? It certainly seems like everyone is out today. By the time we get any sort of food, it’s noon. Breakfast was basically yogurt and pastries. No one is complaining. (Lies. Husband is complaining. He wants eggs and bacon and something significant in his stomach.)
The next two hours on the road are some of the scariest. Lightning, thunder, wind, and heavy rain abound. We pass one car stuck in the middle of the grass that divides the highway. They must have spun out with all the water on the road. I’m getting worried that our campsite might be flooded out. When I check the weather forecast, there’s areal flood watches over the entire county.
I was looking forward to seeing this today, but I’m pretty sure that’s not happening. The weather on this trip continues to be wild.
When we reach the campground, there’s a small break in the rain. It lightens just long enough for us to set up the tent if we move at light speed. We get everything inside just in time for the next round of pouring rain. Split Rock Creek is roaring pretty good and I’m a little disappointed. I picked this site specifically because I know how much Husband loves the water (even when he can’t fish).
We spend an hour and a half just catching up on social media, reading, drawing, and napping and when the rain lightens again, we venture out for dinner. A sports bar in Brandon, SD called Tailgators calls our name and has plenty of gluten-free options. The meal is incredible, as is the dessert. During dinner, we play each other in archery, basketball, and darts in Game Pigeon on our phones (it *is* a sports bar after all). And when we come out to the parking lot afterwards, it’s just starting to rain again.
Back at the campground, we climb into the tent just in time for the next downpour. It looks like this will be our night! From the tent, we hear the roar of the creek just below us and train whistles from trains coming down the tracks on the other side of the creek. Plus thunder and rain. So much rain.
At 11 pm, the Sheriff drives through the park with a message playing on the loudspeaker that severe weather will be developing in the area over the next several hours. What does this mean for us? Is he telling us to leave? Just warning us that it’s going to get sketchy? We don’t know. What I do know is that our little tent site #94 at Palisades State Park ends up with a raging river on two sides of us by 1 am.
The storm gets so loud and vicious that I can’t fall asleep, despite Husband’s snores being drowned out entirely by the rain on our tent and the rushing water of the creeks. So at 1 am, I check the weather app and see that we’re now in a flood warning, which makes sense since I can hear the small trickle of a creek beside us now rip-roaring and emptying into the larger one. It’s already flooded half the campsite and is still rising. What I can’t understand is how the weather reports could be so wrong all day and into the evening, predicting an end to the rain in “2 hours” no matter what time of day I checked. Regardless of time, the radar always seemed to look like this:
I wake Husband. I know we’re *probably* okay where we are (the tent is on the highest ground on the site), but I don’t want to be a news headline for all the wrong reasons. And I can’t sleep when I’m terrified the way I am. I like data. I like being able to analyze data and figure out the *right* answer to problems. Husband thinks we’re safe where we are. But he agrees that if the kids and I aren’t sleeping because we don’t feel safe, then we should get a hotel.
So at 2 am, I book a hotel 6 miles down the road. We aren’t even sure we can get out of the campground. When we try, we face a small bridge already under several inches of swiftly moving water, a veritable river flowing up and around both sides of it as well as through it. We make the right decision and don’t try to go through it, but it’s scary how quickly your mind thinks “Well, it’s just a couple inches deep. We could probably…” I’ve seen too many videos. Instead, we turn around to wake the camp host (a saint!) who instructs us to use a service road to get to the main highway and tells us if we can’t get out for whatever reason, we can move the tent to any open site.
We reach our hotel safely by 2:30 am, but it takes an hour for the adrenaline to wear off before I can even think of sleep. Water is no joke. It’s powerful and fast and unpredictable.
Older Child says the quiet of the hotel is weird after so many hours of listening to rain pounding the tent. They say it’s like being at the beach all day and then coming home and still hearing the phantom echo of waves in your ear. It certainly is.
I know people keep telling us we’re creating so many amazing memories for our family, but this kind? This kind, I could do without. For now, I’m just glad we’re safe and dry and can hopefully get a few hours of sleep.
Day 18: 6/19/24 From: Sheridan, WY To: Badlands National Park, SD (Cedar Pass Campground) Distance: 322 miles
Up at 8:30, showers again whoo! 2 in 12 hours and I relish every drop of hot water. We mosey out of the hotel and head to Perkins for breakfast. Bad news. They don’t have gluten-free pancakes so Older Child goes hungry until we get to the car for GF snacks. They also seem kind of down today, ready to wrap up this trip and head home. We offer to send them on a plane, but they just kind of look at me like I’ve lost my mind… Guess we’ll keep driving.
Before we leave Perkins, Husband decides he absolutely must play the claw game. It’s 5 tries for the price of whatever one credit card swipe gives you and he ends up scoring two stuffed animals on his last two tries. He celebrates his win on the way out as I nod to another parent waiting to be seated and tell her this is actually my third child.
When we get on Rt 90, Siri tells us we have 312 miles to go on this road. Well. At least we have no twisty-turny-windy roads today. But the wind is vicious, with 40 mph crosswinds. Driving the speed limit at 80 mph, it’s a lot to fight against.
Along the way, we pass The Cowboy Church, which intrigues us enough to look up online. Husband thinks it’s a place where cowboys learn to cowboy. I think it’s an actual church. Turns out it’s a Wesleyan church, not a place to teach cowboying. I win.
We see a Cabela’s (which might be the tenth one we’ve seen or the twelfth or the fifteenth; we’ve lost track) and we stop so Husband can pick up sandals since he’s finally worn the old ones out beyond repair. Younger Child says he’s like a “new man” with his new shoes. He thanks the old pair for being good to him for six years, then tosses them in the trash outside the store.
About 45 miles out from the town of Wall, South Dakota, we start seeing signs on the side of the road for Wall Drug, where you can get a milk shake, root beer, coffee for 5 cents (free with a donut if you’re a veteran or a honeymooner), western wear, bison burgers, jewelry, gold, homemade fudge, an 80 ft brontosaurus, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. And the signs never stop. For the next 45 miles, there are signs every half mile or so. Wall Drug has been featured in Parade magazine and People magazine. It’s been mentioned in the New York Times.
At this point, we do exactly what they want us to do. We say, “Okay, I’ve got to check this place out.” So I look it up online and find out that Wall Drug sees upwards of 2 million tourists per year. Fine. We’ll go. But only because I need Ibuprofen for a headache and they do, at least, actually have a drug store. It’s a quaint old-style “town” and I could see how people could get sucked in for hours.
But I’m done with Wall Drug after just two of the many, many, many stores. I have to remind Younger Child that we cannot possibly look at every item here, but I think they might be trying anyway. So I sit on a bench out front, type up today’s experiences and wait for the family to be as done peopling as I am. (I waited until it looked empty to take a photo, but nothing about this place was empty. So many people!)
We get to the campground in the Badlands National Park around 5, set up our tent in the wind that’s still blowing, and make a quick dinner from dehydrated camp meals. Then we head for a drive through the park to see the rugged landscape, gawk at barn swallows that have claimed an entire shed as their nesting ground, and watch the sunset. The sky is mostly overcast and rain is predicted tonight, but there’s a sliver of cloudless sky on the horizon and it’s enough to make for a spectacular sunset. In fact, it creates a rainbow in the storm front moving in from behind where we stand and sets the grassland glowing. You’ll have to wait to see it, of course, as I’ll be spending the next few weeks processing the photos. But when I do, they’ll all be here on the website. Plus, let’s be real, I’m sure I’ll share them on social media.
Back at the campground in the dark, we get ready for bed. But first? A game of Oregon Trail. I “die” on the second card played— a whole 4% into the game. Younger Child “dies” on the next card. Husband declares this is stupid and we must start over. We do.
Guess who’s the first player to die? Husband “drowns” 20% into the game. We mourn his loss and I follow him to the grave a little after 80% into the game. As we play, we hear coyotes in the distance. It’s an incredible sound. Both kids make it to Oregon in the game, so we celebrate for them, call it a night, and head to bed. After tonight, we have only one more night in a tent. Then we’re into three nights of hotels before heading back home. I’ll miss camping!
Day 13: 6/14/24 From: San Francisco, CA To: Crater Lake, OR Distance: 417 miles
I’m up at 6:45 and grab a quick shower before waking the rest of the family. We enjoy a hot breakfast and are on the road a little after 8, in time to catch rush hour traffic in the area. Congested, yes, but at least it moves. San Francisco is not LA.
We’re in for a long drive today and the next few as we head back east again. And back to windy mountain roads after the California highways. We travel the highway that wraps around Mt. Shasta and take in the snowy peaks growing ever closer. I’m thankful Husband’s cold is mostly gone, but he’s having issues equilibrating his ears due to lingering congestion, so the ups and downs on this leg of the journey are a bit of an annoyance for him. No one else came down with his cold, and for that, we celebrate.
We exit one highway into a town called Weed, and yes, they play it up here just as you would expect they would. “I love Weed” souvenirs abound. We do not stop to buy any. Shortly after, we cross a lake called Grass Lake that looks far more like a meadow than a lake, which is where it got its name, I’m sure. (And not because it came right after Weed.)
We pass the Butte Valley National Grasslands with the Cascade Mountains as a backdrop and it’s all so breathtaking. The closer we get to Crater Lake National Park, the greener our surroundings. After the golden California hills, the deep pine woods of Oregon are refreshing. Husband stops to check out the gorge where Annie Creek runs…and finds a random dollar in the weeds. Who does this? Husband. Of course.
We reach Crater Lake and quickly notice the piles of snow all through the woods. It’s June 14th and there are large piles of snow in the woods. We check in and head to our adorable cabin at the Mazama Village where Husband immediately collapses facedown into a bed. I DID offer to help with the drive today. He declined. I absolve myself of his exhaustion.
After a short rest break, we’re back in the car and headed to the crater that makes this park so amazing. But the Rim Drive is closed after two stops. Why? There’s so much snowmelt and it freezes on the roads overnight. Yes, you read that correctly. There’s a lot of snow on top of this volcano.
There’s no shortage of views, though. The water at Crater Lake is an insane deep blue, and so calm, it looks almost inviting. But that’s a high dive you wouldn’t want to take now or ever. Even in late summer without recent snowmelt, the water here is cold, the average temperature reaching only 55-60 degrees at the surface.
Husband and Younger Child head up a steep hiking trail for a different view of the lake and the cinder cone inside of it. I stay put since I don’t want to challenge my hip today. I’d say Older Child stays to keep me company, but I think they’re just tired of hikes at this point and need a break to check social media.
Once again, I’m kind of glad for a change in plans. We were supposed to be camping in Farewell Bend campground, but pests and diseases meant they had to take down a lot of trees, so the campground has been closed until next year. I was notified all of two weeks before our trip, but was able to panic book the single remaining cabin at the Mazama Village. (Which is closer to the crater anyway – win!)
It’s supposed to be a low of 29 degrees tonight. It’s 53 now and breezy, but not bad in the sun as I type this from the crater’s rim. 29 degrees in a tent with sleeping bags only rated for 40 degrees? No. No thank you. So this minor inconvenience ended up being a major blessing. We’ll be comfy and cozy in our cabin tonight.
The nice part about arriving with plenty of time and already having seen the bit of the park we’re able to is that we have plenty of time for doing laundry, which is sorely needed at this point. So that’s our next stop. The kids stay in the cabin and we head for laundry. I am quite certain both kids are happy to be free of us for a couple of hours. We’ve been in each other’s faces nonstop for almost two weeks now.
Husband and I are celebrating our 21st anniversary today just the way I like to. (No, not doing laundry.) Low-key adventures like the one we’ve been on are all the gift I’ll ever need. This is the gift. This life we have together. And I mean, he DID find me a ring in Muir Woods yesterday, so…
After the laundry, we hang out in the cabin. The kids draw while I read. Husband is antsy and doesn’t like sitting still, so he decides to go to the park office to ask if we’re allowed to head to the crater rim for night photos. I’m shocked to hear it’s allowed and doesn’t require a special permit! So now we have to decide what ridiculous time we’re going to get up in order to take photos. Because this opportunity won’t come again.
Sigh. We’re insane.
So we set the alarm for 2 am, layer up, and head out into the 34 degree weather to see what we can see. Which…isn’t much. Because the entire cabin village is shrouded in thick, white fog. Maybe it will be clearer at the rim?
Friends, it will not. We take the twenty minute ride to West Rim Drive to find out the fog is so thick, we’re now basically inside of clouds. There will be no Milky Way photos over Crater Lake. Twenty minutes back down and we jump back into pajamas and into bed again.
Along the way, we happened to catch sight of three deer and a raccoon, so I guess it wasn’t totally pointless?
Day 11: 6/12/24 From: Las Vegas, NV To: Sequoia National Park (Potwisha Campground) Distance: 391 miles
We leave Las Vegas by 8:30 and head to Goodsprings, NV to see The Pioneer Saloon. Last time Nate and I were here, we captured a video we weren’t expecting. That video is what made the kids want to come.
We reach the place an hour before they open and almost decide to skip it and just get on the road. But we’re hungry and there’s a new(er) enormous gas station/convenience store/beer distributor/casino with a White Castle where we can get breakfast.
By the time we finish with breakfast and restock our cooler with ice, the saloon is open and we can go back. 6 miles down the road again, we reach The Pioneer Saloon and the kids finally get to see the bullet holes in the wall. We show the bartender the creepy video and she says there’s still lots of recorded paranormal activity in the saloon including the presence of miners. She tells us about how Goodsprings was Vegas before Las Vegas was Vegas. It was the “it” destination. Which we knew since a plane carrying Carole Lombard and some crew members crashed into the mountains and Clark Gable drank at that very bar, hoping to hear better news than that of her death. A recovered piece of the plane is mounted to the dining room wall, but the majority of it remains in the hills, unrecoverable due to the difficult terrain.
But wait, there’s so much more than bullet holes! We didn’t know The Pioneer Saloon was featured in Fallout, and that Easy Pete from the game was inspired by a real person. We get the chance to meet Pete and he tells us all about the saloon, showing us the cool features of the saloon we knew nothing about. The original bar from 1860 is still in use and if you run your hand along the underside of the bar, you’ll feel a large hole where one could stash a gun if one were so inclined.
The parking lot? Well, people find gold there. Easy Pete dumped a few tiny nuggets from a shot glass into Younger Child’s hand, and proclaimed, “A gift, from me to you!” The kids stood in disbelief and thanked him. So we snap a few pictures and thank Pete again for sharing his experiences and knowledge of the saloon with us.
By the way, the 3rd Annual Fallout fest is coming up in November. The first year brought about 3,000 people to the town of 176 people. The second year? 7,000. And the reason they moved it to November? People couldn’t take the heat and were passing out left and right. So anyway, it shouldn’t be 110 degrees if you want to visit in November and Easy Pete will be there to greet you.
We prepare for a long drive through the Mojave National Preserve and onward into California. Joshua trees stand out amongst the scrub and sand, like bizarre sentries from the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. And then we hit full-on “you will die if you try to cross me” desert. It’s 108 degrees and not even noon. The desolation here is intense, the mountainous terrain in the distance mean and angry-looking. The last time we drove through, these mirror solar farms didn’t exist. There’s something very creepy about glowing towers in the middle of the desert.
Most of our drive through California is much the same. But the mountains slowly change to golden hills that look like they’ve been covered in a velvet blanket. When we’re about an hour from Sequoia National Park, the family begins to wonder if I put the correct destination into the GPS. How can we be close to Sequoia when it’s still 104 degrees outside with citrus groves and vineyards on either side of us?
But the directions are correct. Our campground is at the base of the park, before the Giant Forest. After seeing our military park pass, the park ranger at the entrance salutes Husband and thanks him for his service, almost bringing Husband to tears. Once again, we arrive when the sun is directly on our campsite. So instead of setting up in 95 degrees (it’s dropped a little), we opt to take a drive to see General Sherman. It’s 13 miles up the General’s Highway, a windy road that’s almost as bad as Independence Pass in Colorado.
But when we finally start to see the Sequoias, the kids are astonished. They almost don’t believe us when we tell them the trees they’re looking at are small compared to some of the others. So when they finally see General Sherman, their mouths drop. A walk through the Giant Forest gives us all an appreciation for the massive towering trees and how many hundreds to thousands of years they took to reach that size.
Unfortunately, we’ve also finally hit the part of the trip where mosquitoes abound. Meh. Back to the campsite by 8, we set up our tent just in time for dusk to the sound of chirping crickets and distant fellow campers. Remember those cooler temps AccuWeather told me we’d have? Lies. These temps were for the Giant Forest about 4500 ft above where we are. Instead, it’s 88 degrees with zero wind. It’s going to be a long, hot night.
Day 10: 6/11/24 From: Grand Canyon National Park, AZ To: Las Vegas, NV Distance: 272 miles
It worked! Husband sleeping in car and rest of family sleeping in tent resulted in sleep for everyone. Husband has some DayQuil and has been feeling significantly better even before taking it, but now even more so.
We spend a lazy morning making eggs and pancakes and doing dishes before breaking down camp and heading out a little after 9 am. We reach Las Vegas around 2 p.m. and the heat and crowds are both insane. It’s 111 degrees when we pull in, but people are everywhere. Since we have an hour to kill before checking in, we hit up the one place we missed the last time we came to this city. Husband is a happy camper. We get to visit the shop from History Channel’s Pawn Stars. Husband buys a few “souvenirs,” and then we head to the Luxor to check in.
I booked this hotel because I thought the kids would get a kick out of staying in a pyramid. I’m not wrong. They love it. Of course, they love almost everything here. It’s insane. We get to the hotel at 3 and figure we’re perfectly on time, not realizing the check-in process would take almost an hour since the line is so long, it looks like an airport ticket counter. While waiting, we discuss plans for the evening. Since it’s so hot, we scrap the idea of walking the strip, and on a whim, we buy Blue Man tickets while standing in line for check-in.
The Luxor from outsideThe inside view from our floor looking down.The inside view from below, looking to our floor. That tiny light on the 27th floor is Husband waving his cell phone at us.
When we finally get to the rooms, we collapse into beds, nap, take showers, watch tv, and generally exist before heading to the food court for dinner, which is a $50 extra-large pizza that would be $18 at home. Ah, Vegas prices. Finished with dinner, it’s time for the show, which is conveniently in the same hotel. (Why do you think we really booked it? I don’t want to go anywhere today. We’ve done enough.) We get to our seats about 15 minutes early, and are asked almost immediately if we want an upgrade. Free? Yes! Of course, yes! We’re led to seats 4 rows from the front and we marvel at our good luck. What a treat! So glad for the folks who work this show. These seats are incredible.
The show? Even more incredible. The kids were smiling from ear to ear for the entire hour and a half. I swear I’ve never heard such laughter in my life. But Husband and I were doing the same. It’s impossible not to. We always knew the kids would love this show. They haven’t stopped talking about it since we left the theater. The Blue Man Group is the perfect mix of art, music, athleticism, and comedy. So much talent, it’s insane.
Afterwards, we figure we’ll walk the strip for a bit, but it’s still 99 degrees out. The breeze makes it bearable, but not by much. We get about a mile down the road when Younger Child and I call it quits and head back to the hotel so they can text with friends and I can catch up on the blog I haven’t been able to post because we’ve had no reception for days. Older Child and Husband decide they need to ride The Big Apple rollercoaster. That’s a hard pass from me, so an escape to the room is perfect. They come back proclaiming the ride more “intense” than they expected.
We each claim a bed of our own and for one night, everyone enjoys the comfort of a queen-sized bed.
Day 9: 6/10/24 From: Bryce Canyon, UT To: Grand Canyon National Park, AZ Distance: 158 miles
I wake at 5:30, very glad I took my sky photos last night because this morning is all cloud cover. The clouds that have rolled in end up preventing us from seeing sunrise over the hoodoos as we had hoped. We still take a 2 mile hike along the rim regardless, just taking in the scenery. On the way back to our campsite, we spot a raven who decides to have a conversation with us, clacking his beak, cawing, and cooing. Older child caws back. They go on like this for a few minutes in an unexpected interaction that put smiles on all of our faces.
Back to the tent for a nap before we leave Bryce. Later? A short trip to the Grand Canyon. (Short = 3 hours in the car) The naps only last about an hour before we get up and break down camp. And because the sun is now shining (where was it before?!) we take a walk to Sunrise Point again. But Husband wants to visit the lookout point we saw last time we were here, so we head to Sunset Point, where the kids enjoy the same view and become as entranced with the canyon as we are. It takes effort to pull them away and get on the road. How to leave behind those towering orange spires and the ravens that soar among them… it’s oh-so-difficult.
We stop to buy car stickers from a souvenir shop nearby and say hello to the saddled up horses waiting for riders to show up for their trail rides. It takes everything in me not to hop out of the car and pet them.
We make one more stop at a rock shop and an antique place in Orderville, UT before we get into the heavy driving for the day. And we still manage to reach the Grand Canyon by 1 pm because time change. Again. Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings time. Bison greet us shortly after we enter the park. And something we didn’t realize last time (because we’d never seen wild bison before) — these bison are MUCH smaller than the bison in Yellowstone.
We get to our campsite and set up, but since the tent is in direct sun and will be for hours, we head out to the closest lookout point to take in the view, and get a family photo taken by a French-Canadian from Montreal who just finished hiking 400 miles from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon. My aching joints can’t even comprehend that this is possible.
Kids marvel at how wonderful most fellow campers are/have been over the last few days. Everyone leaves their stuff their campsites and trusts that no one will “mess with it.” In fact, along one hike, we end up talking with other hikers at the lookout point and everyone chimes in on their favorite national parks. The kids agree that the kind of person who camps the National Parks is generally a kindred spirit and we relish that we’ve had pleasant conversations with so many people we’ll never meet again, but who kind-of-sort-of make us like humanity again.
After a stop by the local store to pick up lunch and taking much needed showers, we play a game of Oregon Trail, where 2/4 of us make it to the end this time. Then we head to the lookout points at the lodge. We opt to take the Angel Point trail, which is generally paved, but is also a very steep grade downward which is tough on my joints, so I bail about halfway to the end, sit on a rock, and take a selfie. Because why not?
The Grand Canyon is as it ever was — large and impressive, its distance almost incomprehensible. I’ve hiked 5 miles today on mostly dirt trails, something I haven’t done in several years, something I haven’t been *able* to do. I am elated. Exhausted, but elated. Having a dynamic disability makes it difficult to plan ahead. Sure, I planned to stop in all these different locations over the course of three weeks, but I had no idea whether or not I’d be able to full enjoy them the way I wanted to. Even now, I still have no idea what the next two weeks will bring. But I am grateful, so, so grateful right now that I have been able to get out and immerse myself in these oh-so-miraculous places that exist on this planet we call home. 5 miles may not be much for most people, but for me? It’s worth celebrating like it’s 500.
As it gets dark, our family heads back to camp. Sadly, Husband is coming down with a cold. At least I know it wasn’t the same one I had right before we left, so I can avoid feeling guilty. But I still feel bad. Maybe this is the real reason behind the terrible snoring?!? One can hope.
Even if it didn’t stop him from hiking Bryce Canyon this morning and the Grand Canyon this evening. Husband even ventures out with me before bed to take a few night sky photos (See? Even sick, he’s still my hero.) and then it’s time for bed.
Artistic Earth Photography 