We left beautiful Montana, took a 3 hour scenic route on over to Athol, Idaho as a stop over before heading 10 hours to Bend, OR. Our friends, the Gribbs are on a similar trip but just in reverse order and it worked out that they are staying at the home of some family in Athol. They invited us to stay for the night.
The house was awesome! It sits on 2 acres with 10 acres of conservancy behind them. They basically own the mountain behind and the kids stayed up till about 10 hiking on their own through the trees. This was a dream home for little C!
Before we left in the morning, C took me on a little hike, showed me the look out way up in the tree, where the wild turkeys are and where they shoot. He was in heaven! He was sad to leave and watch his friends head off back into the woods.
Good by Idaho...
Hello Washington...
And Oregon. Crossing the Columbia. It was NOT at all what I expected! We drove up to the Columbia about 6 years ago when we were in Sea Side, Oregon. The East side looks like a desert.
After a LONG 9 hours of driving, we stopped for dinner at a rest stop. It was a nice and quiet stop, we got out to take a little walk through the desert and watch the sunset.
The fires make the air awful, but they sure make for an awesome sunset.
After a stop over night an hour away from our camp ground, the truck stalling on the road and a good breakfast at IHOP, we made it to our campground.
It's actually what we call glamping. They had a hot dog and hamburger pot luck with live music, we just bring a side to share. The kids loved all the choices of desert!
You can see our campground back there behind the tennis court.
We were actually playing pickle ball, I think little C's new favorite game.
Lacey prefers to take pictures. You can always tell when she takes the pictures, her fingers are in the background.
From all this go, go, go, the kids have been pooped out! This picture was taken with the flash so bright and they didn't budge.
Before we set off on our vacation, I had all these ideals for what the month would be like. I thought we were all going to be able to read so many books, I thought I would be so patient with the kids I could nip the problems in the butt, like back talk and asking the same question over and over again after I give my answer. I'd actually not yell and talk lovingly all the time. I had so many activities for the car including their road trip journal (that got filled out almost one full time.) Yep, my kids were going to come home with great behavior, extra smart and I'd come home a very patient mom. Haha!
Now for reality. When you go away for 5 weeks, it's just living on the road with a lot of cool places to see. Nothing really stops and all the same problems happen at home and where you are, kids still misbehave. So far, I am a little more patient. When the kids ask for something in the store, I just say, "Ask daddy, he has the money." That helps with my patience. But I still snap, I still get tired and burnt out even with Craig's help. (Not as much though.) We have been so busy with so much to see that we haven't done any of the journals or writing I wanted the kids to do and little C has barley read his books. We've listened to a lot of audio books, but not reading ourselves. At home, the pool filter broke and the pool isn't staying clean, (thanks to Kaci for running to our rescue with the pool and saving our plants!), the spa drained of all it's water, the car stalled on the road (luckily we got it running again and got the oil and fuel filter changed), our friend at the cabin spent 1/2 the day in the ER and then had to go back and my kids are over tired most the time and the list actually goes on. My ideals were good intentions and now that our trip is almost over, I'm a little sad that we are going so fast. Today was a beautiful rainy day in Oregon and we did a lot of relaxing.
I had to share some of the normal stuff because I hate when I read blogs or look at fb and everybody seems to have perfect lives. We are so blessed to be on this trip and we will remember it forever! We are so blessed to have people at home that can help, Craig's parents at the office and my good friend Kaci at our house.
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