LWOW Outtakes: The good, the bad, and the ugly

HEY!  It's been a while.  For some reason, when I got back to my real life and didn't have 36 hours of sitting in the car with nothing else to do, my blog was put on the back burner and the posting just stopped. 

My deepest apologies...

Anyhow, I wanted to do a wrap up post or seven to keep the LWOW spirit alive, so here goes.

Today's post is going to showcase a few pictures and experiences we had that will demonstrate the lesser qualities of an 18 day 6,000 mile road trip.  I know, I know what you're thinking:  what could she be talking about?  What could possibly have gone wrong on an 18 day 6,000 mile road trip?  You mean something that was less than ideal happened? 

Um, yeah.

SO....here goes:



Tent sleeping at its finest.  Sometimes you wake up and realize something (someone?) has come between you and your spouse. 

This indecipherable picture is actually an interior shot of our van, taken from the front seat.  This is what it looked like ALL THE TIME.  Even when it was cleaned up, it still looked like this. (In fact, this WAS cleaned up). We had too much stuff and too little space.  I honestly think the worst part of the trip (aside from the long driving stretches) was unpacking our van so many times.  We had 8 different sleeping locations and each time, we had to unpack everything (except the tent and sleeping bags at 2 of the places) every time. 



Yeah, the visor is broken. And it dangles. 

FILTHY.  all the time. 

Car sleep is pretty much the worst sleep you can imagine.  This was taken somewhere in Kansas in the middle of night #1.  Will woke up around 4:45 that morning and was up for good that day.  WHEW.  I still have a little PTSD from that.

 

A long and lonely stretch of road where I had a mild panic attack.  Or hyperventilated.  Or something.  This was somewhere between Yosemite and Las Vegas and we would travel 90-100 miles before we'd pass another car or house or sign of life.

So, sometimes, when you're busy looking up directions or making sandwiches in the front seat, your youngest child might get hold of a bottle of sunscreen and liberally apply 50SPF to his entire body.  He was mighty slippery that day.

I may or may not have heard this elk say "MINE" when we tried to get into our tent one night.  He ate/slept/played near our humble abode and scared the heck out of our kids...so much so that they refused to get out of our van until it was too dark to see him anymore and I convinced them that he had left.....  
"what's that rustling sound outside, mom?" 
"Oh nothing. go to sleep."

Will was one weary dude. This was while we were waiting on the subway in Hollywood.  His 4:45 am wakeup a week prior (along with his multiple hikes in the Grand Canyon, swim in the Colorado River, and 9 hours of swimming on the 4th of  July) finally caught up with him.  Grumpy McGrumperson. 

No campfires were allowed at most of the places we camped.  And I thought that was the whole point of camping!  S'mores via Charcoal grill are just about as bad as you imagine they would be.

I know you think camping on the beach at the Pacific Ocean sounds amazing, but what you aren't picturing is that all that sand on said beach?  It will find its way into your tent and sleeping bag.  Mark my words.  That was one exfoliating night of sleep, let me tell you.  This little foot shower helped, but not much.

Shirtless in San Francisco.  (and all across America, actually.  I could do a whole post on Will's shirtlessness.)

These elephant seals are not good or bad--just ugly.

San Francisco traffic on our way to catch the ferry for Alcatraz. We almost missed the boat.

Sometimes, people will refuse to scale the side of a mountain.  Not naming any names, but you take a guess....  These were taken in Vail and there was significant weeping and gnashing of teeth on the way to the top.

We gave Roadside Dining a whole new meaning.  We literally did a lot of Roadside Dining.  If that red cooler could talk.....  This was somewhere outside of Las Vegas and we were on our way home and desperately trying to use up the food we had and avoid spending much more money.  By this point, we were all about to die because we were at risk of choking on flat meat and smashed sandwich bread we'd bought in California 5 days prior.



I'll wrap this post up by saying that in spite of all these good, bad, and ugly experiences, it's no small wonder that I didn't have to heed this message on the Golden Gate Bridge. 
CRISIS COUNSELING
THERE IS HOPE
MAKE THE CALL
The consequences of jumping off this bridge are fatal and tragic.

Ask me Anything! LWOW Edition. Volume 3

What was your favorite karaoke song?

Karaoke Night was SO much fun.  I have got to find a place like that near Nashville….We sang a lot of songs and some of that night is a little, um, fuzzy in my memory now….but if I had to pick a favorite, it would be “Making Love Out of Nothing At All” by the very talented Air Supply.  Maggie and I sang the main parts and Olivia backed us up with her stellar BGVs.  We tried to establish parts (you sing melody, I got harmony) but that was a little difficult to manage with such a complex piece of music, so we just sang our hearts out and didn’t pay any attention to the pesky details like getting the lyrics right or staying on key.  Music comes from the heart, right?  

Top 5 Saved by the Bell episodes

This question seems a little random, but it makes perfect sense to me.  I have a particular fondness for Zack, Slater, Jessie, Kelly, Screech and Lisa and when we were on the Hollywood trolley tour, we passed the studio where SBTB was filmed.  I sent the following text/picture to my brother David and we had a funny conversation about it:

The studio where Saved by the Bell was recorded

 

My top 5 favorite SBTB episodes:

1.       Jessie’s dad’s wedding in Palm Springs

2.      The Hot Sundaes (“I’m so excited!  I’m so excited!  I’m so….scared.”)

3.      Senior Skip Day

4.      Prom:  When Zack and Kelly break up while Jessie sings “How am I supposed to live without you” in the background.  Jeff (the manager at the Max) stole Kelly from Zack.  Heartbreaking.

5.      The Casey Kasem dance contest episode

 

If you could have taken any famous person with you—who?  Why?

Clark Griswold.  Because he paved the way for us to do this trip.  The other person we would've taken is Elias R., Will's best friend from Nashville.  Because when he's around, Will doesn't scream or yell or cry or demand constant attention from us. 

 

Is there something you didn’t do or see that you wish you had?

We never made it to the beach in Southern California.  We had plans to go to Santa Monica, but on beach day, we decided that the effort it would take to pack up and get there (it was a day we were moving from Pasadena to Long Beach) was too much and we wanted to spend our energy visiting with our friends instead.  I am glad we did that (we were exhausted at this point in the trip), but I do wish we’d had an extra day to be able to do that.  I also wish we had more time at Yosemite.  It is such a beautiful and large park and 5 hours didn’t really give us time to experience it well. 

 

What was the best meal you had on your trip?  Worst meal?

Best meal:  On the 4^th of July, we had really good food.  We spent the day at the pool and at our friends’ club, they have grills, so Chris cooked steak and chicken.  We had great snacks all day and dessert was berries with fresh whipped cream.  That was all very tasty.  The sushi restaurant night (Takami) was good food, too! 

Worst meal:  turkey sandwiches.  We had sandwiches again, and again and again and again and even after all that, we had another turkey sandwich again.  A little while later, we had some more turkey sandwiches and then right before that, it was turkey sandwiches.  Anybody hungry?  You can have a turkey sandwich.  I knew we were going to be sick of sandwiches by the end of the trip, but I had underestimated how sick of sandwiches we would be.  I think if I offered deli meat to my kids right now, they would stage a coup and attempt to smother me, one piece of turkey at a time. 

Roadside dining.  Sandwich anyone?

Ask Me Anything! LWOW Edition, Volume 2

Least Favorite Moment:

Aside from the 2200 mile drive home (that’s a given!), I would say it would be the night we camped at Pismo Beach with The Cackler.  Besides the loud talking and laughing going on until 1:15 in the morning (we were miserable!!!  Not sure why we waited so long to say something), the campground itself was pretty gross.  While it was on the beautiful Pacific Ocean, the bathrooms were so gross that we decided we would be dirtier if we HAD showered in those than if we had just stayed in our own personal dirt.  I showed up at the restrooms early in the morning and was delighted to see the cleaning crew there.  I asked them which ones had already been cleaned so I would stay out of their way and she told me the first one.  I walked in.  I walked back out because I was sure I had gone in the wrong one.  I confirmed with the cleaner that I was indeed in the “clean” one—and YEP!  She said I was.  And YEP! It was nasty.  Also—that night was our only night we set up camp in the evening and tore camp down the next morning. It is so much work to get the camp set up/torn down that we tried to avoid ever having to do that after only one night, but this night it couldn’t be avoided (not that I wanted to stay there any longer!)

Back to the long drive home for a minute, though-- I had a terrible, panic-striken moment after we left Yosemite on Thursday afternoon and started the drive home.  It was probably my lowest moment on the trip (there were a few low moments for me, but this one stands out the most.)  We left Yosemite at 2:30 in the afternoon and it was going to take us 7 hours to get to Las Vegas.  The road out of Yosemite until we hit Highway 95 took us about 4 hours to travel and it was the most desolate and isolated stretch of road I have ever ever ever been on.  We would travel over an hour before we'd see a sign of life (either a single house or another car).  There was NOTHING as far as the eye could see and I started to feel like I was going to suffocate.  It made me so nervous to think of what would happen if we were stranded or had car trouble (there was no cell service during this stretch).  Also--I am perhaps the most extroverted extrovert you've ever met and to go all this way without seeing anything just made me feel like I was going to die.  Literally!  Michael looked at me and asked how I was and I burst into tears and said I couldn't handle it anymore.  The isolated roads, along with the fact that I couldn't wrap my mind around how long the trip home was going to take us (DAYS!) just made me lose it.  Once we got to Highway 95 and started to see Vegas' lights in the distance, I was fully recovered.

 

Funniest Thing the Kids Said: 

Will’s Junior Ranger speech (“I can take care of ALL of you!  I will be Maddy’s bodyguard!  I AM a Junior Ranger!” was pretty good.  Also, one night we were getting to our campsite around 10:30 at night and he looked at the clock and said, “10:30?!?  That’s 12:30 in Nashville. WHAT AM I DOING???”

 

Another random funny thing (if you know our 12 year old John and his addiction to sports trivia and useless information pertaining to all things athletic/sporty) was when we were driving through Nowhere, Texas yesterday afternoon and stopped in a town called Shamrock to eat our picnic lunch.  He suddenly piped up and said, "Oh! I know all about Shamrock, TX!  This is the town that Notre Dame University sued because they had stolen their Fighting Irish logo.  Notre Dame won and the school had to change their logo.  See?  They have changed it on their football field, but the baseball field hasn't been changed yet.  They have different logos on those two fields."  We rolled our eyes, thinking, "whatever....you can't possibly have heard of Shamrock, TX." But sure enough....as we drove through Shamrock, the little fighting Irish logo was plastered all over the town (and calling this a town is a stretch...it was tiny.)  So, he was right.

 

What’s your dream for your next family adventure?

My dream for the next family adventure is going to involve everybody sleeping in their own beds in their own rooms tonight.  Beyond that……well, we’ve kind of been ruined now.  It’s going to be hard to find a lot of excitement in a trip to Gatlinburg or Destin now.  I think eventually, we will do an urban city tour: Washington DC/Philadelphia/NY/Boston sort of trip.   Michael has always wanted to go sailing in the Caribbean (that might be an empty nest thing, though). 

 

What was the most unexpected part of this trip?

The most unexpected thing for me was watching my children go from being brothers/sister to being friends.  When they had nothing and no one else to entertain and distract them and all they had was each other, the relationships between them thrived!  They made up the silliest games and songs and have their own inside jokes with each other now and I just did not see that coming!  It was such a blessing to see this unfold NOW.  At home, they all have their own rooms, we have a few TVs and a neighborhood full of friends for them to retreat to when they don’t get along.  On LWOW, however, all that was stripped away and we were all involuntarily drafted for the “Become a Better Family Member Boot Camp” which was super challenging, but so rewarding and worthwhile. 

Waiting for the shuttle at the Grand Canyon

Give these two a deck of cards and they are set

Ask Me Anything! LWOW Edition, Volume 1

My brother David had a fabulous idea to help me pass the time on the LONG trip home--to have people ask me questions they've been wondering about regarding our trip!  So, I posted the question to my friends on Facebook and the questions started pouring in.  I'll do my best....but there were so many questions, I'm going to have to break it up into a few posts.

Q.  How did you avoid contracting the Hanta virus in Yosemite?  
A.  Well, we were only there for about 5 hours and during those 5 hours, we made a point of not feeding the rodents.  It was difficult to refrain (especially considering our penchant for feeding the Rocky Mountain chipmunks!), but we knew we didn't want to bring Hanta home as a souvenir, so we refrained.

Q.  What did you do with the Quest (our van) in terms of maintenance to get ready?  
A.  Well, as you may remember, our minivan had nearly 152,000 miles on it before we started the trip.  However, it's a Nissan, which is supposed to run forever (which works against you when you're ready for some new wheels), so we felt like it was LWOW worthy.  We replaced the coolant and transmission fluid before we left.  About halfway through our trip, we decided we needed new tires and got an oil change in Pasadena, CA.

Q.  Would you ever do this trip again?  
A.  NO.  YES.  I don't know.   It's still too fresh....and I'm typing this after sitting on my butt in the same seat in my car for over 24 hours and I'm STILL only in Oklahoma, so I'm a little scarred from this part of the trip.  That said, if you have never done this trip, then YES--you owe it to your country to help us bring back the Great American Family Roadtrip.  It was truly a once in a lifetime experience.  Key word:  ONCE in a lifetime.  So, I guess the answer is....I wouldn't do this exact trip again, but perhaps another one another time???  We didn't hit Yellowstone or Mount Rushmore or the Grand Tetons, so there's still plenty of 'Merica to explore. To be continued....

Q.  Have you found you packed well?  Had the stuff you needed?  Didn't bring stuff you didn't need?
A.  We packed REALLY REALLY well.  If you'll recall, I posted this master packing list a few weeks before we left and we adhered to it pretty tight.  I honestly don't remember ever having to make a walmart run to buy something we forgot EXCEPT a little broom/dust pan to sweep the dirt and dust out of our tent.  If anything, I brought too many "cute" clothes, but mainly because I wanted to look like a star in Hollywood and wasn't quite sure what I would want to wear.  ;)  The kids were running low on clothes by the time we got to California, but I was able to do laundry in Pasadena and Long Beach, so we got by.

Q. Favorite Memory
A.  This is a tough one!  I almost have a favorite memory in each spot we visited....but if I HAD to pick just one favorite memory from the entire 17 day trip, I would say it was the 2nd hike we did down into the Grand Canyon as the sun was starting to set.  It was almost eerily quiet and we were all by ourselves--only 3 other people on the entire trail.  As we walked, the kids asked questions about our lives before they were born, and about our families and what it was like for us growing up.  As we patiently answered each question, I suddenly had this "aha!" moment when I realized that THIS was the point of the whole trip.  To get the children away from the screens, friends, sports, social obligations, and their separate bedrooms and get the parents (us!) away from our chores, work, friends, errands, and social obligations in order to simply BE TOGETHER.  I found I was so much more patient and willing to take time to answer their questions and engage in conversation with them when I wasn't constantly worried about getting to the next place on time.  It was lovely.

Yosemite

Today was our final day to have fun on LWOW. We spent yesterday traveling from the San Francisco area to our cabin (koa kamping kabin) outside of Yosemite National Park. We took our time packing up (for the last time!!) and then walked over to the Pacific Ocean one last time. It was a very special time. The kids ran around the beach chasing each other and running away from the waves, and Michael and I got to watch them from a distance and reflect on all that we had done. 

WE DID LWOW. Ba bam! The trip was no longer an idea or a notion....but an actual thing that we did. 

LWOW: we came. We saw. We conquered.  I got very emotional about the end of our time on the Pacific Coast and what leaving the beach meant that morning as we turned toward the east and started home. 

This was the picture from our final morning of camping. We camped at 4 different tent sites, slept in 2 different cabins, slept in our car 2 nights, friends houses for 4 nights and will have 1 hotel room on the way home.  I will not miss, in any way, packing up our campsite. It is a lot of work. The first time, it took us over 2 hours. By the final morning at campsite number 4, we had it down to just under 1.5 hours. 

At our cabin near Yosemite, we cooked s'mores on the charcoal grill because no campfires were allowed here. Not the tastiest s'mores I've ever had, that's for sure! 

Thursday morning we packed up our cabin and drove 30 minutes into Yosemite. I had been indoctrinated by everyone (every.one.) I had ever met in my life (who had already been to Yosemite) that it would be the most (the most!) majestic and amazing place I could ever hope to go. 

And you know what? They were pretty much right. It is an amazing place. It is majestic. But I was so tired (we all were) and we had such a limited amount of time to be there that I could not find it within myself to get fired up about Yosemite in a proper way. Perhaps if we had been to Yosemite at the beginning of our trip, I could've fallen in love with it like everyone else. 

The two main attractions are Half Dome (8,000+ foot tall sheer rock/granite faced mountain/cliff thing) and El Capitan (another tall rocky thing.). They were spectacular. We drove to the top of one of the lookouts (glacier point) and got a great view of the whole shebang, took some pictures, then drove back down to the valley to check out a few waterfalls and the visitor center. 

And then? It was officially time to go. Wah wahhhhhhh....

The trip home is a beast in its own right--we have approximately 2,200 miles to go. We are currently 1/3 of the way through with that (I'm writing this in the middle of the night) and hope to be home sleeping in our own beds by Saturday night!!

Headin' out to San Francisco

Let me start off by saying that during and throughout the course of LWOW, we have hiked multiple trails.  We’ve hiked the Rocky Mountains.  We’ve hiked the Grand Canyon.  We hiked through the desert.  Miles upon miles upon miles, we have hiked.

But never, in all of LWOW, have my legs been as sore as they are after walking around San Francisco yesterday!  The hills, oh my, the hills!  But, I’m getting ahead of myself….

ALCATRAZ

Backing up to yesterday morning, we woke up early and left at 9:00 am in order to make boarding for our 11:00 am Alcatraz ferry.  According to the maps, it should have taken us just over an hour to get there from our camp.  HOWEVER…. We hit horrible traffic on our way into town (which we thought we had allotted time for) and it seems that everybody in the Bay area was trying to get to Pier 33 at the same time we were.  I sent an SOS “please pray!” text to my family because it appeared that we weren’t going to be able to make our ferry which would’ve TOTALLY stunk because this ferry books up a few weeks in advance.  So, yes, while there are ferries leaving every 30 minutes from Pier 33, our tickets would only have worked at 11:00 am.  There was a sign at the ticket booth saying that the next available ferry tickets were not until July 31.  And these were pricey tickets (about $30/each), let me tell you, so missing out wasn’t really an option! 

You could feel the stress in the van as we snapped at the kids to “be quiet!” so we could read the maps and re-route ourselves a different back-street sort of way.  It was 10:45 when we finally made it to the pier, but then we needed to park and then run (RUN!) to the ferry.  Technically, we were supposed to “check in” by 10:30 to confirm that we showed up, but we had pre-printed our tickets and were hopeful that if we just got in the boarding line, they would let us on. 

At 10:50 we found a “public parking” garage and opted to do Valet Parking since we didn’t have time to mess with driving up 8 levels of parking behind the slowest driver in California who we’d been following for a few blocks.  I was sick to my stomach to think of what Valet was going to cost us for a full day in SF…..but that was our best option at that point.

10:53:  the 5 of us sprinted out of the garage and ran harem-skarem, jay-walking (jay-running, is more like it) across about 6 lanes of downtown San Fran traffic and barely, just BARELY made it to boarding! 

Check out the clock!  We cut it so close

On the boat, we discovered how windy and cold it is on the bay. The ferry ride took about 15 minutes and then we disembarked and started our tour of Alcatraz. We had to walk all the way up to the top of the rock (equivalent to climbing 12 flights of stairs, they say), so it was a bit strenuous, but we are seasoned hikers! 

As far as the tour goes:  It was pretty cool!  We first watched a video made by the History Channel with stories from Alcatraz to get our bearings before taking the Cell House tour.  We each got our own set of headphones and used those to navigate our way through the cells.  There were a few points in the tour when Maddy got  a little creeped out (some violent stories about riots or escape plans, for instance), but overall, we really enjoyed it and even Will was able to follow along and stayed very engaged.  That took about an hour, start to finish.  I am glad we did the Alcatraz tour!

These signs cracked me up!  I need a few of these for my house.  I think the same rules apply. 

DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO

After we left Alcatraz, we had plans to meet our Nashville friends (they were out here visiting family), Kara & Luke and their little girls at Pier 39 (basically, an outdoor mall/shopping/retail/touristy area.)  We explored that area before beginning our trek toward Fisherman’s Wharf, Ghiradelli Square, and in search of a trolley ride.   When we finally got to the area to purchase the trolley ride tickets, there was a very long line of people waiting to get on.  The 45 minute line, coupled with the realization it was going to cost our family $60 to ride the trolley for an hour (round trip was $12/person), made it an easy decision to skip that one.  We felt a little odd, coming to SF and NOT riding a trolley, but decided to put our money where our mouth was and head up to Ghiradelli Square to spend $8 on a caramel Sundae $9 on a milkshake instead!  PRIORITIES, People!!!  I think *that* was money well spent.

Now is where it gets really interesting as far as all the walking goes: 

Michael and Luke really wanted to see Lombard Street—a very windy, extremely curvy road that is apparently rather famous (I’d never heard of it, but hey—I’m just a small town girl).  On the map, it appeared that Lombard was only (only!  Famous last words!) 4 city blocks from where we were enjoying our Ghiradelli treats, so we decided to try it out.  What we didn’t quite realize, entirely, was that these 4 city blocks?  Well, they were straight up hill.  STRAIGHT up hill.  The elevation climb was undoubtedly similar to one of our more intense Rocky mountain hikes.  The award for “Best Lombard Street Climber” goes to Kara who conquered San Francisco while 6 months pregnant and wearing flip flops!!!  No one else is allowed to complain….

Maddy standing in front of Lombard Street

After that we headed to our cars and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge.  Our family got out and walked out onto the bridge a little ways.  I don’t think I’d do that again.  Cars are zooming past you and it’s so windy and cold….I had a hard time enjoying the uniqueness of it because it was so dang loud and unpleasant. But at least now I can say we did it!

MUIR WOODS

Last, but not least, we decided to drive about 20 miles north of SF to Muir Woods, home of the giant redwood trees.  Unfortunately, we got separated from Luke & Kara and of course, we lost total cell reception, so we were bummed thinking we wouldn’t be able to see them again.  Our family went ahead and did a 2 mile hike through the woods  and were quite amazed at the size of these suckers! 

Happy Endings:  When we came out of our hike at Muir Woods, Luke & Kara and just shown up in the parking lot and we were able to do a picnic dinner with them before parting ways.  It was the perfect end to a really perfect day!

P.S. another perfect ending to the day? Our valet parking merely a block or two from Pier 43 only cost us $18!!!! We got in with an early bird special for the day. We were so blessed! 

Highway 1 and Santa Cruz

I'm 2 days behind on my blogging. I'm going to try to catch up a little bit tonight but I am so tired I probably won't do much. Rest assured. We have a very long drive ahead of us in just a few days, looming in the near distance and I am going to have plenty of time to catch up on all the blogging then!

Yesterday morning we woke up after a pretty short night in Pismo Beach California. We had to contend with someone that I now referred to as "The Cackler" and all her cronies. The Cackler is someone who likes to tell stories (so funny! So funny!) late (LATE!) into the night right next to your tent.  Around 1:15 a.m., Michael went over to their group and said, "we can hear everything you're saying and cannot go to sleep." Ugh!!!  Thankfully they were cordial and quit talking and cackling after that.

We started the drive up Highway one again. We got to the point that you typically think of with highway one where you have all the hairpin turns and you are right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean.   If I can be perfectly honest, that drive wore me out. By the end of the day I felt like I had been beat to death by highway one!  The first few hours of it were majestic.... Then I just got grumpy about it all.  It wasn't my finest moment....

We ended up in Monterey and the 17 mile Drive where Pebble Beach golf course is. It was beautiful but so cold! I cannot even believe this is what July feels like in CA. It was a very windy 60 degrees on the ocean. 

The last place we went that night with the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. When Michael was in college, he worked there one summer as the operator of the Cave Train.  It was a funny experience for him to go back over 20 years later with our kids.

We left the boardwalk around 9:00 PM. We stopped at Marianne's to get some ice cream (which was amazing!) and then drove to our new campsite and arrived at 10:00 PM. I do not recommend arriving at your campsite when it is pitch black and you have to set your tent up in the dark.... I'm sure our neighbors were not very excited about that either. Too bad it wasn't "The Cackler" because then I would not have felt bad about it! :) 

On a positive note however our campsite at Coastanoa is really, really beautiful. The bathrooms are as nice and clean and updated as a nice hotel!  The fact that we had not showered in over 48 hours (true story!) probably made the bathrooms feel just that much more special..... 

Today was San Francisco. Tomorrow we head to Yosemite and then we start the drive home....