Day 45

I woke up chilly this morning because we had the windows open for Brayden to have some fresh air. I noticed the quilt he had when he went to sleep was in between us so I recovered him and went into the car to write. I was hoping to get caught up on blog posts to not have to write to much the last few days before Dave leaves.

Dave looked like he wanted to get things going to leave but I climbed into the tent with the girls and told him we wouldn't be able to check in early at the hotel anyway so we stayed in the tent with them to chat for a little while. These days these conversations with them are few an far between with our schedules and their varied interests.

The kids had been looking forward to this next spot since I mentioned it in April. I was struggling with getting us across Death Valley without a 10 hour drive. There was no way I was going to camp there! So we ended up booking a hotel in Barstow for a night. Forget all the work I do daily for these guys on the trip, they just want to swim in a pool, sleep in a bed and gorge on free breakfast!

Brayden was smiling when he woke up and was hungry so that was a good sign. Before too long we were taking the 10mph hairpin turns south out of Sequoia National Park. Our first stop was Amphitheater Point - one of the CCC construction project. This spot had a lovely view of Morro Rock that we'd just climbed the day before. It looked quite a bit bigger from down here!

Next we stopped at Hospital Rock - a picnic area the CCC constructed but also a sacred place to the Potwisha as well as Native Americans before them. Here there were pictographs above the rock where the Potwisha had healed many people including several settlers in the area. There was also an area labled the "Community Kitchen" where Native Americans would grind acorns into meal to be used in different kinds of food. We'd seen this on several trails in California.

The girls were excited about seeing our next stop - Tunnel Rock. In the early days of the park people could drive under this rock. Today the road has been diverted around the rock but the girls still wanted to climb on top!

And of course no visit to a national park is complete without the photo at the entrance. We'd missed the small sign on our way in so we opted to stop for the way more interesting sign at the southern entrance!

Once we arrived at the hotel all the girls wanted to do was to see Lola and Grammie. We learned about their drive, Lola's refusal to pee in the southwest grassless islands, and her fear of elevators.  Poor Lola!

Dave was the first to shower and the kids washed their disgusting feet before putting on their swimsuits and heading to the pool. I put in a quick load of laundry in hopes it would be the last of our trip and took a much needed shower. I also plugged in all the things that needed reviving and prepped things for our early exit in the morning.

We had a Chili's about 50 feet from our front lobby so we opted for a quick dinner there instead of pizza. They don't have too much there for vegetarians but we found a few things to share and had our fill of chips and salsa.

The front desk upgraded us at check-in to a room that had a sofa bed so we were all able to claim bed space for the night. By the time I checked our route for the morning everyone was asleep so I decided to join them!