Day 27

Our grumpiness was gone this morning as the either the trains were quiet or we were tired enough to sleep through them. The night had still been warm but we didn't notice that either!

We got up early to pack up and get on the road to enjoy or next spot a little bit. It seems we'd been arriving to most of our sites around dinner time or after so we were hoping to be quite a bit earlier today.

Our first stop was in Cascade Locks to see the Bridge of the Gods. This bridge got it's name from a land bridge named by Native Americans near this same spot. I wanted to go see it since it is a part of the Pacific Coast Trail. I'm not sure I'll ever get to backpack this one before I'm too broken! The bridge was also featured in the book and movie "Wild" which is such an inspiration to my outdoor backpacking self.

As we were leaving a farm stand was setting up so we made sure to buy some local produce. As we drove away I was already regretting not buying more. The cherries and peaches were so sweet!

Brayden was armed with the camera this morning as we knew we would be crossing the state line on a bridge and probably unable to stop. Oregon was nice enough to thank us but we never saw a sign welcoming us to Washington! I supposed we'll just have to find one as we leave the state in a week!

After a quick Walmart resupply we made it to our spot just after lunch. Our site was still occupied so we had a nice picnic lunch at Grammie's spot.  By the time we were finished it was time to check in and set up. The kids decided the giant tree that was down in our site was the perfect spot for a few duels while we waited for Grammie to check in.

We headed to the lake soon after to check out the water.  We made a quick detour to a biergarten in the park on the lake to toast our halfway point of this year's journey. Usually alcohol is prohibited in state and national parks but this place had a great little spot to enjoy it!

Next we went in search for the lake rentals. The kids jumped on some paddle boards and I got in a kayak for a tour of the lake.

Never one to pass up a fun dare, Ryan made sure to do some dancing on her paddle board! That girl is fearless!

The lake was pretty small and about 1/3 of it was roped off for swimmers. The sun was warm and the water felt wonderful so we paddled to the opposite side of the lake and back just in time to return our boards. Grammie and Lola relaxed with the locals on the dock watching us.

The kids wanted to swim but we were down to our last sets of clothes so Grammie and I overruled in favor of laundry time. It's definitely not a favorite activity for any of us but a necessary evil.

The kids were excited about dinner this night as it was time to roast veggie hot dogs over the fire. We had a small feast with fruit, beans, and chips and finished it all up with s'mores. We had a trek back to our campsite so once it got dark we headed back to the tent. Only then did I check the time and realized we were up an hour later than normal. It was a good thing Grammie and I agreed on a later start time in the morning!

Day 15

We were up early to begin the first of our coastal drives north. We were going to try to meet up with Chris and kids at several spot to enjoy together. We were packed up and on the road by 8:30am - a record for this trip! My teenagers are really wanting to sleep in these days and I'm not sure how they do it with all the morning light and sounds in the woods!

Our first stop was Pismo Beach. We took some time to watch the surfers and walk through the quaint city to shop a little. The beach was beautiful and wonderfully chilly after our hot days on the road. The Bloomberg kids were aiming for surf shops so we poked in and out of all the shops with them.

Another 30 minutes down the road was Morro Beach. We enjoyed walking through the town and settled on Giovanni's Fish Market for lunch. We were obviously all enjoying this lovely weather as we posed in front of Morro Rock!

Our lunch was fresh, and delicious! We made a plan to try to meet back up for the rest of the drive up to Monterey. The traffic was getting heavy though but we were hopeful!  We bought a few more postcards before hopping back on the road.

Our next stop was Elephant Seal Beach. These guys were absolutely enormous! We loved watching and laughing as they vocalized, fought, and slinked up and down the beach. We were fascinated by how they moved and how content they were to lie in the sun.

According to the signage all these seals were molting males and juveniles. I'm sure some of what we were witnessing was some challenging behavior among the males but it looked mostly tame and playful.

Another behavior we thought was fun to watch was the sand-flipping.  Every few minutes some of the seals would flip sand on themselves with one of their flippers. They were becoming more and more buried as we were standing there. We learned researchers weren't sure what exactly they were doing either! They guess it might cool the seals or provide sunscreen. Some of the seals could flip sand all the way across to their neighbor!

The girls slowly got tired of me saying, "WOW! Look at that you guys!" around just about every turn. There was quite a bit of fog but the views were still spectacular. There were lots of coastal and inland trails of the highway that I will definitely have to return to one day.

We made a point to stop at the Bixby Bridge overlook.  I've always loved bridges - especially driving over them - so I enjoyed this spot for sure.  It stands 260 feet over a canyon and was built for a mere $200,000 in 1932. It's impressive for sure!

After about another hour on the road I was started to get tired so Grammie and I made the executive decision to postpone the famous 17-mile drive and head to our campground. It was another hour drive and we were so glad we did! The last 11 miles of the drive to Fremont Peak were harrowing turns up the mountain that I would have probably chickened out of in the dark.  

The other interesting thing I noticed was the temperature. Whenever we have climbed a mountain I pay special attention to the temperature to watch it drop. On this mountain the temperature only climbed as we climbed. By the time we got to the campground it was 10 degrees warmer than at the bottom. Very strange! As long as we had cool nights we're fine!

Once we found our spot I was amazed at the view we had from our little spot. I usually don't wish time away but I instantly couldn't wait for sunset!

As I cooked dinner I kept sneaking peeks up at the view. Grammie stayed with us until the sun dipped below the clouds then headed back to her site.  We ate dinner watching the colors change and talking about all the views of the day and smiling as all the people drove up to the viewing spot to see our view. That was when we realized we were staying in a park with an officer that had quite a bit of time on his hands! While I understand there are rules in the parks, this guy was relentless!  He came and talked to a couple watching the sunset telling them they either needed to pay the $6 day use fee or leave within 15 minutes. They said they would leave in a few minutes and he went down the road and hid waiting for their time to be up. Sure enough he came back in 15 minutes and told them they needed to leave. The couple seemed familiar with the process and said they were packing up.  I guess I should appreciate that he is patrolling and keeping my view from being packed with people?!

After a visit with Grammie the girls and I retired to our tent to play a few games before bed. I still couldn't get over the beautiful view out our tent windows. I filled up my water bottle for the morning and couldn't resist snapping one more picture!

Day 7

I slept in a little bit this morning as I was up until midnight updating the blog and refreshing my memory about the days ahead.  After organizing the laundry and showering I jumped back on the computer to write notes about the day before while the girls checked their email.  This is a new thing for them on their kindles as usually they are trying to hog my computer instead.

We are at the point where the kids know seeing Grammie is getting close, so at least one of them asks me once a day if not each of them. This morning one of my tasks is to put a countdown for Grammie as well as Dave in the car. The excitement gets even bigger then!

We were camping in the middle of a gap between mountains so I knew it would be awhile before the sun began to bake us, so we cooked breakfast and relaxed a little as we talked about the days ahead.
This guy even joined us for a little while1



We packed up pretty quickly with everyone pitching in. At one point I looked over and someone had even started my sleeping bag.  Well, kinda.

We decided to go by the Mash Creek Falls before we left for a quick look. Brayden claimed he saw a water snake so that ended anything related to within a 10ft radius of the water.

   

I took the opportunity to teach Ryan a little bit about shutter speed since we were at a little waterfall with noone climbing all around. We had some challenges since it was so dark, but I think she did pretty good!

Then we headed up here!  This was a short trail back to the playground so we didn't stay on it long, but it was fun to climb up to the top!

We got on the road headed toward a lower part of the New River (this one flows north) that we'd stayed at the night before. With my fascination with bridges I knew we needed to stop at this place once I saw it was mostly on our way.  After a quick stop for photos for the kids journals in the really cool, small town of Fayetteville, we ended up at New River Gorge learning all about the history of the area.  Like most parks, this area was a booming industrial town but this time mining for coal. Once the resource was depleted, most of the people left and all the companies shut down. They did some logging in the area, but nothing like we'd seen in other parks.

The bridge I was interested in was built to speed what was an hour journey across the gorge to less than a minute. We found out it is the longest single arch span in the world. And it is massive.

            

After taking in the view from up top, we headed toward the steps down to the lower observation area. This year it's been quite a new thing with the kids to spot people playing Pokemon Go. We see people everywhere glued to their phones!

                                                 

This was about as close as we could get to the gorge and the bridge. I'm thinking now it might have been neat to find a way down under the bridge for a picture, but the kids would have probably vetoed that idea. So in Gammie tradition, we started counting our steps back up. This was definitely not a record-setting climb up at only 197 steps back to the top!

The drive ahead of us was about 2 1/2 hours so I tucked the kids back in with movies and snacks, cued up my ipod, and headed for our next destination. There is no easy way to get around all these mountains we're in within the Monongahela National Forest. I'm actually having a problem sometimes staying as fast as the speed limit because of some of the sharp turns and switchbacks. I don't know how all these truckers do it!

We snaked through a bunch of tiny towns and ended up at Seneca Rocks in what had to be the hottest part of the day on the hottest day of the year. Luckily just behind the mountain behind us I could see some dark clouds coming so we set up our tents real quick, ate a quick bowl of cereal, and headed to the visitors center just as the rain was starting. The center was closed already so we headed back to the campsite as the sun was already peeking through the clouds. In the 3 minute drive back the rain stopped and the temperature had dropped 20 degrees.

The kids worked on their trip journals for a little while then we ducked in the tent to read a chapter of our book while another short sprinkling blew by. Once we heard the birds again, Laney and Brayden challenged me and Ryan to a rousing game of campball. With wet grass and only shoes for bases, all the kids were sliding all around going for the ball or reaching for safety. There were tons of laughs and before too long we even had neighbor fans watching. In a stiff upset, we did end up beating them 11-10 in the 5th inning.  This little guy was watching us too.

After finishing the book, we all went to sleep replaying the game in our heads. At one point I think I even heard Brayden and Laney adjusting their strategy in the other tent. I guess we'll see how they do tomorrow!

Day 43

We started packing up pretty early and I headed down to the cooler to check out what we had for breakfast.  Our potatoes from the farmers market were ready to be eaten so we ended up with a big breakfast of cheesy potatoes, eggs, and fruit.  While Dave cooked (so nice!) I jenga-packed the car and we all ate breakfast. We said goodbye to Patricia and got on the road for a few stops before getting to our next park.  Dave and I were both looking forward to some downtime with just us and the kids for a few days.

Way back around day 3 or 4 the kids and I had enjoyed an evening program about the history of the caves.  At one point in the talk, the speaker mentioned some serpent mounds in Ohio. I put it on our list of possible things to do once we were back with Dave if it was not too far out of the way on our travels. After a little research, Dave found it was just a few minutes off our route so we stopped there first.

We stopped into the museum first and the kids loved learning how the people living there used spears and arrows before they created bows.  We even got a chance to throw spears with the atlatls!  Of course Ryan was the natural that beat us all, but it was neat to try for sure.

After watching the movie in the museum, we headed up the tower to view the mound.  We were impressed thinking about how these people designed and constructed this huge serpent. We'd learned archaeologists still didn't know the real reason why the mounds were built as they weren't for burial. They had a bunch of theories though, the most popular being a ceremonial mound.

See just how big they are next to the family?

We walked around the whole serpent taking a breaks to check out the head and the tail before walking back up to check out the store and the burial mounds. We'd learned inside how they had designed the burial mounds as well careful to respect and preserve the people buried.

Our next stop was nearby in Portsmouth at a brewery.  The building was old and beautiful with a huge working brewery inside. We decided on some snacks while Dave and I sampled a few of their beers.  On our way to the mounds, Patricia called us telling us to be sure to check out the murals on the flood walls in Portsmouth so as we were leaving we drove along the river to check them out.  The kids were amazed at the size and detail of each of the paintings!

There was a car behind us so Dave had to drive a little too fast for me to read them all, but we all really enjoyed the murals of the different important events and people of the area. The one of the area churches was really nice with a painting of each one set in what looked like stained glass ending up looking like a 20ft wall of stained glass.  Next we got to drive over a beautiful bridge!

Earlier this winter when talking about this trip, Uncle Terry had suggested we stop by Carter Caves State Park in Kentucky.  We were enjoying caves so much this trip!  We headed that way and were set up in no time.  We were lucky enough to be there during Pioneer Week with tons of schedule activities throughout the days we would be there.  The difficult part would be choosing between all of them and a tour of the caves!

Once we were set up, the kids hopped on their scooters and sped off to the playground nearby. Dave and I settled in at our site to have a beer and talk about the next day.  Unfortunately during our stay the kids caving tour wouldn't be offered so we would have to settle for a regular cave tour for all of us.







When the kids came back we cooked a quick dinner and opened a much anticipated surprise from one of the kids' friends Kyndall.  She had expertly wrapped a package to be opened on the road as a surprise for the kids and today was the day!   We love sushi, but candy sushi is a definite hit with this family!

 After everyone was sugared up we drove to the lodge for the night program.

It all our travels we'd learned a lot of history of each of the areas and this one was no different.  This program was about George Rogers Clark, a man responsible for some very strategic wins in the Revolutionary War. He was also the much older brother of the much more famous explorer William Clark. The benches were exceptionally uncomfortable, but the program was interesting and the kids seemed to enjoy the story. It was obvious the history of this man and time were a study this man was passionate about. After the program he answered some questions and delved into even more of the history.

We made it back to our site just in time for a little reading but were foiled by Brayden who'd lost his mouthpiece.  We spent our time looking for it but to no avail. The kids went to sleep and Dave and I laid thinking about all the possible places it could be.

Quote of the Day: Dave to the gift store lady, "What's with the quilt squares on the barns in Kentucky?"  Turns out there can be a reason other than decoration which was my answer! Many people add them to their barns in remembrance of someone.  Neat!