ADFASJF

Writing this post from a hotel room in Penelton Oregon. The room is almost completely dark other then light cast by the screen of my laptop running at 25% screen brightness. To my passenger side I hear Maddex and his slight barking couch, which is improving. Accompanied by Mila moving around making little girl squeaking sounds. In front of me across the room in the dark I hear the house of momma eating apples. To my driver’s side I hear Khaleesi making little baby noises. Five more minutes and the room should be filled with sounds of them snoring. Took a break to eat in the dark and email Jer Jer – I was wrong about the snoring. Five minutes later and both girls are crying, and Maddex is squirming.

Hopefully today will be our latest drive day. We’ve learned through trial and error and experience and research and through speaking with our space alien over seers and the voices in my head that road trip bed time works best for our children if we are checking into a hotel room before 1900. That way we can fit in a regular calm down routine. Vs. today where they slept in the car a bit then we woke them up after bed time to transfer to a hotel bed at 10 pm, and tossed the rituals out the window.

20 minutes later and momma is snuggling with the kids calming them down, and I moved to the lobby to cut down on the light in the room. Lobby has much nicer soft leather chairs and it is not totally dark minus my screen so better on the eyes. 20 more minutes later and I am proof reading thinking about heading to the lobby. My eyes are heavy now.

Actual trip – OK I lied a bit of a ramble

Our plan Is to visit Mount Saint Helens, Michelle’s sister and family in Idaho for a few days’ mid-week, hit Vegas, Big Bear, LA, San Marco, San Diego, Carlsbad, LA again, then home, and back to real life. Today went mostly as planned, minus a few things. Instead of picking both kids up from school we kept Maddex home and picked Mila up from school and started the trip. Maddex was up most of the night with a croup like cough. Figured we’d keep him home from school due to illness to rest and not infect more innocent chemical biological weapons called his classmates. Also figured sitting upright in a car relaxing broken up with stops where he could breathe nice cold mountain air would be better for him then staying in the house laying down all day watching MythBusters plotting and scheming how to blow things up..

Interruption / stream of consciousness — Trenton just texted me night – and I replied with what could be considered an odd text?:

Trenton | night yo
Me | Night kid, umm the stethoscope is not a kinky thing don’t get any ideas. I used it on Maddex last night when he came into our room with his croup cough and said he could not breath. Listened to his lungs to make sure they were not full of gunk.
Trenton | figured it was something like that
Me | glad we <queue CSI Miami music> put that on to bed

Unlimited gold level safety feeling for me knowing there is someone in the house while we are gone on vacation. We’ve been robbed way too many times in past lives to not be a little paranoid. There is a reason we have grade 80 chain wrapped around the drive way gate, 12″ thick concrete walls for the house, and cameras all over the property. Ok maybe two or three reasons I’m a bit eccentric and Michelle lets me get away with it so we live in a bunker, and we don’t want no one to rob us ever again.

All that, house sitter and living in a bunker, and before we left I walked the house with a video camera and filmed everything we owned. Then did the same thing with a still camera. All video and pictures have been uploaded to the Cloud ™ for offsite storage. Much simpler to utilize insurance is involved vs. trying to remember and scramble for things.

Day 1 trip report, Finally

Made to a lookout point slightly before Coldwater lake looking south at the north face of the mountain before we stopped, ran about for a bit, gave up and turned back. A few miles before the pull off we entered the cloud layer, lost visibility and were bombard with heavy rain. No possible way to see the mountain and crummy weather we turned around. On the way out we stopped and hiked up to a small water fall we noticed on the drive in.

1 Behind the fam there is the mountain. can you tell?

Maddex, Mila and I had a nice little hike in the rain to the fall; Totally worth it. At the bottom of the fall the water appeared to vanish directly into the earth. Wish it had been dryer and Mila was not crying about being cold. We would have spent more time exploring. Little mini adventures on road trips are extremely helpful for the kids to break up the sitting in the car. Plus, we adults love exploring as well.

2 The water fall we hiked up too. was hard to capture it all being so close

Next step was Multnomah falls just before dusk. Another little mini adventure and break from driving. Maddex ran a ¼ mile up the hill to the first overlook bridge. Guess being in the car helped him feel a bit better? I followed right on his heals with Khaleesi on my back in the back pack. Mom and Mila meet us at the bride a bit later utilizing a less expedient pace. I believe normals call it walking. Had a great little stop there. Kids loved the water fall.

We stopped at a Safeway in the mighty town where all ye wagon trains die of the dysentery. Momma had a custom built deli sandwich that was super messy, Kids had corn dogs, and fruit, and chips, and I had some Chineese. Mila lost all patience and dumped a bottle of juice on the floor of the truck while momma was performing her copilot duties and distributing rations to the ravenous vultures we call children. Luckily the floor mats are deep, and the mess was not horrible to clean. While turning on the lights to see the mess the center console thing on the ceiling in the front fell off.

The truck we borrowed from mom and dad seems to have few issues; sure hope we make it home in one piece!! The truck was great for our last trip in it to Arizona. Thanks mom and dad for letting us borrow the truck. Those words complete the circle and brings us all the way around to the start of this post sleeping in a hotel in Pendleton Oregon. About time I head to bed and sleep. Could really use a good night sleep. Have not slept well in a few weeks. There were days last where My sleep trackers said 9 or 17 minutes of deep sleep and rated me with less than 70% sleep efficiency. It’s starting to catch up with me. Kev need nap.

Few more pictures