The Professor Goes West//Day 18//Efficient Stops

I got behind on these posts because we had a busy weekend celebrating a family wedding! Now we are home and I will finish up the series:

Day 18—Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Today was a sad day as we bid farewell to the fair Yosemite—loved of the sequoias and other towering pines—even the orange cone pine. The drive to Nevada took us the length of the park further into the wilderness where we were met with spectacular mountain views, lovely lakes, and John Muir’s favorite Tuolumne Meadows.

There was a stark change as soon as we crossed to the Eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas. The wooded magnificent domes were now rocky, shrubby mountains as we took a long road into a desolate valley filled with Lake Mono—a salty lake with volcanic rocks sticking up out of it. We then came to a road that went up and down like a roller coaster for miles and miles as we went through a red-brown mountain land. There lived wild horse which we saw grazing in the distance. 

Then the land became flat and desolate. There we passed a tower surrounded by mirrors which we are pretty sure was an alien base. We got gas and Subway sandwiches in the desert town of Tonopah, Nevada and then passed through a US testing range area. After hours of desert we came to the lovely Spring Valley which gave us a view of Wheeler Peak where we would be camping.

The desert made us feel a sense of dread until we came into the gorgeous Great Basin National Park. There we nervously went through the first-come, first-serve campgrounds until we found a lovely sight bordered by a mountain stream lined with quaking aspens and pine nut trees. The kids called the stream our sound machine to give us white noise for the night—it also brought us a cool breeze. We had chili for supper which I prepared while the professor set up the tent. After supper we brushed our teeth and then had a campfire until. The sun went down. The night sky there was incredible. We were far from the nearest city and saw millions of stars—everyone was multiple shooting stars. We watched them up in the sky until the kids were way too tired and our necks hurt from looking up. Then we went to sleep to the sound of our mountain stream.

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I remember when my Ohio relatives came to St. Louis for my sister’s wedding. They caravanned in a few cars and their were about 7 kids total. Their trip took several hours longer than it needed to because they stopped so many times⎼sometimes just for one person. My family drove to Cleveland every summer, and we had one rule for rest stops: everyone has to go in and use the facilities no matter what.

I have continued the tradition of efficient and quick stops on road trips. We have a system that keeps the time stopped to a minimum for every minute we save is a minute less of traveling. The goal is for everyone to go to the bathroom, refill on gas if necessary, to get out any food for eating, and to get back on the road as fast as possible. When we have a nursing baby, we add this in as well. The nursing baby stop is usually 20 minutes. The stop where we don’t get out food is 10 minutes.

This is the typical gas stop:

1) Pull up at pump.

2) Females exit the car and all go to the restroom.

3) The Professor pumps the gas then parks it. (If we have baby or toddler the diaper change happens here at the car.)

4) Ladies come back to car, the guys go to the restroom. (If there is a nursing baby—this happens here). The driver often buys caffeine.

5) I get out lunch food, prep it, and hand it out.

6) Everyone is buckled up and we go.

All other stops are variations on this. We do not normally take a long break or rest for too long unless we are taking a shorter drive. For example, if we are not getting gas we all go in quickly to the rest area together and try to get out before the guys do.

On our road trip Out West, while we made some of the stops efficient, we purposefully determined to not always make efficient stops. We took the trip for the whole experience. On days we only had a few hours to drive, we stopped at overlooks on a whim. We stopped at tourist traps occasionally. We grabbed food to go as a treat. Though on days we had 9 hours to drive we went back to our normal efficient travel schedule–sometimes stopping to blow dandelion seeds.

 

The Professor Goes West//Day 17//Screen Free Road Trip

 

Day 17—Tuesday, June 5, 2018

We woke early and cold—excited to go back to the valley of Yosemite. By the time we got there it was crowded and we spent awhile searching for a parking spot—but we did not mind as we had a great view.

We parked alongside a meadow with a trail and boardwalk that lead us through the grasses and over the Merced River—Merced means “mercy” and all the beauty we saw there was certainly a mercy.

We took a short trail to the lower Yosemite Falls which were so pretty as white water poured over the gray rock spraying our arms and faces. We sat on large rocks facing the falls and just felt the view. Then we took a trail to the visitor center and bought a new water bottle and some postcards. We ate a snack lunch of popcorn and fried chick peas and carrots before looking at the Ansel Adams gallery and purchasing a few prints to frame.

We then took the valley shuttle to the Mirror Lake trail which was a rocky, tree rooty trail through stunning scenery with Half Dome to the right and another rocky face to the left. The lake was mostly dry with Tenaya Creek running through it. We followed the example of others and all waded through the clear freezing water to the other side. T rode on the professor’s back. The girls enjoyed the cold water so much that they waded much longer than I liked to. The whole experience was fun and a bit thrilling. Once we were all dry, there was a paved easy bike path road we hiked back to the shuttle stop. While we waited to be picked up, the kids played on a giant rock that was smooth and big enough to be used as a slide.

The bus ride was long and crowded—when we got dropped off we walked back across the field to our car and then headed up the Glacier Point Road to get a view of the whole valley. The view was quite breathtaking as we could see all the sights we looked at below from above them and even more. We saw the Nevada Falls and distant peaks. I loved just sitting on a rock close to the edge and feeling the view. The kids delighted in climbing on the huge rocks at the point pretending to be mountain goats. We ate a picnic dinner out of the cooler before heading back to cap to have a fire and s’mores.

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There are a number of things that I think are Very Important Parts of Childhood. One of them is the long, boring road trip where one has to make oneself happy with one’s own imagination and enjoy/annoy each other. That being said we have never, ever used the DVD player in our car to entertain our children on trips. We have also never let them use a tablet or other handheld entertaining electric device.

When our children are little we give them things like a magna-doodle to use over and over again for coloring and a few favorite stuffed animals and other toys for imaginative play. When they are older they bring a notebook or journal for drawing and coloring. They bring books to look at or read.

Unfortunately, half of us suffer from motion sickness making car-reading difficult. Because of this we do a lot of audiobooks. Books are better than movies because they give our imaginations room to illustrate scenes in our minds. It has been fun to share favorite books with our kids and discover new ones. Now, the littlest kids do not always like a long audiobook, so we take breaks with music along the way as well. Our favorite books have included: all of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder read by Cherry Jones, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Tarzan and the John Carter books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and The Lord of the Rings, which we listened to on our three week trip.

We start off each drive with a driving prayer for safe travels and a family rosary. Then we either listen to music or our audiobook of choice. When we are doing music the kids all usually play and talk, but when we are doing a story, we ask them to listen quietly. We give them a snack a couple of hours into the trip and lunch out of the cooler on the road. Stops are minimal (more on that later). If we have a long day of driving, we grab a quick dinner and supplement it with cut veggies from the cooler. Otherwise we try to arrive at our destination before dinner time.

These techniques have worked for us as a family on road trips for over ten years!

The Professor Goes West//Day 16//Laundry and Showers

 Day 16—Monday, June 4, 2018

Today we left the crowded west coast and turned east toward the fabled Yosemite. The central valley of California had fields and fields with rows and rows of food growing to ship all across the country. We stopped at a fruit stand and bought peaches, which were quite delicious. The whole day we talked about T’s birthday—he turned three and was happy to say so.

Our road led us up into the Sierra Nevadas along windy roads until finally we reached Yosemite. The roads were lined with various pine trees. Though in some places the trees stood empty and blackend providing us with a beautiful mountain view. We parked at the trailhead of Tuolomne Grove, ate lunch at the car, and then hiked down the Old Big Oak Flat Road to an ancient grove of sequoia trees. They stood tall, thick, and noble. They like fog and forest fires. The bark was soft and springy as we hugged and smelled their woody-pine scent. I was sad to leave the grove—but we had more things to do.

Our way to our campsite lead us through Yosemite Valley. There we had our first view of El Capitan, Half Dome, Bridal Falls, the Cathedral Spires, and Yosemite Falls from below and then from above as we oohed and ahhed over the tunnel view. 

Wawona campground was pleasant as we were near a bubbling brook—it was our first encounter with bear lockers as well. We had a little fire after the macaroni and cheese birthday dinner and birthday cookies with candles for T. All in all, a great third birthday.

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I bet by now you are wondering when and how we showered and did laundry. While we could have found laundromats along the way and used showers at various campgrounds, this is what we did. I agreed to this three-week vacation only if we stayed with friends or at hotels every couple of nights. The first thing we did when we got to a friend’s house or hotel was start the laundry. For the six of us with five changes of clothes, laundry took about three loads each time. Everyone would take a much-needed shower before going to bed, and then the professor and I would stay up folding the clean laundry into the suitcase. If we were staying at a place two nights, sometimes we would get to shower two days in a row!

A note about hotels and kids. I am not sure what most people do to keep their kids happy and quiet in hotel rooms, but we could not convince our kids to sit around and look at books. There are no toys, no friends or relatives, a fairly small space, and lots of bouncy furniture. This was the only time on the trip that we caved to the entertainment of screens. For some reason none of our hotels had Netflix available on their televisions so the children all squeezed around my 4-inch phone screen and watched a movie. I do not trust normal TV stations to show my children anything worthwhile or considerate of their innocence.