Bella, Gabe and Josiah

We got up, all excited to explore Crater Lake. Our plan was to do a hike and explore. First we ate breakfast, where Josy insisted on wearing his “gasses.” Then we packed up the rv and Pat went to start it so that he could put in the popout…and the key wouldn’t go in. At all.  I’ll save you the drama of the back and forth, but they key would not go in the ignition no matter what he did. We both attacked it with tweezer in case there was something in there, he tried to go in through the back panel, he tried everything. Eventually we decided that we had to call roadside assistance, however, we had no cell service. I had one bar that would occasionally send out a text message, but only if I was standing in the exact right spot and even that would go in and out. So we had to walk 1/3 of a mile to get to reception to use their landline, which was still a terrible connection.  After multiple phone calls with roadside assistance and piles of texts with Francis, the owner of the RV, they told u

Sunday was a travel day. We stopped by the store to buy some extra fruit (Pat goes through so much fruit it’s ridiculous!) and get a coffee before we headed north, back into Oregon. It was pretty crazy to drive through some areas that were on fire just a few days earlier. After a few hours, we made it up to Crater Lake. Once we got to the park, there was a turnout for the rv park, but when I’d made my reservation, they’d said that it was up by the lodge, right on the rim of the lake. So, we drove up to the lodge and decided to check out the lake before we settled into the rv park. It was amazing! I’ve always wanted to see it and it did not disappoint. It was pretty foggy due to the smoke, so we didn’t get the best view, but it was still amazing. After walking around a bit, we went to the lodge and discovered that the rv hookups were all down at the rv park, not up by the lodge. There was a bit of grumbling over the fact that we had to go back down to the rv park, but we headed down and

For years, every time I went to Nicaragua, I got to hang out with my friend Keveta. She’s an American nurse from Redding that lived down there long term. She ended up heading home before Pat went down on his first trip, so he never got to meet her and I haven’t gotten to see her since then. So since we were going to be in the area, I desperately wanted to see her and let her meet my family. So that’s what we did! We went to the Turtle Bay Exploration Park and played in the Sundial Bridge. This one is going to be the death of me. He desperately wanted to go down the slide and that meant climbing the ladder, so that’s what he did. I literally held onto his foot, as high as I could reach, until Bella could climb up to grab him and hold onto him until I could get up the ladder to get him. They had a parrot cage that we could go in and feed the parrots. Gabe was in heaven! I mean, we all thought it was pretty great, but I’m actually impressed that Gabe didn’t try and sneak one of them home…

The first words I heard when I woke up were “Where did you go, you bilge rat??” Seriously, staying in an rv with a pirate is quite the experience… Oh, and apparently the bilge rat was Perry, the stuffed parrot … Once we all go up and going, we had breakfast. Josy decided that he didn’t want to use a normal seat and apparently he first spend enough time in his carseat… We packed everything up and decided to drive down the Avenue of the Giants, checking out the amazing trees. We got to Founders’ Grove and started exploring. Unfortunately Josy had fallen asleep in the rv. Conveniently, Bella didn’t want to get out of the car, so we didn’t have to walk up the Jo Jo Bear, and Gabe got a Mommy/Daddy/Gabey date. Seriously, the other two really missed out on some amazing sights. From there, we started the drive to Redding. Um, that was brutal. We probably would have been better to take the freeway down, even though google says that this way was a whole hour shorter. It did not save us an hour.

Sometimes, after several days in the road, you just need a quiet day where you do nothing and don’t have to go anywhere. Since we’re in an rv and we have to take our entire house with us anytime we want to drive down the street, getting going in the morning can be rather complicated, and Pat was ready to not have to worry about that. So we didn’t. We spent the day at the campsite, doing whatever we wanted and it was lovely. Pat and I started the day with a run. Once more, there are perks to traveling with teenager…. I seriously never thought we would be a couple thar would run together on vacation, but I’m really happy with this new version of us. Also, we saw Bigfoot. Meanwhile, the kids stayed at the rv and did a while bunch of coloring, as well as pulling out the sidewalk chalk. Whoever gets that spot next is in for a very decorated surprise… The kids and I then decided to head over to explore a bit, and naturally the boys needed to be shirtless. I’m not exactly sure why. It wasn’t