Getting Back to the Motor Home

It’s really too bad that when you are a child you don’t know anything.

I’m thinking about my Grandma Wardle again tonight. I miss her more than I ever thought I would. She was a big part of my life always and I saw her frequently. Growing up, I was just used to having her around. It was normal. Not out of the ordinary.

What I didn’t realize then, that I do now, is how much she shaped my life. I realize how much the regular old run-of-the-mill time we had meant for me as a person. I can’t really say why or how it shaped me as a person, but I know now that it did.

It seemed ordinary and maybe even a little boring as I got older to visit them each Sunday or to go up American Fork Canyon which we frequently did in the summers.

It seemed normal to hang out in the old Winnebago, the old everything covered with yarn Winnebago. My Grandma must be feeling so smug right now with Crochet all the rage now. You know who started that craze right?…It was Louise Wardle, my Grandmother. She was the absolute master of the art of Crochet. You only had to step one foot inside that motor home to fully understand that. I know she would really adore the Crochet appreciation happening in the world right now.

What I was only barely content with this stuff then. I just couldn’t wait to get back home so I could walk around the block and talk about boys with my friends. I would give my right arm for time like this now.

One more game of Rack-O played a picnic table covered with an old shower curtain. Did I mention that Louise was also the master of repurposing old items into new uses? She was.

One more ‘sit’ in one of the motor home chairs with the wooden armrests and extra yarn-covered seat pad.

One more walk down her hall where I could glance at the last 60 years of my family history in photo frames hanging on her wall.

One more taste of her cornflake candy and chocolate orange sticks at Christmas time.

One more sneak of raspberries off the bushes in Grandpa’s garden.

One more glance at the old-fashion glass Pepsi bottles piled up by the back door ready to be taken down to Peterson’s for recycling and $ redemption.

One more wave good-bye from the back porch as we left the house.

One more taste of gravy and smell from the roast she had made for Sunday dinner.

One more drink of good tap water out of a little glass from her cupboard.

To watch one more PBS music special with them on Sunday night.

Even to see the two of them sitting on my parents couch on Sunday afternoon.

Any of it…I’d be happy to have any of it once more.

To be able to appreciate anything you have while you have it is a gift. I have no regrets about my grandma and grandpa passing away last year or my relationship with them. They deeply loved me and I loved them and we both knew it. They lived long and happy lives of love and had lots of people to share it with. If I did have regret it would be that I wish I could have spent more time appreciating all the little things they did and all the little experiences we had that made us love each other and unknowingly helped create my identity.

Who knew an old Winnebago could create my identity, but looking back, I really think it did.

Day Two: California or Bust!

Sunny and Alyssa slept great in the master closet of the fabulous master suite we stayed in at my uncle’s vacation house. I didn’t get a picture of their accommodations, but it was perfect and cozy for them. After everyone had a really great night’s sleep, we packed up and out for California caravanning with our friends the Brock’s.

Once on the road we sampled some fresh baked cookies we bought at Albertson’s the night before. I dare say it was the best cookie I have ever eaten. There were 18 of them in the bag and surprisingly we didn’t eat all of them in one sitting.

The kids got all settled in and enjoyed sporting their new sunglasses we bought in St. George at the Children’s Place.
They also enjoyed some more movie watching.

As we headed through the canyon between St. George and Las Vegas it was easy to tell this would be a trip like no other we have had before. Neither Steve nor I had seen snow on these desert mountains, but they were covered today and it made them look even more majestic.
Even Alyssa who was engrossed in Lady and the Tramp couldn’t help but notice how awesome the scenery looked.

Not only were the snow dusted mountains impressive, but the clouds over the desert were so close to the ground.
They looked like they were hovering about 25 feet off the ground although I’m sure they were much higher. You could also see their movement which Alyssa was impressed and amazed by.

We had to make an unscheduled stop at a gas station/casino on the Moapa Indian Reservation per Sunny’s request to use the restroom. She took her sweet time in the bathroom, around 30 minutes. Seriously. All the while she was singing and talking and cracking up all the other ladies in the surrounding stalls. One lady was so impressed by Sunny’s bathroom serenade that she felt compelled to show me her own kids and grandkids photos by sliding her I-phone under her bathroom stall into our stall so I could see a variety of her grandkids photos…Seriously, this happened.

We figured our friends had long since passed us by during our long potty break. After we headed back out on the road we tried calling them but with no success. This was a little strange because they never missed picking up a single call before. I figured they just didn’t hear the call and as we approached Vegas they would call us. This never happened. We were now in Las Vegas and could not get a hold of the Brocks. I being a big-time worrier (thanks dad) figured there had been a serious accident somewhere along the road way and they were all dead. I probably called each of their phones eight or ten times. My next call was about to be to the Nevada Highway Patrol when my phone rang. It was them. They had passed through Vegas without a thought to stop for lunch like we’d assumed. I was so relived I almost cried. We got back on the freeway and drove on.

As we drove we spotted this little outfit.
I must say, it's pretty cool looking. My only hope is that Steve and I can retire with enough $$ to get us one of these numbers to drive around and enjoy our retirement in. It's a Sokol sized RV. I want one.

Our next stop was in Baker. Thanks to Sunny’s 30 minute bathroom break and my anxiety freakout after losing our friends we missed our opportunity to have lunch with them. We stopped in and had 2 tacos at our vacation favorite hotspot Jack-in-the-box. Yummy! The kids also noticed their first palm tree.
Also Sokol sized.

After our lunch we walked across the parking lot to Alien Fresh Beef Jerky!
We stopped here once before when Steve and I were an engaged couple. It was too funny then, just a little shack. Now it was a store with all this merchandise for sale. A classy establishment, as classy as alien-made beef jerky can be anyway. If you ever find yourself on the road to Southern California, don’t miss making this weird little stop.
It’s funny. Plus, beef jerky. They give free samples.

Traffic through the desert was really slow believe it or not. Steve said it is a result of so many Californians returning home on Sunday afternoon after a crazy weekend in Vegas. Turns out, what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas after all. It goes home to Southern California on Sunday afternoon. It was super painful. You just don’t expect to travel 20-40 miles per hour in the middle of the Mojave desert. Very frustrating.
Here's Sunny patiently waiting out the traffic jam.

Turns out the big traffic hold up was the Agricultural stop after Baker which they just waved us through. Really?!? Why even have a stop if you are just going to wave people through. And by the way we totally brought fruit into California. I guess that makes me a fruit launderer. I’m totally going to add that to my resume.

One cool thing we noticed as a result of driving so slowly was a brown recreation sign on the side of the road that said Early Man Site. Since we had nothing to do while we waited in the traffic, Steve looked up the Early Man Site on his phone to see what it was. Turns out there is evidence of pre-historic man here. It’s a rock quarry where they made tools. They are supposedly about 200,000 years old or something crazy like that. We planed to stop for a tour of the site on the way back. Too interesting to pass up.

We finally made it closer to our destination. Up in the higher mountain passes we noticed several cars off the side of the road and all these people having snow ball fights on the side of the road. It was hilarious.
I guess these people don’t see snow real often. They were actually playing in the snow on the side of the road and there wasn't even very much of it. You have to be pretty hard up for snow to play in it off the side of the interstate.

After a painfully slow ride, we finally made it to our hotel. The Comfort Inn Anaheim Main Gate. We were very pleased with what we found. For this trip we finally had the brains to book a suite. This one had bunk beds for the kids. After Sunny’s all-nighter in Moab I swore I’d never sleep the family in the same room again.

After checking in and getting settled, we made arrangements with the Brock’s to take our kids for us while we went to Il Fornio which is the restaurant we went to on our first date.
We were almost 7 years to the day of when we had our first date Good timing for a So Cal Sokol Vacation.
.

We had a great time eating fancy albeit little overpriced Italian food. We were really there to have the desert we ate on our first date. Chocolate mousse Crème Brule. Too bad they didn’t have any. What a bummer! Oh well. It's not like we traveled 700 miles to get there or anything.

We came back home after refilling our gas tank for the bargain price of $65 in Irvine. We retrieved the kids from the hotel room 3 doors down and brought them back to ours where they nearly instantly went to bed after brushing their teeth.
They were very tired and so were we. We had a big day for tomorrow. Destination DISNEYLAND!!!

Vacation or Bust

Feb 26, 2011

This is not the most facinating vacation post I have ever written. It was our most un-Carl Farvemann like vacation day ever. It was a very snowy boring day on the road. I didn't take a single picture. I should have, but I didn't. I do intend to write another post for tomorrow with pics. I promise this long drawn-out series vacation posting will get better each day for those of you who are reading this and care.

When we left we thought it might be more bust than Disneyland thanks to the weather. We were scared spitless when we saw the weather forecast for the days leading up the trip. We were back and forth about whether we could even leave today and arrive safely.

About 10 pm we got a forecast saying that the bulk of the southern Utah snow wouldn’t hit until after noon. So we kicked our packing into high gear and got everything ready so we could leave by six in the morning and caravan with my brother Ryan.

We set our alarm for 5:00am. That time came and went and either the alarm didn’t go off or Steve turned it off in his sleep. I woke up at 5:45am talking to my brother Ryan on the phone. I was standing up in my bedroom talking when I woke up. He asked me if we were ready to go to which I said yes, but then I woke up and said er….no. I just woke up. We’ll be about a half hour.

We truly and magnificently got ourselves showered and dressed, packed the cooler ate a little breakfast, woke the kids, changed their clothes and packed them out in 30 minutes.

There was a good six inches of snow when we left. We met up with our caravan and headed out. The roads were slushy until we got passed the Utah County line. Then it was pretty much fine. We did have a few tense moments around Fillmore, but nothing to sweat bullets over. As always, the fear of doing something, in this case making a long car trip in snowy weather was way worse than actually doing it.

The kids settled in and enjoyed the new inflight entertainment duel screen DVD system we purchased from Costco the week before.

We made several potty breaks along the way and listened to some complaints from the backseat about how long this trip was taking. It was easy to settle the complaints when I told Alyssa that when I was her age I didn’t even have a seat of my own to ride in on long car trips let alone a movie to watch with my own screen directly in front of me. When I was a kid, since I was the youngest, I sat on the cargo in the back of our station wagon or I rode on the floor of the car. And I liked it that way. I didn’t get my own seat until I was 8 or 10 years old (seriously) when we got the Caprice Classic Wagon with the third row (facing backward, you’re jealous I know).

Between Cedar City and St. George I saw a small cemetery. As I always do, I pointed it out and told Steve that I heard people are dying to get in there (one of my favorite and best jokes). A few minutes later we were passed rather recklessly by a hearse, I guess they don’t have much to lose. Steve told me that he heard people were dying to get in there as it passed us. I laughed so hard we almost had to make another stop. Steve thought maybe they were driving recklessly to drum up business.

Anyway…we pulled into my Uncles vacation house which we rented for the night. It’s a nice house we had a great time exploring it with the kids, opening every door and closet. It’s available for rent for anyone interested in a swanky 4 bedroom house right next to Sand Hallow Reservoir. It’s also just few minutes in the car to enter Zion’s National Park.

We were surprisingly hungry but we had plenty of food thanks to my ample kitchen preparations. We rewarmed some pre-cooked ham fried rice I had made on Wednesday. Delicious and easy.

Next we let the kids watch some TV while Steve took a nice nap in the comfy king bed. I must admit I was drifting in and out of sleep while “watching TV” with the kids.

There is a really fancy 2 headed glass shower in the house so I took advantage of it during our down time. It was very refreshing. I am a bit of a shower snob, and I really really liked this one. I may make Steve hire someone to remodel our bathroom to replicate it.

Our friends arrived about three hours behind us and after unwinding a bit we made our 4th failed attempt to eat at the Bear Paw Waffle house. We try to eat there every time we're in St. George, but it always has a magnificent wait time when we arrive and then closes at One O'clock. Steve really likes breakfast and it’s his dream to eat here. Oh well maybe next time. Maybe not.

We ended up eating at Denny’s where the food was actually good, but the service was the worst ever. We ended up waiting for our check so long the kids were going ape crazy and we just had to leave so we got up and walk toward the door when the waiter finally presented us our check.

One the way back to the house, we stopped at the outlet mall at the Children’s Place where we picked up some cute little things for cheap. Steve also bought himself some things. Not at Children’s Place though. He went to Van Husen and found 5 new dress shirts. WOW! That is a big deal. The man has a very hard time finding clothes that fit him. He is very oddly shaped (Cotton Hill). I'm not sure if you've ever noticed that. In our 7 year marriage he has probably bought fewer than 5 new shirts altogether, so this was a big deal.

Then back to the house for a much needed rest. We had a big day ahead.