July 17 - July 23

17-July-2004
Today we were in Las Vegas all day. Travis and Dad had to go to Flying J to download emails and work on the internet. Nicole, Lisa, and I stayed at the RV park that we were at and swam practically all day. It was 110 degrees outside, so the water felt good and was the perfect temp. There were also showers and a Jacuzzi. If we weren’t swimming, we were either watching TV or playing magnetix, something Jill and Kevin gave us when we met up with them. That evening we went to the Bellagio (on the strip) to walk around the hotel and then we went to the water show that was outside the Bellagio. Then we went back to the RV park and I persuaded Nicole to go swimming with me. We didn’t swim very long because Nicole wanted to take a shower before she went to bed. –Renae

18-July-2004
We left our campground at Las Vegas around noon this morning, after multiple showers, swimming, and computer work.  Showers have not been something we’ve had an overabundance of this trip (except in our camper where water is not as plentiful), so we very much took advantage of our free showers.  Our day at Las Vegas was about the laziest and unproductive day of my life, but we all need days like that sometimes, I guess.  We basically swam, hung out around the pool, watched TV and ate.  Anyway, we finally got out of that hot hole, AND….went to Death Valley!  Which, if you didn’t know is about the hottest place in the world.  It was over 120 degrees the whole time we were there. Our record temp was 125.  We got out at Badwater and took a picture of us kids near a sign looking like we’re about dead.  (Which, of course, we were).  Dad likes those kinds of pictures.  He’s a sick man.  Mom refused to get out of the car, except to walk into the visitor center.   She didn’t much like the place.  We basically drove right through, FAST.  We didn’t exactly want to have to sleep there that night because our generator was broken and it wouldn’t be too comfortable sleeping w/o air conditioning.  We did get out, finally, and slept in higher altitudes in low 80 degree weather.    –posted by Nicole

There’s one thing Nicole forgot to write- we slept in the parking lot of a McDonald’s and wanted to get ice cream there, but they were sold out. There were these guys in the parking lot that were kinda scary and Mom got behind us a little bit when we came in. She said one of the guys yelled, “lookin good,” and whistled as she walked by. I never knew my mom was such a hot item. (Nicole told me to write that.) Anyway, we got parfaits instead of ice cream.  Dad said it is good that we bought something there so if we got kicked out we’d at least have given them some service. He also said he’d like to be kicked out sometime this trip. (Don’t ask me why.) –posted by Renae

 
19-July-2004
Drove through Yosemite, which is absolutely gorgeous.  I sort of remember it from our trip to California before, but I was only 6 or 7, so it was nice to see it again.  We tried to eat at the same place we ate at back then on a rock in the middle of a stream.  Just like I thought, we couldn’t find it.  So we ate in a stream on some other rocks in remembrance.  After some more extensive grocery shopping we ate one of those rotisserie chicken deals and corn on the cob.  The first we got this year.  Yum.  The front burner on our stove wouldn’t turn off b/c mom somehow broke it.  So of course we couldn’t drive with the stove burner on, and we had to turn off the gas.  This resulted in no fridge and a mad scramble for a hardware store.  We got the gas on, but the front burner still doesn’t work.  Haven’t we had enough maintenance problems already???  Our generator still isn’t working properly.  It seems our camper and truck are falling apart.  We went to the WalMart campground, and the RV section was packed.  8 or 9 in the back section.  & you never get kicked out.  Pretty nice.  The number of RV’s are steadily increasing with each one, too.  As my dad says, they “welcome & take care of us”  mmm-hmmm…..-Lisa

20-July-2004
 We slept in Carson City, NV last night.  Spent a lot of the morning doing some running around trying to find parts & stuff we needed for the generator & stove.  Drove to Reno then where we were to pick up the cell phone which had quit working & had been sent in to get fixed.  It wasn’t there right away, so we found a park where we had our lunch.  It was by a stream, so we stuck our feet in & Renae  put on her swimming suit & got wet.  The ‘girls’ stayed there then while the ‘boys’ went to pick up the phone, and thankfully it was there, so we were on our way.  Drove to Lassen Volcanic Nat’l Park, in northern CA, where we stayed in the campground.  Did hamburgers on the grill & sat around the campfire awhile.  It got cold that night – was 46 the next morning.  I hadn’t seen stars like that since Botswana days I don’t think.   –posted by Jolene  

21-July-2004
 This morning we left pretty early for Redwood National and State Parks. We got there about 4:30 or so and then stopped right beside the beach to eat supper, which was hamburgers and cooked vegetables (zucchini, carrots, onions, and potatoes) on the grill. Before supper everyone except Dad went down to the beach and dipped our feet in the water. We also brought the Frisbee along and almost lost it many times. I was just standing on the beach right where the waves came to your feet when a huge one was coming. I turned to run away but it caught me before I hardly started running away. I got dragged down and it surprised me, because all the other waves were little tiny ones and all the sudden a huge one comes and knocks me down. Nicole held on to me so I didn’t get dragged away, but she got wet, but I was completely dunked under. I got back to the camper and took a shower. I missed out on half of supper, but I was freezing and sand was all over me. Later I read that the wave that pulled me down was a “sneaker wave,” which is a wave that “seems to come out of nowhere, surges onto the beach with deadly force. You can’t outrun them, and they serve for 63% of beach fatalities.” Anyway, that night we went through Redwoods, which was really really neat because they are huge trees that five of us holding hands can’t even go halfway around the trees. We went on a trail through them and it looks like a jungle. Mom was freaking out that there were snakes there and wanted me to go ahead of her. I thought she was braver than that. After we were done with the parks, we drove until we made it to Grants Pass in Oregon, where we slept at a Wal-Mart again. There were about 15 other RVs there and Dad thinks that they make the parking lot flatter in the back where the RVs are. I don’t know if that’s true, but all of the RVs in any Wal-Mart parking lot are in the back. –posted by Renae

22-July-2004
Today we drove to Crater Lake National Park and spent most of the day driving around the rim and checking out the overlooks and reading about the lake.  It is an amazing story, and the water is very pretty – the deepest blue water I ever recall seeing.  The lake was formed by a huge volcano that collapsed and filled with water from snow.  They have 500 inches of snow a year there, and snow is on the ground year round.  Nearly every night the temperature is below freezing, but the lake seldom freezes.  The rim is about 100 feet above the water level, and the water is over 1900 feet deep at the deepest point and holds the world record for clarity.  Underneath the water are volcano cones etc. and one cone protrudes from the water to about 700 feet above the surface.  It is quite a picturesque place.  From there we drove to Winston, OR where we grilled our supper at a park, and then drove to Coos Bay where we spent the night – finding an empty lot that was dark and quiet. – posted by Roger

23-July-2004
We drove along the coast today, and spent some time climbing on the Oregon Sand Dunes.  The kids also checked out the beaches – but the water was too cold to do much swimming.  We stopped to eat a late lunch around 2:00PM at a state park, and Travis noticed we broke another spring on the other axle.  That was a disappointment – I am so sick of all the maintenance problems we had on this trip.  We have had more than our fair share this summer.  The tires were rubbing against each other, but we could move the trailer this time, so right beside the lot we were in was the state park campground.  We tried to find a spot, but it had just filled up and none were available.  We decided to get to work in the parking lot and unhooked the trailer and I went looking for parts while Travis and Nicole started tearing into the axle.  I was expecting to have to drive to Eugene or Salem to find springs, and since it was Friday afternoon was worried about getting them before the weekend, but I went to the nearest town and after making a few calls found springs about 20 miles north of us.  I bought two springs, since we decided we would change both of them, and got a few items at the hardware store and headed back.  When I got back Travis and Nicole already had the axle out and just about had the springs removed (my timing was close – I should have gotten a coffee or something in town so it would have been completed before I returned).  I was surprised they had that much done already.  We got the springs on and repaired an electrical plug on the truck before dark.  We were quite proud of how quickly we got things fixed this time – of course we had some experience with this and didn’t have to go 100 miles for parts this time.  We decided to take showers at the campground next door, since we were very dirty and then drove to Newport where we slept in a Walmart parking lot.  At many of the Walmart parking lots a sign is posted saying no overnight parking allowed by city ordinance, but they seem to be ignored.  Walmart encourages using the lot, and I guess they must post the signs, but they do not enforce it, nor does the city.  There are usually at least 10, (often more) RV’s in the lot and nobody seems to enforce the city ordinance. – posted by Roger

I was quite happy when I found out that the springs broke again because I had wanted to go to the beach and stay there for a while. I would be able to spend the day on the beach since I wasn’t needed to help fix the springs. I waded in the waves a little, but the water’s ice cold and I didn’t feel like going in so far. Also, the waves are wimpy, even at high tide. You can’t body surf them or anything they were so tiny. Then I made a sand formation kind of like the one I had made with the Evans’s at the beach where you make a cone shape by mixing up sand and water and put little drops of it everywhere on it until it’s pretty tall and looks weird. I found a lot of pieces of sand dollars but not a full one. There were tons of carcasses of crabs and a couple of dead birds. There were tons of little bugs covering them, too. We put stones in the sand creation for eyes and two crab claws coming out of the side. We built a moat around it and were going to put crab head shells around the moat, but before we could finish it we had to eat supper, which was pizza. When we got back after supper it was destroyed. I was disappointed, because it took us all afternoon to do and I would have liked to see it finished. There is no one on the beach like Bethany or Indian River except a lot of people who walk their dogs, but no one in the water at all. Soon after supper they were done fixing the springs and we took showers. It felt really good to take as long a shower as you wanted because when we take one in the camper we can’t use as much as you want. We went to a Wal-Mart that was about 20 miles away to sleep even though there were signs around that said no overnight parking, but there were a lot of other RVs there and we’ve been to a lot of Wal-Marts that had the same sign but nobody listens to them. –posted by Renae