Places We Stayed

Jeff did a great job choosing places for us to stay on our trip.  I think that each time we go somewhere, he gets better at gauging our family's needs and matching them to our destinations.  I'm thankful to have him in charge of that!  I think back to the trips we planned with guidebooks and phone calls, and I'm very thankful for websites, online reviews, etc.  As my grandma used to say when I'd email pictures of baby Jonathan to her, "It's a wonderful age in which we live!"

So, here is the first place we stayed.  We had the choice of bringing our own towels or renting them for $5.  We decided to bring them.  It was a step up from camping.  We did consider camping, but decided that we didn't have space for the gear and that it would be too complicated with a mobile girl who drags her belly on the ground when she crawls.  Also, I wasn't excited about leaving a tent to go to the bathroom several times each night.  Having an in-house bathroom was very important to me!

That's a teeny little creek in the foreground of the picture.


Here's the kitchen.  There were no blinds on the windows.  Good thing our nearest neighbors were not super close!  And good thing I remembered how to light a gas stove with a match.

Normally, I would have had an ice chest packed and meals planned, since I knew we'd have the use of a kitchen. I had even stumbled upon a post with some amazing ideas for cooking in hotel rooms. (I'll use it next time!) But since I had been feeling pretty crummy and fatigued since the end of April, particularly in any hour of the day past noon, I didn't get any meal planning done. I packed a few snacks, and Jeff and I figured things out as we went along. It worked fine, although it was more expensive. It was all part of the adventure! And, thankfully, I started feeling better at the beginning of our vacation. I'm sure all the relaxing helped.

Here's the breakfast nook.  The kids love it when Jeff plays guitar, and so do I.  We didn't bring the guitar just for fun, but more on that later.  The heater is right behind Jeff, and the kids' room is immediately to his right.  We had to scoot the nook furniture out of the way to get to their room. That bedroom had a door.  Ours didn't.  It worked out fine-it was just very cozy!  :)


Sleeping kiddos.  Grace's pack n play is covered by the butterfly blanket.


I brought these balls as a surprise for the kiddos to keep them occupied in a pinch.  It worked!  In this pic, we were packing the car to leave place #1 while they played.  We were here to visit Lassen National Park, which is pretty remote.  Jonathan got so excited about seeing a volcano.

I hope I don't sound critical of our first place.  It met our needs and was cozy, and we really did "get away from it all" with no cell coverage or Internet access or any of those distractions.  It also kept out the critters!  We didn't find any inside except for some baby spiders.  Any shortcomings of this cabin were covered by the heavenly scent of pine trees right outside the door.

The place we stayed in the middle was luxurious in comparison.  It was a condo.  It had a pool.  And carpet.  And a couch!  Not having a couch really made us appreciate it!  It had not one but two bathrooms.  We made the bigger one into Grace's bedroom since we could wedge the pack 'n play into it.  Carpet was really nice for our little crawler.  You'll see some pictures of it later on.  Hopefully not too much later, since blogging this trip is taking longer than I anticipated.

Here's the final place we stayed, close to Crater Lake, which is also remote.  Does it remind you of Sally's Cozy Cone?


Check out the TV with dials.  We are not big TV people, so we didn't really need a TV on our vacation.

The sign says:  "This TV receives only 1 channel. Please do not attempt to adjust this TV. It has already been tuned to provide you with the best possible picture. Thank you!" Ha!  The TV mostly served as a shelf for the fly swatter, which lived on top of it.  (We didn't have fly issues, though.)  We did turn on the TV once, for kicks. We could sort of make out the outlines of people on the screen. :)

The stairway up to the kids' room

Here's where the kids slept at the top of the A-frame: Jonathan on one end of the room and Grace on the other.  The room was barely wide enough for the twin bed and her bed.

Her hair keeps getting crazier. Here she is, just getting up for the morning.

Last breakfast before going home. This tiny town had two places to buy food: a gas-station-type mini mart, and an organic grocery. Both were tiny. We ended up buying bread, cheese, and jam at the organic grocery store. (The cheese was delicious!)  It served as lunch the previous day and as breakfast on our final day, so we tried not to worry about how expensive it was. And Jonathan is not eating corn chips for breakfast-really!