Okay, so back when we were tossing around ideas for the summer, I casually mentioned possibly doing an RV trip. Not mentioning that I really, really wanted us to do it. Because I knew the lion’s share of the actual work of an RV trip would depend solely on Phil- the renting of the thing, the booking of places to stay, the driving of the thing, the hooking up of the things, the making sure generally all of the things worked without my knowing in the least how it all actually worked. Plus also the making of the fires in the fire pit so that we could do s’mores each night. So basically, I needed him to be pretty heartily on board with this whole idea for it to happen. My biggest persuasive tactic? Pointing out that RV’ing would be muuuuch easier than tent camping. But not quite as easy as hoteling. So yeah, easy sell.
But thankfully, Phil is a trooper and green-lighted the harebrained idea. The kids were so excited and could. not. wait. Not that they’ve done anything like this before so I’m not entirely sure what all was the most exciting factor besides the idea of all of us sleeping, eating, and generally being in a moving vehicle together. The end of July could not get here fast enough.
You ready for this, big daddy?
Wahoo, Vacation Phil is back! Although, he’s not looking as Vacation Phil as he normally does since he was also trying to operate a 30-foot RV with various and sundry blind spots scattered about and no rear view whatsoever along with four kids whooping it up in the back area. Just a touch of white-knuckle driving. All good. Yeah, this is gonna be great.
But about two and a half hours later, we reached our destination! We even made it before it got dark so Phil had just enough time to get us all hooked up and I had just enough time to get dinner ready. Chili rice. The one part I hadn’t thought all the way through– RV vacation means mom still has to cook because ain’t no taking the RV through any drive-thrus!
Breakfast the next morning aboard the RV. They loved this little table that turned into Lauren’s bed at night.
Since we only had enough daylight to get set up the night before, we set out to do a little exploring around the site after breakfast.
Surrounded by enormous redwood trees. Beautiful and smelled great, too. Aaaah, nature.
A hollowed out tree trunk! Cool!
They, especially Jonah, loved the freedom of being able to jump on their bikes/scooters and just take off. Phil, on the other hand, had to hustle a bit as Jonah took the taking off part a bit too literally. (He’s already around the bend up ahead.)
Nature loving boy. As long as it’s not too hot, too dirty, or too buggy.
Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me?
We take them all the way up to go play in the woods and what do they wanna do? Heh heh, only kidding. We only stayed in the clubhouse for a couple minutes.
And then we made our way down to the little river.
Climbing rope and everything!
He insisted on going down by himself.
Skipping stones.
Many small rocks.
Throwing rocks one after another into the water…
equaled his most favorite thing to do ever.
Using his shirt as a pouch to hold even more rocks.
Hours of free fun. (Phil’s favorite kind.)
He would’ve stayed out here doing this whole the day long.
