Road Trip 2006 Final Chapter

Eating icecream at our Yosemite campground

After saying goodbye to Jason in Lake Arrowhead, we drove 8 hours to Yosemite National Park. The drive was mostly desert with gas prices hitting a road trip high at $4/gallon. Once we got into Yosemite, the drive was gorgeous-even at night :-) We had to lock all of the food in the bear locker and learned all about black bears. My Aunt Linda, Uncle Nigel and Cousin Caitlin were also camping at Yosemite during this week. We all had a very nice time and it was good to see them. Yosemite was one of Stephen’s highlights of the trip. We look forward to returning to do more things when the kids are older.

Looking out at Yosemite FallsWe hiked up Sentinel Dome and looked out over Yosemite Valley
We spotted a "new" forest fire while on Sentinel Dome that just kept growing. We heard firefighter helicopters flying over throughout our trip.

El Capitan (the world's largest monolith) with a naturally carved heart in the center. This was Stephen's favorite site at Yosemite.
Aunt Linda, Caitlin, and Uncle Nigel

Viewing Half Dome


Samuel & Maya jumped into a mountain spring fed pond at the bottom of Bridalveil Falls. They screamed with delight & shock when they experienced how cold the "snow water" was.Hiking up Bridalveil Falls
Samuel volunteered to help out during storytime. Maya was confused why she couldn't stand up front with her brother.
The Harold's

Caitlin, Maya and Samuel all became Yosemite "Little Cub" Park Rangers

Maya, Samuel, Caitlin & Me on our last night in Yosemite (Maya cried when leaving because she wanted to stay and play with Caitlin)

After 4 nights in Yosemite, we decided to not go to San Francisco and head home early. We really wanted to take our time going home and have some days to rest before the Rethinking Education Conference. After driving all day, we make it to Las Vegas at about 1am (so much for taking our time driving home) and Stephen HAS to see Las Vegas at night. So, with pop-up camper in tow, we cruise the strip…

We end up camping at Lake Mead & going over Hoover Dam the next day. We stop in Flagstaff to camp overnight and see “How to Eat Fried Worms” in the movie theater. Samuel’s scene made it!! I whisper/scream “There you are! There you are!” during his infamous sea turtle scene. So cool!

We then head to New Mexico and realize that our cruise control is broken & we can’t get the truck out of park :-( It seems that our 100 degree night drive through Death Valley did some damage to a vacuum hose (or something). Luckily, Toyota installed a park override button which allows us to use a screwdriver to put the truck into drive. (Yes, we are still using the screwdriver today). Anyways, we make it to Albuquerque and spend an evening with Grandmum Char.We stop again overnight in the beautiful Fort Stockton, TX where Stephen gets pulled over by the local police for not having his headlights on while driving from movie store to movie store looking for RV. We never got the movie, but enjoyed it on one of our first nights home.

So, we make it home on Sunday night, unpack and clean the trailer and reminisce on the AWESOME trip we just had!!