Epic Winter Road Trip - The Quest for Sunshine

 This December, we set off on a long awaited 2 week vacation.  And by long awaited, I mean we've been counting down for MONTHS. During those months, the idea of 'x more days until...' felt like the brightest spot in the midst of an onslaught of illnesses. (Anytime the kid is sick, work becomes chaotic, as does school, therapy appointments, etc. Life gets extra messy.)

Now, when My Sailor is serving on a submarine, our trips are kept short and local. Travel is difficult to schedule and usually approved last minute - which also tends to make it expensive. So while he's spending more time on shore (and Holiday Stand Down is a thing) we try to make the most of it. That includes making memories and engaging in experiences as often as possible. I suspect it's fairly typical for Military families, and in that aspect, we are much the same. 

We started our road trip with a detour to see some of The Impossible Girl's cousins in Seattle. Since she'd spent at least half of the last 3 months sick, she missed them a lot, so we made the trip over to Seattle to see them before starting our journey south. 

Road Trip with a Mermaid Tail blanket from the cousins. Makes for great sleep!

We were surprised by a heavy flurry of snow on our way out of the city. It was a beautiful way to start a grand adventure that would cover over 2000 miles.

Our first official stop was a couple hours into the road trip. We stopped at the World Forestry Center in Portland, Oregon. 

Well worth a visit, there was a LOT for the kids to do to learn about the importance of forests on the planet, and the responsible use of them. Admission was an affordable $5/person, and we could have spent much longer than the hour we had there. 

Other cousins joined us to play.

It's hard to leave such a cool place to play, but we stopped for dinner and then headed further south. 

A few hours later, we finally stopped for the night in Ashland, Oregon. The first day was easy and lots of time spent with My Sailor's family along the way. I'm lucky. They are all pretty cool people and it was nice to visit on our way off on the adventure! 

In the morning, we stopped in the hotel breakfast spot before hitting the road and broke out some of our games. 

Dollar store felt checker travel set.

Two older ladies were also having breakfast at a different table and made excellent commentary on The Impossible Girl learning checkers. it was a nice slow start to the BIG driving day. We'd spend the next 10 hours or so on the road.

We also worked on The Impossible Girl's Travel Journal. Our first leg was 460 miles.

A neighbor in the Buy Nothing group suggested a sheet pan made a great lap table. Perfect for Lego building on the go!

Finally we made it to our destination. Hollywood. 

Along this trip, The Impossible Girl discovered the Lyle Lyle Crocodile soundtrack. Top of the World definitely fit our hotel situation! We spent two nights with the hotel with this fantastic floor to ceiling window, about 12 floors above Wilshire Boulevard. Hotel Indigo was lovely. Though the food options were highly limited there, we did discover some chocolate chip pancakes, and the bar was pretty generous - a nice way to start off the vacation.

Tomorrow we'd check a big destination off the kiddo's bucket list (and mine!)

Making Plans and Making Faces

 

My eggs protesting pre scramble.

Just about every morning, I have 2-3 eggs scrambled with some sauteed Spinach on top. I drizzle some Chipotle Chalula hot sauce on top and sit down at the table to enjoy my breakfast with a side of whatever fruit we happen to have around the house and a cup of black coffee or tea. 

It's not that I don't like variety. It's just that this particular routine is easy, healthy, and something I look forward to. 

In the past 2 months alone, life has been anything but routine. If I was going to inventory it, the list would look something like:

Out of the last 6 weeks

The Impossible Girl has been sick for 3.5 of them with 2 different respiratory illnesses (not counting the one she got in October).

The house has undergone some serious construction (now completed... mostly)

One of the dogs became severely ill with a rare cancer that progressed quickly. He had to be put down on the same day they were doing construction at the house...

My Sailor left on a hunting trip with his family and shortly after the Impossible Girl became so sick I couldn't get her O2 levels above 90% when she was sleeping AND we couldn't get help from the ER or any physician because they were booked solid and overflowing with kids with the same issue. (Luckily her pediatric nurse is amazing and armed me with as much knowledge as possible as we played 'stay out of the hospital', barely dodging it)

Toss in a major holiday and it's incredible chaos.

And that's just the last 6 weeks... 

Counting down to the upcoming trip has been like port in the storm. 

As much as I LOVE to travel - it's not as simple as 'pack a bag and go' either. I've researched a BUNCH and I think I might be better prepared than last time we took a big trip. I think our tools are solid and at the ready. I think.

If you've followed the blog, you know that during our Spring Break family trip to Disney World, I was once again caught off guard by the levels that life is different for us. Not better or worse - just different. Our unwanted hitchhiker (better known as sensory processing disorder with some anxiety tossed in for spice) made it difficult to even go into buildings. At one point, I over estimated the power of our unwanted friend and it left The Impossible Girl in a panic attack so severe, I had to take her to the Baby Care Center and find a quiet, air conditioned room where she could safely see the hallucinations that were scaring her, and we could ride out the panic attack with her. It took nearly an hour and it was exhausting on all fronts. 

But that doesn't mean we STOP traveling. In fact, I took The Impossible Girl to a hotel in Tacoma for a random overnight on a weekend in November. And it went well. 

Our room had a killer view.

Watching Netflix on a HOTEL TV feels like more fun than at home.

I was hoping to hit up a museum, but we ended up visiting a new-to-us Defy location, grabbing coffee and playing cards with a friend, and ordering some pizza. All of the 'new' is good for the senses, and the little snippets of travel help me understand how to best prepare for the next trip. 

But traveling with Sensory Processing Disorder isn't simple, but it isn't something I hope to curb or even mildly avoid.  Thanks to our professionals - we can travel better. For example, I understand how to offer food in a way that isn't overwhelming - and teaching her own to special order things that she can enjoy helps normalize the whole process. I keep a noise cancelling headphones with us at all times and never once flinch at offering them or treating it as anything less than normal. Some kids tennis shoes. Some kids wear boots. Some kids wear sandals. Some kinds where head phones. 

And, yes, I still pack her carrier along as well. I don't often need it these days. We almost never use it in everyday life (barring her recent illness, when she's too tired to go run an errand with me, etc).  She's getting braver with each trip we take to an unusual place, and that's a feat.

 For The Impossible Girl - and millions like her with Sensory Processing Disorder - anxiety, terror, and high levels of excitment are hard to tell apart. Sometimes background noise and conversations don't instantly prioritize in the brain. 

We've accumulated a lot of tools so far, but this one I felt was worth sharing. KultureCity is working with organizations around the country to educate them on Sensory Processing issues and arm them with goodie bags of tools to make places like sporting events, museums, and zoos more accessible. They arm them with FREE bags they can check out that have fidgets and weighted lap pads and head phones, etc. Throughout the locations they work with, there are signs with the KultureCity logo wearing a pair of headphones. It's a loving, discreet reminder that this location may be loud and donning the headphones could be helpful. Little things like that make traveling so much easier - and I wish it was more wide spread. 

But managing that - at this age? That's what I'm here for. That's why she has parents. Not to be a crutch, but to help her recognize the feelings and strategize what her next step needs to be. Hopefully next time we make it to Disney World, she'll go inside buildings without a second thought - or maybe she'll have the second thought but work through it with a higher level of confidence.

So this time when we take a trip down to see my family, Disneyland is (shockingly) not on the menu. This time, it's La Brea Tar Pits (a 'must see' of hers for over a year since she saw a family go there on a youtube channel I watched), a different Great Wolf Lodge, a slew of different eateries (which will all have very different flavors than the rash of bland that our corner of the world suffers from), and different people. It'll be an awesome experience and I'm looking forward to seeing how she grows through it. 

Taking trips with kids is hard under normal circumstances. It's basically parenting in the wild - which can get exhausting. 

But the time will pass no matter where you spend it. Make the memories. Make the effort. 

It's always worth it.

Even the expensive Disney World trip that went very little like we expected.  Lessons learned are part of grand adventures. 

When the World Paused - Day 120 - Masks Mandated and The Great Outdoors

The world is turning quickly these days. A lot has happened in just the past week. Masks are now a mandatory thing in Washington to enter businesses, and in Seattle, they are mandatory all the time. (A brief stop on a drive today went further in to prove that.) 

But this past week, my brother and I made good on our first 'vacation' together - while sanitizing like crazy, wearing our masks, and doing lots of social distancing. Now, I'll admit - hanging out with my big brother has always been an awesome thing for me. He's on a bit of a pedastool, even though we're both in our 40's now. I see him through realistic glasses, but he's turned into kind of an amazing guy. Since our dad passed away, I see a lot of little quirks of Dad's personality in him. Like I've always said, blood may be thicker than water, but love is what binds us all together. We're a choosen family - not a biological one, but however we came to be - I won the family lottery.

This weekend, we put our bodies to the test and did some socially distant amazing hiking through the Cascade Mountains - with The Impossible Girl en tow, of course.

The trip started with a visit to FinnRiver Cidery and Fort Worden on the Penninsula. Both were easy to stay socially distanced. I wasn't sure how things would go once we got to our home base for the trip - the tiny town of Leavenworth - but it turned out they have also made adjustments. 

They shut down the main street to cars and put picnic tables in the streets to help assist with social distancing, and to help keep the businesses (which rely almost entirely on tourism) to stay attractively open. 

The Impossible girl doesn't love masks or the sun, but she's great at understanding that it keeps her germs to herself. She is also a pro at sanitizing and understanding the purpose behind all of this without letting it really get to her. It's just a change. We miss play grounds and sporting events and movie theaters, but this vacation taught me something I plan to carry forward into my life in all my future parenting. 

 

If you've known me for more than a couple hours - you know I am team 'TAKE THE TRIP'. Don't wait until a small child will (might) remember it clearly. Don't wait until they are perfectly behaving or potty trained, or weaned. TAKE THE TRIP. (I mean, by all means, do what's right for your family. This is just the advice you'll get from me if you ask.) It's EXHAUSTING traveling with a small kid. There is a lot of gear to lug around and things you may not need to worry about at home. It's easier to stay home - or is it?

When we travel, even if it's somewhere like Leavenworth, we try to learn something. Sometimes it's just seeing people that don't look like us, or talk like us. Sometimes it's just to walk a different street and experience a different way of life. Sometimes - like this time - it was to discover that nature has built some wonders that even Disney hasn't been able to replicate. 

In Deception Falls (a fairly easy 1 mile hike), we all learned that the water is SO cold and the rocks and sand do such a good job of filtering the water that NOTHING will live in it. It's fresh and frigid and breath taking.

(We also learned that her legs are magically too tired when she's at the bottom of a hill or a staircase..)

I am always grateful that I can carry her, even now at 40 pounds and nearly 5 years old, around without much of a second thought.  

The hike a Deception Falls was one she did almost all of herself. She was afraid of the roar of the waterfalls for a while, but by the end, she was screaming, "THIS IS SO COOL!" I was also astounded. I've seen waterfalls before, but something about being so close to that one, that was rushing so fast, was just amazing. 

The hike we did the day before she wasn't really up for. She tried, but tired quickly (and the asthma flare up didn't help). I carried her nearly the entire way. 4 miles, about 2.5 hours - and some sights I'll not soon forget. 

My brother snapped this photo as The Impossible Girl and I walked on a bridge crossing a raging river. Summary of the trip is all right there in that photo.

We saw some amazing things - although no animals. It was hot and the middle of the day.

I would never have really considered taking a hiking vacation with The Impossible Girl at this age. Honestly, at this age, if it isn't Disneyland or a Disney related adventure, I don't think I would have bothered with taking her hiking. Camping with a 4 year old sounds like a special form of torture - trying to keep track of her while trying to set up camp.

But this was a great trip. She was a great traveler and was very excited about the whole adventure (and equally as excited to play with all of her toys at home when we returned).  I would never really had considered it, if it was just her and me - because being 'on' as mom doesn't end or really even change just because we change the scenery. But it did recharge my heart a bit. And maybe that's exactly what I didn't realize I needed. 

It was a much needed reminder that we can safely travel and marvel in the things out in it. ...

And follow it up with quite possibly the world's best ice cream...

This kind of trip may be a new summer time favorite. 

 It's not the kind of vacation where all the worries go away. (In fact, you're looking for things like bears constantly.) But it is the kind of trip that deepens our understanding of each other as well as the world around us. 

Highlights of the Trip - Disney World!

Star Tours 2.0! We went on 3 times with WALK-ON LINES!

For the 2nd leg of our journey, we met EVEN MORE members of My Sailor's family in Disney World, FL! Here are a few highlights from that excursion!

Testing out Lou Mongello's Best Snack in Disney World - the Carrot Cake Cookie available at the Writer's Stop in Hollywood Studios. Delicious! Lou, you're right!

Starting at Sip n' Snack around the world in Mexico, World Showcase, EPCOT, with My Sailor's brother and yet another sister!

My favorite find during EPCOTs Flower and Garden Festival! Stitch!

The theme of this trip for sure! Found on the back of the Pleasure Island sign.

Enjoying a date night at a futuristic arcade, Disney Quest! (Go later for 1/2 price tickets!)

Enjoying Disney World with Another one of My Sailor's sisters, and her daughter. So cute!

This photo just embodies Disney World for me!

The whole crew! Left to Right - Me, My Sailor, one of his sister's, her daughter and her husband, his brother, and another one of his sisters.

A good time was had by all, but we wish we had just 1 more day in Disney....