I
already said this on Facebook, but I’m going to repeat it for posterity (and
mainly so that “I” remember in the future), that at least some of my
satisfaction with a trip comes from creating appropriate expectations for
myself and properly labeling what the trip actually “is” instead of just
calling it a vacation (which it wasn’t, and pretty much never is when you
travel with kids, unless you travel with a nanny, which is dreaming for us). “Vacation” is really a lot of
pressure to have fun, and calling this trip fun would have definitely been
overstating the case. The correct label
is that the first half of this trip was “travel to Bend and care for the kids
while Andrew participates in a 100 mile mountain bike race” and the second half
was “take the kids to a national park and go for a few hikes in the area.” Those things I did do! Every night at dinner with our kids we do a
roundtable “best and worst” and here is the consensus for each day of our trip:
Friday
Best:
Well behaved children and baby on a
long car trip to Bend! Everyone took a
nap (except me of course, because I was driving)! A nice dinner with our friends the Warnock’s
at the condo we were sharing in Mount Bachelor Village with a beautiful view looking
onto the river and hearing it’s gentle roar in the background.
Friday
Worst:
We arrived slightly later than
planned and Andrew Gendler still went out for a ride, leaving the ladies to
multitask child care and dinner prep in a kitchen the size of a small closet
while the children alternated between running, screaming, harming themselves or each other, and damaging the premises. Clearly it was less than ideal.
Saturday
Best:
Andrew Gendler survived his
race! It started at 5:30 am and he rode
100 miles of mountain bike trails on a very hot and very dusty trail at
significant elevation! It was an
extremely well supported race the aid stations and volunteers were
amazing! The kids got to go swimming
twice and were very happy about that!
Also, I was so lucky to have another mom to share in the torture with me
of the whole experience; Sarah was awesome and even took my older two off my
hands for over an hour when we were waiting for Andrew in a very hot parking
lot.
Saturday
Worst:
I had a lapse in judgement and
decided to go to two of the aid stations with the kids to cheer Andrew on when
we had originally planned on coming to “maybe” one of them. I figured the whole point of us being there
was for his race and wanted to show him our support. BIG MISTAKE.
It was hot, really hot, and we were only guessing as to when they might
come through the check points, we had no way of knowing. We ended up waiting for over an hour on the
hot and dusty trail with no shade and the kids at both of the spots (after
driving 30 minutes to get to each one) and then a long time at the finish too. I stupidly didn’t bring enough water and was
trying to conserve it for the kids so I didn’t really have anything to
drink. The kids were grumpy and tired
within the first 5 minutes (in fact Asher refused to leave the car and stayed
in there while we burned through a half a tank of gas throughout the day
running the car to keep it cool). I also
had not had enough coffee to get me through this kind of day and so I
desperately wanted coffee and I decided to go get some before the race finish
but when I tried to go downtown I found out the whole area was cordoned off for
a criterium race and could not find coffee anywhere. It felt like a disaster. Add on top of that that I am already jealous
that Andrew spends 20+ hours a week training on his bike instead of spending
time with us and then here I was torturing myself and the kids over seeing him
for 5 minutes at an aid station and that was it, I was done! In addition to the difficulty of a grumpy 9
and 6 year old I had toddler issues too; Vivian was repeatedly trying to injure
herself. She tried to drown a couple of
times in the baby pool and then kept wanting to jump in (and have Avery catch
her) but wouldn’t jump quite far enough and actually hit the back of her skull
on the pool deck one time (one of my least favorite injuries from my life
guarding/swimming lesson years).
Fortunately she is a tough kid and bounced back from everything really
well. Additionally she kept trying to
pull the glass top off of the coffee table in the condo. It was rather stupidly not attached to the
table in any way, and I got so tired of telling her “no!” and having her keep
doing it that I finally took it out of the room and put it on the deck. When we came home that evening it was
completely shattered (I thought that since it was in the shade and not getting
direct sun light it wouldn’t matter whether or not it was tempered, guess I was
wrong about that!). She also fell down
the stairs at one point (she can handle our stairs at home but for some reason
these stairs were more difficult) and I just wanted everyone to just hold still
and not whine about anything for 5 minutes but that is really asking a lot with
3 kids. Ok, I will stop with the
negativity now, LESSON LEARNED, I will not take the kids to another bike race
again (and I probably won’t go myself either, on a scale of 1 to 10 for fun
spectator sports watching anything other than a criterium or cyclocross race is
somewhere around 0.5).
Sunday
Best:
I had a nice road bike ride in the
morning with Sarah, we climbed 10 miles up Mount Bachelor (the Scenic Byway)
and then turned around and came back down faster than I normally do (to the
point that felt unsafe but it was really fun!).
That road was wonderfully smooth, like riding on butter! Plus there is nothing quite so cathartic for
your anger about how much your spouse rides their bike than riding your own
bike!
Crater Lake was amazing! We got there around 4 pm and checked into the
Crater Lake Lodge. Andrew and I both
love those old lodge buildings; it’s like they are wrapped in a cocoon of
romantic nostalgia that is almost palpable.
We took the kids to a Junior Ranger activity before going to dinner and
they got badges which made their day! I
was happy I had planned in advance (I made the dinner reservations 3 months ago,
on the first possible day you could!) and dinner was really fun, the kids were
amazingly well behaved and the food was bland and overpriced but we didn’t care
because we had WELL BEHAVED CHILDREN AT A FORMAL DINNER FOR ONCE! It almost makes me cry to think about it; I
will remember it forever! After dinner
we went for a 2+ mile hike to Discovery point which leaves from the Rim Village
area and goes out to the high point where the lake was first accidentally
discovered over a hundred years ago. As
we were starting our hike we stumbled across a young couple getting engaged and
they asked us to take pictures of them, so romantic! (it caused about 300 questions to come out of
Avery’s mouth after we left the scene).
The lake was so blue and so beautiful and the sunset was amazing and the
kids did really well on the hike especially for it being at the end of a very
long day. We let them stay up late and
Andrew took them down to the lovely veranda for some stargazing before we fell
asleep with our windows open to the cool mountain air.
Sunday
Worst:
We forgot our baby backpack! (thank goodness the Warnocks had theirs and
let us borrow it otherwise we were going to have to go buy another one and
there is nothing more painful than buying a duplicate large item that is rarely
used that your kid is on the verge of growing out of anyway!). We got eaten alive by mosquitos on our hike
because we forgot bug spray! (seriously,
the one time I don’t make a 200 item long organized packing list is the time we
forget this stuff!). I had specifically
planned this trip for some really good stargazing as Avery really loves
studying astronomy this year in school and it was a FULL MOON that made it
bright as day outside that night and not so favorable for stargazing. Maybe my planning was a little off after all!
Monday
Best:
Planning pays off again! We had a nice breakfast at the lodge and were
able to squeeze in two fun hikes because of my planned-down-to-the-minute
itinerary: Annie Creek Trail with a trek into an interesting canyon and some
fun time playing in the creek and the Cleetwood Cove trail which is the only
way to get down to the actual lake. As
the desk clerk told us it’s “one mile downhill and eleven miles back up.” It’s so steep that we actually saw people who
were coming up while we were going down and then PASSED THEM ON OUR WAY BACK UP
because they could barely make it! We
had initially been disappointed because we had wanted to go on a boat trip but
they won’t take kids under 3 and in the end it was fine. We all swam in the VERY cold water (even V
got in to her waist because she kept shrieking “SWIM! SWIM!” when she saw her
brother and sister get in!) and it was really fun! We slowly doled out gummi bears and dried
mangoes on the hike back up to maintain motivation. Everyone was tired after the two hikes and
took naps as we left the park and moved on to Diamond Lake (again except me,
but I can’t sleep in the car anyways).
Monday
Worst:
Diamond Lake Resort was a total
disappointment. It was the worst place I
have ever stayed and they should remove “Resort” from the name. It was dingy, dirty, nasty, old, broken down
(the door barely even worked and had about an inch of open air space underneath
with bugs crawling in!) and gave me the heebee jeebees. My planning failed when it came to this
place; I had trusted the agent on the phone who, when I was booking the Crater
Lake Lodge through the National Park line told me that I was booking rather
late (several months ago) and so there was only availability for Sunday but
that Diamond Lake was a really nice place to stay and on our way out of the
park for Monday night. LIAR LIAR PANTS
ON FIRE! We decided to make the best of
it and took the kids swimming in the lake after I had checked with the front
desk staff to make sure it was safe to do so (there wasn’t anyone else
swimming…) and they said yes. The kids
had fun playing on the black sand beach and walking in the shallows and as we
were leaving I saw the sign saying “Swim at your own risk, TOXIC ALGAE PRESENT” Say what???
We got the kids in the shower and all rinsed off (no tub in this hotel
but crazy slippery showers, everyone was slipping and sliding all over the
bathroom, poor V smashed her face on the floor multiple times until we
essentially created a wet carpet out of towels) and then tucked them (and
ourselves) into very tiny and dingy double beds, the kind that dump everyone
into the hole in the middle. The window
air conditioner spewed a steady stream of way too cold acrid air straight in
our faces all night. When Asher woke up
at 5 am we all popped up and WE WERE OUT OF THERE!
Tuesday
Best:
Another great car trip with the
kids, they are such troopers! My faith
in our ability to travel with them has been restored! 8 hours in the car and they act like it was
no big deal! Plus some nice time for
Andrew and I to just chat. I love him,
even if I have to share him with his bike!
(which I will probably continue to bitch about on a regular basis!).
Tuesday
Worst:
The bittersweet sensation of coming
home when the reality of everything that has to get done (including unpacking)
sinks in. Maybe our trip was more
vacation than I thought after all!
