Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Day 48: Crescent City, CA to Springfield, OR

This morning was very rough. None of us had a good night's sleep in our cheap-ass hotel. The beds were too bouncy, the pillows too lumpy, the room too warm, the plumbing too loud, and the foghorn WAY too loud. We were all able to fall asleep around 10 pm in spite of the foghorn probably because there were enough other night noises to drown it out. No such luck at 2 am when Elli woke us all up because her blanket wasn't lying on her correctly. At that time of night, it sounded like the foghorn was right outside our window. Ron's desperation actually drove him to get fully dressed and start calling other hotels to find a quieter room. No such luck, so he had the brainstorm to play his ipod to help us all sleep. He and Elli fell asleep during the first playing of Death Cab for Cutie, but I had to re-start the album for Jonah and I to get back to sleep. When I woke up, I was feeling very done with our summer travels, but that could just be the exhaustion talking.

We did another hike in the Redwoods before continuing up the coast and that did a nice job of improving my mood. This grove was more expansive than yesterday's so you could really appreciate the sheer magnitude of all the trees. Elli was just as giddy as yesterday which never failed to bring a smile to my face.

My mood continued to lift with a picnic lunch at the beach in OR and walking around Prehistoric Gardens with the kids. Ron wanted to stop at Prehistoric Gardens to see all the lifesize models of dinosaurs at the roadside attraction. It wasn't as cool as Ron remembered, but the kids got a kick out of it.

Our final stop at the Hammonds in Coos Bay, OR brought me back to normal. Relaxing with Shelley and Joe for a few hours while the cousins all played one last time this summer was just what I needed to re-charge my batteries. Leaving their house was definitely sad, though. We've all had so much fun with the Hammonds--we're going to miss them a lot!

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