The desert is scary at night
Trip Start
Oct 29, 2009
1
2
8
Trip End
Nov 08, 2009
Ely, Nevada
Saturday, October 31, 2009
The kids are content in the new rig with plenty of room to play. The reward for quality family time: Brett discovered the mark on Bubba’s back was bite marks! I noticed it last night while bathing them but couldn’t determine what the bruise was from. Now it is obviously teeth marks! Big sis justice.
Cleo put her clothes away in the kid’s room and has been using their toy box. We were able to shower today in our RV. This is a totally new experience considering we used the Tioga shower to store our cooler, it was tiny and in no way an appealing place to bathe. In addition, we suspected that the floor had a leak and the water tank was not large enough. We were a slave to nasty RV park bathrooms. Not anymore! We all took nice hot showers and thoroughly enjoyed our normal sized bathroom. Grandma says it’s her favorite room because she can fix her hair now. I totally agree, now I understand why the bathrooms at the parks were always empty, they were using their own! I washed the kids up too. I love this RV.
Stopped at South Lake Tahoe to have lunch at Waylans Texas style BBQ, pretty good food but not worth the price, I’m sure we paid more for being on the California side. The owners sons where there, Shadrack, Meeshak, and Abendago. While at the restaurant, Cleo was being defiant so she got a small spanking, I wonder if the people there thought I was an abusive parent. I wonder if spanking your kids is really the right way to go. The thing is that it works and if we were ever in a life or death situation I want to be damn sure that my kids follow my direction. I use a combination of spanks and time-outs, works for us. Parenting is so hard. Seems like no matter what you do, in the end it will be wrong.
We did some light shopping at some cheesy gift store on our way back to the rig. Cleo knows how to shop. She picked out five toys, all under $10 and one over. After learning that she could only have one, she pulled out the $20 pig back pack. She is my daughter after all. We got back to the RV and Dolly had got into the trash! OMG, there was mess all over the place…there were shredded dirty diapers…I won’t elaborate on this one. We cleaned up the mess after Brett spanked the dog. Now I wonder if the guys in the parking lot think that we abuse our animals. We decided that our rig is officially broken in. Beyond the trash incident, Cleo has already colored the walls with a marker.
We waved bye to Tahoe and decided that Crescent Lake is better. From here it is 50 west until we reach Utah. This rig is so much more comfortable on the road. Our old RV gave me heart palpitations while driving on any hwy, but this ride is awesome. The engine is quite and the body doesn’t sway back and forth on the road like the Tioga. I may be crazy, but I feel so much safer that I let the kids lay in the back bedroom, with supervision, and watch movies while we are on the road. What a better way to pass the time on long stretches such as this one across the desert, another benefit as we didn’t have a TV in the Tioga. I have officially changed my stance on television on vacation, I used to think that it distracted from family time. In reality, spending an hour of peace and quite snuggled with your kids while watching the boob tube, rather than yelling at them to be quite is time better spent.
I was lying with the kids watching Charlotte’s Web when I realized that the sun was down and I was really hungry. I think it was around 7:30pm, but who knows, not only are we three hours ahead but we are also in the mist of daylight savings time. Anyway, Brett decided that he wanted to keep driving so I fed the kids some chicken soup and accompanied them to bed in the back bedroom. We watched Charlotte’s Web, again.
We drove to Ely. Brett was totally exhausted and parked in some vacant lot. If you ever have to drive across Nevada, gas up and drink some coffee, because there is nothing but open sky and tumble weeds. Brett said he had to dodge a dead cow in the road a few miles back. Then he saw an elk at the side of the road, so he honked at it. The elk heard the horn and ran toward the RV! Brett could see him out of the side mirror running along side the rig, all he could do was speed up and hope that it wouldn’t turn into us.
Brett slept in Clayton’s bunk because the kids were sound asleep in our bed. Watching him wedge himself into the cubby hole of a bunk was entertaining, even in the middle of the night.
