It’s O-five-thirty and I’m sitting outside the tent in a camp chair exhausted and trying to fall back asleep. In one of my favorite movie quotes of all time ”What’s the O stand for? O my gosh it’s early.”
Why am I up this early you might ask? Because since our road trip last year everyone’s grown a few inches and we’ve added a dog meaning our king size roof top tent is not king size enough anymore.
Last night was probably one of the worst nights sleep ever and thats saying something since I’ve been through basic training, deployment, and having four children. Good news is we made it through our first night on our Great American Adventure 2022, though in my case just barely.
The Beastie did all right on this first leg of the journey. I was a bit worried driving through the mountains and high desert especially once temps hit triple digits. Thanks to Coastline Defender we cruised along quite well with our new 1:2 transfer case. Unfortunately said transfer case is not ideal for mountainous climbs which is exactly what we did for 8 miles once we left the highway and headed into the mountains to camp for the evening. Needless to say we had to stop a few times as the temp gague inched perilously close to overheating.
In the end we made it though to a fabulous gem of a campsite right next to a flowing creek. That’s right in the midst of an extreme drought in California we managed to find flowing water. And the kids all loved it!
We even found an area where someone diverted a portion of the creek and turned it into a pool. The kids spent some time splashing about and wading in the pool and playing ‘the water is lava.’ Pretty sure not one of them made it out alive.
Now I’m enjoying the tranquil morning with the creek flowing nearby, bird song in the air, and sequoias towering overhead. It’s still not six yet, so maybe I’ll try to become one with nature and catch a few more minutes of shut eye before waking up the minions and making breakfast so we can hit the road again on our way to Montana and Glacier National Park.