Memorial Day Weekend 2012 - Day 1

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

When we found out that we were not transferring, we made plans to spend Memorial Day weekend with our friends, the Rhoads, in Eastern Washington.  Where we have mountains and the ocean in Western Washington, the Eastern portion of the state is more of a dessert dotted with lakes running along the Columbia River.  We spent two weekends out there last summer and had a great time, so East we go! 

We spent Thursday night and Friday morning going through all of our camping gear, packing up just about everything but the kitchen sink, and prepping food for the long weekend.  Around 11am on Friday, we pulled Grace out of school and we were off.  Now we were not the only ones who were there to pull kids out to g6et a head start on traffic.  The list of kids who were signed out was already almost a page long at 11, when on a normal day there are only a few names on the list.  When I was working in Elizabeth's class Thursday afternoon, her teacher told me that nearly half of her afternoon class would not even be in class on Friday.  Didn't make us feel bad for taking our girls out.

We stopped for a quick lunch a little bit of shopping along the way (Dave would probably say it was more like a lot) then we were on the road again.

Unfortunately, our plans to leave early coincided with everyone else's plans to leave Seattle early.  When we got to Stevens past about an hour outside of Seattle, we found  what Washington State DOT referred to as "Holiday Traffic."  It is times like this that we are thankful for this wonderful mini-van of ours.  The kids watched a movie on the DVD player, and Dave and I played the popular car game, "Wow!  Look at what they get to do this weekend!"  We also tried to point out some of the amazing scenery that the low traffic allowed us to take in along the way, but it the kids didn't seem nearly as interested in that as we were.  We got a lot of, "oh" and, "Yeah.  That's pretty." 

After sitting in traffic at Steven Pass for 2 hours, we were finally on the open freeway.  The drive was beautiful.  The pictures don't even come close to doing the scenery justice.

After just another hour on the road (which included an "uh oh, we just passed our exit) and quick stop at Dairy Queen for a bathroom break and a little snack, we arrived at Blue Lake Resort.  Now I just want to say upfront that the term "Resort" should be used very, very loosely here.  The words "total dump" are what first came to mind.  Like I wanted to turn right back around and drive the 5 hours home.  But the girls saw Ellen and Garrett the minute that we pulled in and they were off and having a great time in a matter of seconds.  I love kids and the way that they turn a blind eye to things that stick out like a sore thumb to adults.  Their friends were there, the lake was just a stone's throw away, and there was a playground.  They just wanted to let loose have a good time. 

I'll admit that I was pretty darn grumpy as we unloaded the van into our 30-year old camper complete with mousetraps in the cabinets and stains on the couch.  But I would just have to be grumpy because the kids had waited all day for a campfire and they weren't taking "no" for an answer.  Ann and Jason fired up their grill for hamburgers while Dave worked with 4 kids looking on very eagerly to get the campfire started.  A few hours visiting with friends, a trip to the playground, a quick look at the lake, and some s'mores really ended the evening on a great note.

Sure, I had to wipe our entire camper down with disinfecting wipes and used nearly an entire bottle of Febreeze to mask the musty smell that permeated our camper.  But everything is really about perspective.  We were away for the weekend with our friends, the kids were so happy, and, besides the traffic at Snoqualmie, we really did have a nice drive full of road trip games and Radio Disney.  Reminding myself of how many, many good things outweighed the bad, I went to bed glad that we came and thankful for our awesome kids that always make the most drab places a great adventure full of new memories.