Saturday, July 18, 2009

Summer Vacation '09 Road Trip

It wasn't until last summer that Sofia got to go on her first vacation to Bear Lake for a few days. This year, I feel like we took our first real family vacation with lots of driving, tired children and surprisingly not too much whining. We drove to the Redwoods in northern California with an overnight stop in Reno, NV. Then we drove south to Santa Rosa, CA and came back through Reno again.

First Stop: Salt Flats a few minutes from Wendover, NV

Gas Stop: Sofia stretches her "legs"

Finally she succums to sleep on the second day of driving after six hours

We drove to the Redwoods in northern California where we stayed for the first couple of days and tested our outdoor skills by roughing it in a small KOA cabin and endured the element of humidity in the air and beautiful lush green surroundings. We cooked all our meals outside and even had to use community bathrooms. Sofia was most thrilled about sleeping in a bunk bed (and using the community bathrooms).

Crescent City, CA KOA cabin

The Redwoods

Redwoods: Sofia, fairy of natural gases

Hidden Beach: the trail to this beach was very jungle-y and dark, Sofia was tired, weary of tigers, and whiny. But, it didn't stop her from releiving herself (#1) on the beach when we finally got there

Fern Canyon

The second part of our trip was Safari West, where we roughed it in a private African style tent with beds and a full working bathroom. We joined the luxury buffet dinner the first night, followed by the feeding raw chicken to giant catfish, and roasting of marshmallows. The next morning, we went on Safari and walked around a lot. It was really hot during the day and ridiculously cold at night (luckily, there were heated blankets and a heater).


Sofia models her tiny giraffe next to the real giraffe (click on image to view larger)
Before heading home, we did a drive by through San Francisco stoping at the Golden Gate bridge, Lombard Street, and Pier 39.

Golden Gate Bridge: a stranger was nice enough to offer to take a picture of us to document my existence