We're home. Four days early. Of the last 39 hours, I have slept exactly 2 of them. I don't think I've done that since the summer after college.
Yes Clint, Mammoth is totally beautiful. I love the weather, the cool mornings and warm afternoons, the clear skies, the extremes of light and shadow, the incredibly clean smell of the air. I've been there many times in the summer, and it's always gorgeous. This time was no exception.
We drove up Saturday and set up our tent trailer, which is no easy feat with a screaming baby clinging to one leg. And how is it that Judah couldn't care less about what I'm doing until I actually try to accomplish something, and then he becomes frantic and needs to be picked up NOW!? So we got set up enough to cook some dinner and go to bed, and Judah did fine that night. The next day we spent going to "church" with the rest of our group in an outdoor amphitheater, stocking up on more supplies, and taking a gondola ride up to the top of the mountain with my parents. The view was amazing.
My parents offered to keep Judah overnight Sunday, since they were staying in a condo in town. So Nathan and I went back to camp and to an evening meeting, then early to bed so we could get up early for a hike. We left our campground at Pumice Flats around nine and hiked down to Rainbow Falls. It was nice, really quiet since we went before most of the other tourists. We hiked to the bottom and got drenched by the spray, then walked back to the Red's Meadow resort for drinks and pie at the Mule House Cafe. Later on Nathan went fly fishing for a while and I followed along with my camera.
And then it all went horribly wrong. We drove up into town to have dinner with my parents and Judah, then all went back down to camp for the evening meeting. Nathan and I went to put Judah to bed around 8:30, and he didn't like the idea at all. He cried for about 45 minutes before finally quieting down. Nathan and I went to bed around 11:30 and I woke up at 1:30, and I haven't really slept since. Judah woke up at 2:00, then was awake on and off for the next two hours, then woke up for good at 4:00. We did all we could to keep him quiet, and at 6:30 we decided we were cutting our trip short. Adding to the frustration was the misery of below freezing temps where we were camping, and the cold Nathan managed to develop sometime in the night. We packed up all our stuff and took down the trailer in record time and were on the road by 9:15. We met my parents in Mammoth for breakfast at The Stove, then headed home. And here we are.
Judah is upstairs sleeping peacefully. He's exhausted. Nathan and I are both pretty down about the whole fiasco. I should be able to laugh about it, but we were really looking forward to this being a fun time and a nice vacation. Instead it was mostly just stressful and tiring. I guess camping is one of the things we'll have to mostly put off until we're done having kids and they're done being babies....
6 comments:
having more kids...??
Does this mean you're coming to PHX?
Ummm...eventually there will be more kids. This is not an announcement.
Not coming to the hot place right away! Don't you need a break for a little? But we'll be there as soon as you want us. :) I'll call you.
I've found that most vacation type stuff you think might be fun with a toddler usually turns out to be more hassle than anything. It's like when we thought taking Connor to the zoo at 18 mo. would be fun, and we were exhausted corraling him on the train by the time we got there, and he was asleep or could care less about what we were doing once we got there! Sorry your trip got cut short, I feel ya on that one.
Yep, the baby stages have put a damper on many things. The hardest part, maybe, is thinking, If we have x many more kids, that means we can't go camping or even really on a decent vacation for 8 more years. And that's depressing.
Starting to see why I don't want kids? Give up skiing for a few years while the kid gets old enough to handle it? No thanks. Call me selfish if you want, but at least I'm responsible enough to I shouldn't have a kid. =)
Nope, I never get on people's cases when they say they don't want kids. If they can realize that early on it's way better than having a couple kids and THEN realizing it, and then abandoning them or resenting them. That's the saddest thing in the world. And it happens way too often.
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