We went to Hoover Dam first off the airplane and it was 118! We braved the heat to take a quick picture.
Then, we headed to Vegas. Vegas is totally over-stimulating. (So much so that I took less than 10 pictures there, and they were all of people, not the sights.) The lights, the constant movement of people and cars and busses. To arrive in Las Vegas from little old Tallahassee was shocking to say the least. It’s almost as if the lights and continual action were affecting my mind and telling me it wasn’t really 11pm EST, and that I should stay up and keep going, spending money, observing the sights. I fought the urge and went to sleep anyway. We woke up really early - about 4 AM Vegas time - and went to breakfast. We were pretty much the only ones there. The stores in the hotel were closed, we were the only ones in line for breakfast, and a few late-night partiers straggled in, looking haggered, carrying their shoes, make-up smeared, clothes buttoned incorrectly or missing entirely. It was quite a sight. My favorite observation came on our way out of the hotel parking lot. I observed a man walking down the road, carrying a very energetic (or perhaps agitated) woman over his arm, dangling her shoes in her hands, hitting him on the back with each step. They looked like they’d had a fantastic night on the Vegas Strip. As we drove away from the Strip, I was surprised at how quickly you go from seeing action everywhere to nothing by desert.
We headed northward, toward Oakhurst, California, via I-15, but as soon as we got onto the interstate, my Dad called on my cell and indicated he did not want to drive that way. He had a “scenic, but direct” route he wanted to take, since we would be driving back to Vegas in two weeks via I-15. We all said, sure, not a problem. We assumed that he’d carefully plotted our directions and deemed this route comparable to the interstate. How wrong we were. We set out and quickly realized this was not the route we’d planned. Our Garmin nuvi immediately re-routed and projected a time of arrival in Oakhurst that was almost 3 hours longer than the original route!
The further we drove on my dad’s route, the more our Garmin (affectionately called ‘Karen’, after the name for the Australian pronunciation voice) re-routed us and projected a later and later arrival time. It was a V E R Y scenic drive, one that will forever be in my
memory. We stumbled upon the California/Nevada state line and stopped to take pictures. Yes, I am a nerd.
We also stumbled upon miles and miles of open range signs. We finally found civilization again when we arrived at the entrance to Yosemite National Park and wound our way through miles of park. Lovely drive, but at the point in the day, no one wanted to stop to take photos. In the end, after almost 11 hours in the car, we arrived at the delightful Houndstooth Inn Bed & Breakfast. We all crashed very early that day and awoke early the next morning. We had loose plans and debated for some time about what activities to select for our first real day of vacation. Robert selected a back massage because after 11 hours of driving on Sunday and all the plane travel on Saturday, his prior hip/back injury was causing him a lot of discomfort. Dad & Hoyt went off on a fly fishing expedition with a guide and the rest of us headed back into the park for a picnic at Wawona and a tour of the Yosemite where we spent quite a few pennies on gift shop finds. Addison picked out a Christmas ornament in the shape of a black bear, Mom got a copper-coated pinecone wind chime, and we bought Addison a National Park “Passport” where she can document which parks she visits with a stamp. Robert had one when he was little and he was excited to start Addison’s book so early in her life. (Over the course of this trip, she visited a total of four National Parks). Besides touring the park while in Oakhurst, we also checked out several restaurants and their local children’s museum.
Here's Hoyt humoring Addison (or was it visa versa?) at the Children's Museum. My favorite restaurant was Todd’s BBQ, but others really enjoyed a place called Crab Cakes. One night, we headed out for pizza at “Me-N-Ed’s Pizzeria” (awesome name, right?!), but I didn’t get to really enjoy my meal. I knew my head hurt, but it didn’t get better when I took Zyrtec (I thought it was allergy/sinus related). It didn’t help when I took Tylenol, either. By the end of dinner, I couldn’t stand to hear any noises, see any lights, adjust to any movements, without an overwhelming sense of nausea seeping over me. My mom took me to lay down while the rest of my family went to bowl and see a movie. I laid still for almost two hours with no improvement, and added another piece of discomfort. When I laid my head down on the pillow, I felt as though my head was spinning, very rapidly, around in a circle. When Robert got back from bowling, I still felt awful. I told him I wouldn’t wish how I was feeling on my worst enemy. He then googled the symptoms I was having and decided that it might be a tension headache, so he gave me an ibuprofen. Within 30 minutes, I felt like a new person. He also googled the spinning-head thing, and found that it might be vertigo, which I have suffered from in the past. He told me to prop my head up under a few pillows, and magically, that disappeared, too. Bless my wonderful husband who fixed me when I was so miserable on vacation.
He made me promise that I would call for an appointment with my MD as soon as we return to Tallahassee, so this is my public promise that I will do so. Once I felt better, I got the full report on bowling, which included a short story about Addison walking into a bowling ball that her daddy was preparing to throw. She survived with little injury, thankfully.
Out last morning in Yosemite, we awoke early and hiked in the Mariposa Grove
to see the giant sequoia trees. That was humbling. It was a beautiful walk & really energized us for the next part of our morning at Glacier Point. We picnicked at Glacier Point
and headed back for afternoon naps and packing. The next morning we left for Solvang for the Watkins Family Reunion.
One of my favoirte moments with Addison on this portion of our trip was early one morning when she, my mom and I were hanging out together. We decided to go for a walk down the path behind the Inn in search of the resident cats, Boots and an unnamed Orange kitten. We walked and sang a little song which Addison adjusted to better suit her speech patterns. It ended up like this: “we’re goin’ on a a-benture, a-benture, a-benture. We’re goin’ on a a-benture, all day long.”
Here are a few other pics from this portion of the trip. Remember that you can see my "condensed" collection of 500 photos at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/NWBrown82/WatkinsFamilyTrip2009#
2. Downtown Solvang, CA. My new favorite place.
3. Us in Yosemite National Park, specifically the river crossing at Wawona. One of my favorite family pictures ever.
4. My mom & Addison, also at Wawona.
5. Andrew & Evelyn fully enjoying their time at Disney.
7. Addison taking in the world around her while at Glacier Point in Yosemite.
8. Pretty girl on a hike in Zion National Park.
9. My brothers: dorks, or the coolest guys on earth? Impossible to distinguish.
11. With Amaly at the Grand Canyon. It's actually one of the best canyon views we got in a photo. If I hadn't actually been there myself, I might suggest we were simply standing in front of a green screen or picture of the Grand Canyon. I love it.
