Day 8- 2016 National Park Tour: No Camping

*No Pictures Note: When transferring ALL my pictures from my camera to my external hard drive, something went wrong and ALL my pictures are gone :( Pictures will be back in future posts!

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Woke up to a freaking out 4-year-old needing to pee. Walked him out, waited for him, then walked him back into the tent to get some more sleep. JUST after drifting off again, he has decided that he needs to poop 'right now quick before I poop in my pajamas!' So I rush him outside and choose to use the half-full garbage bag since I don't know if I'll have time to dig a hole. We get settled for this process to take place, and he changes his mind and wants to go back to sleep. Ugh, great way to start a morning. It was still cool so we bundle back into our sleeping bags and fall asleep. Who knows how long after that, I force one eye open on a whim and see Pumpkin right in my face, seeing if I'm awake. I am now.

After taking down camp and letting the kids eat Oreos for breakfast since they weren't able to last night with the carsick situation, we found the nearest rest area, at the Summit, and had a quick breakfast. I realized as I was digging in the trunk that we left before breakfast out of habit, but we definitely could have hung out at the campsite for a while. No bugs our entire visit here, mostly quiet except for the motorbikes out early evening and early in the morning, and a wide enough field of vision for the kids to run and play without me worrying too much about them getting eaten by a bear or falling into a river.

Filled water containers at Timpanogos National Monument again and then headed into town. On a whim, I decided to check and see when The BFG was coming out. Clearly we've been out of the loop because it is done in theaters this week, so I found a theater that was on our way southeast and timed our trip down. I knew we'd be there early and was planning on winging our wait until we passed an In-N-Out Burger joint. We had to stop. I haven't been to one since 2003 when I was visiting an old boyfriend in San Francisco. We all loved the burgers and the kids were thrilled with the chocolate shake I surprised them with. It was at this time that I let them know there were actually 3 more surprises today but I didn't tell them what they were; movie, hotel, pool.

After our early lunch at In-N-Out!!!, we made it to Provo just in time to catch The BFG in 3D, a first for the kids. It was a great movie and both Pumpkin and I cried, peas in a pod we are sometimes. Chuck Roast wasn't as excited about the movie itself, but there were parts that were quite exciting for him.

After the movie, we took off for Price, UT. The drive was uneventful except for all the excitement on Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm, the most recent audiobook we'e been enjoying. The Greenwell Inn in Price, UT was cozy enough, just the usual small-town hotel complaints like things not being updated. The pool was great and the restaurant service was horrible. But the room was cheap and we all got to sleep in beds and shower! I took 2 showers, 1 before swimming and 1 after. I'm glad I chose to have us all shower before swimming because we might have dirtied the water too much in the pool. We were filthy! Dinner, pool time, and some TV watching; Animal Planet and Food Network's Chopped were the kids' choices. Chuck Roast had a nasty stomach ache by the end of the night and fell asleep with two towels under his head at his insistence because he was sure he was going to throw up. Pumpkin watched TV for a while and then politely asked me to go to sleep, too, so she could turn off the lights for the night. A weekly hotel room for the duration of the trip seems like the way to go!

Post-sleeping notes: I woke up not feeling well rested due to still thinking about being overcharged for dinner, having to call the front desk for a basic TV question that ended with 'we just haven't gotten around to updating the TV numbers in the rooms since the cable channels changed a couple weeks ago', and all the hair that I found in the shower prior to us using it. I hate middle of the night worries over stupid things!