all that we could do

Brian and I have been parents for over 9 years. Somehow, I am not sure how, we have never gone on a family vacation. We have gone places, mostly camping, but it has always been with family. This road trip was the first vacation for our kids, where we did what we wanted to, when we wanted to.
We pondered all we could do.

We could do things like stop at a park. For as long as we wanted.

Which would turn out to be long enough to realize why they don't make these things anymore.

We could stop to stay at circus circus in Reno, because we felt like it. then we could spend the evening playing carnival games and winning obscene amounts of stuffed animals we DO NOT NEED.
We could sleep in and wake up and drive around aimlessly. We could find strange things and stop and look at them. We could wonder why shoes grow on trees in Virginia city.



We could pay 10 bucks to get into a mark twain museum that had only one thing of value:



We could stroll around the town Mark Twain lived in, with nothing special to do. We could see this sign. We could just wander in there.

We could see a sight reminiscent of Willie Wonka's chocolate factory and we could succumb to the begging and pleading of our children and decide to let our kids go crazy because we are on vacation.

We could then be embarrassed by the amount of money we just spent on candy until we hear the person behind us spend 50$. Then we could feel better.

We could stop to take pictures near strangely named stores.

On our way to our next destination, we could stop for lunch at a pretty little lake because we feel like it. And because those windy roads would be making mommy car sick.

We could let the kids splash around and attempt building sand castles. We could take our time, because our time would have been all we had to be concerned with.
We could kill time in the visitors center of the caleveras big trees state park.

We could let Caleb talk to dead animals, and we could just let him keep believing they are real and just being REALLY still.

Then we could kill time taking pictures near a wooden bear. We could pretend it was alive and that everyone was running away from it after Hailey had been taken as a casualty.
We could then meet up with family that we never get to see [sarah and cody and lexi] and enjoy them while we hike through a forest of REALLY BIG TREES.

I told you they were big.

We could wake up the next morning and head to lake Tahoe. We could fall in love with the beauty of that lake and wish we lived there.
We could spend all day long at different beaches of the lake.
We could build sand castles.
We could splash around with cousins.
We could bury our children in the sand, because we like to keep them still.


We could let our child feed the birds and listen to him lecture them on sharing.

We could watch our children soak up this vacation. Every minute of it. We could let them do everything they want to, because we can. We could have more fun than we could remember having. We could make memories and inside jokes. We could get home late, exhausted but smiling with the knowledge that we, as parents, just gave our kids one really cool family vacation.