Day 22

Wow, it’s nice to leave in the morning and not have to pick up camp! This has definitely been a learning experience for us. We’ve decided that in the future, we will either take road trips or go camping, but probably not both. Camping is a lot of fun, and I honestly don’t mind getting dirty or sleeping in a tent with all of the kids. I actually enjoy cooking on a propane stove and living out of a suitcase. Trying to do all of that and sleep in a different place every night, though, is hard, especially when you aren’t just packing for yourself but for six small people who can’t really do everything for themselves. On future vacations, if we want to see things and go to different places every day, we will probably stay in cheap hotels. If we want to camp, we’ll drive somewhere and then stay there for a week. We don’t need anything fancy, and even a Motel 6 is fine, we just need beds at the end of the day and a place to put our clothes.

We bought a membership to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and spent the day there. The kids loved the touch pools, the outer bay exhibit, the otters, heck, we probably could have spent a week there and not gotten bored. Levi and Aspen really liked the octopi, the rockfish and leopard sharks in the kelp forest, the jellies, and the outer bay exhibit. Levi, especially, talked nonstop at the Outer Bay. “Where’s the stingray? Oh! You see that shark? That’s a head hammer shark! Hey look! It’s a bigger bigger tuna! Where’s the stingray? WOW!” Andrew and Kendra watched the otters for almost an hour, and Andrew and Jaden played a game that gave them “gold medals” for finding different species. Lily touched several different animals in the touch pools and, when we stood in front of any of the exhibits, giggled like crazy whenever a fish swam directly in front of her face.

While the kids went to the gift shop, I went to security to have them help us find Andrew. He’s started wandering off the past couple of months. Drives us crazy because he’s eleven, so he’s old enough that we don’t panic when he’s out of our line of sight, but he’s there and then all of a sudden he’s gone and he could have gone anywhere. It’s maddening to have to spend time looking for him, and at the same time I’m trying not to worry because 11 is old enough to (mostly sometimes) take care of himself. He’s always apologetic and says “I’m sorry, I got distracted,” but then it happens again. ARGH!He finally appeared, and the kids took their stuffed animals—Kendra and Aspen got a pink dolphin and pink seal; honestly, who comes up with these things?—and we grabbed some Jamba Juices. One failed search for a Laundromat later, went back to our campsite. Grilled hot dogs and went to bed. Tired!