Day 4

What a difference a night makes!

Thursday night, we were camped at a state park with pit toilets, no running water at the sites, a 5-minute walk to a shared pump, no showers, and sites so primitive that we had to clear out rocks before we could set up the tent. We only saw a few people there, and the loop on which our site was located only had two other spots that were in use. Pitch black at night, a million stars, and the only sounds after dark were the occasional animal squeak.

Friday night we just needed a place to sleep and didn't plan on any recreational activities, so we reserved a spot at an RV park called Garden of the Gods Campground. Holy cow, was it ever the polar opposite of Eleven Mile Park. So many RVs, you couldn't sneeze without hitting one. So close together, I think they shoe-horned them in; I'm not exaggerating when I say there must have been a hundred crammed into this small little camp. It's located in the middle of the city, so you could see the light-pollution glow and hear sirens and cars driving by all night. The upside was the hot showers just 20 or 30 feet from our tent, but it was about as urban as "camping" could possibly be.

Got up, showered (yay! It's been two days.), all packed up, and hey, where's Andrew's retainer? I was gobsmacked that he could lose it that quickly, when he'd made it through the entire week of Scout camp with no one to ask him where it was and he managed to not ever misplace it. This is retainer #3, which he's already lost once, and I was so mad I had to bite my tongue so I wouldn't say anything unnecessarily negative. He did find it after a little while, tucked into the inside of his sleeping bag, which was by that point already rolled, strapped, bagged, and put into the bottom of the van's cargo area. Sheesh!

On our way out of Colorado Springs, we took a quick detour to Helen Hunt Falls in north Cheyenne Canyon. Lily and I stayed at the bottom and got pictures of the kids & Jeff on the bridge that crosses the falls. Gorgeous! After they kept hiking, she and I eventually made it up to the bridge (veeeerrrrrry sloooooooowly), where she stood and stared at the water for ten or fifteen minutes, completely captivated. That is, of course, until someone came along with a small dog, and then it was "Pup-pee!" for the next twenty minutes after that.

Our goal from here is Yellowstone, but even if we drive straight through we wouldn't make it until after midnight, and that's too long in the car for the kids. We'll probably just drive as far as we can handle, and when they start to melt down about being strapped in, we'll stop for the night.

Today's tip for long road trips: If you're traveling with a child under the age of 6, bring a small potty-training toilet. I bought this one on clearance a couple of months ago with this trip specifically in mind, and it's been a life-saver. There's been more than one occasion that we've heard the "I need to go!" cry when we're miles from anything, and rather than try to find a (dirty yucky seedy) gas station or try to have them squat by the side of the road, we can pull this out and have them sit on it instead. Once they've gone, we stick a disposable diaper into the bowl to absorb the liquid, and then wipe it down with a Clorox wipe. We wrap the diaper in a couple of plastic shopping bags and toss it at our next gas stop. Even including the clean-up, it only takes about five minutes, and it's so much easier than the alternatives!

I don't know where we'll stop tonight. If it's off the interstate enough that we can't find a wireless connection, it may be two or three days before I can log on again. (Despite the dates and times on this and the last two or three posts, I'm changing them to reflect when they were written, but I've actually uploaded them all within about ten minutes of each other.) The kids are curious to know who's reading, though, so leave us a comment! We'd love to hear from you!