Redefining Adventure

Last week we had a mini-vacation/Fennell adventure. I found myself thinking about how much my concept of "adventure" has changed. Adventures used to involve trips to far away and unfamiliar places, or epic physical challenges often involving the wilderness and sometimes even a little bit of danger. Now a 4 day RV trip with 2 intrepid little travelers feels adventure-ful enough.

You see, I have found parenting to be quite an adventure. Then when you take parenting on the road in a "sort of roughin' it" kind of way it becomes even more so. Brushing teeth is already an adventure with our two, so if you throw in non-potable water, the teeniest little bathroom sink and one hand towel to last all week, you have yourself an adventure.

If you're familiar with our rental RV record, you'll also appreciate how adventurous we were to try it yet again. We have one scraped side panel and one flood to our credit so far. We were hoping this would be third time a charm. And it pretty much was, although I think there was some RV karma going on. More on that in a moment.

We had a slow start to our trip. As our somewhat questionable RV rental place decided to tell us at the last minute that an insurance rider was required. This was our first clue that you get what you pay for. So we didn't get on the road until late. The kids did a great job of waiting. They were just so excited. Nothing was going to rain on their parade, even a 3 pm departure time heading north, right into LA traffic. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, I guess.

We tried to avoid traffic a little bit by looping East and then back toward the ocean as we headed north. We did avoid some of the traffic but not 107 degree heat. The RV was beeping at us in an unsettling kind of way periodically during our trip but managed not to break down. We stopped at a gas station along the way where Teia (who is in the process of potty training) decided for the first time that she would like to use a big toilet instead of her potty that we had packed along for these occasions. Up until this point she'd been a potty-only girl and had no interest even in using the toilets in our house. But here she was at a gas station insisting on using the men's toilet (b/c the women's was out of order). I did say it was an adventure! 

After a short stay on a very hot beach at Pt. Mugu we continued north. Our next stop was Morro Bay where we stayed for 2 nights and had a very welcome day w/o driving. 

Morro Bay was lovely and cool and misty. Something we haven't experienced in awhile. It even rained a little our first night. I have become so unaccustomed to rain that I actually lay awake the first night trying to figure out what the sound was! And then I swore I felt at least 5 or 6 tremors while lying awake with my little sleeping Teia curled up beside me. Teia and I got the back bed while Daddy and Kai scored the upper bunk. Teia was quite envious though and climbed up to visit whenever she could.  

We banked on our RV having a functional battery and dry camped our first 3 nights. Well, we were out of power faster than you can say ZAP! So we had to run the noisy generator more than we would have liked. Eventually that thing stopped working too. But despite some RV inconveniences, the kids really enjoyed camping. They loved the fire and they loved helping with the camping chores, like getting water. Teia was very vocal about how much fun she was having "I'm so excited to be...(insert whatever we happened to be doing at that moment)." Kai was similarly enthralled with the whole experience and we loved listening to (and trying to answer) all the questions he asked us on the trip...about crickets, sparks escaping from the fire, how the RV worked. 

Here Daddy and Teia do a little clamming. It was unsuccessful but they had fun anyway. And got messy. Little kids like to get dirty but Teia seems to have a particular affinity for it. And seeing as she is kind of afraid of showers, she wasn't keen on washing up during our week away. Let's just say it made for pretty brown bath water the night we got home!

For the last leg of our trip we headed back South which was a bit of a bummer. I had really enjoyed the change in scenery (and weather) as we had begun to encroach on Northern California (my internal compass definitely seems to point north). We headed inland to stay at Lake Casitas, up in the mountains SE of Santa Barbara, very hot but with a water park for the kids. Our trip there was not without adventure as our RV decided a few times that it was tired and wanted to slow down, in traffic and with Greg's foot pressed to the floor. We discovered that pulling over and turning it off and on rectified the problem. A least until the next time it got tired. Recall the RV karma. But we made it to the campsite, parked it, hooked up to an electrical outlet and fired up the A/C (we were back in 100 degree heat). Greg had been on serious resource management the entire trip so it was nice for him to be able to relax and let the thing suck up the juice it needed. Kai was fascinated by the various ways that this nifty little house on wheels could procure power. 

So we finished up our camping trip with fun in the water park, another campfire with marshmallows (which the kids definitively prefer cold), crickets, and a morning bike ride before braving traffic yet again for the long, long, long drive home. Oh, and the RV did get us back safely. It just made us sweat it a bit...karma.