The adventure continues… (2nd stop)

Day two, July 5th. On our way to Valley of the Rogue State Park. We had a great stay at the KOA but were excited to hit the road again. So we packed up, which is super easy when you are trailer camping, love that part! Back on the road again. I love road trips, seeing all the new sites, listening to music, having great conversations, the excitement of the unknown and new adventures, and in this case crocheting. Since I wasn't driving. ;)

I've been slowly (and I mean ten years in the making) working on this blanket. I packed it away for years when the kids were little, just not enough time. But when they started Monday school I pulled it out and worked on it a bit while they were in class. At this rate I'll have a blanket to line my empty nest in when the kids have flown.

It was hot, hot, hot! Like topping 100 F hot. Melting, sticky, awful hot. I was so worried about the suburban, she was working way too hard! We stopped for a special frozen treat because it was very necessary. ;) Which explains Banden's chocolate face ha ha! There's a frozen coconut/chocolate bar that Atty can occasionally have, so we stopped at a Fred Meyers (my favorite store, so glad to see one in Oregon) and picked some up. Yum! It's hard with Atty and Banden's diet restrictions to find treats they can have.

Ryder thought it was pretty cool to see his initials in this hill. ;) Rogue River here we come!

As I mentioned it was ridiculously hot, so as soon as we set up we headed out to look for a spot that we could hopefully put our toes in the water. After unknowingly walking in the wrong direction for way too long in the scorching sun we ran into a ranger. She showed us the one and only spot that you could go in, were the current wasn't too fast. (Which happened to be right by our camp site, we just turned the wrong way, uggg!)There was a small section dammed off, and than another section that was sort of dammed off. So of course my husband and kiddos immediately set to work building up that section. By the time we left it was pretty awesome, wish I'd taken a picture of that. :) They greatly expanded the wading area.

And had lots of wet fun while doing so. :) I'm afraid this might show that we don't truly know how to just relax in this family. ;)

We found out that there was a wild life show going on in the park so after cooling off in the river and having a quick dinner of chili (I pre-made a bunch before the trip) we headed over to see what it was all about. We were not disappointed. :)

Because it was mostly all about birds. Made Atty's day.

After the show we wandered around a bit as it started to cool down a smidge. It was still too hot for a campfire though, which was a bit of a disappointment for the kids as we didn't do one the night before either, but I promised we would be sure to have one before the trip was over. Who wants to sit around a hot fire when all you want to do is cool off? Not me. Anyways we ended up staying up really late, enjoying the colder air after dark. We laid a blanket out and looked at the stars and tried to see how many bats we could spot. I got a bit grumpy when they started bickering over the telescope I brought (which wasn't working very well anyways). I can't stand it when I do something for the kids, like give them a new toy or in this instance a telescope, and all they do is fight over it. I just feel like, why did I bother!?! I'd like to say I was an amazingly happy and upbeat mom on the whole road trip, but that would be a lie. I think the long day and the heat got to us all, when we finally laid down in the trailer we all fell fast asleep. 

The next day we headed back to the river before leaving, so we could start already cooled off. ;)

Over all I really liked the Valley of the Rogue State Park, but we were very excited to get to the redwoods so we weren't sad to say goodbye. 

Redwood forest here we come!