Our first stop, however, was the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield, only about an hour outside the Bay Area. We've driven by countless times and, especially with child in tow the past four years, I've always wondered about the factory tour.
Despite being only an hour into our 6-day/5-night adventure, Elias had a total melt-down when he passed on and then missed altogether the photo opportunity with the giant, stuffed jelly bean. As far as Elias is concerned, structured fun like this is no fun at all. And this is a thing lately - missing an opportunity to do something that won't necessarily be an option forever, or for very long, for that matter, only to be upset when it passes. They hand out jelly bean samples immediately after that part of the tour, however, so we were able to recover slightly, but not for long. When we got in the factory itself we were so far behind the group that we could barely squeeze in for a good view, Elias refused to wear his hat, mine kept falling off, etc. When the tour guide came over and told me we both had to keep our hats on throughout the tour, I was done. I carried Elias out kicking and screaming (although we did manage to make it through the gift shop!). My reaction was, in a word, "whatever." I wasn't going to buy the jelly bean photo, anyway.
The rest of the first leg of the trip was fairly uneventful. Elias overall did really well in the car, alternating between books, his LeapFrog Tag Reader, DVDs, music, and basically doing nothing from time to time. I took 50 south of Tahoe rather than 80 north of Tahoe and through Reno, which I don't think I'll ever do again. The drive was fine (and lovely and all that) but getting through South Lake Tahoe and Stateline (including a spontaneous and unplanned - but relatively brief, thankfully - detour north along Tahoe's west shore) took about an hour! We rolled into Carson City a bit before 4 p.m. - a little later than I'd hoped but not bad considering the number of stops we made.
After settling in to my Aunt Robin's guest room we hit Mills Park, where I remember at least one excellent 4th of July fireworks display during my childhood (you know I have a thing for small-town fireworks displays), then had dinner at Tito's (in the end we ate Mexican food for about half of our meals).
Most of the pictures I took of Elias, clearly not in a picture-taking mood this trip, were of his back, like the one above, or with an expression like this, protesting my constant documenting.
On Friday we drove to Animal Ark, an animal sanctuary north of Reno. It was hot, hot, hot that day so we only lasted about an hour or so before driving back through Reno to Virginia City.
A little history break: I often say I "grew up" in Reno but that's not really true. What I should say is that many of my earliest memories are from the period we lived in Carson City and Reno - between ages 2/3 and 6/7ish. We lived in a couple of different apartments in both Carson City and Reno with my Aunt Robin and my cousin Eric. In fact, in our apartment in Reno, when I was in kindergarten, my brother, my cousin, and I (I being the only girl of the cousins - my mom has four sisters - and the youngest of the three of us) shared a room. Overall I didn't care for sharing a room with two boys, even then, but man, I have some great memories from that time-period. Talk about "free range" kids. But I digress. Between kindergarten and first grade my mom, my brother, and I moved into an apartment of our own, with a bedroom for each of us. It was during the spring of that year that my mom remarried my step-Dad and we moved to Virginia. And then to Germany, and then England, and back to Germany again. But still I feel like my first stage of growing up, at least, took place in Carson City/Reno.
When I was in first grade, my Mom and step-Dad got hitched in Virginia City. I hadn't been back since I was a teenager and I remembered there being a train so I thought it would be a win-win to take Elias there. Other than walking up and down the main street looking for a good, smoke-free spot for lunch, our main mission was to ride the train to and from Gold Hill - a 35 minute round-trip train ride (You can take the train all the way from Carson City but it's an hour and a half. Each way. Too much sitting for us, this trip at least.).
Between the heat and the walking, I think we were all pretty beat at this point.
Hot and tired.
Relaxing and enjoying the ride with snuggle buddies, including a Kit Fox stuffed animal - Eli's souvenir from the Animal Ark (and now he wants a "souvenir" everywhere we go).
What time is it? It's meltdown time! Not surprisingly, between the change in routine, the time in the car, the walking, the heat, and the fact that neither of us slept all that well most of the trip all resulted in approximately one to two meltdowns per day, often because we were eating later than usual. The image above, I believe, is after he'd mostly recovered (but was still pouting a bit) from one of them, brought on by the fact that I wouldn't buy him a generic train in the gift shop (what, postcards aren't good enough for you, kid?). Elias continued his recovery in the car. By the time we got home none of us was up for much else so we ordered pizza (Wally's, in case you're ever in Carson City - it only gets 3 stars on Yelp and maybe it was because I was so tired and hungry by the time it arrived, but I thought it was damn good pizza).
Saturday morning we hit the road once again, driving north about three hours to Winnemucca, where my maternal grandparents lived for years (I don't have those house-I-grew-up-in memories or attachments so many people have but I do remember the two houses they lived in very well), my Aunt Jolina still lives (and my Aunt Karen was visiting at the time), and where my Mom is buried. Oh, the summers I spent in Winnemucca as a teenager and recent high school grad,
We had lunch at Chihuahua's (Mexican meal #2), site of Saturday's epic meltdown, complete with horizontal tantrum, on the ground, at the entrance of the restaurant. But again, once he ate, he was, mostly, just fine. From there we went to a purse party (like Tupperware, but purses), which, surprisingly, was just the thing Elias needed - no driving, no walking, shaded from the heat, with nobody bugging him or asking him to do anything in particular, and a bag of toys belonging to one of the party host's grandson of about the same age.
After the party, we went back to my Aunt Jolina's house, where Elias discovered a little red wagon and helped harvest some cherry tomatoes. Nobody was hungry after our late lunch but, lest we have another missed meal-induced tantrum, Elias had a snack of microwave mac 'n' cheese (just one of the food items I'd packed in our three - yes three - bags of groceries). After that we went to Burger King (it's a bit of an inside joke...you had to be there) for the most over-the-top sundaes ever, then watched the sunset with Grandma Cathy, at the cemetary where she's buried. Is that weird? It didn't seem to be at the time and Elias is very matter of fact about the whole thing at this age - Grandma Cathy died a long time ago and that's where she's buried. Which is sad, but true.
On Sunday, after burning off a little energy and filling up on 2nd breakfast (for us, anyway), we headed to Groveland, our longest leg of the trip at about seven hours in the car, with not a whole lot between Winnemucca and the California border. Elias was great. I was worried at times about the kinds of memories we were making on this trip, with a couple of pretty tense moments just about every day, but at one point as we were getting back in the car after a bathroom pit stop Elias thanked me for taking him on this fun road trip and gave me a great big hug. Awwww!
I didn't take any pictures during this leg of the drive. And honestly, there's not much between Winnemucca and Yosemite, especially since we took a route that bypasses Reno and Carson City altogether. We stopped in Hawthorne and after driving through the entire town, backtracked for a late lunch/early dinner at McDonald's, where Elias was thrilled to enjoy his very first Happy Meal. We've only been to MacDo's a handful of times, primarily for breakfast and ice cream, and yet it's like there's some innate coveting of the Happy Meal. Of course, not long after that we crossed into California and passed through Mono Lake, where there were lots of cute options for stopping and grabbing a snack but after about four hours of driving and passing almost nothing, I didn't want to press our luck.
We then spent twenty bucks to drive through Yosemite. I was just thrilled they not only accepted but preferred credit cards at the toll booth, having completely spaced on getting cash before we left Winnemucca! Tioga Pass is indeed lovely but mostly lost on a tired 4 year old. And long. Man, I thought we'd never get through Yosemite. And then when we finally did we still had about 30 miles to Groveland, where we had reserved a small cabin for the last two nights of our trip at Yosemite Pines RV Resort. We didn't settle in to our cabin until almost 8 so dinner that night consisted of popsicles we bought at the little general store upon checking in. We were also a bit surprised to discover that our "basic" cabins didn't have private bathrooms, something that wasn't totally clear on the website (she even mentioned it - "Oh, did you reserve online? If you had called in we would have told you." What, no webmaster?). The communal bathrooms were a short walk from the cabin so in the end it wasn't a huge deal but not totally ideal, especially since I almost always wake up at night to go to the bathroom. Somehow I didn't need to the two nights we were there but it was a mad dash each morning once Elias was up. It was also tricky taking a shower, since Elias didn't want to come in with me, but I didn't feel comfortable leaving him alone in the cabin, either. Instead, that first night, desperate for a shower after a long, dusty drive, he wandered the bathroom, violating the privacy of probably everyone who happened to come in during that time, including two German girls who, well, didn't seem to care much.
Otherwise, that night was by far our best night of sleep. I think it helped immensely that we each had our own bed, Elias taking the top bunk while I slept on the bottom. Even so, while he'd clearly been reacting to something in Nevada - the heat, the dry air, the smoke from nearby wildfires, the sage brush, or some crazy combination? - his congestion was suddenly mostly gone at the cabin and therefore his breathing at night - downright snoring at times - much quieter. After pre-breakfast, shown above, we headed into the little town of Groveland for a more substantial meal and picked up a couple of sandwiches from a deli on the way back to the cabin for lunch later that day.
We shared a yummy breakfast burrito and downright decadent maple cinnamon roll at Dori's Tea Cottage in Groveland. While I had absolutely no cell phone reception the entire time we were there, the cabins did offer free wifi so I was able to look up breakfast joints on my laptop while Elias watched TV that morning.
After that we waited for BFF Hazel to arrive with her family. They were a bit shy with one another at first, not surprising as it had been about four months since we last saw her. Both were about two inches taller. But the shyness quickly wore off and it was truly the highlight of the trip for Elias (no offense to any family reading, of course).
We spent most of that day together in the pool, where, with the assistance of a pool noodle and Hazel's "floaties" Elias was able to "swim" mostly unassisted. After a lukewarm session of six swim lessons back at home, he could not get enough of the pool here. After several hours in the pool, we convinced the kids to get cleaned up (during which Elias had a meltdown in the pool, not wanting to get out) in preparation for dinner in town (where he had yet another meltdown on the way - it was already after 7, after all). In spite of back-to-back meltdowns, however, Elias did pretty well the rest of the evening, even sitting and smiling for the adorable picture above.
We had breakfast - and more playtime - with our friends at their "rig" the next morning before heading home. At under three hours, the drive home was the shortest leg of the trip. We rolled into town with enough time to unpack and unwind before Neal got home. I'm so very glad we got to experience this adventure together - probably the last time I'll be able to enjoy this kind of one-on-one time with Elias for awhile - but I was equally glad to be home!
