Tired, Crabby, and Maymont House

Jill's Journal: Oh, did we have tired girls today! Those who know me well know I’ve always been religious about routine and especially bedtimes with the kids. RE-LI-GI-OUS. I never wavered. The girls were in bed between 7 and 7:30 during the summers and 6:30 and 7 during the winter. Always. They might have gotten an extra hour on Christmas Day, but that was about it. Call me the Sleep Nazi, it’s okay. Not only did they thrive on routine, but I needed that quiet time without kids in the evenings.

With our new lifestyle, Rob and I agreed that we’d try a later bedtime. We’ve pushed it back to 8 or 8:30, sometimes even 9, and the girls love staying up, but they are not sleeping any later in the morning. The older two still wake up between 6 and 6:30 every morning (Victoria, to her credit, sleeps longer if I can keep her sisters quiet), just like they did with the earlier bedtime. I thought the big girls would start sleeping later once they got used to the later bedtime, but it hasn’t happened yet, much to my dismay.

Last night, they weren’t in bed until 10:30pm. Ridiculous. And when those little faces still greeted me at 6:30 this morning, I couldn’t help but dread the day because Mommy in all her wisdom knew tempers would be short.

I was right.

When the tight confines of a fifth wheel proved to be more than their crabbiness could bear, I loaded them up and headed to downtown Richmond and Maymont House per a friend’s recommendation (thanks, Mary!). It’s a Gilded Age mansion originally on 100 acres in what seems to be the middle of the city. I didn’t think the girls would be interested in the mansion adorned with original Tiffany stained glass, but a “Children’s Farm,” live otters, and wildlife exhibits including bears, elk, and bison sounded right up their alley.

I was wrong.

It was a trek from the parking lot into the main grounds and the girls were hot and sweaty by the time we reached the mansion. We decided to take a break from the hike and take a mansion tour to take advantage of their air conditioning. Much to my amazement, the girls were absolutely riveted by the opulence of the house (which contains almost all of its original furnishings). Built in 1893, the 33 rooms included five bathrooms with indoor plumbing and full electricity (both incredible rarities at the time). Each room was more lavish than the last and by the time we got to an ostentatious swan bedroom, the girls were completely won over and imagining what it would have been like to attend a tea party in the house.

We left the house with the tour guide complimenting me on my beautifully-behaved children (score one for Mom!) and headed toward the animals. On the way, Madelyn, who never simply walks (but absolutely must skip or run or bounce), fell and skinned her knee badly. She saw the blood and threw in the towel, wanting to skip the animals and go home “to show Daddy.” Victoria, who is always hot anyway and was melting in the heat, jumped on the bandwagon. Poor Erika had no desire to miss what we’d come for and I felt terrible for her, but if I’ve learned one thing about traveling with kids in these early weeks, it’s that I’ve got to be flexible. So, we called it a day and headed home for an early dinner and an early bedtime.

Now that’s my kind of luxury.

King George (and Lady Diana)

Jill's Journal: Last night was the latest night of my kids’ young life. And it’s sooooo fitting because I would guess many of the latest nights of my life (particularly as a teenager) were for the same reason: we were with Diana.

Dear, dear Diana. (And now husband Scott and little ones Ryan and Kate too). We first met 30 – yes, 30! – years ago when we were practically infants in California. We went through school together, all the way from early elementary to high school, and then were joined at the hip during the early college and dating years. She’s moved about 8,000 times since (Scott is a Navy man) and I’ve made a number of big moves myself, but we’ve always, always kept in touch. She writes the world’s best letters and I've always believed she missed her calling as a comedy writer. Somehow she has now settled right here in Virginia, about 50 miles north of where we’re staying, in what appears to be a tiny little hamlet called King George.

We couldn’t wait to make the trek to see her and her very fun family. Her directions led us past the spot where John Wilkes Booth was tracked and believed to be killed (how cool is that?) after he assassinated President Lincoln and into what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. But suddenly, her neighborhood loomed boldly out of the deep country and there was her beautiful house right in front of us.

What a fun day! Diana and I got all day to catch up (but of course it wasn’t enough) while the kids played and played and played. And after working hours, both husbands joined us and we caught up some more. We left with plans and hopes to meet up again while we’re on this coast (and Ryan’s plans to marry Victoria, hopefully at least 20 years down the road).

Oh, and if Diana wasn’t already special in my life, I have to admit she is singlehandedly responsible for introducing me and Rob. They were on a blind date (yes, together!) and clearly not hitting it off when she introduced us. The rest is history. I’ll be forever grateful they annoyed the heck out of each other as dating prospects! Happily, they make excellent friends. :)

Updates...

Hey all - We've finally settled in and are finally getting down to routine. Work in the daytime, kids to bed, personal time at night. Its a little funny to me how little some things have changed since we were in the ol' sticks and bricks (RV slang for a house), but how much other things have changed. I'm hoping to change my schedule a little more to be more in line with the kids. I've been saying that for a long time now, so I'm sure Jill doesn't believe it - but it'll come. My guess is that next week will have a significant push toward that direction - true boondocking.

I know I haven't posted in a couple of days, and let me tell you why. I got a little funky about the comment on the West Virginia post. We know nobody (that I know of) from West Virginia, and while at first it seemed a little cutesy and in jest, the more I thought of the comment the snarkier it became in my head. We post so that people can keep up with us without having it rammed down their throat. Know what you want, see what you want, comment back when you find something funny, or truthful or fulfilling. You don't even have to leave a name, in fact - we love it when we get comments at all, and so far most have been signed in some way so that we can tell who you are, but that the commenter doesn't have to open themselves up to the whole universe. That's fantastic, and all we ask. However, the WV comment was anonymous, in the most anonymous sense -- the text, the verbiage, the mocking - didn't fit with anyone we'd expect. So - my policy is now this... This is a friendly blog. We are not trying to get famous, gain followers, promote RVfor5, or do anything other than let friends and family know what's going on without having to make 25 phone calls a day. It has become a forum that we can talk on, share with you, relive the trip and all its, uh, fun and learning. There are a lot of things that I want this website/blog to become, but a snarky place for unnecessary comments is not one of them. I'm not naive enough to think that there aren't people out there that are looking at our blog that we haven't told or invited. The Internet is a wide open thing. I am just saying this - there's no need to be that way. Step up WVA person and tell us more about yourself...

Bottom line: If your comment is anonymous, snarky, and neither Jill nor I know who wrote it - its probably gonna get axed. I'm leaving Mr. WestVirginiaGetOffMyHighways as a learning experience. I'm just putting it out there otherwise.

Now - that all being said.... Updates:

Injector - I went down to Richmond today to try to get that fixed and was told rather unceremoniously by Jason that without being able to replicate it, they'd never be able to figure out what was wrong. I was pretty sure I knew what was wrong, gave them info, but if "it don't throw codes" then apparently they can't figure it out. I now have to wait until it REALLY breaks and makes towing really difficult before taking it in. Hopefully at some point it breaks just enough to tell them what's wrong without halting our trip... And they say the American car industry is in a comeback. :/

Today - I'm sure that Jill will blog a bit about our visit today, but can I just say how nice it was to visit with friends from the past. Everyone here needs to know that without the friend we visited today, none of this (and I'm talking down to the Jill and I even meeting part) would be happening. Thank you for changing the course of my life. It was fun to catch up and I hope to see you more in the next couple of weeks, not to mention on the trip back down. Somehow, we'll find a way to get you camping yet :)

Campgrounds - WOW. How different they all are. We've had - GREAT (Horse Park), CORPORATE - (First 3 days in Cave Creek), RURAL, SMALL and disconcerting (but by far the most friendly - Bardstown), TROUBLING - on so many levels (Jellystone Park), and now PURE STRANGE (here - in three days I've talked with one other camper, and it was not good). Its funny that our first park is maybe one of the best parks in the US (and now we are starting to understand why). We still have a lot of different experiences to go through, and I'm sure a lot of different types of parks to see, but I think we've run into a good mix of things. I'll post more on the different parks soon, but let me just say this - read between the lines of advertising; read comments and posts about the parks before you reserve them; unless they are in the exact, perfect location for what you're trying to do (read: not another park that rated close within an hour), research more.

I'm really enjoying the many aspects of this trip, but its going to be tough to find an RV park that will fulfill everything we are looking for. I know for a fact that it is tough to start your trek with such a good park, and that most will have a tough time measuring up. However, its also amazing to me how much personality each park has... We've just got to learn what type of park we want to be friendly with... :)

I've still got a lot to post about, but now its late and I'm going to need to get up rather early tomorrow to get a full day of work in. I can see why retirees favor this kind of lifestyle, and while I wish I could do the same, I'm glad to be able to provide and work from the road. Hopefully I can figure out everything Internet in the next few weeks and be all set for every situation. I'm sure it'll get expensive, but if that's what makes the trip happen, then whatever it takes - right?

R.

Back in Fine Fettle

Jill's Journal: The last two days were spent with all five of us slightly under the weather (we fell victim one-by-one to a short-lived head cold), so we’ve taken it very easy. And that’s the beauty of this trip – we can just go with the flow. I love, love, LOVE “home days,” as my girls call them, but there’s so many amazing things here just waiting to be seen and we need to get going!

I have a feeling our few days here in the Richmond area will simply whet our appetites for more. Today we ventured out for a little drive and are amazed at how rural so many parts of Virginia seem to be. This is one of the oldest settled parts of the country – for some reason, I expected every single piece of land to be populated. Instead, it’s so…well, rural, at least in this area. And trees, trees, trees everywhere. It sure gave me an appreciation for what the early settlers from Europe must have had to go through to clear the land just to build a home, much less actually grow crops.

Now that we’re all back in fine fettle, our Richmond time feels like it officially begins. Tomorrow we head north a bit to visit a dear, longtime friend – I can’t wait!

We Made It! Richmond, Virginia

Jill's Journal: It was a long, slow trip, made slower by mountains and even slower by an overturned eighteen-wheeler in front of us (the fellow cars also at a complete stand-still for more than an hour on the interstate were beginning to eye us with visions of bathrooms and food gleaming in their eyes)…but we made it! We gave a little whoop of joy (okay, in the interest of full disclosure: a big whoop of joy) when we crossed the border out of West Virginia and into Virginia. And before long, the breathtaking Shenandoah Valley stretched out below us. I could look at that every day of my life and not get sick of it. Just beautiful.

We finally limped into our campsite near Ashland, Virginia (apparently also called North Richmond) after dinnertime. We were tired, we were hungry, and we still had to set up. This is not our usual m.o., but we survived. After the girls were fed, bathed, and put to bed, Rob and I breathed a big sigh of relief. Those 620ish miles felt a heck of a lot longer than that!! We’re happy to finally be here.

There will be time enough to lick our West Virginia wounds this week. In the meantime, we’re going to have a quiet day today. Four of the five of us seem to have exited West Virginia with a slight cold (adding insult to injury!) and we’re all ready for a little downtime. Our campground this week is nothing fancy, but it has lovely, tall trees and a pool. It’ll do just fine.

“Wild and Wonderful” West Virginia?

**Disclaimer: I had no idea Rob had already posted about our day when I wrote this, so just ignore mine!*

Jill's Journal: We left Cave City yesterday morning with no idea how far east we’d make it. The answer turned out to be 370 miles, a far cry from the old days, pre-kids and pre-fifth wheel, when a good day of driving on a road trip was easily twice that. But as Rob put it last night, we have a “lot of baggage” now and we were very pleased to get as far as we did. Especially in West Virginia…

Billed as “wild and wonderful,” we instead found West Virginia to be heavily wooded and pretty wicked. Rob and I had spent a weekend in Charleston once before and enjoyed it, but it was long before things like campgrounds became important to us. Or mountains with pulling such a big load. Rob’s truck dropped an injector in/near/around the Alleghany Mountains (or maybe the Appalachians or maybe just really big hills – we’re not even sure where we are!!) and that’s going to be an expensive fix.

The campgrounds here are few and far between and the ones that do exist can’t fit decent-sized fifth wheels. And then there’s those that don’t exist…such as the one we found in a campground guide in Beckley. No one answered the phone there, but it was after 6pm on a Saturday, so we decided to just show up and take our chances because we couldn’t find anything else. We followed the directions to a tee, found a new sports complex in its place, and us down a narrow dead-end road. This is a big problem with a large rig!! It was getting dark at this point and Rob could either back up for over half a mile or try and swing around off the road. He chose to swing around, couldn’t see part of a gate sticking out in the dark, and definitely made contact with the rear bumper of the fifth wheel. We have suffered our first casualty, luckily just cosmetic and minor in the scheme of the things. It will be a big reminder of this state, which right now ranks as our least favorite! It was a rough day.

A much-longer story heavily abbreviated, we spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot! I never thought those words would come out of my mouth, but there you have it. Wal-Marts are known to be RV-friendly and before the night was over, three more fifth wheels/travel trailers joined us, as did a semi.

And we learned yet another important lesson today: we can’t live by the seat of our pants quite as much as we thought with kids and a fifth wheel! We absolutely have to have a plan. So, before leaving this morning, we’ve already booked our spot for tonight and the rest of the week. Destination: Richmond, Virginia, approximately 250 miles away. It’s a big enough city that hopefully we can get the truck fixed with no problem…now just to nurse it along that far!

West Vir-*******-ginia

I'll let you'all fill in the stars... :)

Jill says I should blog more. And I try, I really do, but I'm always doing something, then I get tired, then I sleep, then I work, then stuff to do... its still an ugly cycle. So far in and still so much to fix. I'm hoping over the next three weeks to be able to wipe any of that left-over junk out.

Today was really a bad day. It started off bad with the mud. That red - cakey - stick to everything - color all your clothing - ick. And since it rained, and the grass was washed away from anywhere that was near the hookups - it is everywhere. Pants, knees, shoes (which I had to change for the inch of mud caked on the bottoms (that picked up rocks throughout the campsite)), steps, cables, hoses... everywhere. I have to find a better system for the mud. Then, the drain is 2 1/2 inches above the bottoms of the hoses. We haven't had any talks about the hoses and the dumping and the fun of all that... so I won't start now - however, not gonna let that happen again either. Lots of lifting, purging, heaving... If you haven't experienced it, don't. :)

Needless to say I was 2 hours behind schedule and grouchy.

Then - Jill wants to go all the way to Richmond... or, "let's get to the VA border, and 'then we'll see'." :) If I were in a car, if I were in her say - MR2 - then yeah - I'm all about that plan. Sadly, we aren't. And as much as I want all that freedom - I'm happy with Charleston... Let's get halfway there today, not push, and then follow through tomorrow. Well, with the late getaway, the tough drive up through KY (traffic and heat), well, we shoulda...we coulda, but didn't. :) We pushed. -I- PUSHED.. hard. I got gas milage that people would scoff at. Foot-in-the-floor kinda numbers whenever possible. I spent more on Diesel today than I have in poker for... (ok.. a month - I had a final game.. it was fun..) :)

West Virginia became my least favorite state today. :) It's hilly, poorly road-managed and... well...geez... its just got some really crazy hills - all with really sharp curves and grades - not meant to be pushed, aggressively, by a Ford, with a notoriously problematic motor... and poof. Injector. I know it. I felt it. And tho I was able to limp it into the gas dock, get it refueled, and then restarted... I'm worried from there. We made it the rest of the way tonight, but this is not my first rodeo. I know its coming back - so I already have the plan for an appointment early next week in Richmond. Hopefully I'm able to limp it in, and if so - hopefully I'm wrong.

I also got to put the first scratch in the RV today. Running down a road that was supposed to hold an RV park we ran into an ugly dead end. And while I was sure I could swing it, and rotate out - Jill heard a crash and a scrape. Its all cosmetic (pictures tomorrow) but its still painful. I hate this state that told us there was a campground ovur thar, then thar weren't (sic). :)

To top WV off we've now gone the full circle..... I'm sure that we will have campgrounds that are worse. I'm sure that we will have campgrounds that are less level, less friendly, less 24 hour shoppable.... but tonight is a Wal-Mart parking lot. We tried three campgrounds tonight, albeit without reservations. And the best one (ok - the only one that answered the phone) told us - "we got a spot for a couple of 25 footers. You can try it if'n y'unt to." Pass. (I mentioned #3 above). I decided to punt, and even in this tiny pittance of a town, it took us two full passes to find the WalMart. Who tucks away a WalMart from the road (and we were BOTH looking for it... on the right side. geez)?

Anyhow - everyone is settled down. The kids had an ok day (aside from the ultra-late bedtimes) riding in Daddy's truck and watching movies. And, above all, Jill and I learned valuable lessons. This will be, barring catastrophic (or fecundant) news, our longest trek. I don't anticipate doing this many miles in three weeks (well, except for maybe Sara-toga- --) because its just not 'our' journey. We won't leave anywhere now with a 'go-with-it' plan because three kids and a 42-foot trailer just don't allow that. "Let's see how far we get" is now banished... yes - BANISHED from our vocabulary. Unfortunate for late-night movie watching, YES. Happy for planning our trip... much more so :)

Anyhow - as I listen to the melodious tones of the vacuum car running around and sucking up the crap that people leave on the ground for no good reason (he's been here for 3 hours people... you really drop that much crap out of your cars nightly?) I think its time to hit the hay. I've got another long trip tomorrow, and a good part of it is through West Virginia...***redacted*** ... I don't wish what I typed on anyone. :)

g'night all.

Mammoth Cave

Jill's Journal: Somehow we’ve lived only a few hours from Mammoth Cave National Park for all these years and never went. Shameful. Why did we never realize what a natural wonder was such a short drive away?

First, the park itself – beautiful. Over 52,000 acres of lush vegetation and eye candy. Within our first three minutes in the park, we saw a deer and fawn on the side of the road, nearly hit a wild turkey crossing the road, and passed within inches of a vulture having a lunch of turtle. There are over 70 miles of horseback riding trails in the park – why did I not know this? I am kicking myself for never taking advantage of it before.

Regrets aside, Rob took off work a little early today to join us on an introductory tour of Mammoth Cave. I’ve been on other cave tours in different parts of the country and had never been wowed. Today, I was wowed. Seriously wowed. Phenomenal.

Mammoth Cave (the picture is of the entrance) is over 365 miles long and geologists believe there are approximately 500 more miles waiting to be discovered. It’s the longest known cave in the world and is designated as a World Heritage Site. And it’s not just long (and wide), it’s tall too. At one point, in an area of the cave known as the Rotunda, I asked the ranger how high the “ceiling” was because it just seemed so…mammoth. The answer? Eighty feet. Amazing. We were approximately 150 feet underground at that spot.

Mummies and artifacts found deep in the cave (approximately seven miles in!) show that Native Americans mined gypsum from the walls as long as 2,400 years ago. More recently, it was used as a saltpeter mine for U.S. forces during the War of 1812. Saltpeter is a key component of gunpowder and became a necessity when the British blockaded U.S. ports. Much original mining equipment from that effort nearly 200 years ago remains – including some of the innovative water piping of the time. Miners hollowed out yellow poplar trees (Kentucky’s official state tree) and banded them together to create an impressive system of pipes.

After the War of 1812 was over, the U.S. didn’t have such a need for saltpeter and the mine was shut down. Someone realized what a spectacular cave it was and decided to try the tourist thing in 1816. Mammoth Cave has been open to the public ever since, making it the second-oldest tourism destination in the 50 states (behind only Niagara Falls). The first hotel was built at the site in 1837 and it became a National Park in 1926.

The cave remains at 56 degrees year-round, which felt awfully chilly compared to the sweltering conditions outside. Unfortunately, the girls found the whole experience pretty boring, with one grand exception: the ranger wanted to show us how dark it is inside a cave, so he killed all the power. Trust me, there is no dark on the surface of the earth that compares. You could literally hold your hand a centimeter from your face and not be able to see it. There was, however, one tiny thing we could see – two of the girls had on a glow-in-the-dark silly bandz (a rubberband/bracelet fad of the moment). Those little rubberbands dimly glowed on those little wrists and completely cracked us all up!

Kentucky Down Under

Jill's Journal: After our cheesy dinosaur experience, I was skeptical about taking the girls to Kentucky Down Under. It’s billed as Kentucky’s “piece of Australia” and we almost skipped it, but I’m so glad we didn’t. We’re not homeschooling yet, but this would have made the perfect science day. What a kid-friendly place!

The girls learned about so many animals native to Australia and particularly loved the dingoes, wallabies, and laughing kookaburras (birds). They got to touch a small python and get up close and personal with a bearded dragon. Witnessing chores done on a sheep station was another highlight.

But the best part was the kangaroos! The girls loved getting to pet two different breeds of kangaroo and even got to lift up the tail of one to feel how heavy it is (really heavy). They got to pet an emu (an ostrich-like bird) and dig through its feathers to find its skin. And they got to hand-feed lories (small, colorful parrots). The lory pictures are my favorite. Victoria and Madelyn wanted absolutely nothing to do with these birds after one landed on each of them, but were delighted to watch me feed them (they wanted to “look with their eyes, not with their hands!”). Erika was brave, or at least tried to be, and I snapped several adorable pictures before she, too, had enough!

Lost River Valley and Cave…and Waterslide of Death

Jill's Journal: It is hot. Really hot. The massive heat wave on the East Coast must have spread this way, because triple-digit temperatures in Kentucky just don’t happen very often. It was 104 degrees today, confirmed on both our car’s thermometer and the local bank temperature sign we drove by. I grew up in the California desert and then spent four years in Phoenix, so 104 normally wouldn’t phase me (that would be a cool summer day in Phoenix!)…but when that 104 degrees has what feels like 5,000% humidity attached, it’s a whole ‘nother level of brutality. Even the pool offers no relief – the water is so hot it feels like you’ve just jumped into a giant boiling pot of water while simultaneously being baked under the sun.

Being the savvy traveler that I am or maybe just lucky, I scheduled a cave visit for today (since we are in cave country and caves are generally pretty cool in temperature year-round). We made the trek to the Lost River Cave, which one can only enter by boat. I’m not a big cave fan, although I’ve been to probably a half-dozen in my life, but thought the girls might get a kick out of both the cave and the boat.

The beautiful valley surrounding the cave was originally part of the cave itself, but many, many moons ago, a massive cave collapse turned the area into a valley of lush vegetation and four spectacular blue holes (where the underground river escapes to the top). We hiked to a butterfly habitat and the girls absolutely loved chasing butterflies. One landed on Madelyn (see it on her shoulder in the picture?), much to her sisters’ envy, and we spent five minutes “oohing” and “aahing” over the fancy insect.

One of the blue holes in particular was a source of great mystery. As Confederates were marching through during the Civil War, a horse carrying a supply wagon spooked and tumbled into the blue hole. Within seconds, the wagon, horse, and driver completely disappeared and fellow soldiers found no sign of them after diving in. Shortly after, Union troops had a similar experience – several soldiers jumped in for a refreshing swim and one by one started disappearing. The spot began to be known as the bottomless blue hole and it was thought a Native American curse covered the place.

As other people were lost over the years to the bottomless blue hole, yet no bodies were ever recovered from the outwardly peaceful water, an engineer eventually decided to get to the bottom of things. He threw in a rope with a rock on the end to find the bottom. He kept having to tie on more and more ropes, but finally measured the depth as an astounding 437 feet. The length of the blue hole is only 400 feet. The notoriety of the place grew and Ripley’s Believe It or Not came to validate the measurements, pronouncing it the “shortest and deepest river in the world.”

As technology advanced, the place became a novelty and was studied extensively. Eventually, it was discovered the serene blue hole with no outwardly visible hint of moving water was not 437 feet deep, but a mere 15 feet deep! However, it was finally learned that a treacherous underwater current lies near the bottom and sweeps anything in its path into an underground cave river.

We left the mysterious blue hole and hiked to the cave entrance, one of the largest cave entrances east of the Mississippi River. The entrance is so big that it was turned into the very unique “Cavern Nite Club” in 1934 and existed as a big band nightclub into the 1960s. The original bar, dance floor, and stage all still exist and are of course naturally air-conditioned by the cave. I wonder how many dancers took one wrong step or how many patrons had one too many drinks and plummeted down into one of the cave crevices or into the cave river?

A boat was waiting to take us into the cave itself and the cave roof at some points is so low that the boat riders have to crouch down in the boat. Erika and Victoria thought that was pretty neat, but Madelyn was highly unimpressed. “I do not like this, Mommy!” Luckily, she hung tough and later enjoyed seeing the wall/rock formations. Part of the underground river was dammed off for a water-powered mill before the days of electricity and that was neat to see too.

Jesse James seems to be a recurring theme this week and we saw where he hid out in 1868 after robbing a local bank. Law enforcement waited outside for three days to capture him and never succeeded. He also kidnapped a local physician to care for a wounded comrade in the cave and still avoided capture!

After our cave experience, we headed back to the campground where Rob happily joined us on the 300-foot waterslide, which we have now dubbed the “waterslide of death.” Erika went another three times and still loves it. Madelyn went again, got turned around backward, and even though Rob caught her at the bottom, she was scared enough to renounce the whole thing. Victoria was ready to go, was literally sitting on the mat at the top of the slide, when she changed her mind. Rob and I were so delighted with this – in spite of reassurances from the park staff, we felt she was just too young and although she may rule the world someday with that attitude, she isn’t a daredevil. Rob gave it a try himself and nearly drowned – small kids float down, but adults with their bigger body frames get plunged into abuse. He insisted I try and I did, against my better judgment. As I got flung around from side to side with my feet and lower legs being tossed over the top edges of the slide, I was certain I was going to die! I later heard only one person has ever been thrown from the slide. I’m still thanking my lucky stars I wasn’t the second!

Rob made it up to me by making us all a fabulous dinner on his new grill for the second night in a row. He does such a good job that I believe he should permanently take over cooking duties…he would have had to anyway if he’d lost his wife on that miserable slide!

Confession

Jill's Journal: We have no idea where we’re going on Saturday when our time here is up! Absolutely no clue. We have reservations on Assateague Island on the coast of Maryland in a week – these are the reservations we had to make a year ago to get a spot – but it’s a long way from Cave City, Kentucky, to Assateague Island, Maryland. Over 800 miles, to be exact. Our plan wasn’t to drive a long distance at any point during this trip, but it seems we’ll have to make an exception.

I think we’ll need to pull out a map in the next couple of days and pick a town/city/area for next week. The only certainty is that it will be somewhere between here and the coast of Maryland. We’re leaning toward doing one long drive this weekend, in the range of 600 miles, so that we can be a lot closer to Assateague and our original plans of not driving more than 100-200 miles each weekend when we move. It’s kind of fun to think about where we might end up!

Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park

Jill's Journal: We said farewell to our luxuries at Cave Country RV Campground and went back to camping reality, moving just about two miles up the street to Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park Camp. The girls have no idea who Yogi Bear is, but they are enamored at every turn – pools, waterslides, miniature golf, a duck pond, and more. It’s also absolutely packed with people here, particularly youth groups, and the pool today had to have exceeded its maximum occupancy rate.

Highlight of the day: a 300-foot waterslide. Erika had no fear and happily went time and again. Madelyn hesitated, but when she saw Erika come down with a smile on her face (and not drown), she decided to take the plunge too. She LOVED it and was pretty proud of herself for being such a big kid! A father of another 4-year-old asked me her age and pointed out to his son that if a girl the same age could do it, he should be able to also. Poor little guy!

Victoria was dying to go, but they don’t let a parent ride with a child and I couldn’t send her by herself with only a lifeguard to catch her on the other end (or wait at the bottom and trust that she go). I explained carefully to her that we had to wait for her Daddy to join us on the slide in a day or two and then she could go all she wanted. Thank goodness she agreed to be patient and wait…she’s our volatile one and normally has quite the attitude if she isn’t able to keep up with her sisters! She must be growing up too; patience is a big thing to learn.