Traveling with the family

It is off to Placerville. We weren’t able to start until around 11 because there was still much to pack. Emily is not able to do the extra things while running the house. The children help a great deal but can’t do nearly enough. We drove past many yellow wild flowers and were even able to see one large field of beautiful California poppies. The hills were alive with yellow and orange. We stopped at many rest areas on I-5 and had lunch at one. I wanted to make sure the kids had some time to run around. They traveled very well. We listened to the sound track of O, brother. Where Art Thou? several times. The kids were in love with I’ll Fly Away. They sang along with it many times. They also enjoyed I’m in the Jailhouse Now, Highway to Heaven, and Big Rock Candy Mountain. We found the campground we wanted and packed in for the night. We chose it because there was a playground listed. It was very inadequate in my opinion, but the ones playing liked it well enough. A funny thing was that the man ‘s rest room was being remodeled so the women’s was assigned to men on odd hours and the women on even hours. I guess that the real division was for time to shower but it would be hard to regulate the bladder and bowel to time slots like that. We ate in semi darkness using my 1000 candle power flashlight. We had spaghetti sauce without the pasta because we couldn’t find any. We cleaned up and pulled out the hire-a-bed for sleeping. Some slept on the floor and one on a reclining seat. In all it worked out well despite the trains that came by nearly every hour. I was busy sleeping, but many testified that they came throughout the night.
Thursday we slept very late and had breakfast of cold cereal outside on the picnic table. I had not parked properly last night for dumping so we had to go to the dump station where my hose would reach. I asked the park workers the best way to U.S. 50 and was sent a better, closer way. We stopped in Cameron Park to shop and have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. We also bought some food before going on to Stan’s. We arrived around 2:30 and visited for a while. Noah, Elizabeth and Rosalie donned their swimsuits and braved the 65 degree water. Andrew deferred to another day. Noah, especially, loves the dogs that Stan and Linda have as well as those of Christine, their apartment renter. We ate dinner separately, the Beelis in the motor home and the Waters in the house. It was delicious. We then watched A Midsummer’s Night Dream that Emily had brought from the library. She spent some time on the way reading a synopsis to the children and they seemed to follow the plot well.