Christmas Road Trip – Part 1

We have never taken Christmas on the road, except when Lea was a baby and the occasional trip to Vegas (only 5 hours). Well, this year since we didn’t do our annual tour of the West Coast, what better time to go than at Christmas??

Jeff had vacation days to use up before they were lost forever in the bottomless pit of yesterday. 9 days actually.

Lea had 2 weeks of ‘Winter’ break.

Jeff’s grandma and grandpa Reynolds were not doing well (have gotten worse since we were there too) and he hadn’t seen them since 4 years ago (Lucas was a newborn). I had seen them at least twice and with the kids in that time.

So we headed out on the unknown journey of the California coast to Portland, to the Washington Coast (G&G Reynolds own a mobile home out there), and on to Richland, WA.

After packing the car, rearranging car seats – all 3 big kids in the back, me by Ammon and Jeff by himself to drive and ignore us.

DAY 1:

We left on Saturday Dec 18th at 4 am. We drove 17 hours to Redding, CA. IT RAINED THE ENTIRE WAY TO REDDING……Low clouds the whole time – we could see very little except what was on the road in front of us. Although it rained, it was nice because the kids didn’t complain about the sun being in their eyes and being too hot in the car.  

 Yes they're in their pj's - we left at 4 am remember??

I love this picture for 2 reasons. 1 – you get to see how Jeff looks when he travels: do you love the orange do-rag or what?! and 2 – you get to see what we saw while driving. California I’m sure looks a lot better than this……

We made it to Redding and stayed at the Comfort Inn. This was probably the first time EVER we’d stayed in a hotel on our road trips. We usually know someone to stay with. Didn’t look like much, but it was surprisingly roomy and the lady gave us an extra discount – she was empathetic to us traveling with 4 little ones.

Also we probably stopped at 2 or 3 different Walmarts before getting there, picked up a couple of road maps, new windshield wipers, RAIN-X, new movies for the kids to enjoy on their NEW DVD player from G&G Sorensen (an early Christmas gift).

DAY 2 – Sunday: Redding, CA to Portland, OR (7 hours left in our first part of the vacation)

Didn’t have many pictures of this part of the trip, but it was the BIGGEST adventure we had.

Lea suddenly wears glasses – modified HSM sunglasses.

I am actually in the car.

What you don’t see: we pulled over one time at the summit (blowing snow and freezing cold) cuz Abbs had to pee. Nowhere to go, but we pulled over and Jeff held a blanket so she could go in a potty chair we brought. Got her out of the car – did I mention the blowing wind/snow?! And she wouldn’t go. Think we scared her into waiting…….we hope. (we found the next town for a potty break)

Traffic was stopped for 2 hours for some accident we never saw – saw emergency vehicles, but no accident. Luckily the snow/wind had stopped (we were further down the mountains).

20 minutes later…………. FLAT TIRE. By this time we are well behind in what was supposed to be an easy drive.

We pull over, roads are totally wet – again it was not raining, but the spare tire is under the car and completely covered in mud and dirty water.

Luckily Jeff had changed the tire on the van just the week before we left so he was familiar with the process. Someone stopped to help – a family traveling form South Carolina to Portland, OR. They hadn’t had any car trouble the whole trip and the trailer door was open, so they stopped to close it and help us at the same time. The husband/dad ran back to help Jeff and I was grateful someone cared to stop – we were afterall IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.

We get driving – spare is barely full enough to drive on (only 20 psi supposed to be in the 40’s) We drive to a bunch of small towns all the while talking to Jeff’s brother Steven in Provo as he’s trying to find places for us to go. Only problem – IT’s SUNDAY. Little towns close down on Sunday and it was looking like we were going to be staying somewhere for the night. It was already dark, I was on the verge of breaking down myself as I imagined all the worst possible situations we’d have to do: stuck on the side of the road, sleeping in the car in a parking lot, paying an arm/leg for a tire, having to wait several days for a tire that noone had……..all of those. Mostly I didn’t want to unload the entire car for one night when we were so close to our destination. After checking all our options and all repair/tow places were closed. We considered transferring our hotel reservations in Portland to the little town we were in – we were staying FREE!! (yea!) at the Holiday Inn Express. I had been texting my sister the whole day and at the time I told her we had a flat tire and the spare was pretty close to flat, noone was open. She and her family knelt down to have a special prayer for us (brings tears to my eyes – seems silly now, but it was very stressful being in an unfamiliar place, running on the literally the end of the van tires).

My prayer and the prayer my sister’s family said on our behalf was answered, when Steven called me back with a Walmart that was 20 miles away and had a tire center open for another hour…….GREAT! We can get there, I think. I’m grateful he called back because I had originally told him to not worry about it. I’m glad he worried. So off we carefully drove to Walmart in Roseburg, OR. Drove in, gave them the van, and were told they would call Jeff when the van was fixed. We got there at 5:30, they closed at 6. At 6:30, we hadn’t heard anything, so Jeff walked over there and they had all gone home, but one guy. He was waiting for us. Noone had called us. That 40 minutes on the road was full of tender mercies. I am so grateful for our family, for technology and strangers who stop to help.

Finally on our way – we drove the rest of the way to Portland. A 7 hour drive that turned into 12 hours. The kids were excellent even with all the stress I felt, they were great!!