Life without web access?

The interesting thing about camping in national parks is that there is no cell signal. My oldest son lasted 3 days before thinking he would die from lack of internet. My next oldest lasted 4 days. Luckily they didn't all feel this way at the same time, or I might have had a mutiny on my hands.

It was funny though, that even though we were out in the wilderness, thanks to kindles ability to download and watch things later my kids still spend a lot of camping times with their faces glued to screens. I was spared any attempt to do that as my phone decided not to like the charger anymore, and the only thing I can do on my device without internet access is to take photos and play a word game.

We still saw awesome mountains, glaciers, volcanoes, moss-covered massive trees and sandy beaches.

But now we are on our way home.

Last night's campsite was not only fun to find- the "group" campsite that I reserved was not in the normal campground- with flushing toilets and access to water- no, it was a half mile up the road, with a latrine and no water access, except to a river- luckily we brought drinking water, and boiled the river water before using it to wash dishes. It actually ended up being nice and spacious,- with lots of privacy, while the normal campground had campers stacked as tightly as if it was San Fransico. It worked fine, but we decided to stay for only 1 night. And that mostly because I was too tired to go back out of the park and find a hotel. So we set up camp and cooked dinner, and then went and enjoyed the hot springs pools. I was really sore and the first access to hot water in days was too good to pass up, even at $11/head.

This morning we packed up. It takes us 2-3 hours to wake up, eat and break camp and get our van's 3 overhead carriers filled and attached. This morning I made pancakes. My boys, hoping to get back to internet access packed up their tent wet. I was patient and let the sun work while I made pancakes from my homemade mix that I had dragged over 3,000 miles to use. And I sweated by the time I was done packing up the tent. I was actually in full summer sun for the first time the whole trip! 2 weeks ago we were battling snow.

After we packed up we went to see the Hoh rainforest. Those trees aren't as impressive after hanging out in the redwoods, but it was still fun.

So now we are half way across Washington, heading east for the first time in over a week.