I’ve blogged at least once a month every month for over a year now. It seems a shame to break that streak. So . . . we went on another trip.

Goodness, if we had known back in August that we’d end up in both Missouri and California in the next six months, we probably never would’ve booked that trip to Hawaii. (Good thing we didn't know!) Three week-long trips to three different states in six short months seems like overkill when you have three little kids and a business to keep after. 🙂

This last trip we were smart though. Instead of flying . . .

Voilà.

We took home with us. And guess what, the boys slept so much better. Too bad you can’t fly a motorhome. 🙂 We’d be in Europe on Spring Break!

Kidding. We just want to stay home, honestly.

Eric and I have fallen into a habit, good or bad I’m not sure. When we know we have somewhere to go, we think, What else could we be doing while we’re there anyway? How could we make the most of this trip since we’re going to all the trouble to get there anyway? And then we end up driving for hours or staying at a different motel every night for an entire week or rushing from one thing to the next. Sometimes it’s great, like when we spent a week in the Florida Keys or tacked an entire trip to New Zealand onto our already long Australia trip. Sometimes it’s exhausting, like when we roamed Missouri over Christmastime.

So this time it was, If we have to go to California anyway, we could add two hours to our trip down and see LaVay and Juli and Crater Lake, and we could add two hours to our trip up and see the Redwoods and maybe the beach. What’s another two hours when you’re already driving ten? 🙂

We set out Sunday morning, so excited to just finally all be together for days on end after a crazy-busy couple of weeks leading up to the trip.

And in case you missed that hilarious little face leering in the corner, here he is again. 🙂 Oh, Emmett. I love it when babies are in the funny-smile stage.

We stopped for lunch at Initiative Brewing, where my sister and niece work. Stop in if you're ever in Redmond! I hear they've got some pretty good cooks in the back. 🙂

Then it was onward to Crater Lake! Except we didn't do our research well enough. We didn't look up which entrance would be the most likely to be clear, which was kind of ridiculous of us because it was obviously in the middle of winter, but we just merrily followed the GPS until we ended up . . . here.Aw, shucks.

We got out and let the boys play in the snow so that all wouldn't be lost, but that was as close as we got to Crater Lake. Fortunately, we don't live far away. Maybe we'll go back in the summer! It was disappointing though, especially to Alec, who'd been all hyped up for this beautiful lake.

Our happy little home on wheels, out in the wild where it belongs. 🙂

A sign for the lake is a poor substitute for the lake itself. So close but so far.

The Baers Go to Crater Lake. Kind of.And then of course we kept going, but I think I'll save the rest for another time. I have a ridiculous amount of pictures, especially considering that we weren't really anywhere exotic, literally just a job site plunked down in the middle of some beautiful hills. But we'll see if I get to that.

The problem with pausing here is I can’t promise I’ll actually come back with the rest of the trip. If I don’t, you can just pretend we took a little, disappointing jaunt to Crater Lake, and I’ll have got my February post in by the skin of my teeth. 🙂