Cheap Thrills

We are blessed in that our girls, unlike real children, are easy to entertain. And a lot cheaper. Whenever we have a long weekend and the weather is nice, we try to find a place to pull off the road and let the girls run. Their preference is to find a place with nice grass, not too prickly, not too wet, not too thick, not too dry, but just right.

 The temperatures should be, preferably, over 70, over 90 is even better. Sun shine is the favored condition.

 This past weekend, we knew we were going past a nice rest area on the Washington banks of the Columbia River. We've stopped there before. They have a nice large patch of near perfect grass for running.

 And there's not a lot of traffic so we mostly have the rest area to ourselves. We set them loose and watch them go.

 The girls also prefer that the wind is calm. Wind is not one of their favored weather conditions. Carlie and Ella try to overlook all but the strongest of breezes, but the princess does not "do" wind of any strength.

 She has also outgrown the thrill of running. Running is beneath the princess. She prefers snooping. But on this day, though the grass was soft, and not too wet, and not too prickly, it was only just 50 degrees, the sun was not shining, and the wind was too brisk for princesses.

 She snooped for about 5 minutes and then took up residence inside my jacket where she snuggled in to observe the peasants running. Good thing for princesses that they are small enough to fit into the jacket. Peasants wouldn't fit.

Eventually, even peasants begin to tire, though Carlie Jean could probably run all day long and be completely happy in an exhausted state if we'd let her. But the other two get bored waiting for her to wind down, so we shut her off earlier than she'd like.

 While we watched the girls run themselves out, we also took a few minutes to take in the view, which along this stretch of road, never gets dull.

I said our girls were easy to entertain. And they are! I didn't say they weren't picky though. Perfect grass conditions, perfect temperatures, perfect moisture, no wind.....well there's no such things as perfection, but we do our best. They still enjoyed it, and I hope appreciate our efforts.

I told you in the last post that we would be home last weekend, but then a change of plans. We found out we could deliver on Friday after all, and so we went through the night to Spokane, and then took a short load to just south of Portland for the weekend. And then this week.....well your lucky I'm blogging, because I'm about dead on my feet and half starved. We went from a lazy 350 mile weekend into a week of driving straight through the night, every night so far, and every day as well! From Oregon to Iowa, back to Utah, and on, we started Monday evening and haven't stopped going yet! Looks like things are winding down for the end of the week though, so some rest tonight and then another lazy weekend. It has been tiring, but feels good as well because it makes up for the poor miles the week before.
Hope it's a good and relaxing weekend for all of you as well!