Operation Dynasty Road Warriors

3,000 Miles

50 hours of driving

12 Days

5 National Parks

4 States

2 Families

1 Adventure!

Our buddies the Hays were planning to go to Lakin's 10 year high school reunion in Oregon this summer, and talked about turning it into a road trip with lots of stops instead of doing the long drive straight. Naturally we invited ourselves to join them and commenced in several months of planning. After several route proposals, we settled on an agenda that we code named "Dynasty."

The plan had us hitting Joshua Tree, Sequoia, and Yosemite National Parks on the way up. After Yosemite, the Hays continued on to Oregon to do the high school reunion thing and visit family while we split off to spend a few days with Elizabeth in Nevada. We also got to meet 2 week old baby Hazel! After that, we drove to Oregon to meet up with the Hays and go on a river rafting adventure, then drove down the coast hitting up the Redwoods and San Francisco. We camped most of the way, and stayed at a couple Airbnb's on the way home.

Ambitious? Yes. Successful? Yes! We were braced for some miserable long stretches in the car, but Elliot was a champ. He took naps in the car every day for at least an hour. Once we flipped him to face forward, he hardly ever freaked out as long as we kept the snacks and books flowing. There were a couple healthy protests about going to bed at some of the campsites, but overall he threw fewer fits than we did at home. Apparently Elliot was very willing to adopt the life of a nomad. 

The trip was great in that we saw a HUGE diversity of places, but we only got to scratch the surface of each stop due to limited time and an abundance of small children (Elliot and the three Hays kids- Colby (4), Alice (2), and Claire (4 months). It was definitely more fun going with the Hays. They got far less sleep than us thanks to kids that are incapable of sleeping past 6 am and a baby that doesn't sleep through the night. Basically they are super human, and we look up to them in every way. 

Our somewhat sketchy method of watering our basil and avocado houseplants while gone for 2 weeks.
It mostly worked, but the gallon level sank low enough that it stopped soaking the twine at some point. They were wilty when we got home, but have made a full recovery!