Washington Road Trip - Day 8 - Vacation from the Vacation

The eighth day of our vacation was Friday, July 3rd. Read about Day Seven Here.

In a non-COVID world we would have woken up on Day 8 in a hotel near Seattle and then maybe done some sightseeing within the city. But instead we woke up in our tent at Saltwater State Park and didn't have any plans other than to drive to our next destination, a hotel in Kennewick, Washington.

Our sixth night of camping had been very uneventful. The ground was level and soft so everyone slept well. And it didn't rain so we didn't have to worry about anything being wet.  But still I woke up very early on Friday morning.  That's because I was hoping to take a shower before anyone else woke up. 

Makeup wipes and dry hair spray had served me well since my last shower on Monday morning, but it was time to have a real shower again. (Honestly I'd have taken a shower the night before, but I hadn't wanted to sleep with wet hair.)

I'd taken care of buying shower tokens and getting all my stuff together the night before.  So all I had to do was get up and head to the shower.  The shower was in it's own little room adjacent to the restrooms. Taking a shower felt AMAZING. 

Brandon took a shower too and then we worked on getting things organized. The kids were still sleeping as I packed up clothes and rolled up my sleeping bags and the air mattress.  

Here's Derrick and Veronica. 

And Charlotte and Lydia.

We only had one more night away from home so I packed what clothes we needed for the next two day and night into my backpack. That way I only needed to bring that into the hotel with me that night. All the other clothes were shoved into the suitcase. We'd get that out at home and take it directly to the laundry room.

We had bought a bunch of fruit at the store and Brandon washed that.  We also had a half gallon of milk and a big box of Lucky Charms cereal. I'm sure if any of the other campers noticed us they thought we were the worst campers ever.  First we had Little Caesars Pizza for dinner and now milk and cereal for breakfast.  But hey, this was our 8th day of our road trip, the 6th night we'd camped, and it would be the 5th time we packed up the tent and moved on. Being lazy with our food was fine by this point.

I went back to the bathroom and did my make up. I took a selfie to celebrate clean hair.

Lydia and Veronica woke up on their own and came out of the tent to get cereal. But Derrick and Charlotte took some time. I was basically rolling up their sleeping bags with the kids still in them before they got up.  Brandon and I took down the tent while the kids ate breakfast. Since the night had been so dry we were able to get the tent packed up nicely without worrying that we'd have to air it out at home. 

We got in the car and drove north to find I-90. Then we drove southeast through the mountains. Our route would be basically southeast from here on out.

The drive was pretty uneventful. At first there were a lot of trees and everything was overcast 

The scenery was really pretty.

Then all of a sudden the trees disappeared and the sun came out. I hadn't expected that to happen within a few hours drive of Seattle. We stopped at a high point somewhere north of Yakima.

The view was cool.

We stopped at a rest stop outside of Yakima. I'd bought yogurt with M&M and Oreo mix ins at the store the day before. The kids always ask for this kind of yogurt but we never buy it.  I figured it would be fun to have while we were on vacation. So that was our snack at the rest stop.

The rest stop had a cool bridge next to it.

We kept driving and were soon close to Kennewick it was only about 1:30. Our hotel reservation confirmation said that check in time wasn't until 3:00.  I called the hotel to see if we could check in early.  They said yes. So we drive right to the Clover Island Inn. 

This reservation was the ONLY reservation for our trip that hadn't been cancelled, rescheduled, or in danger of cancellation. Brandon and I had made the reservation on March 5th and hadn't really thought about it much since then. I vaguely remembered that we'd picked this place because it was on the bank of the Columbia River. I thought Clover Island was just a cute name. So I was completely surprised when we drove onto a small island that was along the shore of the Columbia River.  There was a marina on one side of the island. And a few restaurants and the hotel on the other side. There was even a lighthouse.

I checked us into our room and we all trooped upstairs to the room. For the next two hours we just sat in the room. After nearly a week outdoors it was so nice to be somewhere with WALLS.

You may be wondering why we didn't just drive straight home to Twin Falls from Seattle. Obviously we had enough time to do that.  The reason is that we wanted to have a chance to relax before we got home. We wanted a little "Vacation from our Vacation" so to speak. If we'd driven straight home we'd have arrived home late at night. The kids would have been smelly from all our camping. We'd have had to unpack and start doing laundry. Going home didn't mean getting to relax. It meant a lot of work.  Plus the long drive would have been brutal. By staying in a hotel we had a chance to relax, get cleaned up, and rest before the final leg of our vacation. 

We'd requested a room with a view of the river and it did not disappoint. This is the view from  our 3rd floor window.

Here's looking the other way.

And Veronica got a hold of one of our phones and took a bunch of pictures like this. 

Watching TV was kind of strange. We like to watch the house hunting and fixer upper type shows when we stay in hotels.  HGTV was showing a lot of episodes of some sort of beach themed house hunting show. People were looking for vacation homes on the beach. In light of all the economic fallout from COVID it was strange to watch people debate about which home to buy as a second home.  I told Brandon, "They need a new reality show where we check in with anyone who was on a home buying reality show and see if they still think buying that home was a good decision."


After several hours of remembering when the economic was amazing, we decided it was time to find dinner. We picked up burgers from Burger King and took them to Columbia Park

There was an awesome playground at the park so the kids were pretty distracted while we ate.

They were so excited to go play. Brandon was a good dad and helped push the kids on this toy.

Since there were only three spots the kids had to take turns being the one that stayed off the toy.

Veronica took me all over the playground and showed me everything.

She loved the attention.

Derrick wanted to go down to the river. I took him over there and he threw rocks in the water for a long time.

It was really pretty. This was our 7th night by water, but it was still impressive.

Here's Derrick throwing rocks.

After a while the other kids came and joined him. 

The kids ended up pretty wet, which was fine.  I'd planned to have them take baths at the hotel before going to bed anyway. 

We left the park and found a Winco. I ran in and was supervised to see the fanciest Winco I'd ever been in.  It looked like a Costco. I got some more snacks for the drive home the next day. I also bought a big bag of cherries. 

We went back to the hotel and the kids all took showers. We watched the movie Hitch on TV. We kept hearing fireworks being lit off across the river. The kids had fun watching them out the river.

After the kids were in bed and mostly asleep Brandon and I went outside for a "date" walking around the island.

It was really pretty and romantic. The wind was blowing gently and every so often we could see fireworks.

Here's a look back at our hotel.

The light house.

The moon over the apartments built over marina slips.

We went back to the hotel and arranged the sleeping kids.  Charlotte and Lydia got the bed this time. Veronica had made her self a bed with two air chairs, but I moved her to the foot of Charlotte and Lydia's bed. We made Derrick a little bed on the floor. I think this is the last time we'll squish into a two bed hotel room. I think next time we'll have to start staying places with adjoining rooms.

Crawling into bed was a really good feeling. I love camping, but I also love real beds.