Adam is still driving as I am trying to give myself at least 1 week of full rest before I start flexing the driving muscle again. I am getting used to being the passenger but admit I am an awful passenger for poor Adam. Constantly grabbing the side of the door, pressing the air brake and etc. He is very patient with me though, thank you Adam. I am keeping myself busy on the drives by playing with the kids more and trying to keep everyone sane. We are all getting a bit stir crazy especially because we have no formal stops today to stretch the legs or smell the water/woods/flowers and etc. We are driving on a lot of little roads and one of them is very similar to route 9. Two to four lanes at a time and lots of traffic lights. I challenge Abby to a contest to see who can get someone in another car to dance with us first. We put our windows down and I put on a "classic carpool karaoke" playlist. We start jamming and dancing and the first person we try to snatch is at Abby's window. A middle-aged woman who thought Abby was adorable (she was right) but would not dance. We pass a few other grumps who have no intent on joining in until we come across a trucker. We get him to laugh at our antics but no dancing...yet. We come to a light and he is behind us still inching up to the light. I tell Abby we'll need a group effort to lasso him in and pull him up to the light. The light turns green and we start cruising. I send out the lasso and knab the truck on the first try, Abby and I start pulling as hard as we can and much to our delight, the truck driver played along and sped up to make it seem as if we were pulling him in. He got up next to us and gave us a high five and a laugh. We took a bit of a break after that, didn't want to strain our muscles you know...
We get to Lee Vining (town where our motel is) but before we stop at the motel, we go to "roller coaster road". This is a road that goes up and down and curves like a roller coaster. To our excitement it is pretty abandoned and Adam drives us on the road while we all squeal with immature joy. Windows down, hearts fully engaged and laughter flowing freely. We had a fabulous time on the road and it was a good way to get out some energy. Because the road was abandoned, and because it was covered in Sequoia trees, I ask Adam to stop for another abandoned road photo. It turns out beautiful.
We head back to the motel where we have a family suite again. One room with a queen, a shared bathroom and a separate room with two queens. It is right on the lake (Lake Mono) and boasts a private balcony and sitting area for our room. We are very excited to enjoy the evening in privacy and decide we'll try to catch the sunrise again. Hopefully more successfully than the last time at St. Ignace. We park in the smallest parking lot in the world and I head into the office. She gives me a key and vaguely points to a direction and says "it's down a bunch of stairs". We grab our bags and the kids go first down the stairs and find the room. There is no main door to our room. Only a slider...which you just slide right open. I was shocked Gideon just opened it and I said "you can't just open someone's room!!" and he said "this is our room!!". Oh, ok. We go in and are immediately blocked by one of the queen beds and have to walk sideways to get into the rest of the room. There is a step about 2 feet tall to get into the 1-bedroom portion of the room. Adam, as he always does, enters the room and frantically searches for the AC. Guess what? There is none, but there is this fan that you can put ice into and it will blow icy air at you! In our bedroom there is a plain old fan pointed towards the bed.
There is a black box on the wall. I ask Adam if that is the AC and he says it is something we can't touch. Then I look for a light switch. I find a note that says "do not touch". I decide I'll find the light later. We look at the forecast and by 12am it is supposed to get down to 63 degrees, though, right now it is 85 degrees. We decide to open windows to start letting the cooler air in and Adam tries to open a window in our bedroom but it is painted shut. Whatever, there is still one window left so we leave that open. We decide to head out of the sauna and go to dinner and when we try to lock our slider door, it won't lock. Adam tries to investigate but can't figure out the issue. I go back to the front desk and ask if there is a trick to locking the door? She just rolls her eyes and walks down and then locks it in front of Adam with a "you're a moron" attitude. It's important that you know that as we pass by our now locked slider door, we see the window that opens into our other bedroom. It is a screen held on by 2 loose screws that has clearly been removed multiple times when people get locked out OR when they want to steal things. If you want to see a "tour" of our room, see the videos section.
Similar to last night, there is no good dinner options around so we have to go to the next town. We find a highly rated restaurant called "The Warming Hut". We head up to the van and as we're walking towards it, I see something on the ground underneath the van. Sidenote: For about 2 weeks, we have been hearing a rattling on the van. Adam kept telling Abby and I that it was just the "heat shield" and that it was fine. Abby and I would look at each other hopefully and filled with anxiety praying that 1) it really is just the heat shield and 2) that we don't need the heat shield to be on tight. Ok back to the story. Adam gets down on the ground under the van and pulls out...the heat shield. Apparently, the van had just given up at this point and couldn't take the rattling anymore and once we parked she just dropped the shield down on the ground. We pick it up and put it in the trunk along with weeks' worth of souvenirs, snacks and ants. Adam says we don't need the heat shield. I'll google it later.
We get to "the Warming Hut" early in the evening (we are learning that to avoid lines we need to eat by 6pm) and there is already a 10 minute wait because one of the cooks called out. Ha. We are a curse to every restaurant, I swear. We are seated and it's a cute little place! We enjoy the ambiance and I'm also able to enjoy another Amber Ale - yum! Abby and I both got chicken and biscuits, but of course, they only have enough for one of us. I try to defer to Abby but she insists I keep it. She regrets that later as it is very good and her burger is sub-par. Gideon got to color, though, and he had a good time being creative. Also, Adam and my chairs were on a trap door in the floor. I spent the majority of the night asking Adam if we were going to be dropped into the dungeon. Maybe if we misbehaved? If we didn't tip well enough? I'm still not sure what that trap door was for, but glad we didn't find out...
We get back to the smoldering motel and I was thinking of sitting on our "private" patio, but our patio is not private and is shared with the rest of our floor. The view of the lake is also a bit blocked and not as advertised... We go into the room and strip down to just our underwear and tank tops to keep cooler. Adam and I cannot close the curtains on our one working window because it's the only way cooler air is getting in so we lay on our bed in our undies with the window between us and the "private patio". A few people enjoy the patio and get a look at our undies as well. Just like bathing suits, right? We're too hot to be shy. We try to plan a few more days/nights of hotels but we're so hot that we are easily irritated. We decide to table it and try again when it's cooler.
We get to bed on top of the covers (as I assume everyone sleeps in this hotel) and get ready for catching the sunrise in the morning and then an early start at Yosemite.
Summary: Don't bother locking it, new shoes and roller coaster roads make us smile, semi-trucks are heavy. Ended the day at Yosemite Gateway Motel, Lee Vining, CA.