July 27, 2007 Portland to Dunsmuir, CA

We had a great time at Tim's. The kids sat on the couch with him this morning and watched cartoons on the flat screen T.V. Jacob thought Tim's pad was "fancy". We headed out about 8:00 in the morning, hit Starbuck's like any self respecting coffee-aholic should, and then we were on our way. We ended up driving about 375 miles today. We stopped in Shasta for lunch and saw this enormous caveman. No idea why, but the kids loved it. Mt. Shasta and Lake Shasta were beautiful scenery for our long drive.

Then, we reached our destination, Dunsmuir. Hearing that word became the bain of our existence throughout the long drive. "Are we in Dunsmuir yet?" "When are we going to get to Dunsmuir?" "Is this Dunsmuir?" "How long until we get to Dunsmuir?" Ugh! It was a relief just to arrive. We had told the kids there was a pool at the hotel, and that the hotel was special, but we didn't tell them why. So, they were thrilled when we arrived to our traincar for the evening. It really was cool. We actually slept in a converted traincar. Even better, there were beds for everyone. When we got there, we had a great time in the pool. Despite the 95 degree heat, the kids were pretty insistent on going in the hot tub. Fortunately, the heat was not turned up very high. After swimming, we had dinner in the old passenger car and took a walk around the little lake and creek. Over all, a very fun night.