Every year, my family gathers somewhere and spends a week together. My mom and dad, my brother, his wife and four daughters, and my household. It’s the annual “Johnson Family” vacation tradition and I love it. This year I requested, and everyone agreed, for us to vacation somewhere with snow so that we could teach the four little ones the joys of playing in the snow. We chose Tahoe and the week between Christmas and New Years. Unfortunately that also means that the air flight tickets were priced accordingly outrageous, so we decided to drive. It was officially time for us to start the “family road trip” tradition! I’m going to include some photos here but we didn’t take a lot and most of them are from our phones. We spent a lot of time “in the moment” on this trip and I’m really glad that’s how it unfolded.
We planned some but also left some space open to just go with the flow during our travels to and from Tahoe. We packed food to try and save money along the way. The first day we drove from Austin, TX to Tuscon, AZ. We quickly learned that we needed to stop about every four hours to stretch our legs and let the boys run around a bit. We immediately fell in love with “rest areas” along the highways and learned to appreciate how well some states take care of them and how much fun you can have at one with imaginative four year olds.
Despite it being dark when we arrived, Forest immediately recognized this beautiful orange tree in the parking lot of our hotel in Tucson. It was very striking and beautiful with the nearly full moon and sunrise the next morning.
Our second day was much shorter, we drove from Tucson to the Grand Canyon and stayed the night in one of the facilities at the park. We saw beautiful snow in Flagstaff, but there was none at the Canyon itself.
We enjoyed a short hike along the ridge that afternoon, saw the sunset and the sunrise across the canyon.
This was Christmas Eve and Santa found us at the hotel and brought the boys some presents and filled their stockings, hung on the TV with great care, thanks to a hanger. It was REALLY cold that night and the next morning, which made things difficult for Forest and therefor all of us. Despite having gone so many months without any tactile defensiveness issues, the cold weather and cold winds brought it back and getting him into his coat, hat and gloves was a nightmare of unhappiness. It was one heck of a great reminder of why I am studying Buddhism as I found all my months and years of anticipation and expectation destroyed by the reality of having a wonderful child with a difficult problem.
On day three, Christmas day, we drove from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, staying in my brother’s home, even though he was out of town. We took the boys downtown to the strip to let them stretch their legs. Forest is a huge M&M fan so we started our adventure there at the M&M store and then started walking down the strip to see what we could see.
We made it for one of the Bellagio water shows which was delightful for us all. The boys were so excited to move and run, to see and watch, after three days in the car. While we were walking through the Caesar’s Palace courtyard the boys suddenly ran down a flight of stairs and jumped in front of a statue requesting to have their picture taken. This was funny not only because of the particular Venus statue that they chose but also because Logan is very particular about having his picture taken. Anyway, since they requested it, here it is!
I still can’t believe how far we made it walking that night before exhaustion and hunger kicked in and we started to head home.
On the fourth day we drove across the Nevada desert to south Lake Tahoe.
It had just snowed in Tahoe and was BEAUTIFUL. We spent five days playing in the snow: sledding, snow ball fights, snow angels, hot cocoa. All that makes snow fun. Forest got more and more used to all his winter gear and after a few days we were able to get him dressed to go outside without the tactile defensiveness induced tantrums. M&M bribes played a good part in this as well, I must admit. Our second day there it snowed between 12 and 18 inches, but being a resort destination, they kept those roads clear!
Our condo in Tahoe had an incredible view.
Logan LOVED the snow and would climb to the top of snow hills and just sit in them, like this.
Before we got sleds, Forest realized he could slide down the hill in his snow pants. Click on the image below to watch the video.
Snow angels were Forest’s very favorite thing to do in the snow, that’s pretty much all he did that first day he got to play in it. Click on the image below to watch the video.
We had a big family snow ball fight that first day as well. Here is a video of Logan coming after me with a snow ball. At one point he tells me “don’t worry!” before belting me with a snow ball. Click on the image below to watch the video.
In fact, throughout the trip one of my favorite things was “the view”. We had views of mountains, deserts, sunrises and sunsets. Trees, deer, stars, cactus, shrubs, cattle feed lots, a coal burning plant and windmills. In just a matter of days I saw so much of America and was reminded of how vast and beautiful it is, how diverse and magical. Of why some find one place beautiful, and others another place.
The boys did amazing, we were daily proud of how well they handled being in the car all day. Best trick I can share about long car trips with four year olds? Pipe cleaners. They had a blast making things with pipe cleaners every day. I got the idea from a website somewhere and it was one of the best ways for them to entertain themselves without requiring technology.
We had such a great adventure and it really spurred in Brad and I a desire for more adventures.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Thank you Dawn. Your kids are very cute. I have twin boys myself who are 3 years old and actually wear the exact same Buddy and Woody PJs your kids are wearing in your first picture. We we were blessed with being able to adopt our boys from Child Protective Services here in Texas. We actually fostered them first and welcomed them into our home at 3 days old. Talk about a shocker when we were told Monday morning in December of 08 that we would have twin boys by that evening. 8 hours notice and my life has been changed forever.
I look forward to reading more about your boys and how they do with your family outings. I want to take my kids on a road trip but am hesitant as they can still be challenging to work with.