An Ill-Planned Drive

Last Saturday, we thought it'd be fun to take a day trip over the Olympic Peninusla and revisit a state park Caleb and I had driven to when we were dating. It had been such a fun trip before, and the autumn leaves were beautiful, we just assumed everything would work out this time too. Unfortunately, Grace had officially outgrown her infant seat, and it was a little more complicated than we'd expected getting Grace's new carseat installed, so we were a little later getting started than we'd planned. And then she cried, loudly, until we stopped for a very late lunch at Jack in the Box. She finally slept after that, but neither of us had double-checked how to get there, so hours of driving left us hours away still when she woke up from her afternoon nap. We'd ended up on Highway 3 driving through an industrial looking area with no playgrounds in site, so we took a half hour detour to a little state park on some island. It wasn't quite what we were hoping for (our hoped-for colorful leaves were replaced by tall evergreens), but Grace had lots of space to run and play, and we had a fun time picking apples and feeding them to a friendly deer.

On the way home, we stopped at McDonald's, and had a blast on the play-structure. (Kids are a free pass to play again!) We took Grace up to the top, and I took her in my lap down the slide. We wore her out pretty well, and she slept the entire way back. We're planning a repeat in a week or two, but this time we'll check the map first. :-)