Friday, July 24, 2015

Western mountains trips days 6 & 7: one last hike then home

One priority for our last day was to stay out of the van :)  We needed to build up some emotional space for the drive home!  The early morning alternated between misty and rainy so the kids mostly played in their bedroom.  With two sets of bunks and some creative imaginations they created a small town (John Paul sold ice cream!)

The boys also played some Go Fish! with their Daddy on the porch of the hostel annex.


We walked downhill for lunch and then decided on a final mini-hike to end our time and work up an appetite for one last yak burger dinner.


The wildflowers are just beautiful.  And everywhere!


We started home early Tuesday morning and went no where fast.  The narrow (single lane but with traffic attempting to move both ways) mountain road was blocked by two trucks, each negotiating for position.  After much talking and inching this way and that and backing up and moving forward and Matt talking with the drivers we finally got through.  It wasn't a very auspicious start.  Neither was the second traffic pile-up we encountered about 15 minutes later.  But considering our slow-to-start trip home we made great time.


The skies were mostly cloudy and we drove through some rain during the final hours.  The rain helped wash off the nasty mud that we picked up driving through multiple dirt-turned-mud-pit road detours.

That evening after dinner we watched a slide show of our pictures - such a fun way to end the vacation :)


I loaded the trip pics into our digital frame and it's been a fun way to reminisce these past few days.  Isaac loves to perch on the arm of the couch and watch the photos go by.


The trip was simply an incredible experience.  To think that we got to see all that, do all that!

Our family's life can feel like such a crazy place.  A friend in the U.S. just vacationed with her husband and children in Washington, D.C.  I'm jealous.  I'd love to vacation in D.C.  It sounds so appealing, so 'normal', so American.  But reality is that we can't go visit D.C.  At least not easily.

So we do what works for us.  We drive crazy places and do amazing things, things that many Americans will never experience.  And it's ok to long for the stereotypical "week at the beach/lake".  It's also ok to enjoy the yak herders in the foothills of the Himalayas.

1 comment:

Leslie said...

I've been pouring over your stories and pictures and dreaming of the time that our family can visit with the yak herders! Scott and I just finished his summer reading book, Peak, about a boy climbing Mt. Everest from Tibet and your pictures bring it all to life. So glad you had the opportunity to create such wonderful family memories.