I don't know if I have ever been happier to get the heck out of dodge.

Just checking in. Will be driving home today.

I questioned our sanity doing a road trip in a small car because DL(13) has had a rough time on the mental health front. Which translates into super moody and not talking a lot of the time. Anyway, it hasn't been all sunshine and roses, but he has enjoyed our road trip 1,000 times more than I would have imagined. So maybe this is just what he needed.

I think I was envisioning a more frugal road trip. We probably squeaked by ($1,500 budget) with $500 in hotel expenses, $200 in gas, and about $800 in food spending. But we did do a few expensive museums (or, adds up with 4 people, even if not expensive). & it will be about $250 to board our cat so long (dropped him off a day early and will pick him up tomorrow, just to allow for extra time and also their hours).

The hotels were only so expensive because our last two nights were on the coast. We had to scramble to even find a room. What was left was beautiful but more than I'd spend otherwise.

One funny thing about this trip. Well, two. The first entire day was cancelled due to wildfires. Not funny funny. But our last attempted road trip was mostly cancelled due to government shutdown. So it was a little deja vu on day #1. & given the year it's been I thought this might just be a total disaster. I was really wary like what the hell are we doing?! We should stay home... #2 funny funny is on average once per day our food orders have been wrong so we keep getting tons of free food (keeping the food we didn't order and also being given more food to compensate). It's kind of hilarious. It keeps the teen boys happy and is probably why we've barely touched our road trip snacks.

As to canceled day #1, we had to cut out a couple of things due to time regardless, and so we may just make a day trip of it at some point in the future.

Highlights of our trip: Crater Lake (actually could see it on Day #2, but was hazy). AMAZING. I put it as #3 in the most amazing views I have ever seen, even with the haze. MH wants to go back and do it right on a clear day. Mt. St. Helens (which really awed my moody DL). Olympic National Forest. Except for Seattle we mostly stuck to the great outdoors.