Three roadtrips, THREE

Pedals!

For this year's Utah State Bar convention, we decided to bring friends along for our older son.  We loaded up a trailer with bikes and gear and friends and headed to Idaho.  The trip was great, but the thing I can't stop thinking about is the ride up.  It was about 5 hours with 3 chatty 13 year olds in a car with Ben.

This turned out to be a kind of immersion therapy for him.  The older boys would hold up their smartphones and say, "Look at this funny video" and Ben would inevitably say, "I want to see!"  That may not seem like a big deal, but for Ben it was.

The days spent in Sun Valley were filled with scooters and bikes, and Ben made the leap from strider bikes to one that actually had pedals.

Progress moves in fits and starts, and that week was a leap ahead for Ben.



A few weeks later, Lovely Wife pointed out to me that we hadn't had a non-working vacation in a loooong time.  She has a high stress occupation and when she says she wants a break, it's to be taken seriously.  I am mostly a hobbit, content to stay in my cozy hobbit hole, but she's a bit Tookish.

We rented a pop-up camper.  We have been backpackers and car campers and river rafters, but for the past few years, the prospect of camping just seemed too hard.  Sleep is a huge issue for Ben and sleeping on a pad in a tent makes it that much harder.  Wandering is an issue too, so the idea of having an enclosed space was attractive. I won't go into detail, but having our own portapotty turned out to be extremely useful.

Look at this camping paradise:

(stock photo - otherwise you'd see sleeping bags and juice boxes and legos and rocks and all kinds o stuff)

We headed up to the Grand Tetons.  It's only about 5 hours from Salt Lake.  That may seem like a long way if you're not from around here, but in the West, it's not so much.  Heck...oil has dropped below $40/barrel, and Obama's letting folks drill offshore in the Arctic.

I don't know that these folks are the best, but they were good to us.  The trailer was easy to tow, gas mileage wasn't bad, and set-up didn't take long at all.

Wednesday, we drove in to Gros Ventre campground.  The lady from Alabama who checked us in had a lovely Southern accent and was very helpful.

Actual camper...surprisingly roomy!

Setting the camper up was pretty darned easy.  That's helpful because transition times are ripe for wandering and mischief.  William was very helpful at keeping Ben out of trouble for the 10 minutes it took us to get the site all fixed up.

Thursday, we headed over to the Gros Ventre river and did some wading.  It ranked right up there with our creek back in Tennessee (no crawdads, though).  There was some stone skipping (Ben is pretty excited about finding skipping stones, so yea!).  William shamed Lovely Wife into floating down the fast part of the river, marshmallow sticks were found, and a good time was had by all.

Having a campfire was a big bonus of camping.  Ben, after some work, was consistently able to say, "Excuse me, can I burn this?"  This was important - the question was asked about some things that one would definitely not want to burn.

Friday, we rented some "duckies".  These are inflatable kayaks, and I was pleased to see that new kayaks are way better than the ones I was used to.  Lovely Wife was awesome and took Ben in a two-person kayak while William soloed in his own boat.  They put in just below the dam at Jackson Lake and I went to wait at the take-out point an hour or so downriver for some alone time.

Ben stayed in the boat the whole time!

On Saturday, we checked out some dispersed campgrounds.  We liked the campground we were in, but to be in a place with fewer neighbors where Ben could be Ben without tramping into our neighbors would be really great.  We found a place that we want to try out next time.  I'm pretty psyched.

After checking out the more remote area, we went for a hike around a lake and had a little picnic.  A helpful German man with a large can of bear spray warned us about the Grizzly he had just seen.  We saw pronghorn antelope, bison, and moose on this trip, but no bears.  We did keep them in mind.

I got an idea from the OT sessions this summer - I took a rope, threaded it through the grommets on a spare tarp and strung it between two trees for a hammock/swing contraption.




It worked pretty well for a while - Ben got happy and relaxed.  Then we did some stress-testing to destruction.  Next time, I'll have one that can handle the load.

We headed home on Sunday.  It was an awesome time - everyone (pretty much) unplugged.

A few weeks after THAT, we headed to Big Sky, Montana so that William and Lovely Wife could run in a grueling trail race.  It was a whirlwind of a weekend, and I didn't take many pictures.  We got to spend quality time with some cousins and that was great.  Ben's fascinations for dogs and babies and very small rocks were both a blessing and a curse.

I don't have much of a message with this post, other than to say that it's good to get out and do stuff, (once in a while), no matter how hobbit-like you may be.  All of us, folks with autism included, grow leaps and bounds when we step outside our hobbit holes.  It's a big reason why I married that Took.

Adventure Time

this is more fun than it looks

I was reminiscing the other day about our life pre-autism.  It was 6 years ago in August that I took Ben's brother and our dog on a nine day rafting trip with another family.  It was one of the best trips of my life.  We had a blast.  I remember feeling that he was finally mature enough to have real adventures, and that we had a future of camping and hiking and climbing ahead of us with lots of father/son bonding in the outdoors.  In my vision of the future, I would teach him to rock climb and other awesome things.

Bubba chillin' at the campsite

There was at least one very tense time on that trip.  Bubba was on the other family's raft with his friend (L) and her father (G).  I was on my raft with her mother (M).  They stopped for a potty break and were 10 minutes or so behind us when a heavy squall hit.  Wind was roaring down the canyon and rain blasting sideways.  Thunder and lightning were crashing all around.  It was Old Testament for a while.  M and I grew more nervous as the other raft failed to show up.

Things let up a bit and along they came, everyone warmly dressed and huddled together with the dogs.  G maneuvered his raft with all the serenity of a Massachusetts lobsterman who's seen much worse (which he is).  Then we made hot cocoa.

Ben is now a year older than his brother was then.  I can't fathom the idea of a nine day raft trip with him.  He has a hard time sleeping in ideal conditions.  Camping, or even traveling, is an iffy proposition.  We still do it, but constant vigilance is required because he'll roam in a heartbeat. 

happy trouble

The good news is that he's a pretty happy kid, and he loves to be outside.  Yesterday, he was asking me to set up the slip and slide (it's way too cold already).  A few minutes ago, a big front blew through and scattered leaves across our yard.  He came in gleefully yelling "LEAVES!" to share it with me (sorry, no pics).

I spent some time observing Ben's classroom this morning.  I can't go into it here...there are privacy issues, but I will say that we are very lucky to have a great school with great teachers and he seems to be doing really well there.

Maybe some day we'll go camping and be able to relax.  I'm looking forward to it.  Ben's not quite big enough yet, but we're going to check out this program ASAP.

a not-very-relaxed dog

As a side note, the parents at Ben's school have started talking about fund-raising again.  The Amazon link at the bottom of this blog is still active with an associate account linked to the school.  If you use it to get to Amazon, a portion (5%?) of any purchases during that browser session will go directly to the school as a donation (none for me).  It doesn't increase your price at all, so why not?




Also, if you live in Utah, Smith's grocery donates to schools based on how much people buy with their "Fresh Values" program.   If you don't have kids of your own and would like to help out, you can ask the cashier to link your card to Carmen B. Pingree School.  Easy!  Doesn't cost you a thing!  Hey, while you're at it, ask your friends, co-workers, and extended family to do it too.  It's not just a school, they do research and train people to do therapy.  We need more o' that.

she's a bit tookish

Good campsite!

When Lovely Wife was about 8 1/2 months pregnant with the Ben, she got it in her head that we should go camping one more time before being laden with an infant.  It had been a long winter and we were both a little stir-crazy.

We talked to my knowledgeable professor/friend and found out where to go.  He shared the location of an awesome campsite in the San Rafael Swell with us.  It was fairly private and there was a creek nearby for the pup.  Tucker was 1 1/2 then, I reckon.

We headed down on a Friday, and found the campsite with no problems.  It was awesome, other than the toilet paper confetti that some previous camper had left.  We set up our "Hobbitat" tent for the first time, and were quite pleased with the head room (we're both on the tall side).

We had a pleasant evening, with campfire burritos and a fireside reading of The Hobbit (Bubba's first experience with it).  The next morning, we had a really fun hike up Muddy Creek.  Bubba and Tucker had a blast.

Fun hiking up the creek!

Lovely Wife had a rare moment of clarity and decided that one night of camping would be enough.  Camping while that pregnant...not so much fun.  Of course, being blessed with a fair share of Tookish blood, she was compelled to suck some more joy out of the weekend.  We agreed to go visit one of the slot canyons and then follow a jeep trail out of the park.

We packed up and followed a series of trails down to the south of the park.  In our defense, what we saw on the map and what we experienced in real life did not prepare us for what we ran into later.  The trails were matching up pretty well with the "hard", "harder", "hardest" designations on our map, and we didn't have a problem with "hardest'.

Careful, Bubba!

We kept moving south, and the road kept getting narrower.  We saw a herd of wild horses...cool.

Eventually, we made it to the desired canyon, where we got out and hiked for a bit.  That was fun, but I started getting antsy as Bubba climbed up some high places and pregnant Wifey clambered down drop-offs (little did I know what was to come).  About 4:00 in the afternoon, we decided to head on.

The trail got tougher almost immediately.  Lovely Wife drove, 8+ months pregnant and all.  She's better at this stuff than me...I've got no illusions.  We kept meeting people along the way - they'd stop and say, "Are you okay?" and we'd say "yeah!' and drive along.  They were all on foot or ATV, of course.  We'd seen no other cars since noon.

The road got tougher.  There were a few points where I needed to get out and "build up the road" with rocks from the roadside.  We were winding our way up some steep, rutty roads and I was glad Wifey was driving.  Camping gear would occasionally topple over on Tucker, but we were all in a pretty good mood, looking forward to the easy drive that we knew was only a couple of miles ahead.

About 5:30 in the afternoon, we topped out.  We arrived on the top of an 800' mesa, looking down on the road that we'd planned to take out.  In between us and it, was a winding, oh-so-not-appropriate for a Honda Pilot trail.  That bit of road was not on our map.

We got out and "assessed the situation."  It was dizzying.  I walked down and measured the width of the road between the first boulder and the hillside...we were about a foot too wide.  There was no way our vehicle could go that way.

Off in the distance, we could see rain clouds headed our way -- not good.  The trail we came in on was going to get all mushy -- the question was when.

Even if the road didn't get soaked, it seemed preposterous to go back the way we came.  Lovely Wife had broken her own rule - don't drive over terrain you can't get back over.  We had both been focused on getting to the easy road, not imagining that we'd have to come back this way.

We were also low on gas.  How did that happen?  Even if we had no other problems, I'd not be sure that we'd make it back to Green River on this much gas.

We had a short pity moment.  Then we ate some granola bars, and turned around.  We couldn't move forward, so we had to move back.  As preposterous as it seemed, it was our best chance.

We did it.  We did a lot of memorable stuff that day.  I moved a few hundred pounds of rock, building road for our Pilot.  I saw some amazing driving from my wife, and indeed, saw the entire underside of our car as she LEAPED the car over an obstacle. 

Eventually, we made it back to Green River, running on fumes.  The rest of the ride back to Salt Lake was ridiculously easy.

I don't have a moral for this story, but I will say that the feeling we had, when we saw that chasm between us and the easy road, and knew that things were going to get rough...that was a whole lot like getting the autism diagnosis.