Like a dream come true: Grandson Ian with us on a roadtrip

We have been talking about whether we could do something like this for a couple of years:  When the grandchildren get old enough fly them out to an airport close by and take them with us for a week or so.

This week it happened.  Our oldest Grandson flew to Las Vegas.  We chose Las Vegas because it was close to a perfect place to take him which, coincidentally, is our favorite place in the country for our road trips---the Mojave National Preserve.

To do this we had to actually STAY in Las Vegas, which is something that I guess people like to do but we don't now why.   Vicky, our planner, did well, finding a KOA right next to a Walmart, so we could re-provision.  It was the right time--we were almost out of food (out of all fresh vegetables), water, and propane, and had three 20 gallon bags of trash that needed disposing.  We also needed to do laundry, and thought that a shower or two might be fun.  (they were!).

So we arrived a day early to take care of all of this business.  Here is our "site," a far cry from where we usually stay.  It's called a "kampground," although it doesn't feel like camping to us in any way.

We retrieved Ian from the airport, arriving there as anxious grandparents are known to do, FOUR HOURS early.

After retrieving him from the airport, and after taking a cab ride back to the airport with a cabbie who couldn't stop spouting conspiracy theories (i.e., the Las Vegas shooting was done by the Saudi's, but the government isn't tell us that), we had a very quiet and peaceful night's sleep.

Actually that's a lie.  What we heard all night were police sirens and loud motorcycles.  It was miserable.  Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't spent years either in our camper or at home (where it is quiet), but Ian also had trouble sleeping.

So we got the heck out of there early the next morning.  We stopped at Walmart on the way out of town so he could load up on snacks (he's always been a good eater, and since this trip is a gift to him it seemed fair that he could get stuff  he liked for hiking and for a snack in the evening).

We arrived at our first night's site without incident.  We had been to this site two times before (once for just a night while traveling through and once for several days to explore).  We chose this one to give him an idea of the history that is in the places we visit.

Here is our site.  It is an old RV park, probably from the 50s.  We figured this out when we were here three years ago.

The site itself isn't particularly great (except, for an RV park it is REALLY quiet!!!), but what makes this place so special is that in the hills behind this photo is a ghost town, Vanderbilt California.

The town only lasted about three years, after gold was struck in "them thar hills."  Unfortunately, after a couple of years the mines filled with water and the mining had to be abandoned.

There were several businesses there.  One, the only two-story building, was a hotel run by none other than Virgil Earp, brother of Wyatt Earp fame and one of the gunfighters at the Gunfight at the OK Corral.  Last summer, when we had Ian and his brother Adam for a camping trip, we watched the Kevin Costner version of the Wyatt Earp story (by far the best and most accurate version historically), and told Ian there was a reason we were showing it to him.  He remembered it.

Here we are preparing to leave for the day's hike:

Here is a photo he took of the inside of this structure:

 We found the rock foundations of a dozen or so different structures--probably places where the miners "lived."

A dam that had been built to block a wash, about 100 feet up the wash from the settlement:

It was a very solid hiking day:  6 miles with 900+ feet of elevation gain.

We got up early the next morning to drive to our next site.  In addition to history and nature, we also wanted him to have some nice sunny weather.  We have learned that for about every 1000 feet of elevation the temperature change is about five degrees.

We knew that there were a couple of potential sites about 2000 feet lower than where we were at Vanderbilt, so drove about 60 miles to find both were available!  Score!

The advantage of these two sites is that they are close to a tiny mountain "range" (about one mile by two miles) that just seem to pop up out of the desert.  We have hiked this set of mountains a few times, and they are just simply lovely.  And there is one spot in them with interesting history---not as interesting or old as Vanderbilt, California, but interesting nevertheless.

Here is our site and photos of yesterday's hike around these mountains:

The settlement is in a small canyon.  There were the remnants of a corral:

and, my favorite, a rusted out 59 Mercury two-door hard top:

 This was one of the really cool cars of the 50s.  Why is it out here?  And why a sporty version, which the two door hard tops were?

There was an old outhouse (still usable by the way except the "house" part of the outhouse is gone):

There was a lot of other stuff there, including parts of an old Plymouth (engine, etc.).  The hood was also there, upside down.  Ian did a contortion act and took a photo of it:

Another solid hiking day:  5 1/3 miles with 550 feet of elevation gain.  He's a trooper!

It was Vicky and my 600th hike together.  We mentioned that to Ian, and later he said he had found the spot where he wanted to take a photo of us to commemorate it:

Good spot for our photo.  A good representation of our hikes.

We had two options for the next day (which is when I am writing this).  One was to get up early again and go to another spot, then hike, etc.  Another was that we could stay here for two days and hike into these mountains instead of around them.  Ian got to make the choice, and he chose to stay.  Either would have been fine with us, but we also wanted him to have the experience of being able to just sort of hang out at the same place for awhile.

He is also an adolescent, and adolescents tend to have different sleep cycles than adults (and especially than old adults like us).  They are not morning people.  The research clearly shows this is a biological phenomenon, but schools, for example, continue to start adolescents early in the morning because that is what works best for teachers.

It is 9:00 a.m. right now, and he is still sleeping in the "living room/bedroom/dining room" area while we are drinking coffee in the "master bedroom" area.  Nice weather is predicted.

We are learning how to live together in an area smaller than the bed of a pickup.  He adapts quickly.  Only one person can be standing at a time, for example.  As Ian said, it wouldn't be any fun unless you wanted to be there.

It has been even better than Vicky and I had talked about these past two years.