The Gray family of Falcon took a month-long road trip through the West Coast in July. Travis Gray, age 5, and Ainsley Gray, age 2, helped their parents rediscover some important axioms about traveling, camping and hiking with kids. While traveling by car from Falcon to Sea World in San Diego and then camping along the Redwood Coast in Oregon to the north and back, this intrepid writer and his family tested the following tips and words of wisdom so The New Falcon Herald readers wouldn’t have to.Stuff expands to fill its available container: What you pack for a trip will mysteriously grow over the course of traveling to fill and overflow the trunk and floorboard space, especially if youíre visiting grandparents along the way. Bring a folded cardboard box or two to mail grandma’s gifts and souvenirs back home.Group size rule of aquariums and zoos: The more kids in your group at a place like Sea World or a zoo the faster the group as a whole seems to sprint through the exhibits. No one wants to be left behind or miss the next thing, so they move at the speed of the least interested child. Itís immensely disappointing to the geekier family in the group that wants to read about ìImpact of Sustainable Fisheries on River Ottersî or whatever the next interpretive sign says.Chafing happens: Don’t expect a 2-year old girl to hike more than 3-and-a-half miles in a day, without having a full bath later on ñ or for that matter, her 37-year old father. Since full baths are few and far between in environmental campgrounds, diaper wipes are your friend. Even for dad.New tent syndrome: Setting up your old reliable tent before going on the trip to see if it has mildew damage from a recent washing machine flood in your house is smart. Taking a brand new REI tent you purchased to replace it, without practicing setting it up more than once, is not so smart. A tent pole whipping back in your face and knocking your glasses off definitely makes you less outdoorsy. Extra negative points if your kids fall over laughing at you.Battle of the bear boxes: There is a saying that you don’t have to outrun a bear; you just have to outrun the slowest person in your group. A campground is only as bear-safe as its most annoying party ñ the one that ignores all the posted warnings to leave half-empty snack bags and totally empty beer bottles on the table at night. Of course, chances are this campgroundís weakest link will be the site immediately next to yours.Universal law of cell service: It is mathematically proven that the availability of cell service or WiFi is inversely related to the square of your need for it. Smartphone apps that should be awesome for a national park trip like Waze, Oh Ranger, TopoMaps and Geocaching will work great until you actually need them. Need to check Google Images to see if the bush your kids just kicked a ball into is poison oak? Forget about it.Repetitive emotion injury: If you think your kids watching the same show or asking for the same story over and over is annoying at home, it’s more so on the road. After listening to the Disney’s Brave audio storybook CD for the 45th time, mom’s trusty CD player in the car mysteriously ìbroke.î Certainly, it will stage a miraculous recovery once it reaches Falcon again.As long as you remember these fundamental laws of traveling amidst nature, seeing the country with young kids is still worth it. ìPeople who don’t travel, those who don’t want to risk it or put up with traveling with their kids, might never know places like these existed. For sure they wouldn’t get to watch their kids enjoy it,î Tera Lynn Gray said, as she loaded the kids back in the car.Soon, the kids stopped excitedly chattering about the sea lions they saw at the spur-of-the-moment pit stop at a picturesque lighthouse. Tera Lynn reloaded the Brave CD and pulled back onto Highway 1 to continue up the road. Of course, there was no cell service for meeting my deadline.
