Day 1452. For a change it was Emmy who was the first one up this morning, and I was surprised that it was already 7:30 am. We all got up right away, except for Tammy who continued sleeping for quite some time. Once again Tammy and Emmy had joined us in bed during the night. I started packing up our suitcases, got something to eat, and got ready for my 9 am student. In the meantime Randy gave the kids some food, but they are not big breakfast eaters. While I was teaching, Randy was loading everything into the car. A few times I had to interrupt my lesson to stop the kids who were too rowdy or too loud.
Once I was done teaching, we finished loading up the car and left at 10:30. I soon discovered that we had left Sammy's beloved duck somewhere, and he was not happy not having it in the car.
We had about 350 miles to cover today. We drove through the mountains for much of the time, but also went through the desert in Utah, where there wasn't anything for quite some time. That made it a little hard to choose a place to eat lunch at, as the last place before that stretch was too early, and the first one after that stretch was pretty late. And so we ended up driving for 3 hours 15 minutes to the first McDonald's after that desert, and thankfully it had a big playground.
We got there at 1:40 pm, and the kids immediately went into the playground and having lots of fun. There were some other children as well, and Emmy played with them as if he had known them for years. One girl even asked him whether she could eat with us, but her parents said no. He already has the girls run after him! Eating was a different story, as they did not eat much. We stayed over 90 minutes before leaving.
When we left at 3:20 pm, a storm had just started, and it was raining. There was also lightning and thunder. We drove through the mountains in this bad weather for some time, then it let up and the sky got brighter again. It was nap time for the kids, and Emmy fell asleep pretty quickly. Tammy needed a long time, and Sammy never slept, as he had already slept from 12:15 to 1 pm. We had two quick potty breaks, but continued driving and went directly to the hotel in northern Salt Lake City. There was a lot of traffic in town, which meant that we arrived later than we should have.
Just before 6:30 pm we arrived at the hotel for the night. The kids were eager to go swimming as it had been some time since the last time. We checked in and went to our room, where they were watching cartoons for a few minutes until Randy had brought all our stuff inside. They had some food and leftovers from lunch, then we all put our swim suits on and finally went to the indoor swimming pool of the hotel.
We were the only ones in there, but not for long. They had a big pool with colder water, and quite a big hot tub. We started in the cold water, then went into the hot tub, and went back and forth a few times. The kids were having lots of fun. They were jumping into the water, and Sammy had me put him on the edge of the pool in a sitting position, and he'd let himself slide into the water from there. They were also all diving while in the water, including Sammy, which just meant putting their heads unter water. We stayed for quite a long time before deciding to return to our room.
Back in the room we made some popcorn in the microwave, then got them ready for bed. It was already 9 pm, so no story. I put all three into one of the queen-sized beds, which wasn't working so well. Sammy was in the middle, but they were disturbing each other. Finally they did fall asleep. A few hours later Sammy started wakin up crying. I think he's not used to having someone sleep so close to him. I ended up putting Emmy into our bed, as I was sitting at the desk working, and Randy was asleep in the chair. He would have come to our bed anyway, and Tammy is also gonna come at some point.
Now it's 12:30 am, and I have a few more things to get done. Tomorrow is another day of driving, day 2 of 3.
