Here are the kids enjoying our pool at the Barstow Hotel.

This pic was taken at Calico, just outside Barstow, it is a ghost town. Used to be a silver mine there. 1200 people and 22 saloons.

Gemma enjoying the cool of the pool.

Calico, the ghost town.

I couldn't resist posting this one. So weird. Don't really know what this was even about, but there was a guy/zombie in a case and you could plunk a quarter into the machine to "watch him suffer." SO BIZARRE!! I watched some people put a quarter in, but he didn't do anything. So strange man.

A pretty desert flower just outside our hotel in Barstow.

This is the view from our hotel, so dry and barren! Saw some sort of animal, looked like a large cat running from bush to bush yesterday afternoon.

We finished up in the Desert today and headed west to Anaheim. It was just so beautiful and so hot in Barstow. We went to the 11:30 mass there. It was a teaching mass, so before each section, like the opening prayer a man from a side microphone announced what was going to happen and he explained why this was done. It was very interesting and I had never seen this done before. So much better than saying to a new Catholic, "you know the part in the mass..." "this is what that means." This way the people learn about it in the moment.

So after Mass we hit the trail and said goodbye to the 38 degree heat. We gave our car's air conditioners a little break too! Arrived in Anaheim at 3 pm after the GPS led me on a scenic tour of the city. Meridith calls this me getting lost, but I call it the scenic route. We brought all of our things up into the rooms and got settled. John and I hopped on the pedal bikes and headed to the Disneyland front gates. A leisurely 10 minute ride. Our plan is to drive there in the morning, drop everyone off, then drive back to the hotel, park and ride our bikes there to save on parking. $15/day/vehicle - you do the math on 5 days and 2 cars.

We're continuing to have a great time, no one is showing any signs of fatigue so far. We'll have to wait and see how things are after Disneyland as it is the highlight of the trip. The Webbs continue to help us out greatly in keeping the kids fed, supervised, entertained and spoiled! Thank you sooooooo much!!

The other thing you will notice is the kids bravery in the pool. This is all thanks to Nana and Grampa Clark's persistence with taking the kids to swimming lessons. After a full day of the desert heat the kids were just dying to get in the pool. Owen went running in with no life jacket or toy and jumped feet first into the 5 foot section of the pool... Owen has not mastered swimming. I think he temporarily forgot that fact and began frantically dog paddling to the edge of the pool!! I was there to pull him out though, but he did swim a good 4 feet on his own. You will see that I got some pretty good shots of them having fun round our amazing pool amidst the Palm Trees and desert heat!

Anyways I will let you go, hopefully I will have the energy after tomorrow to let you know how our first day went. So stay tuned!

Lots of love,

Shaun