Pacific Northwest Vaca, Gorgeous and Ended Up NOT Getting Murdered

There was a piano at the Airbnb when my children and I arrived after an eleven hour day of travel. A PIANO.

We were in a converted pole barn on a huge farm. The farm house was *probably* far enough away that they didn’t hear my kids pounding away on the keys. The difference between noise and music surely is in the ears of the beholder, but this mom was tired and cranky and beheld noise and put forth rage.

This place was in the tippiest tip of Northern California on the edge of Oregon, in farm/mountain country. It turns out the hills had no phone signal whatsoever, so my plans to do some writing, work on my webpage, enjoy some relaxed scrolling the internets, and chatting with my husband back home, were all for naught.

Oh, well, we were really there just to sleep, and it had been a long day, crashing early sounded reasonable. EXCEPT sleep was not to be had, either. It was easily eighty degrees in the place, so we turned on all the fans and took turns resting our heads in the mini fridge. And, since we did the OPPOSITE of sleep training when our children were young, now they’re dependent on this app with these night time story/zen songy things to go to sleep. Without internet, I tried to mimic all the lulling rocket noises and calming voices in “The Starship Sleepy Eyes” but my kids were not impressed. It took the little one HOURS to fall asleep. The big one tried to read for a while, but since the separation between the one bedroom and the living…