Hitting the Wall

Luckily we did not hit a literal wall, but instead we have struck the proverbial "Wall"of our trip. Andy and I kept saying, "I'm still having fun...aren't you?" and I was. The weather has been all but perfect; the kids have been moderately well behaved, and the plans have been moving along flawlessly--until...the San Fransico apartment. At first, we drove right by it since we were on a four lane divided road lined with questionable business establishments. But if you looked very carefully between the hardware store and the dry cleaners, you could see a chained door with a padlock that lead to the "apartment." While we searched for the key, the boys waited in the car 10 feet away while a metermaid wrote us a parking ticket! Nothing says welcome like TWO tickets totally over a hundred dollars.
We never did stay in the apartment and instead stayed at a motel downtown for one night less than we had planned. We were more than ready to leave the "Filthy CITY" (which the boys said with disgust every time we mentioned it. None of them will be drawn to the big cities that's for sure.) We had high hopes for the beauty and peace of Yosemite but as it turns out....it was packed with a sea of humanity AND almost everywhere we went, a six inch high fine powder of dirt covered the ground. The kids would run around and a cloud of dust would float up and then settle on anything in its path. Allegedly I "yelled about dirt all the time" but I considered it encouraging them to stay clean. No such luck. I will have to post pictures of how bad it got. We kept saying, "This will be funny once we're clean."
Well, we cut two days off Yosemite and we are CLEAN. We are in Fresno, CA in a Hampton Inn with Pool and Laundry and will catch Sequoia National Park tomorrow and then ANDY has talked us into seeing Death Valley the next day. He was confused why I would not have planned it in the first place. I said, "It's called....
D e a t h Valley." So after four days of on-again off-again fun...we are OVER the wall and ready for the back end of the trip. Big trees tomorrow, blazing heat and sand on Wednesday, and Vegas on Thursday!!!!! Is that place even considered a city or more of a circus?