Keira's first swim in a pool (and a brush with the law!)

On our way back from Humboldt, we stayed the night at the Holiday Inn Express off the 5 near Pea Soup Anderson's. (I think the town might be called Buellton, or something like that?) I am so excited to have found that hotel: It is the perfect stopping point halfway between Eureka and San Diego. The town itself is nothing but gas stations and a few hotels, but the Holiday Inn was actually quite nice and peaceful. When you are in the courtyard of the hotel, you can hardly tell you are in a dry, dusty highway rest stop. It will be perfect for future trips because Keira can get her energy out in the pool at night and in the morning, they have free breakfast that is actually good, and the room isn't too "motelish".

We decided to take Keira for her first swim because she had been stuck in the car the entire day before (7 hours)and would be facing a similar fate again.


Matt and Keira contemplating their swim.


Keira isn't quite sure what to think.



After they got in the pool, a police officer came charging into the pool area. At first I thought he was upset that Keira was just wearing a diaper. (I wasn't quite sure how to dress her and decided that just a regular diaper would be ok!) It turns out that the man standing in the background of the picture near the fence had been swimming naked before we got there. Things got sort of awkward because the cop was yelling about how he was swimming naked near "that nice family over there". We hadn't seen him swimming naked. I heard him telling the cop he was at the hotel with his mom because he was trying to come down off of heroin. Wow! What a great hotel we picked, lol! Actually, the hotel was great and I didn't feel weird at all there. His mom was a really sweet looking older lady. He kept calling her "mama". the whole thing was odd. Maybe he was just messing with the cop about the heroin thing? Weird.


Ok Mom, I guess I'm ok with this "swimming" thing!


Mom, I love swimming! (I think Matt is looking over at the cop and the naked guy!)