Three Wild Days Of Summer

So Thursday was the last day of kindergarten for this clan and we have started the summer vacation off with a bang. On the last day of spring break this year, Darcy was in crisis because she thought spring break "lasted all spring" and was devastated to find out she had to go back to school on Monday. We've had many conversations about how summer vacation compares to spring break and have decided that it's an 80-day weekend. Here's Darcy starting the first day:

Anyhow. The first three days of this extra-long weekend have been spent extremely well. On Friday, Darcy and I prepared for Saturday by doing some birthday present shopping along with some grocery shopping in Brookings. On the way back, we stopped at the mouth of the Smith River for some water, seals, snacks, and sunshine:

Seals kept popping their heads up to check us out 15 or 20 feet off-shore. Darcy was digging it. When we got home, we planted a bunch of stuff in the garden before lunch. After lunch, we did some errands, spent time at the library, and then joined two of Darcy's troop-mates to check out the camp they're about to attend. Long day!


On Saturday, Darcy had been invited to two birthday parties AND had her end-of-tee-ball-season party. It was too much. We declined the birthday party that coincided with tee-ball. If you could find space out of the wind, Saturday was a day of glorious weather. It turned out that Endert's Beach was pretty much wind-free and therefore approaching what we call hot on the north coast. The low tide wasn't very low, so the tide pools were thin on the ground, but Darcy had fun holding back the ocean:

...and learning how to use her new camera...

It's a $20, 2.1 megapixel point and shoot, but she's doing pretty well holding the camera still:

She might need to work on holding it straight, but it will add a little avant garde feel to the camp pictures she'll be taking!

Today, the adventure continued, but without pictures. Michael went with another dad friend to float part of the Smith River in the morning. Part of the goal was scouting for a good section to take the kids floating in the afternoon. They chose the wrong section. By far. Michael came out of it alive and only slightly banged up, but minus his glasses (only pair with current prescription) and his wedding ring. Oh, and also minus the boat. He insists (like right now, as I'm typing) that the BOAT is not lost. He knows exactly which boulder it is currently wrapped around. The glasses and the wedding ring are gone forever.

After a lunch rendezvous, both families ventured back to the river -- a different section of the river -- and had a good time. Dads took kids floating downstream to where the car was still waiting for someone to float by. I swam briefly, but mostly found rocks for the toddler to throw in the water. We came home, had a good dad's day dinner, and packed for the next adventure: sleep away camp!! 

Yes, Darcy goes to camp tomorrow for two nights and three days of fun with her fellow Girl Scouts. We are very much hoping this is a good experience with not too much homesickness. Her camp day will start at 10 tomorrow, so by the time bedtime comes, I think she'll be too exhausted to worry about it. As long as she is having a good time during the day, I think it'll all be ok.

Our day should be long, too, so hopefully we'll survive sleep away camp, too! Anyone know of any good movies in the theater right now??

Welcome To Bend!

The house we rented in Bend for our vacation this summer was great and one of the best parts about it was the dress-up clothes. As noted in the previous post, my sister and I drove to Bend separately from Michael and the fashion plates in this photograph. When we arrived, they had been at the house for about half an hour and the girls had already found the dress-up clothes. When they noticed the car, they poured out of the house like this.

Now those of you who only met Darcy recently have not experienced her curls, so you should check out this post and this one, too, to see what her hair used to be like, especially in high humidity. Then you can click on the picture to see it in a larger format and see that this wig is virtually identical to her old hair. It's amazing. In this picture, Darcy's still wearing her trusty Mary Janes, but they spent a good amount of time for three days in plastic kitten heels, raising fears of broken ankles or worse.

When you start a vacation like this, it can only be wonderful and it was. So much so that we're going back for Thanksgiving! I suspect it will be a little chilly for the knickers-and-beads look, but the dress-up clothes will be well-used again, I'm sure!


(I know there are all kinds of warnings about showing semi-nude pix of your kids on the internet and I apologize to any of you who are either squeamish or hyper-vigilant about these things.)

Long-Awaited: August Vacation Part 2

I noticed recently that I did a part 1 blog about our wonderful vacation with my sister and niece, but never went farther than their first full day in Crescent City! There was much more to our vacation. We had four or five days here so they could see where we live and enjoy the redwoods and the beach, but our solution to getting to take time off to visit with them AND have a vacation away was for them to join us for the first part of our vacation in Bend, Oregon. 

We rented a great house on the outskirts of Bend, but not too far away from downtown and fun stuff to do. Ev and I traveled to Bend via Eugene for reasons that turned out to be not valid, but had a great visit with a friend of hers who lives just south of Eugene. Michael took the girls more or less directly to Bend. Here are pictures of their journey:

Darcy and Liana review their Junior Ranger books at the Hiouchi Visitors Center on their way out of town.

 

Showing off their brand-new Junior Ranger badges!

They stopped at beautiful Crater Lake on the way and happened to run into our former neighbor from Mojave, Anne. They got a second Junior Ranger badge each -- in one day!

Crater Lake still had plenty of snow nearby, despite the calendar claiming it was mid-August. They stopped for some snow play, of course.

 

Michael's trip was made much more pleasant by the addition of the portable DVD player that made its way from North Carolina. More than five hours in a car is a lot for two Junior Rangers!

Hey! I just realized that this post actually goes with our blog title -- two National Parks in one day!

August Vacation Part I

It is September. Darcy is no longer a preschooler. Yesterday was her last day of preschool and she starts kindergarten on Tuesday. Our August vacation was wonderful and revived us all to enjoy the last bits of summer in Del Norte. I'll be posting some pictures over the next few days. Here is a taste of the joy that being cousins together can bring.

Darcy and Liana celebrate matching outfits sent by grandma (Kathy) ten minutes after arriving at the house from the airport.
They insist on wearing the matching outfits again the next day (and, I believe, the next day, too) while being a great cheering section for my swim in the triathlon.

While I wait for my team mates to finish the ride and run segments of the triathlon, the girls sport their skirts on the surfboard outside Ocean World, our local aquarium. They had a great time and then came to see me get medals -- and promptly claim one each to wear.
The skirts came off for sprinkler time in the yard. Michael was giving our lawn and fruit trees a good drink before we abandoned them for ten days in Bend. It's the dry time and now we have a carpet of redwood leaves from our unwatered redwood fairy ring.

Proudly showing off their wetness once the sprinklers went off.

This is the 200th post for this blog. Not bad, but I've definitely been less prolific about writing in the past few months. I'll try to do better because I know Darcy has a lot of fans out there who are missing out on seeing all the different stages she's passing through. I don't have anything profound to say today. Michael is off golfing, Darcy and I are about to go to the farmers market and we have vague plans to go enjoy the beauty of the Smith River this afternoon. Del Norte is entering what should be two months of glorious weather and I hope we're able to take advantage of a lot of it before the rains start again.

I've been reading one of my favorite blogs a lot recently (Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op) and thinking a lot about getting rid of a lot of the stuff that we've accumulated over the years. I have made some small starts, but I know there are many boxes lurking in the garage that we've barely opened. Life is too short to be taken over by stuff. I learned recently that books can be recycled in our mixed-stream bin, so I'll be tossing a lot of old editions of textbooks that absolutely nobody wants any more. It's going to feel good.

Enjoy the last days or weeks of summer wherever you live. We're busy treasuring every sunny morning.

Retrospective, Part II

Along with a retrospective of Darcy, the next two posts will be a tribute (mostly) to Mojave National Preserve. In a week, assuming that the movers actually come when we think they will, we'll be driving north to our new park. Enjoy the scenery as well as our ever-growing girl!

Early spring flowers, Razor Road (technically, just outside the Preserve).

Darcy's first trip to the "Quiet Canyon", officially named Banshee Canyon.

An early rock-climbing expedition off the Teutonia Peak trail.

On the trail to Eagle Rocks in the Midhills region.

Not at Mojave, but a classic camping breakfast on Darcy's first camping trip.

Darcy's first visit to Yosemite. Can't leave this out!

Darcy-as-butterfly hugging a Joshua tree near the old corral on Morningstar Mine Road.

The Continuing Saga Of The Wright Brothers

And a cute picture from the very start of our vacation, too. The night before we left for North Carolina, we stayed in Vegas as part of a park-and-stay deal at a suites hotel near the airport. It let us avoid paying airport parking fees and worked out almost perfectly. The return end wasn't so great, but everything else went smoothly. In the morning, after breakfast, Darcy played her first round (??) of golf on the hotels little practice green. This picture is really for PopPop (Dan).

It's now been a month since we went to the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kitty Hawk. We have fed the obsession a little by getting books from the library, but in our defense, that's because we didn't want to have to read the same board book seventeen times a day. Even with the other books, I read it five times yesterday. But really, I don't think Darcy needs our help on this one.

Michael and I are still Orv and Wilbur, respectively. Random children encountered at parks and libraries (and stores and parking lots and anywhere else) are generally greeted with a very enthusiastic, "Hi Orville! Hi Wilbur!" Much of her play is about the Wright Brothers, with her tent standing in for Dayton, OH. The doll that has been Christened Orv goes everywhere with her these days. He is needed on every car trip, comes into every store, has gone to story hour twice now. At her story hour, which is for the under-three set, they sing a bunch of songs where the parents are supposed to help out a bit with getting the right gestures and moves. For the good morning song, there's a lot of waving, and Darcy usually does it half-heartedly. But this week, she sat Orv on her lap and helped him wave his hand to the music.

The kicker for me, though, was Tuesday's addition to the phenomenon: When we were in town and she pointed people out to me (which is normal, for her), instead of saying, "There's someone else from story hour," she said, "There's someOrville else from story hour."

Uh-huh. SomeOrville else.

In Which Girls Avoid A Crab

Before I get to the title story and pictures, let me update the Wright Brothers saga. Yesterday, Michael was reviewing bids for the new Mojave film, to be shown at the Visitors Center. One of the companies putting in a bid sent two of the films they've made for other parks, including -- is it karma? fate? what? -- the film shown at the Wright Brothers Memorial in Dayton, OH. Darcy has sat through it twice now. If I let her, I suspect she'd sit and watch a continuous loop for hours while making her various dolls and animals be Wilbur and Orville and everyone else mentioned in the film.

On top of that, I got her some books about the Wright Brothers at the library today because I'm tired of reading the board book six times a day. One of them is from the perspective of their sister, Katherine, who was a big part of their lives. She called them Will and Orv. Before Darcy fell asleep tonight, we heard through the monitor, "Orv, open the door! Come into my room!" Michael responded as required.

And now, back to the vacation pictures. Before painting horses, we walked out on a pier that took us through thick greenery (and bugs!) out into the Sound. We saw Canada geese with their goslings once we got to the end. It was a nice nature break from the tourist-y surroundings.

When we got out to the end, Liana very rapidly climbed up Michael's leg -- you can see her croc disappearing at the top of the photo. Video was really needed, but it happened too quickly. The cause was the small blue crab holding onto the orange pole in the bottom right corner. Liana is not fond of crabs.

Darcy doesn't really mind crabs -- they are, after all, much like bugs, which she loves. Nevertheless, she joined Liana in Michael's arms while the crab-wrangling was happening.

The crab really, really didn't want to let go of the pole, even when shaken inches from the water. Eventually, it did let go and returned to its watery home. And Michael got to put the girls down. It was good entertainment all around. Except for the crab, probably.

Dresses, Reprised

Way back in 1972 (or 1973?), when we lived in Australia, we went to a wildlife center where a person could hold and pet a koala. Or, more accurately, where a person of sufficient size could hold and pet a koala, and a person who was not big enough could only pet a koala. Notice Ev's grin. I still maintain that she was lording it over me that I wasn't allowed to hold the koala, but I might be willing to admit that she was just excited. Or possibly in pain. They have sharp claws. I know this because I went back there as an adult and snuggled with Micah the koala early one morning.

The point of this post is not to re-open old wounds, but to show off the matching dresses made by my mother. And the reason one might want to show them off is because she tried to make identical dresses for Darcy and Liana for our stay in North Carolina. The fabric is different, of course, but it's pretty close and the style is the same:

Darcy's shoulder ties were extra-special long (we need to trim them) and Liana used one of them as a leash to pull Darcy upstairs to the "sleeping loft with ocean view", which had been claimed as the lego space. Or, as Darcy said when she first saw the legos, the "disaster toys". This comes from Christmas, when some lego towers were knocked over and Michael said, "Disaster!" Her memory, it is long.

I think that views on sun exposure and sun block usage have changed drastically in the past 35 years or so. Ev and I are brown! Darcy and Liana? Not so much, despite both living in hot climates. And, for the first time, I might be forced to admit that Darcy might look a little like me.

In Which Horses Are Painted

I found the card reader: Let the vacation pictures begin!

Here is the house we (Grandma/Kathy, Granddad/Dave, Ev, Liana, and the Glores) stayed in for our week on the Outer Banks. Apparently, the architectural "style" of Corolla and other, newer parts of said Outer Banks was influenced by the question, "How many roof lines, cantilevered rooms, half-levels, and decks can we put on one house while raising it off the ground in case of hurricanes?" Truly bizarre. Ours tried to put as many languages in its name as it had roof surfaces: Castle de la Mar. English and Spanish and French, oh my!

In truth, the house did right by us, with plenty of space for active girls, a well-equipped kitchen, and beds and bathrooms for all. It also came with access to a community pool, kiddie pool, and playground, which will be featured in later photo installations.

We had an active vacation, with plenty of beach and pool time, and some exploration of the northern part of the Outer Banks. Darcy picked up a new obsession (Orville Wright -- more on that later, too). We all got a bit bronzed. And we ate lots of local shrimp alongside the agricultural bounty of the Carrboro farmers' market.

We also had some art time. The local wild horse museum does horse-painting as a fundraiser on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the summer. No, you don't get to paint a wild horse, but for six bucks, you do get to don a plastic apron, get a plate-full of paint, a handful of brushes, and a pretty big wooden horse cut-out to paint.

It was a great event and the horses are reusable, too! We got to old Corolla village early so we could do other things before painting horses and saw the museum workers painting over Tuesday's art. Here are our young artists tackling their equine canvases. Darcy needed a bit more help and guidance than Liana.

The artists were more than happy to pose with the finished products after painting the smaller wooden horses that they got to bring home with them. A fun time was had by all.

Vacation, Part III

Ok, so Ev recently commented about my failure to finish the Vacation series, so here's the next installment. This will finish up the camping portion of the trip and I'll do one more with some pictures from our time in Simi Valley.

We got a new backpack carrier for the trip, as the used one we had been given had some issues. Here is Michael with our small hiker on our way to Rainbow Falls. This hike went through mostly burnt areas, which wasn't so pleasant, but it did get Darcy back on the shuttle bus that provides transport around Devil's Postpile. She loved that bus!

Rainbow Falls was gorgeous and had quite a crowd of admirers while we were there. We rested a bit in the shade and munched on freeze dried mango slices.

Darcy liked to look at the falls, but of course, she also said hi to everyone and danced around the observation area.


At one of the river access points in our campground, there was this beautiful stand of lupine. We saw a lot of lupine everywhere; it was so lush compared to our smaller versions from this spring. I took these pictures when I went down to the water after Darcy's bedtime to wash my pumice-dust-encrusted feet. The mosquitoes were awful, but with the moon rising above the sunset, I toughed it out to try to get a few get photos.


This was our last night of camping. Sometime early in the morning, Darcy got so cold that even being in our bed couldn't keep her warm enough to fall asleep. When there was the slightest hint of light, we decided we'd be better off just packing up camp and moving on. By 6:05, we were on the road and the car claimed it was 38 outside! No wonder she was a little chilly. We stopped at a bakery on our way out of town for egg and cheese croissants and coffee, and then drove to Simi Valley, arriving filthy and tired.

Vacation, Part II

Today's exciting news (yesterday's was our upcoming freedom from AT&T) is that we had rain! Lots of rain! There were light showers last night and early this morning, but then the skies opened up shortly after Darcy started her nap and we had a real, sustained downpour. Very exciting.

This is campsite number two, a Park Service campground in Devil's Postpile National Monument. The ground is mostly ground-up pumice, which made for very dirty feet for all of us, and very dirty everything for Darcy given her fondness for dirt and rocks. And charcoal, which is what adorns her face in this picture. She was slumped in this chair playing with small pieces of pumice that were mostly under her back. It amused her for at least fifteen minutes, which meant fifteen minutes of the day that she wasn't in full motion.

Along with tunnels, Darcy learned to love bridges on this trip. Both campgrounds had nearby bridges that we made multiple visits to. This one has a special place in Michael's heart. It is the stopping point for one of his favorite views in all of the Sierra. (See below; I wouldn't tease like that.)

The View From the Bridge. Need I say more?

Devil's Postpile is a stunning volcanic feature made up of hundreds (or thousands?) of columns of basalt that formed when lava cooled very slowly. We didn't go up on top, but glacial action long after the columns formed sheared them off to look like a very fancy tile floor. You can see more pictures of the Monument here.

Darcy, of course, enjoyed the Postpile immensely because it's all rocks. Big rocks. In Darcy's world, rocks are either big (or sometimes heavy rather than big) or tiny. If she can hold it in one hand, she will almost always answer "Tiny!" if you ask if her rock is big or small.

More pictures will follow shortly. There is still a waterfall to see, so stay tuned!

Vacation, Part I

So, we moved! With some delay and a great deal of frustration due to moving company nightmares, we now live in Cima! We're still working on unpacking the last boxes and getting a telephone number (we will be free of AT&T apparently and that is some of the best news ever), but we will send out a new address soon. Almost immediately after moving, we set off on our planned vacation...

Darcy took to camping very well. Our first three nights were in a campground just outside Kings Canyon National Park. Darcy enjoyed her giraffe chair and the fact that the bench made a perfect table, built just for her. She's also fond of pancakes, no matter where she eats them.

The campground is on Forest Service land and was heavily logged about a hundred years ago. Sequoias being virtually indestructible, the stumps are still there. We had a few surrounding our campsite and this massive one was part of a short walking trail adjacent to the campground. During the logging frenzy, there was a need for a holding pond, so they built nearby Hume Lake. We spent one afternoon swimming there. Again, because sequoia wood lasts indefinitely, there were a few giant logs still hanging out in the water, a couple big enough that three or four people were log-rolling on them at the same time.

Darcy likes to touch noses. It's part of a song. We indulge her and she thinks it's hilarious. Our other major indulgence on this trip was music. We made a CD of her Very Most Favorite Songs Ever, the most favorite of which was on there twice. We listened to it a lot. It made the longer driving days more bearable for everyone.

Another of Darcy's favorite things are tunnels. Going under a highway overpass? Tunnel. The space underneath a table? Tunnel. A sequoia that's been lying down for over a century? Tunnel tree! Of course, that's what it's called by most people, but Darcy's just started putting two words together, so it's extra fun to hear her say it. She dragged Michael back and forth through this tree many, many times. This is part of Grant's Grove, the cluster of sequoias that includes the General Grant tree, "America's Christmas Tree".

Mornings were cold! The campground was at about 6000 feet above sea level, so the nights really cooled off. Hats and sweaters with cute sheep-buttons were definite necessities. Here, Darcy helps direct our camp tear-down on our last morning at Kings Canyon.

Our vacation interlude involved a long day of driving with a few stops in Yosemite National Park. Do you sense a theme in our destinations? Yosemite Valley was too hot to spend a lot of time, but Tuolumne Meadows are very high and so were a much more pleasant temperature. We stopped for a walk and a little feet-splashing in the stream. It was a beautiful afternoon.

From there, we finished the drive to Mammoth Lakes, with a short driving detour through the June Lake Loop, which was beautiful. We were supposed to camp one night in June Lake so we'd be close to the first-come/first-served campgrounds Michael had his eye on near Devil's Postpile. But, given the very long day of driving, we had canceled that plan and stayed in a hotel for the night, getting showered/bathed and refreshed for the next camping days.

Within a few days, I'll post more pictures from the second and third parts of our trip. Right now, I'm watching three chipmunk-like critters digging little holes in the drainage from our swamp cooler. They're lying as flat as three-dimensional critters can get to cool off their bellies. Or so I assume. It really isn't that hot here; not like Baker. Mornings and evenings are lovely, and the one night we've left the swamp cooler on overnight, it was too cold inside the next morning.