We interleaved skiing by a visit to an aquarium.

After the vacation I had to quickly attend to my teeth and visit the dentist. These are the moments when I completely abandon any ideas of a return to nature — I LOVE dentists, especially those who are competent, quick, capable, strong and caring. Not that I would prefer to see Stone over his office sink and chair, rather than at, let's say, table loaded with food, but I'd side with Stone and his sink and chair against a village blacksmith (and all the dentists of my youth, who regarded anesthesia as a bourgeois caprice and a sign of effete weakness).

With pain receding and a first proper winter storm and snow fall arriving, I began to feel that I would miss some serious skiing, and decided to get out there for at least one day with the kids. Hippo needed to work, and we left him at home. I opted for a gamble with the rush hour traffic. You see, it's like this — according our experience once can reach Kirkwood in relatively sane state of mind either when setting out before or around noon, or after seven o'clock in the evening. Attempts to leave during the Friday peak usually result in multi-hour long jumping in jams, and your nerves in tatters. Leaving with the children at seven p.m. is impractical — we're not in favor of arriving at eleven to a cold, unheated "cabin" and subsequently skiing with insufficiently rested and therefore obnoxious offspring. Yet leaving by noon means that we have to pull the kids two hours before their school ends. It would not seem that they mind us doing so at the school; honestly — I don't think that the kids would learn something so indispensable in the two hours of Friday afternoon, but it still means that our departure is dependent on a good will of the school. We also must coordinate to not deprive the children of some fun program (as Fridays are preferred for all kids of relaxing activities, school trips, etc.).

Jellyfish.

And so I thought I could let the kids finish their class, i.e. till 2:40 p.m., pick them up in a drive-by fashion at the curb, and we would smoothly continue right toward Sierra Nevada. I was hoping that all highly ethical, working citizens and non-citizens would stay at their assigned workplace till five, and thus we'd be driving without problems. Well, I was wrong. The freeway is simply not designed for the Friday traffic demand, and every hill and every turn-off meant slowing down to the speed of an ox-cart, or stop and go. After three and half hours that usually suffice to get all the way to Kirkwood, we were only just reaching Jackson, with our bathroom stop. I sent a text message about our delay to Hippo and Vendula, who had been staying with Pavel and Martin at Kirkwood since Thursday.

For the remainder of the journey we were going at a normal pace (who'd be going to the mountains, right?), but we gained altogether an hour of delay. I must say that it makes a difference, spending a little over three hours behind the wheel, or pulling four and half. Those maximum five hours without a break that some truck drivers use makes sense. And we came to everything being ready — the "cabin— was heated and before we finished carrying stuff in, dinner was on the table (Vendula allegedly timed her cooking by our test message from Jackson — nothing trumps good friends). After eating we still had to go and let the kids run outdoors — they sat till almost three at school, and then till half past seven in the car.
I'd like to remark again how great are friends who are willing to have a snow ball fight with the juniors and play catch in the snow, when the mother is tired. The kids slept well afterwards, and I hope Pavel did, too.

A camouflaged sea horse.

The snow delivery had substantially improved skiing conditions; suddenly even the Drain wasn't such a scare for a heavy-weighted parent, and so I swept with the kids through all possible gulches, ravines and holes. And to make them stop thinking they were so good, I took them up to Thunder Saddle. A cornice that frightened me so much a week ago, was now much lower (or, snow underneath reached much higher, respectively), but even so Lisa did squeal. Gradually, about eight more interested people gathered on top, and Lisa had no other choice than to let herself slide down after Tom (who rode down just fine, after my assurance that it was no worse than his usual jumping, and was now waiting for us near the trees). Lisa is an actor, though, so she did not stop squealing, when she went. She almost fell once, but while still making the same sound, she straightened up again. By then the audience could not stop themselves, and cheered and clapped (unlike her mother, who would rather tear our comedian from limb to limb).

We proceeded through the saddle in a similar fashion. Tom blazed the path ahead, following my advice and his best ideas and abilities, Lisa following whilst squealing and whimpering that it is hard and that she does not like it; I brought up the rear ready to pick up fallen kids and their skis and poles as needed. We were going through a beautiful landscape along frozen waterfalls and eventually on a groomed path to the chair lift. There, Martin and Vendula caught up with us, who were unsuccessfully trying to call us while we were in the Thunder Saddle. The children wanted to ride again up the hill and ski their favorite Whiskey Slide to the "cabin". There, I quickly packed, and we were speeding back home, stopping for a dinner in Martell. I felt rather tired by this quick trip — after all, I drove almost two hundred miles every day, with skiing and organizing the children — and I'm not the youngest any more and won't last as much.

Here we still believed we'd get through.

The kids came up the an idea of Monterey Aquarium for Sunday. I think that San Diego had an effect on them; they remembered that there's a beautiful aquarium quite near our home. After a day of athletics in the mountains, an aquarium was a pleasant change. We had all enjoyed it. Last time we had visited, the children could not read as well — now they pore over signs and legends, and find new and interesting things.

On the following weekend, we had another chance to go skiing, but it got horribly warm and so it looked that the snow would turn into a complete slush, and freeze overnight. And we were befallen by a bout of incredible laziness. We were not alone in this, for in the end no-one went up to Kirkwood. It had its advantages, e.g. we talked Martin into changing our kitchen sink faucet. We cooked dinner, drank some beer, everything worked out great.

Then another snow storm came in and with it urges to go skiing. This year it had been a poor snow season (regular readers have most certainly notices our consistent complaints about the lack of precipitation), and we could not let such an opportunity go waste. Vendula and Pavel had gone already on Thursday to be there before the storm and before the roads would close (as expected). We had chosen another tactic, i.e. going on Saturday, when it was forecast to snow only a little.

Ranch.

When all that awaited us in the Central Valley was a continuous rain, it was unpleasant. Swollen creeks and ponds definitely did not look like just an inch of precipitation, but we were telling ourselves, the more the better; water is needed to survive the dry summers. It was snowing in Pine Grove and the children were joyful that we will have snow, admiring large falling flakes. We adults began to be a bit nervous then, more as the snow layered on the road. The fact that the highway was not swept and sprinkled would not matter as much; with a four-wheel drive we simply go slower. But wind had picked up and the already lousy visibility decreased to literally few inches. At a point when we were skidding through a turn — our anti-lock brakes were clicking — a car in the opposite direction became visible to us only AFTER it had passed us. We concluded we would most likely not make it to our destination. We had some twenty five miles left to Kirkwood, through mountains without a cell signal. In this blizzard it was not sure at all that nobody would run into us from behind, or that we would not collide head-on with a car in the opposite direction. So we turned around. The kids wept, hence we had to have a longer conversation about being rather safe than rising a greater problem.

Martin, who was following about an hour after us, passed through — whether he caught a window in the storm (it was snowing only intermittently), or whether he's a harder type, we don't know. But on Sunday it took him six hours (instead of three) to get back, and it was similar story with Pavel — in the end we were glad to not having made it — skiing in wind and snow storm isn't very nice, and returning in this manner would have probably finished us off.

On some days one cannot ride horses for all the rain and mud...

To improve the general mood, we had arranged a Sunday program with the Rýzls. We took them out to the farm, had the kids take turns riding on Foxy. It was not quite it, for April weather showed its teeth (I don't know why it had to rain just in the moment we decided to ride, while it was sunny in all other situations), but then again juniors had quite some fun in the mud and puddles. We proceeded to have a Taiwan dinner in our favorite formica eatery, and then let the children play some more at our house, while the adults had a chance to chat.

In the following week I celebrated my birthday. I can't stand organizing anything, and so I had invited a few friends on short notice. We talked some, had a few beers, ate some food — simply a party by my liking, without any rigmarole. I rejected the idea of presents; visitors were expected to bring along something to munch so that I did not have to prepare much.

It's because I had been rather quite busy lately. Beside common chores like picking up kids, climbing, endless packing and unpacking from ski trips, our family had grown by a half of a quarter-horse. Yes, since the beginning I was aware that just like with every other pet, most responsibilities would fall on me. I had an approximate idea how much work a horse requires. Still, I did not know how much I would ENJOY it. It remains to be seen whether it's just an aftereffect of my suppressed teenage dreams.

... and Foxy has holidays and keeps on grazing.

For now, I'm trying to orient myself in a completely new world, discovering a whole new continent every so often. Sometimes on my own through trial and error, like when I tested in real life that it's really not a good idea to take the halter off the horse and wait for her to stay quietly and let me put the bit in her mouth. When I watched, immersed to my rubber-booted ankles in mud, as the rear end of the half-ton beast disappeared in the distance, a realization hit me that it's been altogether up to the horse to not trample me into the mud. Fortunately, Foxy is a nice horse, and after about ten minutes she let me put the halter on her, and later the bridle, too. She never left the ranch during her flight.

The fact that Foxy is principally a nice horse, yearning for praise and appreciation, does not mean that she would not have her own ideas on how things should be. Or that she would not try to wrestle or frighten me. On one hand, I don't blame her — she knows about riding horses much more than I do; on the other hand, I won't swallow her bait. I'm completely sure that a horse is not supposed to graze during saddling and cleaning, as Foxy tried to convince me. Similarly I'm convinced that a mare is not entitled to stop, with a rider on her back, at every tuft of grass (if only because if a horse stops too abruptly, the said rider throws a somersault over the horse's head). And thus Foxy and I sometimes need to clarify our positions and rules.

A veterinarian's waiting room.

For that, however, I also need an expert. Horses are intelligent, but they don't talk — and sometimes I need a person who would translate horse signals to what's really going on. Zoya and I had found a trainer who comes and teaches people to cope with their animals. Nancy had shown me what all I can ask of Foxy in the paddock — my quarter-mare had apparently endured and passed a very thorough and careful training, yet she cannot tell me what all she can do, and what she's able and willing to respond to. I almost fell off, when upon my desperate shout, WHOA, she stopped practically on the spot — perfectly, immediately, and without moving any more — just I did not expect it and became very busy with not getting carried out of the saddle by momentum and gravity. Well, I praised Foxy for a job well done and since then I know that even with a horse I have to watch my mouth!

My most serious problem with Foxy is her unwillingness to venture on mountain trails outside of the ranch. I generally don't pine for a racing horse or an exhibition specimen, but I would like to enjoy riding in the surrounding woods. I turned to Nancy to figure out whether Foxy is afraid (to enter the forest, walk in the terrain), or had another problem; Nancy said that the mare was merely hard-headed. And indeed, she sometimes makes a stand, but we usually end up agreeing to go where I want. Now I had been looking for some buddy — after all, I don't think it very reasonable to simply set out into the mountains just me and my horse, whom I don't know that much after all and who's still been trying to get away with mischief. Weather, too, has been complicating my plans — at last the winter drizzles had begun, yet risking the horse lose footing on soft clay isn't very safe, either. I don't want to complain about precipitation; it would just be better if they'd avoid the ranch somehow.

And the last point of my list is teaching Foxy to cope with children. Tom is sufficiently large and strong to make her not ignore him; alas, Lisa has been below this threshold. I also think it's in their nature — Tom has got a fairly accurate idea about how the world around him is supposed to work, which makes the whole affair the more straightforward for Foxy. Lisa is a happy, dazed, jumping fairy, who is always ready to pet the horses, but cannot quite command — and in the moment when a human fails to be the boss, the horse takes over, which does not always lead to a fortunate ending. So I need the mare to start at least listen to me, before Lisa grows up and arrives herself at the knowledge how to control the beast.