Eichorn Pinnacle is the spire on the front side of the Cathedral Peak cone.

Granite Basin was completely deserted.

Since the moment my kids stopped going to school, I stopped having time to "slack off" at the computer, and I managed to barely update galleries. However, during the first eight weeks of vacations we succeded in fitting in so much that it would be a shame to not mention at least the most basic events.

Week One of the vacation consisted of a summer camp that we had paid for the kids — Tom went to Lego and Lisa went to gymnastics. The beauty of the whole affair dwelt in being able to drop off both juniors at the same time in the same place, from where their instructors took them to their activities — and we would collect them both again at the same time in the same place. A bit worse turned out its being right adjacent to the end of school — it would have probably been better to insert at least a week of relaxation and rest, instead of continuing with a hard schedule and getting up early. Overall tiredness and stress was most likely the cause of Lisa's laying down on the weekend and complaining about ear pain.

At Garry's, children start with basic care for the horse.

Only later the may ride.

Still on Monday of Week Two of the vacations, Lisa claimed bravely that she felt fine — she got promised to start training horse-riding with me at Garry's. At the moment she had this point of her program behind her, she disposed of her bravery, and we ended up at the doctor's with the diagnosis of an ear infection. Tom caught a cold and a bad cough from Lisa, which had fortunately missed his ears. Still we had spent most of this week at home, resting and recovering.

We had planned a trip to Yosemite for the following weekend with Vendula and Pavel — counting on Pavel and me going climbing somewhere at some point, and the rest of the expedition going for a hike. With Lisa's antibiotics and Tom's ugly cough, we ended up leaving Sid at home with the sick kids, and me playing the third for the Kovars. For Saturday we thought of reaching Eichorn Pinnacle, from where Vendula would continue to Cathedral Lakes, while Pavel and I climb the Pinnacle. Having eventually scrambled up to the face, we found a completely impossible chap hanging in the route, and another couple was getting ready at the foot. We reckoned we would wait about an hour and still have a chance to finish it (climbing is supposed to take about four hours, plus something for descent, plus about another hour before you get back to the car). The man would still after another hour just hang there and not give off many signs of progress. Meanwhile, an array of people had joined us below the first pitch, including our climbing buddy Michal — all harboring the same wrong idea like us — a route with such a horrible approach would be certainly not occupied. Michal and other newcomers did gradually give up, and in the end, so did we. I truly hope that climbing would again fall out of fashion, as this had been a horror — we never got to climb that day.

Granny took Lisa to Rancho to see domestic animals.

It was hot even at the Pacific Ocean.

We got better prepared for Sunday — Pavel had found Granite Basin deep past Mono Lake in his guide book, and there was NOBODY THERE. Beautiful climbing, only the wind blew really hard, and in the third pitch one would get yanked by it, and it was horribly cold. And it's really a most beautiful location.

With Week Three, a long awaited day had finally come and Granny had arrived. Alas, her visit also overlapped with a summer heat wave, and it had upset our plans. I expected to be able to drop Granny off with the kids in places like zoological gardens and parks. Instead, we had to seek air conditioned facilities (a museum or library), or drive to a colder climate on the coast. Granny had managed to spend two hours of one morning with Lisa at Rancho San Antonio, while I took Tom to a dentist, but I think that by the end they were pretty boiled.

On the weekend we drove to Felton and then to Capitola, where our friends Janna and Alex were celebrating their marriage anniversary. There, at the sea, we spotted some dolphins; even here under the influence of the cold California Current from Alaska, it was quite hot, and the kids could splash in the surf. We also had to devote one day to a purchase of a washing machine; our eleven years old helper had come totally disjointed, and we reckoned that a new appliance would be a cheaper and more effective solution than a complicated repair (is it really worth stressing the fact that the washer had quit in the moment when Granny arrived and thus increased the number of household members, beddings, towels, etc.?).

Instruction line-up.

Lisa and Bow the mule.

Week Four included Independence Day, which fell on a Thursday this year. We tried to lure some friends to join us on a trip, but they all gradually checked out. Only Rumiko and Bryce remained faithful. We made an appointment with them at the 50's Roadhouse in Knights Ferry, but it was closed; we had to call them to re-arrange our meeting to the next open restaurant — which turned out to be Homeplace in Sonora. We continued on together to Leavitt Meadows, where we erected our tents in "our" switchback above the pack station. Rumiko had borrowed their tent from Martin, and none of us knew its setup, and it kept us entertained for quite a while — before we figured out where all those poles went, and concluded that Martin indeed had not packed along any pegs, solving the anchoring problem by using a few boulders, it was time for a dinner at Jeff's. Our waitress offered right away to seat our children at the next table, to make the dinner more enjoyable, and subsequently very responsibly and seriously took their orders. And the children responded by being mature and considerate. Interesting, how these situations evolve on a spiral — once you give kids a choice and a responsibility of choosing correctly, they actually act responsibly.

Boys, mounted. (photo Granny)

The horse theme persists - at a rodeo.

We hurried from Mountain View BBQ to catch the Bridgeport fireworks, which was very pretty despite a few hiccups, when the rockets apparently failed to perform as planned.

The night turned surprisingly uneventful — we were a bit worried about leaving all three rascals in one tents without adult supervision; they could wreak mischief and horse around, but by the time we had returned from the fireworks (at about ten thirty) they were all so flaccid that they fell in their bed without trouble. (Yes, the threat that improper behavior would result in a transfer to their respective parents' tent, was certainly also helping).

Ladies' ride - steer stopping.

Bronco

Children and Rumiko had booked horses at the pack station. Given the fact that neither Rumiko nor Bryce had ever sat on a horse before in their lives, it was only a one-hour ride. Hippo, Granny and I did not participate (as we had ridden on the meadow countless times), but the kids loved it. A brunch followed at Hays Street Cafe — we did not think twice and asked for two tables. Offspring separation had proven practical; in restaurants and in tents.

We thought we would escape hot weather by going to Virginia Lakes, but we overdid it a little. In the windy ten thousand feet it was almost chilly, and the kids squealed at the lake that water was too cold. Having returned to our camp site, we found the yellow tent rolled away in the bushes — after all, there's a reason for tent pegs. Fortunately it was only windy and overcast, and the tend did not get rained on. Dinner was solved by roasting sausages over a camp fire.

Virgina Lakes.

Dinner.

On the way home we stopped at Kennedy Meadows, wanting to make a little hike there, but it was so hot that all desires to scramble uphill had deserted us all, including our Granny. The kids kept splashing in the river for a while, and we all found subsequent refreshment at the local restaurant — kids and Granny got ice cream, Hippo and I had each a beer.

Week Five began with kids' swim class. Granny had departed again, with painters arriving at her heels. Lisa's tiny room had been even colder and darker thanks to a horrid yellow-gray wall paint that we had inherited from the previous owners of our house. We wanted to choose a better hue, but most of all, once the kids' rooms were emptied, it was necessary to scrape off this popcorn ceiling. A structure of irregular miniscule balls looks awful, and optically lowers the room height; it's a perfect trap for dust and cobwebs — and also frequently contains asbesthos. The painters had spent three days wearing face masks, and we were reduced to living in our kitchen, study, or bedroom. We offloaded our children to Rumiko for one night; they spent the subsequent night in our bed (while Hippo slept on a couch in the living room); on the third night, Lisa's got her room back, and Tom moved to the living room.

Kennedy Meadows.

A younger sister was a pleasant change for Lisa.

We had filled the first half of Week Six with moving the stuff back into the bedrooms. Or rather, with NOT MOVING the stuff back — I had decided to perform a Great Sorting and Throwing Away of Things, to prevent the rooms from re-ingesting broken toys (toss), toddler books (donate to YMCA), small-sized clothing (give away to friends), and so on. The second half of the week was devoted to our friends from the East Coast. I had pretty much expected that Tom would play well with same-aged Kevin. It was Lisa who eventually surprised me, for she found a good friend in a five-year-old Sadie — after much experience with an older brother, a younger girl had totally fascinated her. We took our visitors to the redwoods in Felton, Technical Museum in San Jose, natural preserve at Point Lobos, and Monterey Aquarium.

Week Seven was FINALLY devoid of any plans of ours. Had it not come after six hectic weeks full of events (nice ones, and less nice ones, too), it might have been boring. In this case, we enjoyed four days of slacking — even Garry cancelled our Monday training due to an attack of asthma. Only by Wendesday we had enough of dawdling, and I talked Regina into taking all our kids to Felton. I did some minor shopping and pre-packing on Thursday; on Friday we picked up Hippo at work and tried to drive through to Truckee, to an annual ballooning get-together near Prosser Lake.

Sleeping sea otters at the Aquarium.

Visitors under a waterfall.

Our former pilots, Jeanne and Tom, had moved to South Dakota, and hence we let ourselves be adopted by Jennifer and Mike — and their gang of friends and buddies. There are never enough of good people, and if these good people delight over a back-talking, eight year old blonde, and are willing to give her chores while cooking collective meals, or alternatively play Bocci with a pre-pubescent perfectionist, it's and unexpected bonus. The other young participants of this expedition — four sons of Gabe — found themselves on the other side of puberty from Tom, but even they had shown uncommon patience with the shy attempts of our children to follow their glorious examples. We, in turn, were bound to suffer the fact that our offspring had thus discovered the thrills of riding a truck-bed, and similar stunts.

And since you can fly the balloons only around dawn, I had reserved a horse ride for us on Saturday afternoon. It seemed a good idea to check out a new area from the saddle. A slightly less good idea was arranging it all over the internet. I should have know after all these years that it is probably better to check out the stables in person first. When we drove close to Piping Rock Horses, it seemed to be a completely wrong kind of place. Some competition was currently taking place, consisting mostly of white shirts, highly polished riding boots, and cute stylish helmets with a funny button on top — western horses and saddles and cowboys nowhere in sight. Only after we had driven around the whole happening, we spotted four horses tied up to a bar behind a barn, and they looked like those you could take riding in a forest. From them, we found our way to an office, where a chatty woman holding a till eventually admitted being competent to take our money and fetch our guide.

Ballooning get-together.

Rubik landing.

A slight confusing ensued due to Hippo — despite making a special note in my e-mail stressing my dear husband's pachyderm-class weight, such information had not reached the cowboys; they had saddled a completely regular horse, which would most likely suffer badly under Hippo. Thus we needed a change of steed. Meanwhile, Lisa petted her beautiful Coconut, and I eyed my inconspicuous Fanny. My experience with common-looking mares (Foxy, Jenna) made me stay alert. It should have also make me pay attention to pretty males (Coconut), but since the locals claimed that this spotted horse was especially good with kids, I believed them.

The first half of our ride went rather easy. Fanny, though, apparently suffers an obsessive-compulsive disorder so typical for mares like her — as they use her to drive cattle, she had a tendency to herd our little group under her tight control and correct other horses, push them and generally keep discipline. Of course they did not like it, especially Coconut, and in one moment I had to hold Fanny back, when she wanted to get into a personal altercation with him. On the other hand — unlike Foxy, Fanny was ready to obey me, and that meant I could deal with her.

The ford.

Lisa and Coconut.

On the way uphill we had found ourselves behind Sid's Cash and watching, I could see him looking weird. We dismounted on the hilltop and let our guide conclude that Cash indeed was losing both hind shoes. He was not stumbling and did not seem in pain, but it was not right. We began to return anyway, all seemed fine until we reached a ford. There, Coconut had decided to avoid wading and simply jumped across the ten feet wide stream in one flowing move, galloping off. Lisa screamed; I did not know whether to have a heart attack first, or hold back hysterical Fanny (such insubordination in HER herd!); altogether only a few seconds, during which I aged by several years.

Fortunately, Lisa held on, during the jump and subsequent gallop. She had fortunately recovered from her initial shock to the point of trying to stop her horse. Fortunately, neither of the other horses would join the race, bursting the others into a crazed stampede of a reflexive flight. Fortunately, Coconut had quickly calmed down, allowed to be stopped, and waited for the rest of us, but remained nervous for the remainder of our ride. Perhaps because of Lisa, who was scared herself; perhaps because he did not quite understand what had happened — the fact that he had succumbed to his horse nature and jumped rather than stumbled into an unfamiliar stream, was not exactly his fault. I rather gained an impression that such rides at Piping Rock Horses may be only a diversion, their horses are not as perfectly trained for an open country like they are at pack stations that cater exclusively to tourists. It's not as unpleasant to feel a horse with a personality under your saddle, instead of a poor beast that buries its nose in the tail of the next horse up the line, trotting past its daily quota of miles — but this was a bit too exciting even for me.

Ballooning breakfast.

Lisa had celebrated her eighth birthday.

Lisa had celebrated her eighth birthday on Week Eight. Another training at Garry's fell on the same Monday, and this had fulfilled Lisa's wish to ride a horse on that day. She was probably less happy finding out that I had arranged with Garry to let her practice one rein stop. Like any other extreme measure, it is a bit tricky, but after our weekend experience I had reckoned that our children could get it under their belts just in case that a real trouble should occur during one of our rides. Then I wanted to take the horse on a longe and let the kids experience canter. Again I'm aware that canter in an arena, on a longe, on a well behaved horse, is something completely different than a frantic flight in an open country — but I just don't have a better idea.

On Monday evening we celebrated Lisa's birthday at home, and her friends were coming on Wednesday. And since I had invited whole families of friends, the celebration picked up some unexpected momentum — compared to planned approx. two hours in the pool, the affair extended into about six hours of junior and adult fun. And thanks to full participation of parents, we had almost run out of beer!

With Lisa's party we rolled over into August, and subsequently three remaining weeks of vacations — but that's a topic for next time.