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Wild turkeys near the stables. |
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A horse-riding excursion. |
As I have already announced in the previous journal, we had taken turns being sick until the half
of February. The family sequence looked like this — Tom, Lisa, Carol, Lisa and Sid.
This more or less killed our plans how we would ski. We have finally got a season with snow,
and instead of skiing we were laying in bed at home and watching as it rains outside.
When one weekend found itself looking hopeful, and we seemed able to fit in one day of Sunday
round-trip skiing, we had pre-packed our subaru on Saturday, and I hurried off to pick Lisa up
from visiting a friend. On my way, I noticed a
bale of hay sitting at the curb up our street.
We consume a lot of hay at the stables, and here our neighbors had thrown out a whole, still tied
up, clean, dry bale? I rang their doorbell and asked if I could take the hay for my goats.
The lady neighbor possibly thought something about peculiar individuals, but I had opened the hatch
of my station wagon and loaded the bale in — what would I not do to save twelve dollars,
right? I left the hatch door open so that I did not need to fold the back seats, as it was just
a hundred yards easy going to my house. Full of energy and proud of my organizing talent I expertly
backed into the garage — more exactly to the point when the lifted garage door met with my
open hatch door, taking out a few plastic parts, wires and light bulbs. Thus our mountain trip got
nixed — we did not dare to take our bus to the ice and snow, and our four-wheel-drive now
bristled with various wires, and we did not think that rain and snow would do it any good.
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Ned and the ponies. |
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A sea otter with a crab at Moss Landing. |
I don't know if you recognize the feeling when one feels like a total IDIOT. I saved twelve
dollars on hay and made a damage on my car to the tune of six hundred. And I can talk about being
lucky, for I had not ripped off the whole hatch, did not bend the body, did not damage the garage
door, or actually the whole house (those wooden shacks of ours are not so difficult to demolish).
There's a positive thing about it, being the fact that I had apparently married well — Sid
managed to just LAUGH it off. I am beginning to appreciate the funny aspect of the situation only
now, some two months later.
Ned had decided to keep in line with our family and acquired some ailments of his own.
Horses wear shoes in the mountains, for rocks on the trails and the load they carry would
ruin their hooves. I though that perhaps down here, with only a minor load, he could stay barefoot,
which is better and healthier for a horse, but soon it became clear that he needed at least the
front pair to be shod. Horses carry most their weight on their front legs, and those suffer more
bruises.
Thus, for the first six weeks, Ned had front shoes. But it always looked as if his legs were
hurting; he did not want to walk on hard trails, and preferred to slosh through muddy ditches.
I consulted this with our farrier, who put shoes on all four. Then we were visited by a series
of storms and the stables turned into a bog, in which horses and and people stumbled knee-deep.
I moved Ned to a smaller paddock on a hill, where he would have at least some hard and dry spot,
but it did not help — his feet got so soggy he hardly walked, the poor thing.
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Tom in Pinnacles. |
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A rock ladder in Pinnacles. |
I was betting on abscess in the hoof, perhaps laminitis, so I called the farrier again. He has
measured temperature in the hoof and said that it's no likely neither laminitis, nor abscess —
and added pads under front shoes, to protect Ned's whole foot. He added some "green stuff"
under the pad — and lo and behold — Neddie perked up. Within a few days he improved
incredibly, and when he started prancing in front of some new mares, I began hoping to have won.
One Monday in mid-February is traditionally reserved for
President's Day — and some of
us get a three-day weekend out of it (as long as our employer acknowledges the holiday); schools
tend to close for a full-week break. Despite out pathetic sickness bottom line, we began to plan
carefully what to do with a week off. Eventually we started our trip on Saturday to
Pinnacles, where we had a date with Radim and Jirka. It was a close call, for we had to find
each other — there's no cell phone signal in the park and both crews were arriving from far
away, and it was a gamble whether we would meet in time. We had reached the parking lot without a
problem, and the guys were about twenty minutes behind, and already had to queue up for a spot
— more cars were allowed into the park only if someone left. It has worked out, we found each
other and could have a proper chat with this visit from Czech Republic, while we climbed up to
High Peaks.
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Kids wait in a turn for trailing huffing adults. |
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Pirate schooners in Oxnard. |
Then we dragged the guys to Paso Robles for dinner. We had reserved our hotel room in Oxnard,
and recommended the visitors to get some accommodation around Paso, and subsequently check out
California Valley with its Soda Lake and San Andreas Fault, but they could not locate a single
room in the area. It was a three-day weekend, but more importantly, the night before the silly
Valentine, and the nation had gone mad and celebrated in force out in restaurants and hotels and
other "romantic" destination. Our favorite Thai place in Paso Robles, too, was stuffed
full, and we had to wait for a while for our table — especially there being six of us.
The staff kept apologizing and the waitress who remembers us (we stop there on every one of our
trips in that direction) had eventually brought us a dessert on the house. That was very nice.
The poor guys had to head back all the way to San Francisco, where they had their hotel room
secured along with the conference they were attending. We did not have much less to drive, and
reached our place in Oxnard only after midnight.
Getting up at seven was therefore extra hard for us. Still, we had to catch our breakfast, pack,
check out, and be in time in the harbor in the neighboring Ventura, where we had paid for a trip
on a boat to
Anacapa Island. First we were observing that we had possibly come in early,
as there were hardly any people or cars in the harbor. We had found the office, telling them that
we came for the boat trip, and the clerk said that we had come to the wrong harbor. We insisted,
showing them their own instructions, which she overruled by saying that they called us on the phone
earlier about our trip being switched to Oxnard. Well, they left a message, in fact, on our home
answer-phone, while we hiked in Pinnacles and subsequently ate in Paso Robles.
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Humpback. |
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Kids on the prow of our whaling boat. |
All we could do was turn around and drive BACK to Oxnard. Fortunately, the harbors are not really
far apart, and we got there in five minutes. Again, we found the
Island Packers office,
this time properly besieged with tourist. Right at the entrance, an attendant told us that there
are huge waves out there and it is not sure that the boat would be able to land at the island,
and we would have the option to cancel our trip or go, risking that it could turn into
a whale-watching tour only. As we had already committed a long drive and renting a hotel room into
this endeavor, we did not want to cancel. Alas, after we spent another hour on the pier waiting for
our boat, the attendant came back announcing that the boat had broken down and there would be no
trip. And we would be given all our money back, and a voucher for another trip some other time.
Another option was, we would get the refund and still go
whale watching that day. We picked
the whales, and eventually (after further shuffling) got on the board of a boat by eleven o'clock.
Once we have crept out of the protected harbor onto the open ocean, there truly came some incredible
waves — but otherwise it was a beautiful sunny day. Soon, a school of dolphins joined our
boat, which was a fresh experience for us; unlike whale watching, which we had done already several
times in Monterey. The dolphins were surfing on the waves behind and in front of the boat,
apparently enjoying this attraction just like our kids do with roller-coasters and carousels.
Yet over time yours truly and Tom turned green, and subsequently spent part of our ride at the aft.
Never mind, as we still could see the dolphins, but we also had a good view of the other green,
even openly puking, passengers, which was a little less entertaining. Hippo kept visiting us
periodically, catching his own deep breaths; only Lisa lasted the whole trip, i.e. several hours,
at the prow which continued madly hitting the waves. In time, we ran into humpback whales and
families of pelicans, who dove into the waves, but for me,
the
dolphins still remained the greatest experience.
While disembarking, we asked the crew, whether one could find any Vietnamese soup place nearby,
and got recommended a restaurant not too far from the harbor. As promised — a classic
Vietnamese formica-top, but still packed at three o'clock and with excellent food, for even the most
common soup contained sliced beef tenderloin. I think that our somewhat out-of-balance stomachs
deserved such soothing fill. Especially since we faced many hours of driving home. We had harbored
some hopes that the upcoming Monday off would lessen the volume of people returning on Sunday
night already, but we were wrong; even so the jams were massive.
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The dolphins surfed on waves the boat made. |
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A pelican. |
On Monday and Tuesday we caught up with whatever was needed in the stables, I washed and re-packed
and readied myself and the kids for mountains. With trepidation we watched the forecast, whether
we would pass through before the storm on Wednesday, or we would have to perhaps change our hotel
reservations. Woodfords is located some twenty miles east of Kirkwood, across Carson Pass, and
it was a real possibility that the road would get closed in the storms. Yet one practically cannot
live at Kirkwood — rent is very expensive and problematic, as there's always some hassle,
e.g. you can stay at the condo but cannot park your car there — which of course is absurd,
for the resort is isolated from nearest civilization by thirty and sixty miles, respectively, and
you can hardly reach it on foot.
Given the expected storm I had to pack the kids and myself in our subaru, which has an
all-wheel-drive and thus you don't have to bother with snow chains. We left on Wednesday relatively
early in the morning into a decent weather, and eventually managed to have a good skiing afternoon
at Kirkwood. Snow started falling around three thirty, and everything went the way we wanted. We
got back in the car and headed to
Woodfords. The Kovars had discovered this hotel in a small
inconspicuous hamlet at an intersection of mountain roads, and I think it shall become our new
skiing base. Rooms are remodeled, clean, and somebody seems to have thought before re-furnishing
them, for they sport such things as clothing hooks on the wall near the door, and the bathroom
has enough room for four people taking turns there. There's also a fridge with a freezer and
a microwave, so one can prepare one's own breakfast. We had a meatloaf dinner brought from home,
and after moving in our gypsy camp for a five-day stay, we had nothing more to do than relax.
I certainly needed it, having driven over two hundred miles that day, and then skied, and having
organized this trip for three people. In the evening I just remembered to fold one of the back seats
and stuff all our skis in the car; the forecast said a foot of snow, and I did not feel like
wrestling with our ski roof rack and excavating skis from the roof.
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Lisa's first cross-country fall. |
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Later on, the kids would build a snot fort near this boulder. |
I was glad I did. We woke up in the morning into a snow-covered landscape — even in
Woodfords, which is more than two thousand feet lower than Kirkwood. Loading the car was not easy,
as powder snow poured into our shoes and all crevices, wind blew it in the car and in the hotel
room, a very winter experience. According to the internet, it did not look like they'd be opening
the ski lifts at Kirkwood anytime soon — so we drove comfortably only to
Hope Valley.
After all, a police car was blocking the road from that intersection, which was closed until about
eleven o'clock.
A chap at the cross-country center was still shoveling snow, but we soon got inside the yurt
(it's there only through the winter and serves as a rental shop), and the kids could rent their
cross-country skis. I own mine, and soon we were wading in the meadow. Tom and I alternated in
making the trail, which is quite a workout, but then both kids were quite enthusiastic about how
beautiful the winter landscape around us was. And so did I, actually. Lisa, however, somehow could
not incorporate her poles into a functional motion, perhaps she is a pace-gaiter like her mother
and grand-mother, her poles just don't work for her and get more or less in a way. The renting chap
got a help in the shop of a short woman, who took a snowmobile and established a stretch of a track
on the meadow and then off into the woods.
By then we were hungry, and we unwrapped our lunch at the yurt. The chap invited us in, but inside
was only a few degrees warmer than out, and only so because the wind wasn't blowing there. Tom and I
ate, but Lisa had decided to go out to do more skiing. She was instructed to stay in sight, and upon
encountering a problem with the binding, she would have to wait. Well, she did not wait, and
eventually engaged the renting chap. Apparently they had address her issue with the poles, for soon
I could see them circling around the trial loop, both with no poles. The chap had said that poles
were useless and that he skis without them, one only needs to have stronger abdomen muscles.
So it seems — Lisa shows no sign of LACKING the poles — instead, she looks much more
elegant and competent without them, as they no longer get under her foot.
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Heading for lunch at the yurt. |
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Burnside Road. |
After lunch, both kids devoted themselves in part to building up a snow fort on the meadow, and
in part making excursions to the vicinity. I made excursions, too, and eventually convinced them to
a regular hike to the woods along Burnside Road. The trail was supposed to go all the way to a lake,
but we did not get as far. The first mile was indeed cleared by the snowmobile, but farther led only
a plain cross-country track, which, however, disappeared after a first clearing — wind had
blown over the tracks. I reckoned that getting lost in the mountains was not a mandatory part of our
first day on cross country skis (there is no trail blazing anywhere here), and we turned back.
At last, we decided to rent the kids' skis for the rest of the season, planning to use them a little
every day of this break — and no, it was not my choice, they had really begged for them.
We got back to our hotel room relatively early that day, and so we packed our swimsuits and went
to check out hot springs in Markleeville.
Grover Hot Springs have the status of national
park and collect entrance fee, and the man at the gate counts people and watches the limit.
It is said to usually create lines and congestions in the evening, but we came to the park early
and were allowed in without a problem. The park offers a regular heated outdoors pool —
and another relatively large one with spring water.
We wanted to finish this very satisfactory day by a dinner in a local restaurant named Wolf Creek,
but the server said her kitchen was closed. That was quite disagreeable, it being the only pub
around, and the next larger town being some twenty four miles distant Gardnerville or forty miles
distant South Lake. Eventually we chose the way to Tahoe, remembering some resorts along the road
that boasted food, and we hoped to succeed.
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On Olympic run. |
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With Bryce on a chair lift. |
And of course,
Sorensens was open, and they made a fuss of doing us a favor in
seating us at all — it's true that for five o'clock in the afternoon they did not lack
guests. The dinner was good, expensive — and apparently unhealthy. The next day morning,
Lisa and I alternated in occupying the bathroom, and left for Kirkwood with noticeable delay.
We gathered more delay at the parking lot, where Lisa, instead of putting on ski boots, had to run
to the bathroom again, and I soon followed, to buy her a bottle of cola in the cafeteria as the
momentarily available stomach aid (we had both already taken immodium, it just had a late effect
on Lisa). Since then we pronounce Sørensen with a distinct umlaut, which carries
a different meaning in Czech altogether, and I'm sure you either know or can guess...
Rumiko with Bryce and Martin were already at Kirkwood, which was a surprise; a nice one — so
we could ski together. Our kids have passed the age of doing childish silly things, and so we had
a great day, and even us adults could chat. Our family finished a little earlier, as we wanted to
check out Grass Lake on our new cross-country skis. We were hoping that a narrow valley between
two massive mountains would shelter us from wind and that we find some existing tracks there.
Alas, this did not come to pass, and an unmarked while plain stretched out before us, while heavy
clouds chased each other around said mountains. Still we set out to try, now that we were there.
An hour of suffering ensued, with classic cross-country hassle — wading in deep powder in a
head wind. In the end we turned around early, for the clouds had advanced at a disquieting pace
and the originally sunny meadow turned into a deserted, dark clearing. We hurried back to the car
and subsequently to civilization — to South Lake Tahoe, where we know a decent Thai
restaurant. We were out of own food, and we did not want to risk overpriced Sérensen.
It surprised me that, although we came to the restaurant shortly after five, it was already
relatively full; it would seem that most skiers had returned and many had the same idea —
have a light lunch on the slope and follow it by early, but substantial hot dinner, and perhaps
have a late snack later.
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Lisa fell from the Wave. |
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At backside. |
Back at our hotel, the kids had invited Bryce over for a while, but otherwise we were just loafing.
The Kovars have delivered our Hippo by midnight, thus completing our family. We occasionally split
up on Saturday, as the children decided to jump down The Wave at Backside. When I saw the huge
icy cornice, I reckoned that I can be without such a treat, and let the kids with Martin; instead
I took pictures. They had both fallen, Lisa screaming horribly, and Tom rolled down half of the
run. Lisa jumped the Wave later again and this time she remained in control.
The kids were happy that a small tow worked that you could take and get carried up on another
small hill, and then ski through the woods on powder. Again we finished a bit earlier and returned
to Hope Valley. At first we had thought that we would take even Hippo out on cross-country skis,
but he was lucky — we came there so late that it made no sense to pay for a pair of skis,
and again he escaped this dread of his. Children, meanwhile, circumnavigated the meadow and dug
in their bunker; I ran my own round to stretch my muscles a bit. Then we headed back to the Thai
place in South Lake — there are simply not any better choices there.
We were the last guests to check out of the hotel on Sunday, but we also had to pack a lot of stuff
and fit it all in a subaru. Eventually we had to leave one back seat folded, and the kids had to
squeeze on the remaining bench, so that we could fit in the cross-country skis and all the poles
— our roof rack would only take the four pairs of down-hill skis. But we worked it out.
The snow was quite crusty, and so I refused to go on The Wall. We probably made a good choice, for
soon we felt a horrible fatigue and heard many whimperings — after all, combining down-hill
and cross-country gave us a workout. But it had been certainly a very well spent break — we
had managed to cover a spring short-sleeve outing in Pinnacles, sailing with dolphins, and a snow
storm with powder in the mountains — something of everything.