Berry and Star have been lodging with us since mid February.

Snow Snake after this year's first serious snowfall.

Our departure for the mountains had slowly approached, which made us apprehensive. When Igor had offered back in December to share a mountain cabin rental with us in February, we were delighted and started looking forward to it. We had also counted on snow, which usually comes in January. Just before we were about to go, it was warm and sunny, and thus we packed our bus, for we can fit more stuff in it, and we expected to plow through the springtime snow on the few open slopes, and soon extend it with hiking in Nevada desert. We even did not attempt to ski on Saturday; we just took our time packing and driving up to the cabin.

The cabin (a house, really) was very nice, but the agency had claimed it to have two rooms with three beds each and then a master bedroom with a private bathroom and a king bed. In reality, the two smaller rooms contained twin beds, which was to be compensated by a collapsible couch in the living room. Thus instead of one bed extra, we were short one bed for our numbers. We first tried a setup with Lisa sharing a small bedroom with Sasha, Igor sharing the other with Ivan, and Sid, Tom and I taking the large bedroom. You see, Sid would sleep on the floor on his inflatable mat, as that's more comfortable for him than super-soft American mattresses, in which his weight would sink him so deep he would not be able to breathe.

On Sunday we went skiing and we enjoyed its spring nature as expected — ground out, many times re-frozen, medium difficult snow. The kids were happy, though, and we racked up our runs to satisfaction. Our family had planned a dinner in Minden's Thai restaurant, where I had discovered pad thai that I liked. A discussion with the owner disclosed that they hail from the north-eastern end of Thailand, and thus apply their specific regional recipes. He claimed that a different flavor of their noodles was caused by absence of tamarind sauce. While we were out in civilization, it began to snow, and that made us a bit nervous — forecast said over an inch on Sunday night, but then during the weekend it changed to four to eight inches, and snowing was extended into adjacent days, with up to a foot daily. Our trip back to the cabin in our minivan was, let's say, adventurous. Cruising the foothill flatland was easy, but even a mild grade a few dozens of feet to Markleeville was hard work. Uphill from Markleeville to the cabin made us think we would never make it — fortunately we had gotten far enough that it would be possible to walk the rest — and then a pick-up truck with a snow plow showed up in the opposite direction, and began to clear local roads.

A dangerous ostrich was walking around our cabin.

Hoodies in blizzard.

We eventually made it all the way to the cabin, but it began to dawn on us that we had a problem. Our bus has only a front wheel drive, and Kirkwood (7,800 feet) is about eighteen miles away from the cabin (5,650 feet), coming over Carson Pass (8,574 feet), and you need chains. Not for the whole stretch though; first (lower) half usually stays plowed and salted, which would mean rolling around the car on the (freezing) ground before the second half. During Sunday night and Monday morning we were anxiously watching changing forecast, but did not figure out anything reasonable.
On Monday morning it was clear that we would not be able to reach Kirkwood. Igor offered us two seats in his Subaru, but the kids seemed to prefer stayin in the cabing and slacking. Sid decided to try breaking through back home over Interstate 80 via Truckee, and come back in our own Subaru. In the end, I alone left to ski with Igor and his kids.

It was crazy cold, snowing all the time, and Hippo was sending reports about his road progress. I-80 was the route of choice for the majority of desperate drivers who, like us, found themselves in cars with no chains or four wheel drive, in the main mountain range of the West Coast, and so everybody crossed these mountains at (almost) walking pace. His whole trek lasted some nine hours instead of the usual five. Then he had to install a "coffin" on our wagon — and drove up to Markleeville via Kirkwood in four hours, despite snow covering all higher elevation roads. Meanwhile Sasha insisted on sleeping together with her family, so Lisa had to move to Tom and I had decided to spend the night on a couch in the living room — I was certain that until Sid would arrive, I could not sleep much anyway. He showed up at one thirty a.m.

In the morning we tried to make fire in a wood stove — the small electric heater we had available could not keep the large airmass of the main cabin room warm at all, but we did not have much luck. Pretty pieces of firewood were artistically arranged near the stove, but mostly oak, and there was nothing else to use as kindling. We left it be and prepared for another day of skiing. Sid had announced when he came during the night that he would sleep his trip off, and did not want to ski; thus Igor and I each drove our kids. Igor was preparing for his daily sporting exercise by singing in the shower, which made the children laugh a lot. Igor came out and said that he had to sing, for he spotted a wild ostrich outside the window, and that ostriches are very dangerous birds, for they can break the glass and enter the cabin, and he had to make noise to discourage the would be burglar from attacking. Kids did not believe him and laughed. They should have known better — during our subsequent lunch break we texted Sid to create ostrich tracks arouond the cabin.

Kids enjoying the snow.

Carson River.

We had to stick to lunch breaks vigorously this time. It was easily fifteen (°F) during the day, and one sits unmoving on a lift a lot while downhill skiing. Typically after two hours we had to dive into a cafeteria and imbibe a few cups of hot tea, cocoa or coffee, to be able to last two more hours outdoors. We are truly not used to such frost; our usual conditions hover around the freezing point. This was a kind of shock. But also great skiing, true blown powder, in which one can float effortlessly. And a hot, roaring stove was waiting for us in the cabin, and a hot tub in the back yard, this time marked with ostrich tracks. Tom claimed that it was some kind of joke and that individual fingers lacked imprints of talons. Sasha and Lisa obviously wanted to believe in a real ostrich and investigated, which way the tracks went, whence the bird had come and how it walked around the building; they took pictures and videos. I don't think that Lisa was ever truly serious, but she enjoyed the game.

Wednesday's skiing was very nice, as snow was accumulating and with it more runs got opened. We were finally in our full family force.
On Thursday, another front had passed, and a view from our cabin window (three thousand feet lower than Kirkwood runs) convinced us to skip skiing that day. Instead we went just to Hope Valley. We thought we would ski cross-country, but the rental owner talked us out of it — there was no old snow base in lower elevations, only the one foot of new powder, which you could scatter just with your boot. It truly was no good for skiing, and so we just walked. Here it became apparent, how much our Mother of the Year had underestimated late winter's arrival — we had not equipped Lisa with any winter boots, dismissing it with the thought that it may not even snow. Lisa was issued my winter boots and I had put on snow shoes on my cross-country ankle-high boots. Tom wanted snow-shoes too, and thus we would stumble around for about an hour along a creek and on a meadow. It felts like sufficient outdoor activity for the day, and we drove out to dinner that night. A relaxing day.

It was beautiful on Friday, finally Kirkwood reached its full potential and top gear. We could let ourselves lift up to The Wall and check out many an interesting spot with no fear of rocks. It certainly was the prettiest day of this season, like one from a resort catalog. And it had spoiled us rotten — no waiting in lines, awesome weather, great skiing. When we came back again, in a fortnight, on a Saturday, crowds and warm weather with soft heavy snow seriously disappointed.

A wonder no one fell in Carson River.

Even the desert side of Sierry Nevada around the cabin got snow.

Alas, this next time we were only three, for we left Lisa at home. Right after the break she fell ill and started a long medicinal journey. It began with Lisa complaining after her Sunday vaulting that she felt pain in her loins and armpits, and being extra tired. On Tuesday doctors found nothing serious, and Lisa went to school on Wednesday and Thursday. That day, her lymph nodes had swollen on the right side of her body; Friday followed with lab tests and then on and on. Antibiotics, ultrasound, urgent care visits, regular doctor, ad nauseam. Lisa would keep sleeping fourteen to sixteen hours a day, looked like a panda — white in face, black circles around eyes. It seemed clear this was no common cold, which resolves itself in three days, but we would face some long term treatment — up for grabs were mononucleosis, turberculosis, and some much worse possibilities.

I visited Lisa's school, for we were bound to address Lisa's continued attendance. She had been more ill than healthy since December, and the few days she managed to go to school on more antibiotics or Ventolin, she would fill with catching up tests and lab work and projects — things that can't be done from home — but in all of them she lacked having had instruction time. Consequently, withing two weeks this stress would make her collapse with another illness, and after three months of such see-saw we realized this could not go on forever — much less with any prospect of long-term treatments and recovery. Our proposal to let Lisa attend her school in limited scope of essential subjects, English and Math, so that she would not miss lessons of the most important stuff, and allow here to work on the rest from home, until it was clear what she was ill from — was rejected.
Either she was healthy and would attend the school at hundred percent — amounting to six classroom hours every day, including physical education — at that time, Lisa could not even properly walk or sit for pain — or I was to produce a doctor's writ, declaring her ill, and then she'd get visited by a clerk from school district with homework.

By then we had already applied Lisa to an online school, the same Tom attends. Fortunately on the day I was so nicely brushed off at the brick and mortar school, we learned that the virtual one would make an exception for Lisa and enroll her in the middle of a semester. We still had to jump through hoops with paperwork and red tape courtesy of the federal umbrella organization for the state-run virtual schools — but we gained for Lisa a compromise between seven hours sitting in a classroom and home-school catch-up improvisation, in the worse case under a hard gaze of some Ms. Skully from the district. I have to say that I was upset and disappointed by the school district attitude. I understand that children must avoid truancy, but I believe that in exceptional cases the system could exhibit some flexibility and open-mindedness. On the other hand, I should not expect miracles. Our experience with last year's PE teacher, who was ready to fail Lisa on account of not having met required levels of exercise with broken collarbone, and then (after being confronted with doctor's writ) she graded her C in PE. You see, Lisa had been choking and on Ventolin for a week, and thereafter failed to complete running a full mile IN LIEU of a lunch break (which lasts whole thirty five minutes) to catch with her regimen. We should have known long ago that students' health is no priority in this school.

Kirkwood on the best day of the season.

Waterfall in Thundersaddle.

School switch immediately brought one positive thing — our kids now have synchronized breaks. It made not much difference for our still ill and whimpering Lisa, but in the future it would simplify our plans. This time we had to give up our trip to New Mexico, but also plans to just go for two or three days to the mountains. At least we managed to leave for single days — I went on Tuesday with Tom; Sid went to work and Lisa stayed in bed. On Friday we left Lisa in her friend's care and took off as three again. Tuesday's skiing was great, lightly above freezing, so that ice sheets would not form, snow was still powdery enough, and Tom and I covered more distance and elevation than any other day of the season. It was fifty degrees on Friday, even at eight thousand feet, and we shuffled in heavy cotton. The only advantage was in being able to stretch out on seats in front of a kiosk at Backside, and let one's beer cool in the snow under one's seat. Our season thus practically ended there, for Kirkwood was to close on the following weekend.

After six weeks of full run-around game with doctors of five distinct clinics, in three different cities, and many hours on a phone with the same clinics and above all, the insurance company — we put together perhaps all Lisa's test results. It was the beginning of April. The scariest diagnoses, to our great relief, did not show up. It would seem that the main cause of her suffering are symptom-less allergies — Lisa had engorged mucus membranes in throat and nose, and thus could not breathe properly, which makes her tired and look like re-heated death. Swollen, blood engorged membranes stop being barriers for viruses and bacterias, and instead they soak in all kinds of mundane illnesses, which explains Lisa's illness record of late. Tiredness and rings around her eyes improved noticeably after a few days on Zyrtec. Pain in loins have a surprising explanation — Lisa has scoliosis, which leads to bulging intervertebral discs that press on some nerves so much that it shoots pain to her leg. The bottom line was, Lisa had a thorough break-down. Being ill meant that she entered heavy stress from falling behind in school, where instead of gradual recovery she got loaded with multitude of work, which exhausted her to the point of succumbing to another sickness almost instantly.

Twilight as the only one in our family celebrated Easter.

Lisa on Osp.

I don't know, if Lisa is "a weaker type", but I have no doubt that the local school system is positively debilitating. Every day sees the same array of subjects — six classroom hours, each fifty-five minutes long, four minutes break to move from class to class, thirty five minutes pause for lunch. Every class is in a different classroom with a different team of students, and a kid cycles through a hundred and fifty classmates every day. Lisa got a short straw this year with hardest subjects — English and mathematics — scheduled afternoon. She would depart for school at eight, come back home at three thirty, adding up to seven and half hour. Squeezing snack, one to two hours of home-work, dinner and shower into the rest of the afternoon and evening, did not leave her much room for any after school activities or hobbies, much less any rest at all.
Virtual school has returned Lisa to life — and she claims to appreciate most that she suddenly has gotten opportunity to ask teachers questions. Teachers actually recognize her and notice her. In the brick and mortar school, a teacher covering six hours for a hundred and fifty students every day, has hardly any wiggle room, and is likely just as exhausted at the end of the day as the pupils are. The only result of such desperate effort seems to be de-motivated, burnt-out students. Vehemence, with which peers of my children HATE their school, is rather scary. They perceive it as a prison, from which there is no escape, and which controls and dictates their whole lives.

How our new experiment with internet education shall turn out, we have no idea. Yet Lisa began to recover so much, she was able and willing to start visiting Osp the pony again, attend at least some of the vaulting trainings, and laugh and play with friends. She still gets tired easily and we have a list of rehabs and therapies to check out, await deciphering of Lisa's mysterious allergies, but we dare to hope that we're on the way to better.