Weekend in the Sierras

Just celebrated my 49th birthday in the High Sierras with family – absolutely packed and wonderful weekend. Walked a bit of the Pacific Crest Trail, where the trail meets Highway 88 (dad works as a volunteer trail hand at the outpost). Then to Devil’s Ladder, where gold rush pioneers had to disassemble wagons/gear and haul everything up a 3/4-mile rocky outcropping by hand (more than 100,000 wagons and their families went through this arduous, sometimes fatal ordeal). Then stopped at Sorenson’s in the Tahoe Valley to soak in the autumn colors of changing Aspens set against evergreens, and had lunch amidst a small flotilla of 80-yr-old hand-made cabins.

Taylor's Creek - 23

Finally to Taylor Creek to watch the Kokanee salmon push their way up the shallow stream to finally die just after spawning.

Taylor's Creek - 03

Next day, helped dad roll large pine sections up a hill, drill holes into their sides and insert eye bolts, and haul them uphill. After hauling, Dad and I created a huge pile of firewood from a bunch of them with his pneumatic splitter (truly one of human-kind’s most efficient labor-saving devices).

Cutting wood / logs - 3

Good food, good company, amazing weather. Thanks all for a wonderful weekend.

View the Flickr Set.

Mythbusters Live

M and I off on the BART for a late-night jaunt to see the Mythbusters Live at the Orpheum Theater in SF. On the way he was harassed by a real live drunk for the first time, encountered a woman lamenting how racist cab drivers sometimes wouldn’t pick her up (forcing her to walk 8 miles on arthritic knees), and a man with 4 strings left on his guitar belting out Bee Gees tunes inside the train car, accompanied by his son playing overturned bucket and kazoo. Whole lot of crazy Bay Area Reality for a kid to take in at once.

miles hat bart

Oh yeah – the Mythbusters show was pretty good too. Not great – more an entertainment revue than the science-y retrospective I had hoped for. But interesting and enjoyable. Unfortunately we had to leave at intermission – he was falling asleep on my shoulder in the theater after a long day in the sun.

Life is good.

Live Power Community Farm

So Miles just spent four days with his class at Live Power Community Farm in Covelo – camping out in 30-degree weather (at night), milking cows at the break of dawn, shoveling poop and plowing the earth and sorting vegetables. No electronics, no toys, no media – just kids experiencing life at its messy, organic best. During the breaks, they swam in the river and put on talent shows for each other. The kids worked hard but had a great time – all returned exhausted but recharged.

Corn

The farm gets its name from the fact they try, where possible, not to use powered machinery – everything is powered by animal and human effort. Blood, sweat and tears… and the rewards that come from that. Of course, everyone jokes about how it’s powered by child labor, but that’s not fair – the kids are there not as indentured servants but because their grownups see the work done on the farm as character building and healthy — everyone needs to spend time in and around real live dirt, and everyone needs to have milked a real live cow at least once in their lives.

Miles drives a plow

I often lament that it seems to be so hard to provide kids with anything like the environment I (we) grew up in. The combination of our technology-heavy environment and the fact that kids don’t just “go play outside” anymore means something crucial is being lost. I do my best to get him out into nature as often as possible, but big picture, it’s a drop in the bucket. So grateful he was able to get a real taste of dirt this week.

He took a ton of photos on the trip, and I helped him to select a few of the best and create his first web slideshow – check it out.

Levi’s GranFondo, 2013

Feel so blessed to have found a family activity we can all enjoy together. Spent the weekend in Santa Rosa with Amy and Miles, and rode the Piccolo route of the Levi’s GranFondo – a ride first through the rolling hills of Santa Rosa wine country and then out along the coastal cliffs. Since our son has just turned 11, we did the shortest ride (the Piccolo). It was definitely a challenge for him, but he applied all his willpower and muscle and made it the entire way – his longest ride yet. So proud of him!

Levi's GranFondo, 2013 - 25

Absolutely gorgeous countryside, with a solid 1-mile climb at the end that sapped every ounce of M’s strength. Recharged on watermelon, PBJs, and nuts, then the return voyage. I bolted the GoPro onto the handlebars and set it to capture one image every 60 seconds. So photos are not as “intentional” as they might be, but I did end up with a really nice random sampling. Unfortunately, I left the wifi feature enabled, which chewed up the battery. Camera went dead about halfway through, so you don’t get any of the high-speed downhill or the traipse over the Greenway toward the end – corn fields on one side and a babbling brook on the other.

Levi's GranFondo, 2013 - 30

One of the highlights of the day: Barreling down hill at 35mph into the 2nd half, guy whizzes past us yelling at the top of his lungs JESUS CHRIST I’M HAPPY!!!!

Truly incredible day. A few of the keeper images:

View the Flickr Set

or see the slideshow (go full-screen please!)