Vacation -- June Lake

We're back from our second big summer vacation and now I think it's time for summer to end. Summer has other plans, of course -- in Ridgecrest it usually stays pretty hot until November -- but we're grateful for the fact that the high temperatures have been right around 100 since we got back. Oh, maybe as much as 103. But that's nothing like 113, it's really not. The water from the cold water tap is still hot, but I'm trying to ignore that.

So anyway, just like last year, our late summer vacation had two parts: June Lake and Mammoth. I'll write about the Mammoth part in a separate post. June Lake was what we call the cousins trip, because we take it with some of my cousins. This year we stayed in this rental house, which was close to Gull Lake:

It was a very nice house in many ways, not so nice in others. The not so nice parts can be glimpsed in the photo: a weirdly curving driveway that neither Rocket Boy nor I could back out of successfully and STAIRS -- a steep flight of stairs to get from outside to the first floor (where our rooms were) and an even steeper flight of stairs up to the top floor where the living room, kitchen, dining room, and master bedroom were. One of my cousins counted them: THIRTY steep stairs up to the living room. When I was in better shape, 30 stairs would not have bothered me, but that was then, this is now. Plus, we were at 7500 feet. Suffice it to say that I would NOT stay in this house again.

But it had nice aspects too. Here's the lovely kitchen:

And here's the room that the boos slept in:

I was very firm: they could PLAY on the top bunks (when parents were around to supervise) but they had to SLEEP in the bottom bunks. It didn't matter: Baby A fell out of his lower bunk all three nights we stayed here, at 2 am, 4 am, and 4:30 am, respectively. Each night I either couldn't get back to sleep afterwards or was up for a couple of hours at least. As the days progressed, I became more and more zombie-like. This is not supposed to happen when your children are four!

We arrived at the house on Saturday, August 18th -- much later than planned, but just in time for a delicious salmon dinner. The next day, Sunday, we drove to the Mono Pass trailhead, just inside Yosemite, and attempted to hike the trail.

Rocket Boy and I hiked this trail seven years ago with the cousins and thought it was wonderful. We call it the Blue Frog Trail, because we saw some little blue frogs in a pond along the way. It's probably still wonderful, but we didn't see much of it. First we got a very late start, didn't start hiking until after 10 am. Then, after we'd gone about a quarter mile (if that), I got nervous about where we'd parked (in a space with lines across it). We knew it was illegal, but it was the only space left. "What if the ticket we get is $300," I said to Rocket Boy. "What if they tow our car?" Eventually Rocket Boy agreed to walk back to the trailhead and move the car to the side of the road.

While he was gone, the boos' Aunt Nonnie and Uncle Rick showed up (they were staying in Mammoth and had to wait for the pet-sitter, so had gotten an even later start). We hiked along with them until we came to a rushing stream. Streams on this trail are not supposed to be rushing in late August, but there had been some recent rains... anyway, the stream was rushing and there was no obvious way to ford it. I won't go into all the details, just say that Rick, Baby A, and I ended up with sopping wet shoes and socks. We wrung out Baby A's socks, Rick wore his on his head to dry, and I just sloshed along. Rocket Boy caught up with us right after all this happened, and after a bit we continued our hike.

But not for too much longer. Even though we knew there were beautiful sights ahead, we also knew we had little people with us who would not be able to get there -- and more importantly, get back again. Baby A kept asking me, "Do we have to cross that river again?" Plus, storm clouds were gathering. So finally we sat down and ate some of the lunch we'd brought, and then headed back down the trail. I think Rick, Baby B, and I were the ones who got wet the second time across the stream (I didn't have a lot to lose at that point). But it didn't matter. We saw two frogs -- neither was blue, but that's OK. And we all made it back to the trailhead in one piece. Someday we'll do the whole trail again. I have faith.

After the hike, Nonnie and Rick went to the Whoa Nellie Deli for lunch and we joined them at an outside picnic table (we had snacks).

Then we drove back to the house in June Lake, but since it was only mid-afternoon, and four-year-olds don't understand about chilling out for a couple of hours (like we wanted to do), we headed out to the swimmers beach at June Lake to go swimming. I don't have any photos of that episode because it was so chaotic, trying to keep an eye on the boos in the lake (Baby B was quite fearless), making multiple trips to the restroom, etc. But after we'd gone back to the house yet again, gotten all cleaned up and changed yet again, we took the boos for a walk down to the playground next to Gull Lake, and that was very lovely:

I should note that the boos were significantly easier to deal with this year (this was our fourth cousins trip with them), and yet still not what you would call EASY. Their energy was simply boundless: being at altitude, falling out of bed each night, falling into streams -- absolutely nothing slowed them down. At mealtimes they would eat a little and then spend the rest of the time rolling around on the living room couches like wolf puppies. LOUD wolf puppies.

The second full day of the trip, Monday, we went to the great county park next to Mono Lake and spent a few hours there with the cousins.

Next we drove to the Mono Lake Visitors Center and explored the museum there.

Baby A particularly liked playing on the stone wall in back of the Visitors Center, where you can look out at Mono Lake.

Then we killed some time in the town of Lee Vining (another park, a museum, an ice cream place), and finally it was time to drive to Saddlebag Lake, where some of the cousins were camping. Nonnie and Rick joined us here again, this time with their bulldogs:

We walked from the campground down to Saddlebag Lake close to sunset:

And came back up for the campfire with all the cousins.

That was fun. My mother and her three siblings had ten children among them, and of the nine who survive, five were present at this campfire. Maybe not a huge percentage, but I thought it was pretty good, especially because I never see any of these people anymore (except my sister). It was fun to look around the group and think, we are here because of John, Helen, Bob, and Laurel. I really loved my uncles and my aunt -- and of course my mother -- and I miss them all so much all the time. I couldn't help thinking, or maybe just hoping, that their spirits were with us that night.

The next day we packed up our stuff, cleaned up the house, and drove to Mammoth. And that's the next post -- soon, I promise.