What I did on my summer vacations

I said I was going to write about this, so now seems like a good time (before I forget everything). We took two vacations in August this year, both to the same part of the state (the Eastern Sierra), within a few days of each other. Not our fault, not our poor planning. It just happened that both groups of people we were going with planned their trips for late August and we decided to make it work.

I'm not going to write very much in this blog post, just show photos. My memories of the two trips are primarily visual, so it's appropriate. Suffice it to say that they were both wonderful trips.

The Eastern Sierra is so beautiful. For our first vacation, we drove 200 miles north on Highway 395 to June Lake. There we stayed in a cabin at the Big Rock Resort, with some of my cousins and other assorted relatives and friends (they had their own cabins). We arrived on Saturday, and on Sunday morning we took a hike. The photo above shows June Lake as viewed from the hike. And here's June Lake closer up, at the pier which was 100 yards or so from our cabin.

In this photo, Baby A is wearing a life jacket, but we never did manage to get either twin on any sort of boat. Rocket Boy went out on his own, and he and I went out together. That's OK, maybe next year. Here are my three men on the porch of our little cabin.

And here we are eating dinner with the group. All dinners were eaten outside the main cabin at these picnic tables. The weather was perfect -- not too hot, not cold, not rainy.

On Monday we all visited Mono Lake and the nearby ghost town of Bodie. Boos were concerned about visiting a ghost town, even though we swore there would not be ghosts. Here's Mono Lake.

And here we are in one of the old buildings in Bodie.

That evening we went up to Saddlebag Lake, where some of my cousins were camping, and had a barbecue. This is the sunset over the lake.

On Tuesday we drove back to Ridgecrest, and for the next two days we pretended everything was normal. Rocket Boy went to work, the twins went to daycare, and I did load after load of laundry.

On Friday we drove back to the Eastern Sierra, 125 miles north on Highway 395 to the town of Big Pine. There we met my sister and her husband and caravanned up to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. We took a lovely hike there...

...and afterwards relaxed in the parking lot (that's my sister in the photo). The boys did very well on the hike.

From there we drove another 60 miles north to Mammoth. We stayed in a fancy hotel there (my birthday present from my sister) for the next two nights. The next day, Saturday, we visited Convict Lake.

There's a good restaurant near the lake, but it wasn't available that day because there was a big wedding reception scheduled. So we drove on to Rock Creek Lake and found a place there that provided us with lunch food to take out (there were picnic tables nearby) and fabulously delicious pie.

Finally, I have to admit that one of the best parts of this vacation was the hotel pool, which we swam in each day.

This is actually one of the two hot tubs, not the pool proper. The "pool complex" was worth the price of the room (OK, easy for me to say since I didn't have to pay for it, but seriously, it was a wonderful set of pools). I do love a good swimming pool.

And the next day, Sunday, we drove back to Ridgecrest. Not as sad as it sounds, because think about it, we are only 200 miles -- or less -- from all these fabulous places. We live just a short drive from heaven.