Vacation -- Mammoth

OK, here's Part 2 of our late summer vacation, with lots of photos. Yes, by the way, I do have a new camera. I don't like it much, but maybe I will learn to like it. Rocket Boy also brought his old camera which still takes very nice pics -- some of these are his.

Anyway, as I was saying, on Tuesday, August 21st we packed up all our stuff and moved down Highway 395 about 20 miles or so to the Westin Monache Resort in Mammoth Lakes -- the hotel being courtesy of my little sis, who gives me a couple of nights in it each year for my birthday. Outstanding choice of gift!

 This year we had a 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom suite with kitchen, so luxurious. Of course we messed it all up immediately, but it was still great.

In the photo you can see the master bedroom door to the left, the second bedroom door to the right, the living room in the middle, the dining table, and a bit of the kitchen. The suite was bigger than some apartments I've lived in.

We put the twins in the master bedroom because it had a king-size bed. I tucked pillows under the bedding on both sides of the bed, to keep them from falling out, plus some long skinny pillows down the middle to divide their space (it was the kind of hotel that had thousands of pillows available -- after the first night, when the maid saw what I'd done, she brought us MORE pillows). We also put a long ottoman thing by Baby A's side of the bed, and another pillow on top of that, so that if he DID fall out, it would be a soft landing. But he didn't fall out, thank goodness. We had two very good nights of sleep.

The best thing about the hotel is the pool and hot tubs. Here's the view from our room (we were on the 5th floor).

It was fun to look down at the people in the pool. Here are the boos looking down (I found them here the second morning):

Of course, it was also fun to take the elevator down to the second floor and SWIM in the pool, and we did that multiple times each day. The first day, after we got checked in and somewhat settled, we went down to the pool with Aunt Nonnie and had lunch delivered to us as we lounged around on deck chairs. So decadent. Nonnie ordered a drink, but got out of the pool to imbibe it, at which the attendant said, "Oh, you're no fun."

Later that afternoon, we decided to go see some sights, so we drove to the Mammoth Mountain Adventure Center where we purchased tickets for the mandatory shuttle bus that would take us to the Devil's Postpile National Monument, and also muzzles for Nonnie and Rick's bulldogs, because dogs are only allowed to ride the shuttle bus if they're wearing muzzles. Unfortunately, there were no muzzles for sale that actually fit over the bulldogs' enormous faces, but they wore their Size 5 XL muzzles around their necks and it turned out that was enough -- the shuttle drivers understood the problem and also understood that bulldogs don't bite people.

The shuttle ride was pleasant, and we got off at the Devil's Postpile stop and walked down the trail a little ways until we came to the actual formation.

The picture doesn't do it justice. The formation is simply amazing, but it's hard to get the scale right in a photo. According to the website, it is "a rare sight in the geologic world and ranks as one of the world's finest examples of columnar basalt. Its columns tower 60 feet high and display an unusual symmetry."

 

The bulldogs are not big hikers, but they did quite well. Better than me, really. I was so tired from three disturbed nights, not to mention cleaning the June Lake house, that I could hardly walk. Even the twins were a bit subdued.

The shuttle was very full on the ride back to Mammoth, and Baby B and I ended up sitting in the back with a whole lot of German speakers. I whispered to Baby B that the "big boys" sitting right next to us were speaking German, and he nodded, and then he said, "Mommy, do big girls speak German too?" Behind us were some "big girls" speaking German, and I realized that he was actually aware of that, which impressed me. Rocket Boy has worked SO hard to try to teach the boys a little German.

Our second day in Mammoth, we split up after breakfast. Rocket Boy, Uncle Rick, and the twins went off to see some sights together, and Nancy and I took the bulldogs for a very low-key hike.

We all met up again at lunchtime and went to a kid-friendly eatery called The Base Camp Cafe. This would have been great except that Baby B suddenly felt sick and threw up in the parking lot. What do you do in that situation? Everyone else is already in the restaurant, ordering. I suppose I should have pulled Rocket Boy and Baby A out and insisted we go back to the hotel (couldn't have just taken Baby B because then Baby A would have been stranded without his carseat), but instead I took Baby B into the restaurant and ordered him a quesadilla. I knew he wouldn't eat it -- it was just so he wouldn't feel left out. But probably not my finest hour as a mom. We also ordered him a Sprite mixed with lemonade, which he took one sip of. All of us sat around eating our lunches, wondering who would come down with stomach flu next.

But no one else did, and Baby B recovered quickly -- by mid-afternoon, he was eating again. We all agreed to have a quiet afternoon, so the boos spent it watching "Toy Story," which Aunt Nonnie had given them, on the DVD player in their bedroom, I spent it reading, and Rocket Boy spent it driving around looking at nearby hot springs (each to his own). Here's one of his photos from his jaunt:

For dinner we had decided to go back to the restaurant at Convict Lake (we ate lunch there 2 years ago).

It's a very nice restaurant. For lunch you can eat outside, which we did, with your dogs under the table if you like, and it's all very casual. But for dinner you eat inside (the bulldogs stayed in the car) and it's a bit fancier. That is, there were plenty of people wearing shorts and hiking boots, but the prices of the entrees were pretty high. That immediately makes me nervous -- people are paying all this money to have a nice dinner, and here are our children, ruining it. But Rocket Boy and I tried to keep things from getting out of hand. We took turns taking the boos on little walks when they got rowdy. Also, I took them to the bathroom about eleven times. Finally it was time for dessert, and Rick suggested that we have Bananas Foster. The waitress told the boos to sit on their bottoms (so that they wouldn't catch on fire) and they actually obeyed her.

And here are the flames!

Wow, it was exciting! Boos couldn't stop talking about it. Great fun.

The next morning we went for one last swim after breakfast, but then it was time to pack up and go home. We took our time, didn't check out until nearly noon, and then spent 5 hours making our way down 175 miles of 395 -- lots of stops. When we finally reached Ridgecrest it was so hot, we couldn't believe it. Mammoth and June Lake had been so deliciously cool. But actually, the last few days here haven't been so bad. And we have our memories of one more lovely vacation in the Eastern Sierra.