I've moved the near 13 year blog (yikes!) from the crumbling confines of a nearly unsupported Blogger to Wordpress. Easier to update with other devices, lots of shiny new options. New Location: dawsonkids.wordpress.com
The highlights of our spring break up at the cabin were two-fold: first, doing our first tour of Mercer Caverns, and having a small group of eight total go down with the guide. Given the 16-story drop on narrow stairs around shoulder-tight openings, we couldn't imagine doing it any other way. At the bottom of the cave was the snow white crystals are only found in four caves in the world. Our second highlight was having the kids take their first lessons (privately taught since there were no other kids) at Bear Valley, and having them pick it up so quickly, they were taking the lift up after the first hour. On the second day, the whole family joined in the fun and despite my nervousness around my knee, and Gina's lack of skiing lately, we all did pretty well. It probably helped that there were so few people to run into, and the snow was wet enough to keep us from going too quickly. Still, it makes us think we may want to get season passes next year, assuming the snowpack returns around the holidays.
I took a solo overnighter trip to Arnold to clean gutters and clear out the culvert after our big storms, and couldn't resist taking some photos along the way: puffy clouds; thick/wet snow up the highway just past Arnold; and then after a short jaunt down the Natural Bridge Trail, a cool cave dripping with water from the hillside above and a river running through it. Apparently you can walk (or paddle) up the river to the other end, but I'll wait until the kids are with me for that one.
The last time we had walked on the Golden Gate bridge was when Nate was only a couple of months old. We took advantage of their Friday teacher's meeting day and headed to SF at just the right time. The fog broke away from the bridge on our way over, and the tourists were at a minimum. After walking on top, we explored Fort Point below which was built not for WWII, but for the Civil War(!) We thought we'd beat the rush hour traffic by eating at Sam's Cafe on the water in Tiburon, and then grabbing ice cream in Marin, but we still had an almost 2-hour drive home.
After a dry February we saw El Niño roar into March with a few good storms, with an especially strong system that landed Saturday night. Before hand, I had converted one of our wine barrels into a rain catcher and it didn't take long for it to fill up to the overflow tube. Saturday was the exciting day: a tree fell down across the main road into town, and a strong cold-front dropped an amazing amount of water all at once. We lost a bunch of smaller limbs on our oaks, the front drains became plugged, and a lake started creeping towards our front door before we could unplug the drains. Gina's brother Dave was there to help with flashlights and a steady hand on the ladder. The kids were oblivious, of course, venturing outside long enough to look around the backyard and fully-running river. More rain is in the forecast for next week; I'm just glad we fixed the roof before El Niño raised its wet head.
El Nino? What El Nino? President's Day weekend was less than ideal for skiing (we assume), but perfect for playing tennis and hiking part of the Arnold Rim Trail. We wanted to take Nate and Julie to the top of Cougar Rock, a semi-steep 3 hour jaunt with great views, one very wide river to cross, and ladybugs galore on the trail back. In fact, we've never seen so many ladybugs, all clustered along the bushes for several hundred of feet. Apparently there's a limit to how many ladybugs should be crawling on you at one time.
