Good old friend — a tree at Rancho San Antonio.

Hide-and-seek in a stump.

My climbing weekend worked wonderfully — I was again looking forward to another week of vacations with my cute offspring, and I did not just look, I actually enjoyed it. Our class with Hollie took place in the morning this time and neither one of the kids would object or harrass, and thus it became a fun morning at the horseys.

I also accomplished coordinating with Jana. Back it the times when she was Michael's and James' nanny, we (and the kids) used to sweep through neighboring playgrounds, and Jana often became my emergency brake on my train to insanity — while the kids played together nicely, we could even exchange a few sentences — i.e. between two adults, who don't have to momentarily wipe soiled bottoms, search for lost buckets, and prepare snacks. Alas, since Jana had her little Emma, we rarely see each other. To me, Emma has been a fairy-tale being who sleeps in the morning until our kids have long gone to school, and in the afternoon she would nap for two or three hours just around the time our kids return from the school again. Now, during vacations, I can be (with my kids) by ten o'clock at Rancho San Antonio.

It must have been quite some time since we last came to this park with a farm — kids were indifferent to my saying that we would go to Rancho, asking what is there to do? Once on the spot, they immediately recalled their fond memories with unexpected severity. Lisa HAD TO crawl inside a hollow tree and peek at us through a hole; Tom HAD TO throw his frisbee on the turf where he used to clumsily chase a ball with the boys. They were similarly intense at the animal farm — I have not expected so much enthusiasm over every chicken or rabbit.

Holiday traffic jam.

An obligatory snow ball fight in Sonora Pass.

Having had a picnic, I simply let Jana leave with her Emma falling asleep, and I stayed with our kids at the creek. They building a dam from twigs and rock lasted them a half hour, and I did not need to buy food and cook dinner, we would be staying there still. Nevertheless on our way back we had to stop at the turf and practice some frisbee throwing, and thus a simple visit to a park extended to four hours. I was again glad that our kids are able to play in a simple natural setting, confirming that they don't need any Disneylands, while there's a good supply of twigs, a creek, woods, and similar institutions. Thanks to a long and cold winter we have not been out on a proper trip, and thus we were crossing our fingers, hoping that the weather would not go bad for Independence Day (and associated extended weekend), and that nobody would get sick.

We had also hoped that Saturday morning roads would be quiet, as most people would have left on Thursday or Friday. All went well until 50's Roadhouse near Knights Ferry. This time, nobody fell into their decorative carp pond. As soon as we joined highway 120, situation got complicated. Soon both lanes in our direction stood still, filled with trailers and RVs. Sid was coercing our GPS to give us alternative routes, but before we managed to crawl to the nearest suitable turn-off, the jam got moving again. The commotion had been apparently caused by a fender-bender near the spot where the two lanes merge into one.

Having reached Sonora Pass, we released our offspring on the snow for a while. At almost ten thousand feet of elevation, it barely began to melt, and the landscape looked brown-white — I don't know if you can call it break of spring, if there's not even grass growing yet. A deep snow-bank blocked a turn-off to the regular day-use parking lot, and the whole MEN section of the toilets was still hopelessly buried under a wet, white pile. Leavitt Meadows looked deserted from a top-side viewpoint — empty corrals, no horses or mules that we were so used to see from afar. It looked better once we arrived — the gate was open, a couple of saddled horses waited at the barn, and a few cowboys dawdling in front of the office.

Our campsite.

Sierra Nevada from our hill.

We asked whether they'd take us all out riding in the few following days; Mike agreed but said that the reservations book was with Craig. They offered us to ride right there and then, but we still had to find our campsite and get to Jeff's in time for dinner, so we made an appointment for the next day — we would show up in the morning and see.

Apprehensively, we ventured out on Bircham Flat Road, a dirt strip leading to our favorite campsite. Given the volumes of snow and water we were a bit worried about the fords, but even this year they were passable. That is, we got almost stuck in mud at the entrance to the camping loop, and we had to subsequently choose a (much drier) forest rallye access road, but we made it (only our bus turned filthy like a pig from one side). We erected our tent and soon rushed back to Mountain View BBQ in Walker.

Jeff agreed that it had been a horrible winter, and that he did not have any business, as all the passes were long closed and people had no way to cross Sierra Nevada. Lisa discovered a hammock behind the restaurant and would leave it only to round up another victim to swing her. We ordered dinner and speculated whether Nejedly's might arrive; they had taken the Yosemite route from the Vally, to show their visitors (Blanka's mother and brother) some waterfalls. We would probably be very unsuccessful prophets — despite our convictions that they could not possibly make it in time, Nejedly's showed up by seven o'clock at Jeff's. Kids yelped out and disappeared behind the restaurant; adults collectively ordered beers, and we altogether caused much confusion.

A real rodeo.

Fashion model on a horse.

Unfortunately it would seem that the average IQ of children drops when they form a pack. As some moment the offspring seized Jeff's lumberjack axe, thus almost causing him a heart attack upon discovery, and for us the danger of being evicted from the restaurant. Simply a big embarrassment; we must hope that Jeff will eventually forgive us this adrenalin-drenched experience. They did not do anything wrong with the axe, though; still I understand that seeing a group of small children run around with your axe is a blood pressure riser. And since juniors proceeded in being generally obnoxious, while the hour advanced past their regular bed-time, we decreed evacuation — Nejedlys to a motel, us to the woods.

Morning at our campsite demanded a wooly hat, but coffee and cocoa warmed us up, respectively. When we drove out to the west, it was already quite warm. A problem awaited us on the first hill: our way was being blocked by a herd of calves, run downhill by three cowboys. The cows behaved in their mindless ways — dispersing into sage-brush bushes, and the cowboys and their horses were very busy. We estimated that slowly creeping behind this traveling rodeo all the five remaining miles to the highway, would make us reach the pack station some times after noon. Fortunately, in time the cowboys succeeded in pushing the cattle to one side of the road and we could crawl by. I noticed that one of the cowboys was a woman, and I was certain that I had seen her some previous year participating in the rodeo show in Bridgeport. Not that it would surprise me; there just aren't that many people living this side of the Sierra Nevada — and one keeps meeting the same faces.

Today, pack station's owner Craig was present, and he said that he would only have three horses for us, as some other people had reserved a ride for nine o'clock and another gig was booked at eleven. He offered us to take turns, but Sid declared that he did not feel so much just encircling the meadow, and the three of us, the kids and I, rode out with Craig and a young cowboy named Sage. Tom was riding on Barney, Farnsworth's sister, which I had been given two years ago. Lisa was issued Hank, about whom Mike mentioned the day before that it was a great horse for children; I got my favorite Willy.

Na koních.

Little brooks turned into mighty creeks this year.

Craig on Tayler led Hank on a line, then Tom rode on Barney, and me with Willy and Sage closed the expedition. The horses trod nicely and eagerly, I sense that they follow every Craig's move and never dare any mischief as long as he's personally present. I froze before the first ford. A small creek that normally bubbles into Walker River, looked rather wild now. Horses were being pushed along the stream and a dog (labrador) that run along with us, reached the opposite side several yards downstream. A beautiful meadow in full bloom, framed by snow-capped mountains, looked very romantic, and our mere loitering there did not seem boring at all.

Eventually we reached a loop of Walker River where horses normally cross, but we had to turn back. Craig said that he would not let even his cowboys into this water; they're usually young ones who don't know how to overcome water this high, and he would not want to make someone drown. Naturally he could not let tourists near it. So we let the horseys graze a little and turned them back. Craig was making sure I was OK with letting Lisa ride on her own — Lisa was ecstatic.

In one of the fords her Hank stumbled, and the fractin of a second, before he found balance and carried Lisa safely to the other bank, seemed pretty long to me. An image flashed through my head, of Lisa falling off of the horse (alternatively with the horse) into the raging waters in their rocky creek bed. Further, another flash revealed the image of kids' safety helmets, which in this moment did not rest atop my kids' heads, but in the trunk of our car. I may qualify for Mother of the Year, for I had warned them several times before departure that they won't be able to ride horses without their helmets on, and Sid and I had checked sevaral times that we were taking the helmets along — still, in the joy and the chaos of getting our children to ride real horses, we ALL had forgotten them. Still — Lisa worked it out, holding up in the saddle somehow, and Hank eventually reached the other creek bank, and all was well.

Leavitt Meadow in full bloom.

Tom on a real horse.

And I was grateful for the lessons with Hollie, who pushes kids to learn riding without holding their hands onto something, so they have some idea how to keep their balance with only legs on a horse that jolts and sways about. And since they could actually hold on to the horn of the western saddles that the pack station uses, they were luxuriously comfortable. Besides Lisa handling well the stumbling horse, Tom was quite alright when Barney switched into trot. And I also had the impression that Hollie had succeded in impressing him to sit with a straight-up back, and Tom assumed the right posture (there one thing that it looks much better than a collapsed-corpse posture — but with bent back you have harder time keeping balance with just your legs).

The ride took less than an hour, but kids' joy was limitless. Tom asked to ride somewhere farther, but this we could not promise him. After dismounting, we chatted with Craig a bit about general circumstances. Just like with Jeff, he, too, felt that the long winter brought a lot of problems. All his ride trails into the wilderness lead across the wild Walker River, and it being impassable considerably limits his options. One can take the highway to a camp and use a bridge there, and then we could take a two-hour ride to Secret Lake or four-hour one, to the waterfalls. My asking about their base at Walker Meadows cause an outburst of laughter. They said it still had about four feet of snow. And since it had snowed a lot (200% average, 17 inches accumulated thoughout the winter, which is 17 meters!), and it was cold for a long time, with alternating snow, frost and rain, and snow created small glaciers — very compressed layers, often turned into solid ice, which melts only very slowly.

Hank from Lisa's perspective.

We could easily leave Lisa at the pack station, and she would not notice.

It had been early spring in the mountain valleys, and the Eastern Sierra had a shortage of hay — and that was the reason for Craig's empty corrals. He could not feed his usual herd of horses and mules, and thus they had been running around their pastures at lower altitudes, while his mountain outlet sports only a skeleton crew.

While the topic turned here and there, from weather (it's not a formal affair here; weather in the mountain is a serious concern, especially this year) through politics, kids' upbringing and so forth. Tom loafed around and Lisa went to hang around horses. She carefully took a picture of every animal that went out with us, and then she petted them and talked to them. I think that the rest of the world disappeared for her and if we just up and left, she would only notice once somebody distracted her from her horses. Eventually we had to drag her away — we were looking forward to a lunch in Bridgeport. Lisa would gladly skip her meal, but once promised a rodeo, she agreed to leave the corrals.