Our biking trip connected one playground to another.

We could not skip lunch.

Right after Labor Day, we said good-bye to granny. After school on Tuesday I loaded the kids, granny, and her luggage to our bus and we headed to the airport. An extra bag was a complication (for they let you check it in one spot, but you have wait in another line to pay for it), they we went through our obligatory ride on the airport shuttle and got caught in a traffic jam on our way back home. This made us late more than usually. Now Tom remembers sometimes that he misses granny, but overall I would say that our children don't have much time to muse sentimental. They spend majority of the day in school, they eat the afternoon snack, they rest a bit, run outside, finish homework, and it's time for dinner and bed. Let's hope they'll last without granny till the spring.

We don't manage to do much else on weekdays, and so we try to organize interesting program for the weekends. Our friends in Redwood Shores get their cold weather from the open San Francisco Bay, but their house is surrounded by a system of bicycle trails, which we always wanted to explore. On one Saturday we loaded our bikes and headed north. The Ryzls were baby-sitting Breh's children (the parents went on a real, adult hike in Yosemite), but their own Andrejka fell ill again, and thus the children pack consisted of Anička, Andrejka Břehovská, Martin Břehovský, Tom and Lisa. Adults split into biking section (Hippo, Maruška and myself) and roller-skating section (Martin and Rasťa).

We pedaled up the only hill in the vicinity.

There were interesting art installations on the hill.

The first part of our ride led to a Thai restaurant and took us less than an hour — with a stop by a fountain, a playground and collecting little Martin who fell in the vegetation (having collided with the big Martin). I was worried a bit how such a pack of juniors would behave in a restaurant (Míša and her recovering Andrejka joined us after all), but all we had to do was order food — as soon as their mouths are filled with it, silence rules — and the little ones loaded up mightily; they were sure to need the energy. Hippo and I had a beer and everybody got an ice cream for dessert.

The kids got very fast after lunch and a sugar spike, so we merrily rattled on northward. A water-themed playground in Foster City became our highpoint — a part of the expedition managed to get totally wet. Not so our children; perhaps Redwood Shores residents are less cold-adverse after all, for our picky junior complained that the water was too cold. All junior bikers refused to continue along the trail, and so we left them there with Hippo and Martin, and I finished the last mile to Coyote Point with Maruška and Rasťa.

On our way back we collected the rest of the expedition and proceeded in the opposite direction. Although the whole trip amounted to more than twenty miles, none of the children were being obnoxious — the youngest Martin pedaled silently on and on, and so Lisa did not dare to protest. The pack makes the difference. I was quite happy that I managed to get a new saddle before such a trip. I really don't like to ride the old Hippo's bike, and I kept wondering whether it was too small or too big for me, or whatever may be wrong with it — and after a few miles I usually suffered like an animal — now behold, a new saddle fixed everything.

Telescopes.

Water-themed playground was the best.

Back at Ryzl's we pushed our way into their pool, which is heated and sports a very civilized temperature; even our Hippo climbed in. Then we sped off to a dinner — we wanted to go to a Czech restaurant in Redwood City, but it was closed — we did not want to take any chances in unknown territories and so we headed right for our proven Vietnamese place and ordered noodle soup. The biking trip and swimming must have exhausted our children — they slept in the following morning till seven thirty, which is very unusual with them.

On the following Monday, Hippo invited his colleague Bill for dinner. I was looking a lot forward to this as Bill is funny — and I had another chance to chat with someone who's mature and self-sufficient, whom I don't need to help with homework, and brings no teacher notes. I was preparing the dinner when Lisa came to me saying she did something horrible. I could not see any blood spurting out of her, and I began to quiet her down. Not for long, for soon the young lady admitted to have stuck the tip of pencil in her ear. The logic of her deed escapes me till today; I thought that kids do this at age three, not at six. I tried to shine in her ear with my head-lamp, hoping to perhaps take the tip out with my mini-pincer, but I could not see anything. Lisa claimed the part was hard, and I did not want to poke in her ear much — I had to make an appointment at Urgent Care.

Bill came, I served dinner, we exchanged a couple of sentences — and I sped off to a doctor in Palo Alto with Lisa. In the waiting room we joined children losing consciousness to fevers, some having acute allergic reactions, and one apparently broken ankle. A completely merry, healthy Lisa caused inquiring and indignant looks. I must say I even felt a bit guilty for her — to do such a stupid thing at her age! The doctor looked in her ear, said that the pencil tip was there, but even she could not remove the graphite fragment. Eventually she sent a nurse with a bottle of water and she, after a big fight, flushed the tip out. Lisa cried like crazy, but I still felt the urge to slap her than commiserate. We got back home around nine thirty — Bill had left and I was completely exhausted from my adrenaline laden evening.

We eyeballed our trajectory.

Third pitch was about friction and balance.

On Friday I invited children's friends — Lisa's friend Alex and Tom's classmate Nicholas. Lisa lost Erikas with the annual classroom mix-up, first grade sweetheart — they loved each other so much they did not pay attention and disrupted in class. Thanks to focusing mostly on Erikas, she never made any other friends — and now she feels somewhat lonely. I try to invite somebody over at times and nudge her a bit. It's mostly OK at this age, I don't have to supervise the kids much, the usually manage to organize everything and play reasonably. But when the boys had left, Tom lied down on the couch and said his throat was aching. I attributed it to his running and shouting, and dismissed it. He had elevated temperatures on Saturday and lost his voice. It still did not look like strep-throat, so I let it run its course in Hippo's care. In the evening I picked up Pavel, with whom I had planned Sunday climbing.

Pavel selected the Calaveras Domes area, where neither of us has been before. It's a short way before Kirkwood, we know the way, and we took turns driving. I began to look for the turn-off past Ham's Station; it sported a huge sign about the road being closed, for high water took it away. We thought it best to just drive around the sign and continue on at eleven p.m., and reach the impassable spot, then find a place to park and sleep. We would deal with the situation in the morning. We found a few concrete barriers along the road a few miles down, but they were pushed to the side so that a car could pass; we did so, too — we passed a dry creek bed that momentarily runs through the road. Judging by the pushed-aside blocks and established run through the creek, we were by far not first ones who managed to cross the few yards without pavement (by the way, this road is so bad that the dirt part seemed better than the pot-holed rest).

We drove by three campgrounds (only two visible in the darkness), but they looked rather full, and we eventually stopped on a clearing by the road further on. We got up to the alarm clock at six thirty in the morning — we planned a twelve-pitch Wall of Worlds, and did not want to get stuck somewhere in the dark like last year on El Cap. Searching for the trail-head to Calaveras Dome ensued, failed. Eventually we just stopped at a place that seemed convenient, and headed straight for the rocky mass looming over us. Ankle-deep in last year's leafs, jumping over branches and fallen trees, it took us certainly more than the twenty minutes promised by the guide-book.

Fourth pitch consisted of a smooth corner and a finger crack.

It looked impressive and impossible to climb.

Then we looked back and forth between the rock and the description of the routes on the north side of the dome, and realization crept in that we were possibly a bit off. Before us was some comfortable corner, and we decided that instead wasting more time looking for the Wall of the Worlds, we would climb what's being offered. There were bolts in the wall for some difficult routes, several bolted anchors could be seen near the corner, and thus escape routes, should the need arise, seemed aplenty.

Pavel chose the corner for the first two pitches. Very nice, easy climbing on a solid, clean rock, a pure fun. I did not like the second anchor much (belaying through just a couple of cams makes me nervous), but at least one could stand there comfortably. Pavel aimed left under a thin flake into a parallel corner. I must say that Pavel is probably quite brave, for I had a hard time top-roping those few steps under the flake and through a smooth wall (you could grab a dyke with your fingers there); leading this would probably require some underwear change.

Yet one look at the smooth corner with the narrow finger crack, and I was ready to need to change mine as well. If I could vote, I would certainly elect a dishonorable, un-athletic, retreat from our advance positions. Pavel declared that now that we got here, he would at least try. A good half-hour ensued, filled with huffing and unpublishable exclamations, and one small fall. Meanwhile Pavel managed to slide around an edge and hence removed himself from communicable range — thus I had to push myself into it as well.

It surprised me by not being so horrible — I ignored the crack and held on to a flake. It seemed quite solid, except for fishing my gear from around the corner. Well, at least I had a reason to lean into my harness and rest a bit — but even so I did not succeed in extracting one stopper. When I made it to Pavel, I discovered that he was half-hanging in a small cavity, above which extended a good seventy feet of smooth corner with the finger crack. When I overcame even this section, I understood his victorious roar in the end — an altogether luxurious ledge awaited us, where I could take off my shoes for a moment, eat a snack, and so on.

Eventually even I finished scrambling up there somehow.

Although our pictures look like the old movie trick where the stuntman crawls on a horizontal rock, pretending to climb.

The second pitch looked easy — through this corner under the overhang and then through the ceiling to the left and out. But Pavel shod pieces of moss and lichen like an eager mole, and then he started to ask whether I thought perhaps it could have been easier on the left? Later, in the car, while looking in the guide book, we noticed that we were supposed to climb on the left rib. We did not know it then, Pavel dug through and up, and I had to follow. I could not extract a nut, and by the way I did not like the mossy, crumbly rock at all.

Another piece ensued, not as messed up as the one before, but still I was worried how little frequented it looked, and about the possibility that we got lost. Pavel found an anchor on the left and we were eyeballing the inscrutable wall above us. Until this spot it seemed rather clear which way to climb (even though we missed a bit), but further on it looked chaotic. I mentioned shyly that this was our clear option to get down and who knows what's up there. And that I had the impression that the route may have ended on the wide ledge, since it's not very climbed above it, nor are there any recognizable routes, much less bolts, anchors, and options to rappel. There's certainly SOMETHING there, for many long routes end on the top — but now it's just about finding the right rap line. Pavel surprised me by not fighting back, and instead agreeing to go down along the anchors that we had checked on our way up. After all, we (well, at least I) had a feeling of having had a great climb, and having had enough.

We zipped down in a good mood; Pavel did not managed to spoil it even by easily taking out the obnoxious nut and stopper that I wasted long minutes with to no avail. As soon as we had the ropes down, a few drops of rain fell. We felt smug about the perfect timing of our descent, but in the end it did not rain at all and those few drops were all there was. Walking back then we found the path that led us to the paved road and consequently to the part of the Dome where we had originally planned to climb. Well, next time.

Only on our way home we discovered the correct side of Calaveras Dome.

Bathroom is included!

We washed ourselves in the creek and sped toward home, taking turns in driving and studying the guide book — and there I found a beautiful topo of Silk Road, whose middle part matched exactly those three "difficult" pitches. Yet in the book they were classified as 5.10b, which had upset Pavel; we felt it was much harder. Still it seems to me that we shall have to accept that it's a rather steep scale on Calaveras, and we're soft. Personally I think that all those classification can get lost — I was impressed by the beautiful, compact rock, and positive levels of saturation by humanity (one waits in lines for routes in Yosemite, and here we were absolutely ON OUR OWN), and so I hope we would return.

When we reached our home, Hippo had invited Vendulka for a lamb and spinach dinner (I don't like lamb much); we got dinner as well (lamb for Pavel, beef leftovers from Friday for me), and it solved how Pavel would get home. I must say that I rather liked such an ending for our trip.

I liked Tom much less; he could barely speak and had a fever, and so I had to take him on Monday to the doctor. She declared that it indeed looked suspect, but test did not confirm a strep throat — and his sore throat and fevers receded in another day. Who knows what it was. On Wednesday he was flying around, and during a lunch break in the schoolyard he organized a new game that I could not comprehend for several seconds: two kids were holding and stretched jumping rope. The rest of the students backed into the taut line and then (among a horrendous roar) started abruptly forward. Then I got it — they were playing Angry Birds. Well, we used to play cowboys and Indians; my kids re-enact a digital game.