Guidebooks

We're leaving for a big vacation in a few days, and so Tony and I have been reading a lot of guidebooks:



Apparently, Ben thought he could do just as well:

End of the Road

This is how the backseat looked after we'd extracted the two sleeping boys from their boosters.

And here are some road trip notes:

$4/gallon gas does help keep holiday drivers off the road, so we managed 300 miles today in 5 hours (including a stop for morale-boosting ice cream).

The ice cream sandwiches in King City, California, are so big even Eli can't finish one (believe me, he tried).

Speaking of ice cream, drumsticks are "a great example of fossil layers," says Ben.

We passed truckloads of garlic and broccoli, fields of romaine and artichokes, oil rigs (both off-shore and on land) and wind farms.

Visiting family is terrific (especially when there are young cousins to play with and a new book --no, for a change I don't mean mine! -- to talk about), but it's always good to be home.

Train Heaven

Amtrak + California State Railroad Museum = two happy boys.

Ben: "I almost forgot that after the train ride, there's still the whole train museum!"

Eli: "I love this train. I want to stay on this train forever."

Spring Break: Plan C

Plan A: 5-day road trip to visit cousins in Santa Barbara and Long Beach. The kids play, the adults talk books and art, we all curtsy to the Queen Mary and enjoy the warm weather. Canceled due to illness.

Plan B: Ride Amtrak for a day trip to the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. The kids play, the adults enjoy the scenic train ride, we all enjoy the warm weather. But, we get to the train station bright and early, our bags packed with camera, picnic and coloring books, only to discover that the trains aren't running due to an accident on the line.

Plan C: It's 9 AM Monday morning, a day when most of the Bay Area kids' museums are closed (why, why all on the same day?), all our Berkeley friends had spring break last week so they're in school, and it's a little too early and too chilly to go to a playground.

But we're near Berkeley, and I spent long enough there to know a couple things to do. So, we visit the T-Rex in the Berkeley Paleontology Museum; we go to the Campanile, hoping to ride to the top (but it's closed on Mondays, natch) and then we go to the Lawrence Hall of Science, where there's an exhibit involving build-your-own Lego race cars (did they know we were coming?)

After a picnic lunch, we call an old friend from the city who's moved to Berkeley. School's out for the day and the family is free! The big kids make scenery and rehearse scenes from The Magic Flute (somehow, both of their kindergarten classes have recently learned the story) and the littler kids play trains. The moms catch up and drink tea. After a couple hours, we're treated to a short and well-rehearsed performance of excerpts from The Magic Flute. We head out for Chinese food, follow it up with some gelato, and finally head home after the evening rush hour's over.

Thank goodness for Plan C.

Re-entry

When astronauts come back to earth, they spend a period of time in limbo, back on earth but not yet quite home. They get their muscles back in earth shape, and the doctors make sure they're ok. I like to think it's a little bit relaxing for them, this in-between time, but realistically, it's probably about as relaxing as being a hospital patient. After that time in their space capsule, working through a busy schedule of experiments and projects, they're probably longing for some real downtime, hanging out with their families and friends, eating real food and watching tv. I imagine the re-entry limbo must drive their families a little bit crazy, to have their mom or dad or husband or wife back, but still out of reach.

Re-entry has been a mushy kind of limbo for me this week, which is why it's taken me so many days to write about our visit. I don't have much to add to Elrena and Libby's posts about it; they cover most of the highlights (the food! the Mama, PhD conversations! and more food!) Of course neither of them could write with detail about Eli's ER visit, but neither can I -- all three of us missed it, busy with the Mama, PhD round table. But Mariah knew how to get Tony and the boys to the ER, and when I got home, Eli came jumping down the hall to show me his hospital bracelet. "Stitches on my head!?" he exclaimed, "That's crazy!" You said it, buddy.

We went to the Air & Space Museum the last day of our trip and wandered around marveling at the planes and space capsules hung from the ceiling. We looked closely at the Spirit of St Louis, which is fabric-covered, and carried Lindbergh across the ocean even though it has no front window. Eli climbed into the cockpit of a Cessna, which was roomy for him, and we all squeezed into SkyLab. I cannot imagine climbing into one of these vehicles if it weren't safely bolted to the museum floor, but Ben and Eli are at that explorer age, and the prospect of zooming suddenly off into space, like the boy in their beloved Planetron book, or Jimmy Zangwow, delights them. I like that in both stories, the boys are home in time for dinner.

Now we are home, and the boys have each built and rebuilt their new Air & Space Museum lego sets many times (space shuttle for Ben, airbus for Eli). We continue to read Planetron every night before bed, and have just started another boy-in-space book: Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Ben has suggested a Virginia field trip to his kindergarten teacher ("It's a pretty long trip," he conceded); meanwhile, Eli has announced that he is a dog, and so sleeps with a ball (as well as with his patch blanket, his bear, his two doggies and his bunny). Life is returning to its normal orbit, quirky though it may be.

Travel Day

Easy travels don't make good stories, but I think I will take a painless plane trip over good material any day. The trip did net one good picture: this is Eli asleep in the car on the drive from Dulles to Libby's house. (Before anyone calls Child Protective Services on me, the blanket--his beloved patch blanket--was looser than it looks and I could hear him breathing.)

We made it from San Francisco to Virginia in under 12 hours door-to-door, which is one measure of a good trip. We made it without running out of snacks or needing any changes of clothes, which is another measure of success. I won't write any more because we have to do this in reverse on Wednesday and I don't want to jinx myself.

So now we are here, and the boys have eaten 3 bowls a piece of their beloved honey O's, a cereal they only get at their aunt's house, Eli has made friends with Anna the cat, and Ben has smashed his previous speed record on the go-cart. We've dyed some Easter eggs, I made a chocolate cake, and my niece heard today that she got into college! Life is good.

Happy Easter!

20 Questions

No, it's not a meme, it's how we got through 5 1/2 hours on the way to Yosemite. It's more like 75 questions, but still, it amused me.

Is it alive? (yes)
Is it green? (no)
Is it a plant? (no)
Is it yellow? (no)
Is it an animal? (no)
Is it a person? (yes!)
Is it an insect? (no)

I had to stop writing this Q&A down to deal with Eli and now I forget what the eventual answer was. But the pause gave us a chance to chat about general questions and specific questions, categories and the like, and then we tried again with a new answer.

Is it made of vinyl? (no)
Is it made of glass? (no)
Is it made of plastic? (no)
Is it made of metal? (no)
Is it made of elastic? (no)
Is it made of wood? (no)
Is it made of rubber? (no)

A pause here to suggest that Ben could ask a basic dead or alive question. He considers, then resumes:

Is it made of paper? (yes!)

And so having proven his method is effective, he moves on:

Is it an origami bird? (no)
Is it an origami frog? (no)
Is it an origami balloon? (no)
Is it an origami airplane? (no)
Is it a songbook? (we're stunned by the rapid shift in questioning, and sadly answer no)
Does it have to do with music? (no)
Is it a book? (no)

I give him a clue: it has to do with a recent holiday. We review what he knows: it is made of paper. He continues:

Does it have to do with Chinese New Year? (no)
Does it have to do with President's Day? (still in the future we remind him, and no)
Does it have to do with Valentine's Day? (yes! we see the light at the end of the tunnel! and then...)
Is it a candy wrapper? (no; and when did Valentine's Day start to rival Halloween in the kid candy haul department?)
Is it a Valentine?

Ding! ding! ding! hurray! and now a break while we bang our heads against the steering wheel, take a deep breath, and begin again.

Is it a ... ?

Into the snow...

We've got one duffel bag packed with four pairs of (borrowed) snow pants, four sets of long johns, four pairs of boots, four warm hats, and four pairs of mittens. The suitcase is still yawning open, with pjs and underwear, pants and shirts spilling out, the book lights, my journal, and an optimistic pile of books stacked on and around it. My "don't forget" list of things I'll gather after we've finished with them this morning, is on the floor: the boys' bed buddies, toothbrushes.

We are heading into the snow!

And although I will bring my laptop, I am kind of hoping that we don't have internet access and I can get some writing done.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

The View From My Shower This Morning

We spent the weekend with old friends up in Stinson Beach, an October tradition for the past three years, so that we can take the kids to the Bolinas pumpkin patch. I was distracted all weekend by various kinds of work, but it didn't stop me from indulging in one of my favorite beach activities: the outdoor shower. Our friends' house has a very simple one, just a shower head behind a wooden half-wall, but with a view like this--see where the sky meets the sea?--you sure don't need more.

Vacation Index

6,000 miles flown
540 miles driven
236 pictures snapped
187 (approximately) fresh blackberries eaten
23 family members gathered
13 family members (mostly teachers) missed (next time we won't do this over Labor Day weekend)
7 days gone
3 boats paddled, sailed, and rowed (a lot)
1.5 gallons of apple cider pressed
1 happy, sleepy family, glad to be home.