I still have several passes to state parks which will expire in April, so I decided to take the children to one of our local state parks, Big Basin. I found a hike just about the right length for us, and with an interesting highlight: namely the 3.5 mile hike to Sempervirens Falls and back.

The tall redwood trees are always spectacular. At the park headquarters, we saw a cross section of one of the big trees which sprouted around the time of the Pharoahs. The spacing of the rings gave you a perspective on the scope of history. For instance, right now CSA is just concluding a section on the French Revolution, which is much closer to the present day, than say, the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire.

Neil and Kelly got some gymnastic exercise scrambling on an exposed pipe and fallen trees.

We walked right through the Huckleberry camp ground (and had lunch there on the way back), which reminds me it would be fun to go camping again.

We made it to our destination easily. Neil was unimpressed by the falls. They’re not as spectacular as the ones in the middle of the park, true, but them Sempervirens Falls isn’t 12 miles away from a park entrance, either.

As it turned out, two other families with children near Kelly’s age joined us, and we headed out to see the lake and hike up the ridge to Wild Rye Trail together. The lake was probably the favorite part of the hike for most of the children. They could spot fish in the lake and climb the trees.

I thought they might run down the hill the way Neil and Kelly did the last time we were there, but that was taken more cautiously as the parents pointed out the birds in the area.

Kelly’s favorite part of the hike was the chance to fill out a visitors’ journal in the nature center at the park’s headquarters. She even drew a picture to show other visitors the trees and a bird she saw.

Afterwards, she insisted I help her find the journal I’d given her and took to filling that up with her opinions and observations.

So we ended up being the only people to go from our group, and even a friend of Neil’s cancelled at the last minute. However, if you’re lucky, you can always find some beach buddies, and near us were a bunch of boys who also had sturdy shovels and were willing to help Neil with his favorite beach project: excavation.

The seaweed was thick and heavy both on the beach and in the ocean, which made wading kind of treacherous. Imagine long stringy weeds wrapping themselves around your knees and ankles and trying to pull you in whenever the waves retreat. It didn’t stop Kelly, of course.

At one point, Neil was creating a moat to tease the ocean, and the ocean didn’t like it. It sent out a huge wave which swallowed Neil’s shovel just as he was jumping back to avoid getting wet. It looked like that shovel was lost for good: we couldn’t see it anywhere. Neil and I walked up and down the shore, hoping to see it washed ashore, or bobbing in the waves, but it was no where to be seen. So we ate our lunch and I wondered how I’d be able to replace that shovel, which was a very nice one which one of the homeschoolers had given me just because her child had been touching our plastic dollar store shovel when it disintegrated.

I mentally apologized to the ocean, and the next thing I knew, I saw the shovel, washing up almost at my feet. I grabbed it, to the cheers of my children and the group they’d been playing with. Then we decided not to push our luck any further, and we went home, with a stop for beach ice cream (a Peter-founded tradition) on the way home.

At first, I thought about making it a “school” hike, but as soon as I announced it to my hiking buddies with young children, I rethought it. The lake itself is only a mile and half from the entrance, but the loop to go there and back is 4.5 miles, with some steep portions. Kelly’s a trooper, but she still needs to sit and rest on longer hikes, and this one (especially if we had the other parents’ chipper-but-also-limited-by-size) 3 year olds along, it could take all day, instead of just a morning. So instead, I did it myself.

Henry Coe is a huge park and if you get on the western side of it and look out, it’s all undeveloped land, from the state park over to a privately owned undeveloped site and into the county-owned Grant Park. In essence, you’re seeing local California how it would look if no one lived here.

The flowers and wildlife were remarkable. I saw butterflies, a wild turkey, and lots of native plants, and the trail (even on a Saturday) was surprisingly lightly travelled (even though the park’s parking lot was nearly full.) I ran across what looked like a group of college students, a backpacking couple, and a small family; otherwise, I think most of the visitors had already started on a weekend-long backpacking trip out to the park’s furthest edges.

Frog Lake was a surprise. It had no fishermen, even though I saw a small fish. The lake itself was tiny, but lake standards: if it was an acre, I’d be surprised. And yes, these are the actual colors of the nature around it:

While I was sitting by the lake, I heard a rustling behind me. I turned around, expecting to see a large urban rat, which is what city wildlife contains. I suppose what I saw was a rodent, too, but it was a prettier squirrel. The squirrel ran away when I tried to get a picture, but I lured her back out with a cracker.

I don’t think she was completely spoiled by humans stupidly feeding the wildlife, because she ran away after she ate the one cracker, instead of descending upon me like human-fed birds (and rats) do.

The longer trail back to the headquarters was narrower though high stalks of grass. One thing I will miss about state parks is their excellent signage, like this:

Most other types of parks have sign posts, if anything at all, and a compass and map are always a good idea to have along.

It was a pretty good hike, and I’m glad I opted against making it a kiddie hike.

Kelly already built a reputation as a banana slug murderer when we took a hike in Sam McDonald Park, which that summer, was banana slug central. It was hot and dry in San Jose, but just over the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the redwoods were damp and misty, and the banana slugs were out all over. Kelly was in a kiddie backpack at the time, but she marvelled and pointed at the slugs. And when we returned to the trailhead and had our picnic, Kelly was out and grabbed a banana slug that was unfortunate enough to have crawled under out table. I know she didn’t mean to crush it, but that banana slug never moved again, and Kelly’s reputation was set.

Since then, we’ve been unable to see banana slugs again, even in known banana slug terroritory–until we saw the one (albeit very quiet and possibly dying) on at Villa Montalvo. I thought it would be fun to take this hike at the Portola Redwoods State Park.

It’s a wonderful state park, but I didn’t anticipate that getting there required an hour’s worth of driving in and out on narrow, winding mountains roads which would make both my children carsick. When we arrived, the ranger let us know the bridges were still removed for the winter, so if we wanted to take our hike, it would require wading through ankle-to-knee high water several times as we crossed creeks. But since we were just there to see banana slugs, we had alternatives. He pointed me to two child-friendly trails where banana slugs were known to be out and about.

Sadly, the weather was too warm and dry for the slugs and we didn’t find any slugs at all, even though we enjoyed the spectacular redwood trees. For a final try, I took the children down a trail towards the creek, and there we found one slug.

That poor slug! We we fascinated with him, and he was put through all his banana slug paces. We turned him over to look at his toes, and he curled up and showed us how quickly he could right himself again. Neil created a maze for the slug, and our slug popped out his eyes to examine in and then crawled right over the obstacles, leaving a trail of slime behind. If my camera battery had been working, he would have been the subject of more photography than a  fashion model on a go-see. And he survived Kelly’s touch, because she’s learned now that the slugs are more delicate than they may seem.

We looked for more slugs, but any others were gone. But with our slug hunt complete, we headed home down the long windy twisty road.

Although I was still thrilled to be able to see the new museum, my family and I were disappointed overall. On the one hand, it is an aesthetic marvel that uses light,  form, and technology for a unique experience. On the other hand, I found it over-crowded, over-priced, and off-puttingly eco-smug.

There were lines and crowds around everything in this museum, including the bathroom. Kay had joined the museum when it opened in November, and told me it had been even more crowded then: in fact, by 11 am, all the tickets too all the shows in the Planetarium had been distributed. On this day, we had better luck: Kay stood in a long line to get the tickets while the children and I hung out in the one uncrowded portion of the museum: the “climate change” section. There, you could calculate your carbon footprint based on how many miles you travel each year in your preferred mode of transport and by what you eat.

In short, I’d be a little less of a burden on our great green Gaia planet if I became a hard-core organic vegan bicyclist. Of course, then I’d be so bitter that I’d become the sort of person who enjoys this sort of self-righteous eco-preciousness. I also found it a bit disingenuous: after all if the Academy of Science really believed what it preaches, it could just be a web site and turn its former location into an organic farm.

The aquarium was downstairs, and the fish (and related animals) were attractively displayed. It was crowded, but to be fair, it was all crowded with polite tourist- and museum-types, and the children had plenty of chances to admire the creatures as well as play in the touch tank. There were a few clever displays where waving your hand could bring up a fact, but I saw no-one actually bothering to read the facts after being impressed that a wave of the hand changed the display.

The best parts of the museum, that is the more classical ones, were off to the side in various ways. The penguins were in the Africa section which mostly had fresh (stuffed) animal from the African Savannah (in the mode of a good natural history museum. A few dinosaur and large animal skeletons were on display and mostly hanging from the ceiling. The albino alligator is in exactly the same display that an alligator used to be in in the original museum. The library and study, where you can get up close to actual musty specimens and directly quiz a scientist, is upstairs, and now includes a few puzzles and games for younger children, too.

Naturally, we had to see what we had been observing for years: the green, growing roof. Smartly enough, the museum put a deck on top so visitors can see it for themselves, as well as look over Golden Gate Park. On this day, a band (not the Golden Gate Park Brass Band) was playing in the music shell, which you could also see and hear from the top. Not so smartly, the growing roof suddenly struck me as immensely impractical: in the distance, I saw people weeding the roof, and I imagine it also needs to be watered and replanted and resodded now and again.

Kay persuaded us to go into the rainforest globe with her; I’d been resisting it because like so many other things, it required waiting in a line. But I’m glad she did, because it was only right I check out the museum completely my first time, and it had a delightful asethetic touch by having a bottom which also happened to be the top of an aquarium, which itself was a tunnel. The marvelous effect created was that it looked like museum visitors were below you in the bottom of an aquarium:

Inside the rainforest globe, I was considerably less comfortable. Even though I have no respiratory problems, after a few minutes of being inside, I started feeling suffocated. I tried to relax; I told myself it was perhaps it was just the warm, misty air, but by the point I felt faint and black spots started forming before my eyes, I begged Kay to watch the kids and dashed for the elevator. My unfounded theory is that even the sacred glorious rainforest inside this globe wasn’t enough to process all the exhalations of thousands upon thousands of carbon-spewing humans, and without proper circulation with the outside, there was less oxygen in the air. Or it may have just been my imagination, because no one else seemed to be on the verge of passing out.

My impression overall was that it was the same museum it had always been, content-wise, except that now it was cloaked in a more stylish and far more expensive guise, with a heavy dollop of eco-smug added on. I also thought it was overpriced, though obviously the vast horde of visitors who arrive every day and pay, disagree. Most of the cultural/educational attractions in the area offer reciprocal admission with similar institutions at a certain level of membership: for instance, if we become members of the Exploratorium, we also enjoy free admission to OMSI and Chicago’s Museum of Technology and Industry; if I join the San Jose Museum of Art at the advocate level, the same membership also gets me into the Asian Art Museum, the Legion of Honor, or the Quilt Museum. If I join the San Francisco zoo, I can also visit most other zoos in the nation, but I think you’ve got the point. The only other such museum that doesn’t have reciprocity is the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which classifies as a major tourist attraction, and is bigger than most nature museums, including the Academy of Sciences.

With the new building, the Academy of Sciences abolished reciprocity: in short, membership with them is only good with them, and no other museum’s membership will get you in there. At $25 per, adult admission ranks with the bigger Boston Science Museum ($23.50) though it’s slightly less than the Monterey Bay Aquarium ($30). And the Academy of Sciences’ family membership is no bargain either: it’s $159, whereas even the Monterey Bay Aquarium (whose eco-lecturing only goes so far as advising you what types of fish you oughtn’t buy) will let your whole family in for a year for $120. That said, as long as people are paying the ticket prices (and they obviously are), there’s nothing wrong with the Academy charging the price people are willing to pay. It wasn’t enough to sell me: I’ll continue to check out fish at other aquariums, natural history at the admittedly more run-down Oakland Museum or the irregularly-available University of California, Berkeley, and live animals at zoos. Perhaps the hype will die down and the Academy will go back to being the regular science museum it used to be; or it will become (or should I say, continue to be?) an international destination, like the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It’s fine either way, but I’m only buying into the former.

Kay wanted to let the children run off some energy before we drove home, so I directed us to the blue playground, which is semi-hidden off the concourse, under two underpasses:

Kelly liked the playground best of all, because she got to play with babies and found a nickel buried in the sand. I plan to go back to Golden Gate Park more often again, even if that’ll be for its many other pleasures, like the De Young Museum, Stowe Lake, and the Botanical Gardens.

Homeschoolers have a reputation for being weird, and I’m beginning to understand why. In the last week, this is some of what our neighbors have had to put up with. First, an explanation of the relative sizes and distances between planets in our solar system (this is why, Ed, you have a marble labelled Saturn on the sidewalk in front of your house.) Second, a reenactment of the Battle of Thermopylae with toy soldiers, with a thorough apology for not having enough soldiers to accurately represent the numbers of Persians. Third, counting to ten in ancient Greek, complete with a definition of ennead. I get the impression people would be more comfortable if we just talked about the weather.

Shiaw-Ling usually doesn’t drink more than a glass of wine, so we were surprised that she had a very alcoholic “I just finished by MFA” party. I wasn’t driving so I drank, but there was no way I could keep up with the alcohol consumption that was expected. Since Candace brought super-Leland, Kelly had a great time herding him and other strange babies which appeared in the park while we were drinking.

We had to leave Shiaw-Ling’s party early for a Boy Scout awards ceremony/BBQ/pool party. It was a little weird to see boy scouts in uniform, but with bathing suits and bare feet, but hey, it’s California black tie.

One of the foreclosed houses sold. Our new neighbors are Hispanic too, but unlike the previous residents, they speak English too. This skill came in handy as they expressed their concern over the pumpkin plant that has now crawled over most of my indulgent neighbor Tony’s yard and is now edging towards them. My neighbor Demeter will be taking care of my plants and house while I’m gone, so I think they’re going to have more concern to express until the Halloween harvest comes in.

Charybdis and Scylla had its first multiculturalism lesson. Actually Shiaw-Ling gave us moon cakes and told us to enjoy them while looking at the full moon on Sunday night. We did so. That is as multicultural as CSA is going to be.

I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to blog while on our vacation–I have to assume not, because there are lot of other things I want and have to do when we’re not driving. But you never know….

For Kelly’s last summer day before she had to officially step into school, I took her to the beach. I let her choose the beach, because while my favorite is the relatively quiet New Brighton Beach, I though Kelly might have her own preferences at this point. And she did.

She asked me to take her to Seacliff Beach which has a nature center with a touchtank, and a decrepit cement boat at the end of the pier. I think Seacliff often smells funny, perhaps because of the decaying ship or because of all the birds on it, but it’s a general favorite for all it offers, which besides the nature center and a pier, also has a snack shack and beachside parking.

It was a great day for the beach. The fog burned off just as we arrived. Kelly loved seeing and talking to all the seastars and anemones, as well as Charlie, the young shark who’s outgrown his tank and being sent off to the Aquarium of the Bay next month.

It wasn’t too hot or too cold, and Kelly worked on a sand project, which included collecting driftwood and feathers.

To my horror, she also seemed inclined towards surfing because she willingly let herself be sucked out with the waves and bodysurfed them in. I can’t tell how well she’d do because I kept a firm grip on her arms the entire time. I had thought about getting Neil a skimboard or a boogieboard so he could enjoy the beach too (as it is he opted to do schoolwork at Peter’s office instead), but I have to think Kelly would take the board from Neil before Neil had a chance to try it…

The new bathing suit she got at the end of the season last year has already been worn out, so she put on a unitard, which I thought might prevent her from being too sandy. But it was even better than a regular bathing suit at keeping sand in, and it didn’t help that Kelly liked doing headstands on top of her sandcastles.

She visited the seastars again twice while we were at the beach, and wished them a poignant goodbye as we saw them last just before leaving. And so our summer ended.

Kelly so loves riding in her wagon, and complains if we have to ride in my car instead. If she were of driving age, this is the car she’d want. That, and a fast bicycle…

Everyone has a favorite beach. Peter loves the windy overcast beaches on the coast south of Half Moon Bay, where he can take pictures, we can fly kites, and follow it by squelching in with wet shoes to a British pub where we can drink good beer and dry off in front of a roaring fire. Some people like the Santa Cruz Boardwalk beach, because it’s close and easy to get to, and gives you an amusement park behind you. Some people like Capitola Village where you can get an ice cream cone, or browse boutiques in between beach time. Some people like Seacliff Beach because it has a nature center and a lot of places for picnic barbecues. And some people like Sunset or Manresa beaches because they’re not so crowded, and you can easily find seashells and sand dollars on it. But my personal favorite is New Brighton Beach. It’s just past the Capitola Village beaches, making it close in for me, and it’s just pure beach: all sand and surf, and a view that stretches from the boats moored at the Capitola Village beach all the way to the edge of Moss Landing.

I was feeling a little blue. Kelly’s not going to Neil’s school, and I don’t know what the teachers and parents will be like at her new school. And the fact that she was near the very bottom of the wait list had me feeling she’d somewhat been rejected, even though the placement had more to do with circumstance and luck than anything personal. The beach is the perfect place to have fun and forget your worries.

It was a gorgeous day at the beach: warmer and sunnier than it often is in the summer. Kelly and I built sandcastles, looked for sea shells to decorate them, and skipped through the surf. It was time to go back home all too soon. If Kelly weren’t sick today, we’d be back at New Brighton again today.