From Krummholz to the Pygmy Forest

We began at the sea, on a cliff dotted with seaside daisies. We walked along the cliff, skirting a prairie of sweet vernal grass and velvet grass.  Thence we traveled to Krummholz, called The Goblin Fortress by the wee people.  From Krummholz we climbed the Ecological Staircase to the Pygmy Forest, stuffing ourselves with blue and red huckleberries on the way.

It sounds like a passage from a fantasy novel, but it was the first and longest hike we took.  And the most varied and exciting.  A little over five miles round trip.  The hike begins in Jug Handle State Park.

The Ecological Staircase is a series of 5 terraces uplifted from the sea.  As you climb, each terrace is 100,000 years older than the one before.

We began at the headlands, on the first terrace, or rather, the second, as the first is now being formed just beneath the sea, where the water is lighter and greener.

Just beyond the coastal prairie you find trees twisted and bent by salt winds, giving them a quality known as krummholz, German for bentwood.  Our kids dubbed these trees The Goblin Fortress.  It was the best natural playground I have ever seen.

On the next step of the staircase you find the same Grand firs and Douglas firs growing tall and true.

Or fallen over and hollowed by fire, making an irresistible, if sooty, tunnel.

Greta found this mushroom, with the volva, the remains of the universal veil, still visible at its base.  The volva is evidence that this mushroom is in the Amanita family and may be deadly poisonous.

If there are mushroom experts among my readers, tell us what you know about this mushroom.

The trees also fell between other trees, great for climbing.  See Evelyn leaning against the trunk.

Anyone know what this powdery yellow stuff is?

These are red huckleberries.

And these are our old friends, blue huckleberries.

We picked enough to make huckleberry syrup to drizzle over our breakfast crepes.

The trail rose up through a grove of coastal redwoods and on up again to the pygmy forest.

Evelyn looked like a giant walking among these trees bonsaied by too much water and soil depleted of minerals.

Greta caught a snake on the way down.

But we saw no mammals, not so much as a squirrel, on the Ecological Staircase.

Fever Dreams

Greta is sick this week. I have swapped guilty admissions with moms on the upside of fever and lethargy.  You can get a lot done.  They huddle in your lap so sweetly.

I was not particularly effective this time 'round because the lethargic days were preceded by restless nights with a hot little body pressed against my back, with that little bird heart hammering away, and restless scaly bird legs clambering up and down my side.  There was coughing and moaning and vomiting and hot compresses for an aching ear and doses of motrin.

On sick days our screentime scruples go out the window.  Greta's filled her days with back to back episodes of How Earth Was Made.  After her ear stopped hurting and bloody pus (she calls it puss) poured out we headed to the doctor.  She regaled the doctor with stories of the formation of the Marianas Trench (Doctor (not our usual doctor): "I've never even heard of that!") and Mount Everest.

When we got home it was time for the complete classic Winnie the Pooh.  When that was over I said, "Let's do something else.  You must be so sick of watching TV."

To which she said, "Oh no!  It has always been my dream to watch this much television." 

We put in Cinderella. 

I guess sometimes dreams really do come true.

Pride and Prejudice and Mussels

The California Coast looked as English as it ever does: green hillsides with purple flowers, that if you squinted, and looked directly into the sunlight and swayed a little, could be mistaken for foxglove...if only you swatted away the clouds of hummingbirds, of which Europe is entirely devoid.

 The conditions were suitably early 19th century.  Smoke curled out of the chimneys, smoke from our wood stoves, the only source of heat in our little cabins.  And light came from our candles and lanterns.  We ran outside to fetch the cooking water.
 
And were not great 19th century themes evoked when we set out with pocket knives and a Trader Joe's bag to harvest mussels?  There was Dickensian child labor in perilous conditions. 

There was child against nature.

The theme of children's downfall due to bad parenting, prominent in Pride and Prejudice, was conspicuously absent.  Ahem.  Even though there was blood

and sweat and (almost) tears when a wave nearly swept away the harvest in its bag. 

Oh dear, scratch the blood, sweat and tears.  Wrong century.

There was success through hard work and perseverance.  Getting barnacles off mussels is as arduous as running any cotton loom,

but in the California sunshine, less likely to cause rickets.

The pride of the harvesters spurred them on to sample their harvest.

But the prejudice of those who had been too young to participate in the harvest

held sway and they would not partake in the feast.

All in all it was a trip worthy of a novel.

But all it gets is a blog post.

Look...

...what Clementine did with my camera.

We were at the U.C. Botanic Garden and she wanted to get a shot of the baby newts in the pond. So...she stuck the camera in the water.

Good thing it's our new waterproof camera. We're testing it out before we take it to Hawaii next week.

Here's that baby newt.

Then I thought we should get a newt's eye view of our group. I shot up from in the water at the girls and Mike and his mom and dad here for his brother's wedding on Sunday! Greta didn't lean out far enough so I only got the top of her head.

It would seem newts have a better view of us than we do of them, at least without the aid of technology.

Put on your lipstick humuhumunukunukuapua'as, we've got a camera and we know how to use it (at least a little bit).

Huckleberry Preserves

It is at least ten degrees cooler in Huckleberry Preserve than it is at our house. We escape to its mossy trails overhung with bays and bordered with swordferns and bracken.

Glimpses of the view across the canyon reveal how different this microclimate pocket is from the surrounding area.

We are here for huckleberries.

The first we find are not yet ripe.
But then we find them.

Ripe, their color is somewhere between Greta's eyes...

...and her boots.

For a while not many make it into our cups.

Greta pouts about not having as many as her sisters. They pour some of theirs into her cup and her smile is this big.

Now she can't see the bottom of her cup.

Back at home the huckleberries are so small some pop right through the masher whole.

Eventually we get them all.

It is our first time making preserves. Our berries yield 1.5 cups of crushed fruit. We need two cups. Evelyn leads me down into the backyard where she has found wild blackberries. We return victorious with just enough blackberries for 1/2 cup, crushed.

One of our jar lids didn't pop. It will have to go in the fridge.

Might as well have some now.

The City of Berkeley's Best Kept Secret is a Three-Hour Drive Away

Berkeley Tuolumne Camp is a parents' paradise in a breathtaking setting.
Each cabin boasts a big deck, so take your pick: A bed under the stars...

...or inside the cozy cabin.

Don't worry about lugging: Strapping young guys known as Mait Dogs lug all your luggage from the car to the cabin.

Entertaining the kids? Taken care of. Here's Ev taking in the treasure trove of possibilities before signing up for macrame, pottery, archery, talent show, hiking, et cetera.

If nothing appeals there's always just playing and having the run of the 14-acre wooded oasis.

For preschoolers there's Kiddie Kamp. Three sessions per day of crafts and stories and a children/staff ratio to die for.

Greta never wanted to leave.

Bells announce the three fantastically delicious meals each day. Ok, I'm lying. The meals were not fantastically delicious. And I'm going to stop trying to use all of the 10 Tiredest and Cheesiest Phrases in Travel Writing even if this is a sun-dappled must-see vacation destination. (That's eight out of ten!)

Really, this place was so awesome I'm as gooey as the cheddar on our tacos about it.

The food was fine camp food and the kids bolted in at the bell so hungry they bolted everything and bolted out to play again. It took them four days to realize that dessert was served every night. They'd never stuck around long enough to get it.

Coffee was available all day. I was actually biting my nails about this before I got there. What if I'm up at 6:30? Will I have to wait for breakfast at 8am for coffee?? I needn't have worried. At Berkeley's jewel in the Sierras (that's 9!) they get the coffee thing.

And there's even cereal and pbjs for kids who don't like the meals. And a store where you can open a tab and the kids can saunter up and order one popsicle or box of nerds each day.

This oasis near Yosemite boasts luxury resort touches (sorry!), but also a bona fide camping experience complete with obligatory big bugs in the bathroom.

Ev and Clem immediately identified this exotic lady as a parasitic wasp. (I had to resort to calling a wasp exotic, but I got all 10. I guess I was lying that I was going to stop. But now I'm done.)

Anyway, that long "stinger" is a zinc-tipped ovipositor for laying eggs in the larvae of tree beetles. She was 5 inches long from tip of antennae to end of ovipositor. (For more info watch Life in the Undergrowth.)

There was a Talent Show and Bingo Night.
Here are Ev and friend Sasha stage fighting.

There was swimming at the swimming hole and jumping off Beaverhead Rock.

All of which gave me plenty of time to work at my desk in the woods. And I did not work on cheesy travel writing. See my manuscript on the desk? And there was coffee aplenty to fuel the work. And no internet connection to distract me from my work. The only activity that really tempted me was ping pong but I couldn't find anyone to play with. So I got a lot of writing done.

It was like the Writers Retreat I have often dreamed of, except that when I was done writing I got to play with the kids and hike to waterfalls. And help them save a baby bat.

This near paradise lacked: Mike, cappuccinos, a good bed. I'll bring a better bed next time. And maybe my espresso machine. And Mike if he promises not to talk me into playing ping pong instead of writing.