Suburban Homestead

A Friend's Rustic Family Cabin

For as long as Daddy and I have been an item, I have been hearing stories about time spent at his best friend's family cabin. This week, I finally (FINALLY!) got to see it for myself. Driving for six hours to get there, I was beginning to think nothing could be worth this brutality, but as soon as we turned off the main road and began making our way down the five mile long driveway to its remote location, my tune changed and I turned to Daddy and said "I take it back. If this driveway is all I ever know about the cabin, the drive was worth it!"

That long stretch of driveway took us in and out of woods dense with Redwoods and Alders. Ferns came down the hill to the roadside and met with wild foxglove. Blackberry bushes dominated and clearly served as shrines to black bears, who left their big piles of "blessings" all along the gravel road. I was in heaven!

And then we arrived at the rustic two bedroom cabin on the river - one family's tradition for three generations and counting.

We quickly learned that the cabin accepted electricity only two years ago, but still doesn't have a landline. Even still, there is only one outlet that I could see, one working bulb in the kitchen and the rest of the time it's preferred that everyone operate by candlelight and in a electronics-free environment.  If music is to be enjoyed, it must be played by the guests.

We were welcomed by said best friend's mother, a sort of second mom to Daddy and a self-proclaimed "extra grandma" to our kids. She has got to be the world's No.1 Four-Wheel-Drive Grandma - swimming upstream several times a day just because, playing with small kids until the cows come home, baking fruit pies all day long for her spawnings to enjoy. She's just amazing and we love her for all these reasons and more. In intimate circles, she is known affectionately as the Spoosy Moose.

Spoosy's cabin is an honest to goodness homestead of Little House on the Prairie proportions. There was an enormous garden (HUGE!), an orchard bursting with pears, walnuts, apples, peaches, figs and persimmons, not to mention a river full of trout, steelhead, and salmon.

The house is lovingly filled with decades of family memories and collections of objects that told stories of days gone by.

Our time at Spoosy's second home was all I had been promised it would be. In fact we stretched our planned three nights and two days to four nights and four days - it was that special! So much more to come on this magical place, just as soon as I get control over all this dirty laundry.

Confusion Hill, CA

Our drive up Hwy 101, with a stop at Confusion Hill, actually took place about five days ago. In fact, we are actually back home today after four days days at our friends magical family cabin in Northern California. So much to share about those incredible days. Until then, I'll share these pictures of our drive up, which I love - bright colors and kitch nestled in the Redwood Trees - summertime, summertime, summertime!

A Look Inside Our RV

There are two kinds of parents in this world: Those that “really, really, really want to” take their family on an RV trip, and those that do not. And it seems to me that each marriage is typically a union of one of each.

Which makes us weird, I suppose.

In the weeks building up to our current two week RV road-trip-palooza, I had a lot of inquires of very curious people wanting to know all about our plans, what brought us to this decision and how we were going to pull it all off. This typically went on while their spouse danced about in the background, waving their hands at me, using their right arm in a sort of slicing motion across their neck like – “Don’t go there. Do NOT give him/her any ideas! We are not going on an RV road trip with our feral children!!!”

If I’d written this post in the first 24 hours of our launch (and believe me I tried), I would have wanted to convince you that you did in fact NEED to take your family RVing. But today I’m pushing reset and would instead prefer to sell it to you as just a fun idea that you *might* want to consider in your future. Here are some of the pros and cons of RVing with small kids:

The PROS of RVing with Small Kids:

1. Your kids will have the time of their lives!!! And honestly, this is a big PRO that can NOT be discounted. When we first departed, Little Miss looked out the window, pinched herself and whispered, “Am I dreaming?” I have no doubt they will take away beautiful life-long memories of these two weeks.

2. You can eat well. With a refrigerator, freezer, microwave, oven and stove-top, there is no excuse for eating anything but great food.

3. No schlepping bags in and out of hotels, unpacking and repacking. Everything is right here and there is plenty of storage. Our RV even has a slide-out that gives us an extra two feet of room while parked.

4. You get to experience an RV park (This can be seen as a PRO and/or CON - see CONS #1) and there can be lots to do at RV parks for kids. Right now mine are fishing for bass at a man-made lake in a KOA park on the outskirts of the wine country.

5. No bathroom stops, easy access to lunch while on the move, and if you’re sleepy while barreling down the highway, you just head towards the back and crap out on a mattress.

The CONS of RVing with Small Kids:

1. You have to stay in RV parks (see PROS #3) and you never know who you are going to be sleeping next to, what they like to talk about around the campfire, how they treat their kids or what time they choose to go to bed. It’s a crap shoot and you get all kinds.

2. You have to clean up the RV at least once a day, sometimes two, and in that respect, it’s just like home. The places one takes an RV to are notoriously dusty, State and National parks being the worst. It’s what camping and RVing are all about – just get used to the idea.

3. Sleeping conditions are not much more comfortable than tent sleeping. While we sleep indoors and on a mattress I still wake up longing for a massage.

One more thing to point out is renting an RV appears neither cheaper nor more expensive than renting a hotel room. It’s just different. But different is good for me so I’m super happy we did it as we continue to have so much fun…just not sure we need to do it every summer. ;)

Funky Retro Mountain Home for Sale

I have to share these pictures. They are of a house I viewed today while up here in the Sierra Foothills. It's a house I spotted for sale in an incredible location, with a unique architectural style. I thought of my friends, a couple of DIY's, who have a passion for such styling. I looked up the price with them in mind and was shocked to see how low it was. I shot my friends the link...they got excited. Next thing I knew, I was walking through the house with an agent, snapping lots of photos to send back home.

**WARNING - these pictures are rated N, for naughty.

Striking Gold in California

We said "goodbye" to three incredible days in the Yosemite Valley on Tuesday, after taking in lunch on the outside patio of the Ahwahnee Hotel (a real treat!). Heading out of the park, and up North through the Gold Country, we made a quick stop to cool off at an old-fashioned sweet shop in Jamestown.  I have such great memories of antiquing in Jamestown through the years with my grandma when she was still alive. I had hoped to run through my long-standing favorite shop, The Emporium, but we arrived two minutes after they closed and so I just steamed up the front window instead.

We spent Tuesday night at our first honest-to-goodness RV park. Angels Camp RV and Camping Resort was clean and simple with some highlights that included fruiting grape vines, fig trees and even a pet emu! It certainly wasn't Yosemite, but we didn't mind too much because for the first time in three days, we had full hook-ups! Some RVs seemed to call this place *home*.

We had all of Wednesday to make our way up to Sly Park Resort where we were meeting family for our annual summer campout. We got off to a late start but decided to visit a cute town we knew of - Murphys. That's our beast parked along the adorable tree lined main street.

We stuffed ourselves silly at Alchemy where we indulged on fish tacos, burgers, garlic bread and gourmet bubble gum soda.

She's never really done well in restaurants. ;)

After lunch, Daddy stayed back to trouble-shoot some *issues* with the RV while the kids and I walked the dreamy main strip, admiring waterways, window shopping and looking for something sweet to eat.

Rubber chicken themed goods at Twisted Oak.

Oh yes we did!!!

We were SO lucky to discover Lila & Sage - winner of The Cupcake Wars! Here Little Miss stands in front of the case with her new rubber chicken.

Chocolate Peanut Butter, Strawberry Shortcake and Vanilla with Raspberry - all award winning!

Our last stop of the day was California Caverns - which we loved! We were able to escape the 100+ degree weather for an hour by heading underground into the limestone cavern where the temperature is always a consistant 53.

Yosemite Glamping

Did someone say *glamping*? 

Welcome to our third Yosemite summer vacation! We decided to really take the fun up a notch this year and splurge on an RV. *Someone* was *supposed to be* potty trained and so it seemed like a great idea. (Refrigerated food and the occasional hot shower was nothing to throw rocks at either.)

Yosemite was great, as always. Every year it's all very predictable - the perfect weather, the tolerable crowds, the selection of activities. This year though, water levels were very, very low due to low rains this past winter. Yosemite Falls was completely dry (although it usually runs out in late August anyway), and all the rivers down to a trickle. Mirror Lake, our favorite spot, was more like a desert this time. :(  If we don't get more rain this winter, we will likely take a break from Yosemite next summer as those water activities are always the highlights of the trip.

I didn't do the best job capturing the magic of the valley I'm now realizing, as I look back on three days of photos, but these are some little highlights of our time:

I have to laugh at all the fuss I made over the suggested list of items the RV rental company provided. 'Pizza stones', 'butcher knives' and 'curling irons' were some of the items I scoffed at, but the iGrill?! Oh yeah, we definitely need that out in the wild!

Here was a typical breakfast for us: English muffins toasted on the skillet, buttered and jammed (blackberries just canned this week!), peaches and blueberries. We would then wash it all down with a long family bike ride through "Nature's Great Cathedral".

Little Miss on her new DeeLITE bike with her new helmet. The whole get-up cracks me up.

Mr. Noodle refuses to acknowledge the potty but was a superstar on his balance bike. The kid is going to graduate to peddles before he's even out of diapers.

I've always been a die-hard romantic for stories of The Mother Road - so I had to try this stuff.

Little Miss trying to get close to a deer.

I'd say she nailed it.

Our view of Half Dome from a little shady spot along the river where we swam and snacked.

OK - I'm probably going to go to hell for this next shot, or at least have to face interrogation by CPS, but let's be fair here - this is not nearly as bad as smearing your child's head with honey so that you can get a cute shot with a bear, now is it?

I know, I KNOW! Don't feed the animals!!! But really, these animals were so brazen, something tells me they've had a life of tourists feeding them long before we ever rolled our 26-foot mobile home into the valley. I wasn't going to kill her dream of a tea party with woodland animals.

OK - another naughty parenting moment - camping with iPads. But really - who's parent would not have used one of these in our day had we been more wired in the 70's. No more guilt here because while they were doing this at 8 o'clock...

...we were outside doing this. :)

A big thanks goes out to Galen Clark, Abraham Lincoln and John Muir for making this family vacation possible. As Daddy said, "We owe so much to those men. Without them this valley would look like Las Vegas."

The Yosemite Valley

Every time we come to Yosemite I end up in tears. Last year, it happened on our last day, when at the base of Half Dome I watched my naked babies splash about in Mirror Lake. As my heart exploded, the tears erupted.

It happened again this morning, but admittedly on a slightly smaller scale. After taking our morning coffee, faces kissed by the morning sun rising over Half Dome, I took a walk to the end of our campground to visit the stables. I knew that soft, golden light, shining down on those horses, would be absolutely breathtaking.

And it was. So I took pause, let it all seep in, and let the tears well up.

It was just another summer morning in the Yosemite Valley. But even still, it seems impossible to me to be in those moments and to not feel that there is something greater than all of us at work.