Neighborhood-Kids All Local. All for Kids. All the Time.

How can we already be at the end of July? Every summer at the end of July, I realize just how short summer is.

But we did get some traveling in (also the reason I have been so slack about posting). We did a road trip through Oregon and northern California with heavy emphasis on family. On our way south to the Monterey Peninsula, we stopped at the Lava Beds National Monument in Northern California. Ever heard of it? Probably not. It only gets 100,000 visitors a year.

Kids love this place, and if you’re in the neighborhood, I recommend it. There are more than 700 lava tubes with about three dozen developed for the public. The tubes were formed by volcanic eruptions from thousands of years ago. The lava flows cooled around the outside, leaving a molten middle that flowed away, leaving pitch-black tubes perfect for exploring.
Some of the tubes were closed while we were there because they were hosting baby bat populations, and we also opted not to visit the caves that required crawling, which left us with the best of the best.

Golden Dome was our favorite: manageable ceilings that required some stooping but not crawling (watch out for “headache rock” as you enter), long tunnels, and a glittery gold ceiling formed from water droplets adhering to a coating of hydrophobic bacteria. Sounds gross, but it’s not. Looks a lot like fool’s gold. We didn’t get lost, but because the cave has a figure 8 shape, you could easily go around in circles, and I must admit, I did find it a little worrisome. But then the kids started to recognize various boulders and entrances to tunnels as places we’d been before. “This way,” they would say. Whew.

You do want to wear a helmet (we had our bike helmets with us) to protect against head bumps—plenty of those to go around. We met families without them, who looked at ours rather enviously. And you definitely want flashlights, which we checked out from the visitor center.

If you’re heading to California, the Lava Beds are a great stop.

We crammed in a camping trip to the Winthrop area last weekend, and with rain looming this weekend, I am so glad we did. I got my last blast of heat (mid-90s) before the fall weather sets in.

We camped up the Chewuck Valley north of Winthrop at a forest service campground, which Leah was dreading because she likes to shower every day, and pit toilets are notorious for spiders. Amazingly she did fine—she encountered no spiders—and willingly washed her face in the river at the edge of our campsite every morning and brushed her teeth strolling among the pines. Although she brought a mirror along (that proved indispensible for my contacts), she’s more of a camper than she realizes.

Besides river play, biking, and ice cream in Winthrop, we drove up to Harts Pass one day, the highest elevation you can drive to in the state. A stunning place, truly. If only the drive weren’t so epic. If you don’t like heights—and I don’t—this is one road to avoid. Of course, by the time I figured this out, we were in the middle of it with no turning back.

In truth, most of the (unpaved) road is fine, but there’s a narrow stretch called Dead Horse Point (we learned this afterward—probably a good thing) that hugs the cliffside for half a mile, zigging and zagging around the curve of the cliff with alarming frequency. A posted warning sign tells drivers of the “Hazardous Driving” ahead, but as far as I’m concerned the heads-up only amps the stress. Luckily I was sitting in the back seat on the inside and didn’t bother to look over the cliff out Ty’s side (“Don’t look, mommy, you wouldn’t like it”).  Sheer drops, no guard rails, lots of fallen rock and gravel, many blind curves, and all kinds of potential (it seems to me) for slippage. What, I wondered, do you do if you meet a car coming the other way?

At the top, I was very surprised to see so many people, ranging in age from two to seventy-two. How did they get up here? Who drove? Well, I couldn’t help thinking, if that old couple there can drive up here, we can certainly drive down. Seeing all the visitors helped me relax into the spectacular views of the Cascades and (mostly) stop thinking about the drive down. Really, the views don’t come any better. Slate Peak, at 7488 feet, is just a short jaunt from the parking area and here you can see far into the wild blue yonder. We also hiked out along a high ridge line trail, which we had almost to ourselves.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to bask in the wilderness quiet for long. That evening, a group of what I can only call party animals rolled into the unofficial campsite across the river from ours. They blasted 70’s rock, mostly Led Zepplin, from their truck stereo and laughed and cackled at top volume while their tiny children meandered down to the river and back. My kids were intrigued at first—Ty mostly with the swearing—but by the next morning they were appalled. Thankfully the local sheriff shut the party down around 9:30pm so we got to sleep at a reasonable hour before the tunes started at 7:30 the next morning.

When the party left the next day by about noon, Ty and Leah, personally affronted, hiked up their shorts to stride across the river and do garbage pick-up because, they said, surely there will be all kinds of trash. They were right. We carted it to Winthrop before heading home.

Ah well. You never know with car camping. Which is why I’m silently plotting to get our kids into the backcountry next summer (Curt will be thrilled to hear I’m thinking along these lines). I'm guessing there won't be spiders to contend with, but I’m hoping Leah won’t freak too much about the idea of bears.

So that eye roll I mentioned? Didn’t last long.

The Twilight questions started just outside of Port Angeles. "Do you think mushroom ravioli is a big seller now on the menu?" "How far is it from Forks to Port Angeles? Two hours, seriously? I can’t believe Bella would drive that far for a dress?" "Do you think this is the area where she almost got attacked?" 

We actually drove around Port Angeles, at Leah’s request, to look for the restaurant, Bella Italia, where Bella and Edward ate mushroom ravioli (we never did find it, but Curt has earned himself a new respect for having once eaten there long before Bella did).

And when we got to Forks, we discovered our motel stood directly in front of Forks High School (can you hear the sighs of envy?). The sign featured in the movie could be seen from our bathroom window. If you're not familiar with this series, it's the story of a high school girl who moves to podunk Forks to live with her dad, where she meets a mysterious boy and falls in love. Turns out he's a vampire. And her soulmate. I think the soulmate aspect, perfect love, if you will, is the main reason the books are such a hit (with women as much as girls, maybe even more). I admit it, I have read all the books.

The majority of our weekend was not about Twilight—we visited the Hoh Rain Forest and several beaches—but it’s sure hard to avoid the craze in Forks. Even in the Hoh. We ran into a group of German teenagers, whom we later saw posing in front of the Welcome to Forks sign for photos, and the ranger at the visitors’ center told us the park is seeing a whole new kind of visitor, “Twi-hards” who arrive in Forks to commune with Edward and Bella landmarks, only to learn there is also a national park nearby with a unique rain forest. The publicity has been good for the park.

And Twilight is everywhere, even where you don’t expect it. When we were exiting a Mexican restaurant (which had no apparent tie to the series), we heard an incoming dad say to his kids, “Did you know Edward and Bella had dinner here?” I think every espresso drink in town has a Twilight-themed name (Twilight Tea, Eclipse Energizer…)

Enter the new Dazzled by Twilight store, and you will be overrun. We were, anyway, but it turns out we got there fifteen minutes before the tour left and the store was jammed. That’s right, tour. The store runs tours several times a day for $39 a head (and the tours are full!), taking visitors around to see all the landmarks featured in Meyers’ books, such as the Cullen house, Bella’s house, the police station, and the hospital. These weren’t featured in the movie because the movie was shot in Oregon, but they are real places that Meyers visited and used to base her descriptions on. You can also take a self-tour with a brochure from the chamber of commerce. We did neither, but on a little drive we saw the house the Cullen house was based on, a quaint Bed and Breakfast, and we did pose with Bella’s truck. My idea.

If you haven’t been to the Hoh, I highly recommend it. And the beaches are spectacular. I particularly loved Second Beach, near La Push (where vampires, incidentally, are not allowed). It’s wild and pristine with all the sand our more northern beaches lack. The kids loved it.

We also drove to Neah Bay and hiked the boardwalk trail to Cape Flattery, but this drive is a push for kids. Ours did it, but Leah wasn’t feeling too well after all the twists and turns. It is beautiful, though, and cool to say we’ve been to the northwestern tip of the continental United States.

And it’s kind of fun—amusing, at any rate—to watch the Twilight frenzy in Forks, which, by the way, is still just a little logging town. If you’ve got a tweener or a teen who’s interested, I think the peninsula is worth the trip, especially if she hasn’t seen the Hoh.

By the way, there really is a Forks Outfitters (Bella worked there), and it's a pretty cool store.  

On Thursday, we’re heading to the Olympic Peninsula with the vow to actually make it all the way out to the beach and the Hoh.

I have a confession to make: I have never been out to the Washington coast. Well, maybe once. I have this dim memory of driving it at night on our way home from Oregon, way back before we had kids. I can’t remember, really, so I must not have seen anything.

And I grew up here. I’ve been to some of the remotest corners of Nepal, Indonesia, Australia, and lots of countries beyond, but I’ve never checked out my own state’s coast.

The forecast is for rain, but, you know, it’s the rainforest. So we’re planning on cheap motels (not hard when you’re going to Forks) rather than camping, and then visiting relatives in Sequim. Part of why we never get all the way west is we get no further than Sequim. Who wants to hang out in the rain if you can hang in the rainshadow?

I’ll let you know how it goes. And, oh, we’re not planning on checking out the vampire scene (major eye roll when I brought it up), but who knows? Young minds can change. 

So, I made my debut as a downhill skier this weekend when we went to Manning Park Resort along with the rest of the town (I knew Manning is popular with ‘Hamsters, but I didn’t realize they were all from my neighborhood).

We weren’t actually sure our family would be going this year because of our splurge on tickets to California but when we floated the idea to the kids a while back, they staged a mutiny and said they would rather go to Manning than Disneyland, that’s how much they love it. But we had already bought tickets for SoCal, so what were we to do? We went to Manning, cost be hanged.

Anyway, maybe you could have told me this, but there’s a fundamental risk in taking up new sports that involve icy hills when you’re over forty. I knew this. Let me just say, in my defense, that I have been skiing on a back country/cross-country hybrid ski for 15 years, so I know how to get down hills without falling. And when I put on the downhill skis and went down the bunny hill, I felt incredibly liberated, just like everyone said I would, because I had so much control. By the second run, I was parallel turning without even thinking about it. Your body just knows what to do.

Two bunny runs later, Ty and I went together to the “blue chair” to try our hand at a green run. Ty is a downhill skier, but he hadn’t been on skis at all this year and in my book he qualifies as a beginner, although he might not agree. Turns out we were good partners. We were both a little freaked out by the steepness of the slope, and we both flailed our way down with equal lack of grace. But I only fell once, so I was stoked.

And I only fell once on the next run. And the next, although that fall very nearly wiped out another woman who didn’t even realize how close she was to obliteration because she wasn’t looking and at the last second as I was about to mow her down, my body flew right around her. She didn’t understand why I was apologizing so profusely as I picked myself up, and I had to explain how close she came to two broken legs.

Then someone, another ‘Hamster, recommended a green run on the “orange chair,” said I might like it, so we checked it out. But it was just enough harder that Ty and I felt out of our league. He kept track of my falls. “You had eight bails, Mom (is that I was doing?) and I only had four.”

I guess having your beginner mom along makes you look pretty good. In fact, Leah wouldn’t even ski with me, she was so busy proving herself to the more experienced skiers. “Your runs are too easy for me, Mom.” Yeah, um, no. You're avoiding me because you're eleven and I'm a novice. That's "dork" to a tweener.

In the afternoon, the kids headed back to the lodge and suddenly I was free to hang with my husband and work on my technique. I think that’s where the trouble began. When you start thinking too much about what you’re doing, you get tentative. I had done just fine flinging myself down the hill and falling when I was out of control. Now I was actually falling more, little falls because I couldn’t commit to the turns because I was going too slowly because I was thinking too much, caring too much. And somehow on one of those little falls, I was facing downhill and dragging my skis behind me, and feeling my knees complain, and then there was a distinct pop. It hurts just remembering.

Long story short, I’m limping. Taking Ibu every four hours. Heading in to see the doc when he can fit me in. Forward motion is okay but anything lateral and I get tweaky pain. Curt is as disappointed as I am because what with my ankle surgery last year and all, we’re really ready for me to be completely healthy and mobile. Forever.

But if you ask me if you should try downhill skiing, I’d still say go for it. In the meantime, I'll let you know what the doctor says.