Mammoth Lakes 2017

We got home late yesterday afternoon from a weekend camping trip to Mammoth Lakes with friends and after the girls were in bed I ignored all of the stuff that needed to be put away and just developed pictures of something other than food.  When Paul saw what I was doing he immediately and gleefully squealed "are you finally doing a blog post on our family blog?!?!"  Okay, it wasn't really a squeal, but I know he checks that blog hoping for me to post and I haven't in oh, um, 2 MONTHS.  I'm the worst.  So much for that New Year's Resolution about posting 1x/week.  

But seriously, this summer is kind of killing me and I cannot believe we only have two weeks left until school starts.  We have a bucketlist of summer activities that we need to check off and not enough time to do it!

In fairness, we have a short summer break compared to what I remember growing up, and most of it was spent at the pool every day with swim team stuff, or visiting family.  This Mammoth trip was our 3rd camping trip of the summer.  So we've been doing lots of fun things.  I just haven't had time to blog about any of it!

Anyway, I will be trying to catch up (maybe) but thought I would quickly post about this most recent trip.

We planned a camping trip with our friends, the Ball family, months ago so we could reserve sites in Mammoth.  We stayed at the Sherwin Lakes campground in sites 11 & 12, which just happened to be the only two sites in the campground that had zero trees since they had all been felled by bark beetles a couple of years ago.  Only we didn't realize that until we got there.  So it was pretty hot and dusty with very little shade, but we didn't spend a lot of time there during the day so it wasn't too bad.  

We loved that it was right next to a good-sized creek though and the kids literally spent hours there playing.  Clara made dozens of teepees, boats to float down the creek, and braided the long grasses into bracelets, necklaces, crowns and rings which she gifted to me and Paul and then checked on us regularly to make sure we were still wearing them.  Even when the other kids got bored playing by the creek, Clara stayed, totally happy and focused with her work.  

We took turns making meals using the Ball's dutch ovens and I definitely want to get some now!  I made a bbq chicken and sausage thing, which wasn't so great, and these cheesy garlic rolls, which were delicious.

On Friday after dinner, we drove to Convict Lake to go for a little hike/walk and just take in the scenery.  It's such a beautiful spot but it was very windy.

The kids did what they do best and threw rocks into the lake for a good half an hour before it started getting too late and we decided we needed to get back to camp in order to do a 9:30 p.m. bedtime.  I took portraits for my portrait project (which I've been awful about) while everybody was skipping rocks because the lighting was so pretty.

Rose, who is our early riser, made sure we were up and at 'em with the sun each morning before 6.  But at least she was happy about it and other than a couple little things the second night of camping, the girls did awesome sleeping in the tent.  After a summer with quite a bit of camping, they are getting to be pretty good at it.  Both girls were super bummed when our time camping was over and Clara demanded that we camp for 10 days next time instead of 2.  We were all pretty filthy after 2 days of camping, so I'm pretty certain we won't be doing 10 days any time soon, but I'm glad that both girls love it so much.

On Saturday morning, we headed to Devil's Postpile to hike.  It's such a National Monument (so basically a national park except created by the President instead of by Congress) and a very interesting spot.  And it's a good hike for the kids distance and difficulty wise.  We didn't realize that there were campsites down in by Devil's Postpile that are first come first serve, but next time we go here I think we want to try and camp in the park, if possible, since there is a lot of hiking down around Devil's Postpile that we have never done.

On the bus ride down into the Devil's Postpile Trailhead, Paul pulled up my blog post from our first (and only other) trip to Mammoth two years ago when Clara was 4 and Rose was 1.  I can't believe how much they've grown!

The kids were told to pretend to be stone columns.  Really we were trying to get them to stand up straight in a row, but they all put their hands over their heads like this.

There is a loop around Devil's Postpile so you get to see it from all angles - bottom, sides, and top.  I thought this perspective of columns jutting out at an angle was so fascinating.

This may be my new favorite pic of us as a family.  We are TERRIBLE about getting pictures of all four of us together and really need to be better about that.  It was nice having our friends with us because we could trade off cameras.

I can't believe I don't have any photos from our afternoon, but we stopped in Mammoth Lakes for lunch at Schat's Bakery, then did a really fun hike around Horseshoe Lake.  The kids weren't super jazzed about that hike at the beginning.  Our girls were really tired and hot, but once we got them going there were probably 10 bridges to cross over streams and Paul and the girls all dunked their heads in the snow run off (Paul held the girls upside down and dunked the tips of the heads in and they thought it was hilarious).

Really though, I think the kids just wanted to be back at camp with freedom to roam around and explore.  So after our Horseshoe Lake Trail hike we went back and they played their little hearts out while we prepped dinner, then cleaned up, and we still ended up with another 9:00 p.m. bedtime even though we had said we would try for earlier.

Rose and Owen had quite the conversation over by one of the coolers during dinner prep.  I love that all the kids got along so well.

Clara decorated a piece of bark with wildflowers that she tied on with a long piece of grass, then sailed it down the stream.  Over and over again.

Then on Sunday morning we made a big breakfast and packed up to head for home.  Except our car wouldn't start.  We were able to get it jumped, but when we stopped for gas it wouldn't start again and then it was really hard to jump it a second time.  Once it was finally running again, we didn't turn the car off until we got home, even filling the van with it running.  At home, we unloaded quickly, without turning the van off, then drove it down to the dealership to drop it off so it can be looked at today and we could all go home in the little car.  Sure enough, as soon as we turned it off at the repair place, it wouldn't turn back on.  So that's kind of a bummer.

But all in all, it was a wonderful camping trip and probably the last of this summer, unless we can squeeze in one more sometime in September.

Mammoth Lakes

Last weekend we took  little trip to Mammoth Lakes, CA to spend some time with the girls in the great outdoors.  We typically try to go camping every summer but nixed that idea this year because of Rose's current sleeping abilities and our general lack of desire to subject other campers in tents listening to her cry during the night if she were to wake up.  At home, she does great in her crib, but in a pack-n-play or snuggling up with me in bed?  Not so much.  Instead we rented cute little cabin at Crystal Crag Resort on Lake Mary.  It definitely wasn't fancy but it was a charming place to stay since it seems like it hasn't been updated since the 1950's (and I mean that in the best way).  There was a tiny front room with fireplace, futon, kitchen (with a teeny-tiny stove and oven and fridge) and breakfast table, and a second room with a double bed with a little bathroom.  The first night was brutal, to be honest.  Both girls went down just fine but they didn't stay that way.  Rose slept out front on the futon with me and crawled around all night long, freaking out about the covers which I finally realized in a brain-addled haze of overtiredness somewhere around 4 a.m. was NOT because she wanted MORE covers (it was chilly and I kept covering her) but that she didn't want any covers at all!  Once we got that figured out, she did much better and the second night was not nearly so rough.

 

We had a little enclosed firepit behind our cabin so the first night we roasted Whole30 compliant hot dogs for dinner (no s'mores this trip - yay us!) and ate on the table on our cabin's little patio. 

Then we went down to the lake to try out a little lake fishing.  Paul bought Clara a fishing pole for her birthday so a big reason for this trip was to give her a chance to try it out.  She has been practicing casting in our backyard (and in the house, grrr....) for a couple of weeks and is getting pretty good at it actually.  Alas, the two of them had nary a nibble the whole weekend.

Lake Mary is popular for boating and there was a beached one that Rose enjoyed playing in while I took her picture.

 

One of the main reasons for this trip was to go see Devil's Postpile National Monument, which we have been wanting to visit for years now.  It is an easy hike in, although you have to pay for bus tickets from a central parking lot and can't drive yourself to the trailhead, which turned out to be problematic for us because we left our good camera in the car and there was no easy way to just go back and grab it.  So all the pictures we have were taken on our iPhones.  Oh well. 

 

The rock are called columnar basalt and they are a pretty rare occurrence were basically a lake of lava cooled over time and cracks formed that would go for about 10 inches between shooting away from each other at 120 degree angles, creating these hexagonal columns of rock.  There was a glacier involved somewhere in the forming process but I forget just how that came into play.  Anyway, it is fascinating from below to look up at the columns, which occasionally break away and create this tumbled pile of basalt.  But it is equally interesting to see it from the top where you stand on the flat hexagonal sort of tiles that are really just columns that haven't sheered away from the rest of the formation.  Another famous example of these is at Giant's Causeway in Ireland and it is on my list of places I want to visit. 

Rose did a good job hiking on the way in, but couldn't make it up the hill to the top of the formation on her own, so we switched her to the carrier and on the way down she fell fast asleep.  We were cracking up over how she would loll her head back in a dead slumber because it must have been so uncomfortable to sleep that way!

We made breakfast in the cabin each morning.  One great thing about Whole30 is how we got to eat these awesome breakfasts of sausages and eggs and bacon and country style fried potatoes with lots of fresh fruit.  I missed muffins and pancakes, but really, who can complain too much about bacon on a regular basis?  And the curtains in this kitchen, right? 

These are the kinds of memories I want the girls to grow up with - having good breakfasts in their pajamas while camping as a family.  So glad we got to go this summer.  Hopefully by next year Rose will be a much more consistent and resilient sleeper so we can do some actual camping and more of it.

There are lots of lakes in the Mammoth area and we tried to visit a few of them.  These pictures are from Convict Lake where back in the late 1800's some men from a Nevada prison hid out trying to evade capture.  They killed a deputy when he found the near here but then were later captured by a posse of men who killed two of them and sent the third convict who was only 19 years old back to prison.

Paul found out about a fish hatchery in the area so we took the girls to feed the fish.  They loved this activity and both of them were fascinated watching the fish eat the little pellets that the girls would throw in to them. 

 

 

Then we drove over to Hot Creek which is a protected fly-fishing area that Paul and his dad like to fish at where it is only catch-and-release and you aren't allowed to use barbed hooks.  We walked around for a little bit but it was getting late in the day and Rose was ready for her nap so we didn't stay long.

When we rented our cabin, we were given a boat rental for free for a day, so we went out on the lake in the afternoon to try fishing some more.  Paul and Clara didn't have any more luck than the previous night, but it was still nice being out on the water.  The girls mostly enjoyed being able to eat the lollipops they had picked out earlier in the day.

After dinner in Mammoth, we dove out to Mono Lake to find the "tufas" which are these cool rock formations that were originally formed underwater.  The level of the lake is rising so eventually many of these will be underwater again, but it won't be for years and years.  It was such an otherworldly, interesting place to explore and I would love to go back again.  But next time when we go in the evening we need to remember to bring warmer things because the wind was chilly even if the air temperature wasn't too bad.

Just two more photos that I snapped on our way out of Mammoth.  We had driven past Twin Lakes each time on the way to and from our cabin and it was just lovely, so I wanted to stop in the parking lot and take a quick picture.

And that was our Mammoth trip!