California Girls part 3

 

            The rest of our trip involved relaxing in the country, a trip to Sutter's Fort and a day trip to Tahoe.

↑↑After I took this picture, I went back to the house and left Jenna to her exploring. When she came back she told us that she'd been shocked by the electric fence. Naturally we told her to be careful next time. The next day at dinner she told us she'd accidentally been shocked two more times. Naturally.↑↑

↑↑Freshly squeezed orange juice... delicious.↑↑

↑↑Mom helping grandpa built a hot house, aka a green house.↑↑

 ↑↑This is Wendy's son, Max. He's such a cutie! He would do this scrunchy face whenever he smiled, I loved it!↑↑

I went to Sutter's Fort in 4th grade for a field trip- when we lived in California. Going to another state for a field trip is college stuff. Or if you're really adventurous, going to another country. One day Rachel, one day... Anyway, back to the field trip. We stayed over night and I just remember loving it. I really wanted to go back now that I'm older and let the memories live again. And they did.

↑↑Leather art. The man said that the saddle was all done by hand.↓↓

 ↑↑They had a gun shooting presentation. The participants were all men who worked at the different stations in the fort. As they were loading the guns, the man in charge (left picture, man standing in front of the well) said, "Now if this was a real battle, well, they'd need to be a lot quicker." Just as he finished, one of the men loading his gun chimed in, "We'd be dead!" Yes they would. Thank goodness it was only a demonstration.↑↑

Up in Tahoe, my uncle Glen took us on a tour of the ski resort, Northstar. Now I tried skiing once, and I had a panic attack. Why? Because I did not like feeling like my legs were not my own, but rather, glued to long awkward pieces of wood. Not gonna happen. We rode the gondola up to the top of the mountain. Glen showed us the restaurant up there which had a gorgeous view of the mountains and had me imagining being a pioneer. I'm thinking things like, 'that mountain doesn't look too far away. I could make it there by the end of tomorrow. Wait, I'd be walking. Give me at least a week.' Having a bird's eye view of things is deceiving. You can see the general landscape, but not the ups and downs- the valleys, cliffs and dead ends. Pretty amazing, those pioneers. I have a lot of respect for them.

We also went to Lake Tahoe. More like a mini ocean if you ask me. Jenna found some crawdad legs and a head. Charming. I brought home a bag of sand. Call me weird. No really, go ahead. It was black sand and it was so soft and I had to have some. Running sand through my fingers is very therapeutic for my anxiety. That's why I took it, okay! It was necessary.

 The end.

California Girls part 2

↑↑ We didn't just go under the Forest Hill Bridge- that would be 50%. And I'm all about 100%. ↑↑

 ↑↑ That's the trail we were on. Its a long ways down.↑↑

psst- my uncle Mark suggested I spit off the bridge. When he asked if I did, I replied as any normal girl would- "I couldn't bring myself to hack anything up. That's disgusting."

↑↑ They were doing construction on the bridge. That space on the right picture with the yellow ropes was like a net in case anyone fell. Awesome. ↑↑

↑↑ As I mentioned in my previous post, we had lunch next to a waterfall. It wasn't giant, but waterfalls are, 

in a word, ethereal. ↑↑

This waterfall was in the middle of a canyon. The road to get there was an old one-car dirt road built by gold-seekers. It was terrifying. It goes all the way through the canyon. It reminded me of the many years I rode to Girls Camp. How do the bus drivers not fall off the side of the mountain? They're driving buses! I will never understand.

Back to the story. Right next to the waterfall was an old cave that the Chinese had made in their search for gold. We went in. I had a tiny nervous breakdown. You need to know that I get claustrophobic in small spaces. And have tiny nervous breakdowns. A little ways in we approached a section where you either had to crawl on your hands and knees or, if you have awesome thigh muscles, squat and start walking. I can proudly say I was able to do the latter. Before however, I practically fell to the ground muttering things like, "I'm gonna die. Why did I try to be brave and come in to this underground death hole? I'm gonna die." How did the story play out? I had a couple more breakdowns and on our way back out, I literally burst through the opening into the fresh air and sunlight and vowed I would never do something so horrible again.

↑↑ We stopped and hiked down to this dam and resevior. I waited for these logs to fall but they never did. Bummer. What? Sometimes things falling a very long way is cool. ↑↑

↑↑ This totally reminded me of "Hot Lead and Cold Feet" (watch the trailer here)- you know, the part where he makes it to the dock after the canoe challenge and the bad guys give him whiskey instead of water and he remarks that it's very tasty water. Then they send him on his way to the next challenge- practically drunk. Such a hilarious movie. ↑↑

California Girls part 1

Last week my mom, Jenna and I took a little trip to California. Jenna was so funny about it. She was born there so she has this intense love for the place. We lived with my mom's parents on their farm when Jenna was born but moved a couple of months later. She had been wanting to go see the farm and visit now that she's older.

In the car with grandpa on our way to some adventures, Jenna asked if they have any chickens on their farm. He told the story of how he would let them out to walk around during the day and they'd come back to the coop at night. That is until a raccoon started stealing said chickens, which made the chickens afraid to come back to the coop and thus they had all run away or died. He then continued to tell quite a graphic story about how their one cow's pregnancy ended up in the calf not being born and the cow having to be shot before she became poisoned from the unborn calf. Sorry Jenna, this trip was lacking in animals. But not to worry, we still had fun.

Anyway, as I was saying, we went on some adventures with Grandpa Clement (mom's dad). We hiked under the Forest Hill bridge and walked across it, as well as the No Hands bridge which was built in 1921. We had lunch by a waterfall and drove across a very old suspension bridge- during which my life just about passed in front of my eyes.

↑↑The Forest Hill Bridge↑↑

↑↑Mom and Jenna are pros at getting distracted↑↑

                      ↑↑You can suck the honey out of these flowers and then blow them like a whistle↑↑

    ↓↓NoHands Bridge built in 1921. It has withstood multiple floods. Newer

       bridges built upstream did not survive, so way to go builders of this bridge!↓↓

↑↑Using slingshots↓↓

↑↑Very Indiana Jones-ish↑↑

Try and Try Again

I've missed my blog, and writing! I loved writing essays in school, no joke. Especially if I didn't procrastinate and had time for the words to flow and ideas to appear. This is a bit embarrassing but I'll admit that sometimes I entertain the idea of giving myself a topic and writing a paper! I know it sounds pretty weird but I've seriously thought about it. I am aware that in college I'll have plenty of opportunities for essays and afterwards will probably loath writing, but I'll stay positive and hope that day never comes.

I have plans for this blog! Even if no one reads it, that's okay. This is my blog where I'm planning on writing anything that suits my fancy. Whether it be reminiscent of a journal entry or an account of an exciting event, it will be a ride- sometimes slow and sometimes fast. After all, that's how life goes.