Uh-Oh

I'm not done rambling on about our vacation yet, but before I finish, I had to post this cute video. What do you think - does "uh-oh" count as a word?

Have Diapers, Will Travel, Part III: Convict Lake

On our second day, we headed 30 miles south of Mono Lake to the Mammoth Lakes area. We strapped Susannah into our handy little baby backpack and toted her on a nice hike along Convict Lake. In 1871, this lovely lake was the site of a shoot-out between a group of escaped convicts from Carson City, NV and a posse led by the local sheriff. Unfortunately for the sheriff, he was shot dead. On the upside, for his trouble he was rewarded with a mountain peak in his name – Mt. Morrison – that looms above the lake and is shown in the picture. (The long arm of the law ultimately prevailed when the outlaws were captured a few days later near Bishop, CA)
Before Susannah was born, we did a fair amount of hiking and backpacking. Like many people, I decided it wouldn’t be so fun to go out on long treks when I was extremely pregnant or toting around a newborn, so hiking trips have been on the back burner for awhile now. Now that Susannah is a little bit older, we are happy to find that these sorts of things are not only possible, but actually enjoyable! Ultimately, our hike was fairly short as we turned around after about 2 hours of trudging uphill. Since we were both out of shape and unaccustomed to the altitude, this was plenty.

Have Diapers, Will Travel, Part II: Mono Lake

About 24 hours after Susannah and I returned to San Francisco, we all packed up the car and headed to the other side of the Sierras for some family R&R, or at least as much R&R as one can do with a very energetic, crawling (and now standing up!) little girl. After a brief overnight stop at South Lake Tahoe, we headed south to Mono Lake, a hypersaline and alkaline lake just east of Yosemite. An interesting place, indeed…….
Due to its high salt concentration and alkalinity, not much survives in the water except algae, and a tiny species of brine shrimp unique to Mono Lake that feed on the algae. The shrimp attract alkali flies, which produce fly larvae, which in turn attract lots of birds. Lured by bountiful fly larvae to munch on, birds come to Mono Lake by the thousands. In fact, Mono Lake is major stopping-off point for a number of migratory shorebird species, including killdeer, sandpipers, and avocets. Seagulls also make Mono Lake their home for a significant part of the year, and it is thought that most of the California seagull population is actually born here.
Mono Lake is also interesting because it has been the focus of a major environmental controversy. In the early 1900s, the city of Los Angeles bought water rights in the Mono Basin and diverted water from the streams that feed into the lake. As a result, the water level dropped significantly over the course of several decades. In the late 1970s, environmental activists worked to turn the tide in the other direction, and the water level is now on the rise. But there’s still much less water in Mono Lake than there used to be. As a result, there is extensive exposure of calcium carbonate formations called “tufa” above the water surface. Despite the fact that without human interference in the first place, these formations would remain hidden beneath the surface, they still look really cool! We took lots of pictures of these at the South Tufa Reserve.

Have Diapers, Will Travel, Part I: Green Valley

The next several installments of the blog will cover our recent travels. Susannah’s babysitter has been on vacation for the past 2 weeks, so it seemed like a good time to take one ourselves. To start off the first few days, I subjected myself to the joys of airline travel (with Susannah in my lap) to go visit my parents in Green Valley, AZ. Alex was not with us, but fortunately with the help of distractions in the form of numerous toys, books, smiling strangers and a Ziploc bag full of Cheerios, Susannah and I endured the flight just fine. It’s a beautiful time to visit Arizona since it’s not too hot yet and many of the cacti are in bloom. It was a short but sweet visit. I snuck in a couple of naps, and Susannah had fun discovering a whole new world of things to put in her mouth, not to mention the doting attention of her grandparents. Some high points were visits to the community pool and dinner with my cousin Kathy and her family.