the big update

Last week I learned that:

• A week at a ski cabin (three bedroom, two bath house) near Bear Valley costs roughly half as much in the summer as it does during ski season, and you have very few neighbors on the weekend. You don't have any neighbors during the week.
• There's a train museum in Jamestown, CA, and on weekends they run the old steam train on a six mile stretch of track, much to the delight of train buffs, many of whom appear to be toddlers. That was where I learned that the water tower from Petticoat Junction currently has a roof on it.
  
  
  
• Sierra Redwoods are bigger around but shorter than Coastal Redwoods. The sheer size of the trunks may be more impressive to people who didn't grow up around Coastal Redwoods, but the idea of having one of these branches fall on you definitely impressed me.
  
  
  Also, my standard go-out-in-the-Arizona-sun outfit is pretty serious overkill in a grove of 300 foot (100 m) tall trees.
  
  
  
• If you get distracted while holding a six-month-old baby who does not currently have his pacifier in his mouth and has thus latched onto your chin, you can end up with a big, round bruise: your very own baby hickey. I'm pleased to report that I was only a witness to the baby hickey.
• Lake Alpine is a little bit east of Bear Valley, and you don't have to walk too far to get up to Inspiration Point, which appears to be made of concrete. It turns out that volcanoes can spew some combination of little rocks and ash that ends up looking remarkably like sedimentary concrete to the untrained eye but is actually called breccia, and I know that because we brought along the family geologists.
  
  
  
• Speaking of nerds, one of the geologists told me that there's a string of cornsilk for every kernel on a corn cob, and that's how they get pollinated. I felt compelled to confirm that information with the botanist, who told me to look up "corn flower," so sure enough. I also found this nifty page entitled "Sexual Dysfunction in the Corn Field"
• If you take a 2 1/2-year-old on a paddleboat ride on Lake Alpine, they'll hand you a SpongeBob life preserver complete with handles.
• If a bear comes to your cabin in the middle of the night and wants to get at the trash, which is stored in a locked room off the porch, it makes quite a racket ripping the door molding and siding off the house. It stepped daintily over the car seat that was out there, however, and you can see that the stroller was also unharmed.