 |
| Carving pumpkins at Parviz's house: Tia and Sasha's idea of funny |
On returning to the U.S., we decided not to move back to our
modern custom luxury house in Imperial Beach, but instead left it rented and (to
my sister’s horror) snuggled up in the Sierra Nevada mountains of
California.
 |
| Ponderosa Pine, the most beautiful of the Sierra trees |
 |
| Shadow Lake in the Desolation Wilderness, just a few miles from our cabin |
Our base for this year (at
least until August 2017) will be our cabin in GRK Valley (that stands for Grether Rico Kingsbury,
the last names of our family and my mom’s two sisters’ families). Yes, an isolated little cabin miles from
nowhere; you have to walk two miles through huge snowdrifts during the winter
to reach it.
 |
| Our little house in the big woods |
Living at the cabin has been non-stop excitement: loading 8 cords of wood into the basement so
we wouldn’t freeze (a giant granite fireplace is our only source of heat) and cleaning the cabin of dead mice, spiders, and accumulated debris.
 |
| The kitties have been helping with mice removal. Count to date: 10 carcasses |
Also part of the fun: Tia and Sasha
learning to drive the Jeep; felling giant oak trees with Daddy so we wouldn’t
freeze (some more), learning to drive snowmobiles and tracked 4x4 quads so we
could get out in case of emergency; and enjoying the spectacular beauty of the
Sierras in the autumn.
 |
| Todd the Lumberjack, Master of the Forest |
 |
| Tia and Sasha help Daddy |
 |
Wild turkeys flood my cousin's neighborhood
|
 |
| Seattle skyline on the way to visit the French Killians |
The next day the girls and I skied out to pile the groceries
into big backpacks (thanks again, Dean!
Our savior). We skied back into
the valley under a fading orange-glow sunset, making good time until the
downhill part, where I sped up, tried to sit on my poles to brake, bent the
poles and flipped upside-down on my backpack like a giant turtle. During the 10-minute struggle to get up, I
felt the sweat? Melted snow? Something
trickling down my back. Could it be…was
that the gallon of MILK that broke open???
I skied home soaked through the butt and back with $9-a-gallon organic
milk. Luckily, it wasn’t too far.
 |
| Hauling in the groceries |
We love being out in the wilderness, the silence so deep and
mysterious you can hear it flow over you.
The sheer beauty of the giant trees, the crisp air so fresh you can feel
it heal your lungs, and the spring water beating anything a bottle could offer make me thankful for this haven and the foresight my dad, my aunts
Heide and Traute, and my uncle Toby had.
 |
| Sugarpine glory on the dirt road down to GRK |
My father is especially close to me, as he loved this place above all
others. He would have been tickled by
the raccoon that showed up, by the call of the coyotes as they ran through the
valley one night, and would have shivered with me when looking at the tracks of
a big ol’ bear heading up to the Desolation Wilderness to hibernate.
 |
| Bear prints in the Desolation Wilderness |
 |
| My dad loved the solitude of these mountains |
And so it goes. We
are home-schooling the girls, to my absolute delight. Math with Todd in the morning, then science
(cataloguing the plants of the meadow and forest, along with molecular genetics),
writing using my mom’s book Writing the Natural Way, and catching up on
American and California History (a trip to Sutter’s Mill resulted in a few
panned flakes of real gold!). Let it snow!!!!!
 |
| Home schooling made easy |
 |
| Trading flamenco dresses for ski clothes |
