Ano Nuevo

I just had to pay $3.15 a gallon for gas today at the cheap gas station in Mountain View (in SF, the cheapest I saw today, in my unscientific survey, was $3.25/gal). I suppose now that the summer is in sight, oil companies feel like they can turn up the gouge-o-meter. The Toyota is also in the shop (for the second time in a week), so we're having to drive the gas guzzling Volvo. I keep reminding myself that gas is still a lot cheaper than a gallon of milk.

We had an action-packed weekend, starting with me taking the day off on Friday to drive down to Ano Nuevo state park with Walt and Devon to see the elephant seals. Every year the elephant seals come to Ano Nuevo to mate; this year we were a bit late, since the real mating action takes place in late January and early February. But there were still many elephant seals around, especially the "weaners," the new seals that were born that year whose mothers have already left.

Walt and I didn't really think through the Ano Nuevo trip with Devon -- all visitors are required to make reservations to see the seals, and no one is allowed to go off alone, since there are seals all over the sand (many quite far away from the water). Some of these seals, especially the bulls, are huge -- over 1000 lbs -- and it's not at all safe to wander around unsupervised. It's not really a great tour with a small child, since every time she saw a seal, she wanted to go over and look at it (and couldn't understand why she couldn't). We also had trouble keeping up with the group, since Devon wanted to travel at her own pace, but we all had to stay together. This resulted in many crying fits when I had to pick her up in order to keep up with the rest of the group. However, she did have a lot of fun despite all the restrictions; she liked the seals a lot, and we had a lot of stops in the sand dunes, which allowed her to dig in the sand for just about the whole time.

Walt and I have started carrying earplugs in the car. We've found that Devon can usually keep it together for an hour, maybe an hour and a half in the car; but anything beyond that often ends in a screaming or crying fit. For something like Ano Nuevo, we just can't stop regularly (and it's really better in most cases to just power through with the driving, since if we stop, it is generally an extended session) -- hence the earplugs. The first time we used them, we were on our way to Pajaro Dunes. Devon had been screaming about something at the top of her lungs, so we just popped in the earplugs so it made it more bearable for us to drive (it helps in general with the Toyota anyway, since the window is broken and it's like driving a convertible through a wind tunnel). The funny thing was that the minute we put the earplugs in she stopped crying and said, "What's that?" She the demanded to have her own pair. Now she's gotten used to them and they're not a deterrant; but it's still nice to have them handy for a trip like this.

Walt has been making good progress on the patio, and he's even got some pavers installed. On Sunday Devon and I went to Point Reyes with the Olsons and their friends Rich and Olgica and their two children and Walt made some more progress on the patio (and cleaned out the spare room so our friends Mayra and Brice had some space when they come to visit this week). I realized on Saturday that I had left my wallet and phone in the Toyota, which was now locked in our mechanic's garage all weekend. Arne was nice enough to volunteer to drive for me, since I didn't want to drive all the way up there without my license.

It turned out that Olgica's parents were visiting from Serbia, and as a result, they brought enough food to feed an army. Her mom cooks for them every day (in addition to cleaning the house, doing the shopping and babysitting), and they had loads of home baked goods, 3 types of homemade hummus, etc. It was really rather astounding. I have decided, though, that they are the ideal in-laws -- they come to visit and spend the entire time doing housework and cooking and they speak almost no English. It's like an extended vacation for Rich and Olgica.

Devon had a grand time with all of the other children; we had a picnic on the grass at the visitor's center, and the kids spent most of the time playing chase with occasional breaks for eating. That was a good opportunity to get off some steam after the long drive up there. After lunch we drove to north beach, which is a long, sandy stretch on the north end of the park. Devon fell asleep on the way over, but after she woke up, she had a ball playing on the beach.

The waves on that beach were especially big -- at least the big sets were -- and on the first time we ventured into the water, she got clobbered by a big one and was wet to the waist. That scared her, so after that she only wanted me to hold her while I walked in the surf. The water was freezing, and after about 2 minutes, my feet were totally numb. I also got soaked myself, since I wasn't counting the wave sets carefully. I had neglected to bring a change of clothes, since I didn't realize we were going to the beach (I think of Point Reyes as a hiking destination, not as a beach destination, so it didn't occur to me that we'd go to the beach). It was ok, though, since the day was sunny and beautiful, so I did dry out eventually (Olgica mentioned that when she told her parents that they were going to Point Reyes, they said, "Oh, that cold beach." This was one of the only times that I've been there and it hasn't been either windy or foggy.) We ended up leaving early to go home and meet Walt for dinner, since it turned out that everyone else was planning on staying late (Keri had brough pajamas for Mina and Isaac). Devon was awake the entire ride back, but once we got home, she finally tired out, despite the time change and went to bed pretty easily.