Rocks, Roads, Redding, Redwood Highway

I posted earlier about our trip north last weekend, when a road closure of the 101-North due to a major rockslide required us to change our driving plans to include a detour east (and an added hour's drive) to get to southern Oregon. 

We hadn't driven the ~3-hour trip to Redding in over two years, but it was a natural midpoint of our first day's drive, and so we took a break for a lunch and a stroll at Sundial Bridge and the trails alongside the Sacramento River.

On our return trip, we had a slightly shorter drive due to the rockslide being partially cleared (to allow sequential one-way traffic. However, after more heavy rain, it closed again the day after our return!). Our lunch "break" included a walk on the short Botanical Trail east of Gasquet along "Redwood Highway" (199). 

The kids enjoyed seeing the "Cobra lilies" (darlingtonia)

Both kids even napped on our return drive (Niall at his usual nap time, and Iver due probably due to dramamine-induced drowsiness [we drugged him as he gets carsick on curvy roads]). Road trips with young children can be daunting, but I'm amazed these kiddos do as well as they do-- long trips in the car are far less painful when there are happy campers in the back (and possibly better than being quarantined at home...)! 

Tech-(text)-savvy six

This year has forced children to grow up...a lot, and in different ways. 

I wasn't ready or happy for my six-year-old kindergartner to be spending daily time on the computer "Zooming" into his public school class, instead of learning in "normal" childhood ways (and still am angry on a daily basis that this is the way it is at our school locally, despite all the evidence that elementary school opening is quite safe and essential). Despite the tech-heavy world we live in (even heavier in pandemic times), I believe that the harms of early exposure to technology for young brains are quite great (and frequent exposure is bad for adults, too-- if you haven't already, please watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix) and we've been extremely strict with screen time for our kids to date.  

Nevertheless, I have had to let go of a lot of my rules and reservations about tech use at home, because FaceTiming has been the only way my kids have connected with their relatives since this time a year ago. I have to keep reminding myself of the privilege we have of connecting remotely during these times, as much as it makes me feel icky and sad because of the fact that we adults remember the "before" times and how communication could/can be different. With respect to school: Iver hasn't learned all that much Spanish this year, but has indeed learned how to read, and can type far better than I thought was remotely possible for the young age of six.

The below text chains are from iMessages I discovered on my phone this week (my phone is represented in blue). I was super confused, because I didn't remember sending some of them. And then I realized that they were FROM IVER!!! 

(Co Kat is "aunt Kat," Kelvin's sister).  Note the interesting contraction in the word "called!" And the emojis! 

Then later, I found another text series involving my mom. 

Iver wrote the "I'm going to call you in a bit." 

Iver knows that he always needs our permission to use our devices to FaceTime his aunts/grandparents, but we never specifically had a conversation about/prohibiting messaging them himself (which, prior to reading these exchanges, we didn't know he knew how to do! He now also knows he needs our explicit permission to send messages when his intended conversation partner doesn't answer the phone).

I was initially annoyed when I discovered his secret messages, but my irritation was short-lived and replaced by pride as, a couple of months after turning six, I realized that he knows how to use (mostly) appropriate apostrophes in text messages. 

This kid. Texting proficiently at age six. What will he be doing at ten or twenty??? 

Cabin at Hyatt Lake

We haven't taken a break from work in what seems like forever.  A family that loves to travel, we usually take at least one two-week vacation (usually including international travel) per year, and visit with our family several other times per year. I've really been having a hard time seeing how/when this will all be over, as my cup is truly filled by respite and time away from work and different scenery, and while there is so much else to be saddened by (the loss of this year of in-person public school for Iver has been atop my list), this has been a hard loss for me to grieve during this pandemic (as privileged as that statement is, which I fully recognize).  

A co-worker told us that she and her family made a weekend trip to a cabin in the wood outside of Ashland, Oregon (about a 4.5-hour drive from us) in January, and that it felt totally COVID-safe as they could pack in and cook their own food and stayed far away from anyone else. Eager to see some new outdoor scenery, we (not sure how COVID cases or weather would look but having taken Presidents' week off to take a break from work) tentatively booked a (partially refundable) three-night stay there this week.  When you've been at home for so long, venturing out of your *safe* space comes with its own amount of stress in packing and travel anxiety, but we are so glad we went!  

There were a few travel hurdles-- a rockslide north of us on Hwy 101 the day before our trip necessitated a re-routing (east and then north) inland through Redding, adding at least an hour to our drive (which took a total of about 5.5 hours) but without the risk of coming across a winter or weather-related road closure (and thankfully, which Kelvin found out the night before we left!).  Not having spent this much time in the car in a long time, Niall in particular was bored and whiny despite snacks and favorite soundtracks. However, we had good weather for the drive up, and after passing through Ashland, we made our way the rest of the 45-min drive up the mountain without needing chains. 

Our pet-friendly cabin was in a group of cabins at the south end of Hyatt Lake (or Hyatt Reservoir). There was fresh-appearing snow on the ground (and piles everywhere!) when we parked, and after getting settled, we headed out to explore!

This was the most snow these coastal Cali kids (and Kelvin, a Vietnam-California transplant) had ever seen!

Iver climbed a snow drift as high as a cabin! 

    

We walked along some trails overlooking the (snow-covered) Hyatt Lake.

We woke up each morning to fresh snow. 

Iver got good as a shoveling assistant (Kelvin reported he's extremely glad he doesn't live somewhere where he has to shovel regularly!).

On the first morning, we drove a couple of miles to nearby Table Mountain Snow Park, where Iver enjoyed a bona fide sledding hill and I stomped around in snow shoes.

Snowboys/snowmen

(Kids in various stages of cooperation for photos with the very pandemic-useful selfie stick)

The kids really loved playing in the cozy cabin-- which had stairs (a novelty!) to a loft (where they slept), warm heat, and a back-deck hot tub!  I enjoyed some quiet time with tea and a great book (Shuggie Bain), as well as evening Australian Open tennis watching.

Reading in the loft with Papa 

Doing art over the heater vent

 Snuggling on the couch

Iver loved the hot tub (Niall not so much)

"It's snowing!" 

Snack time (including a hot cocoa treat!)

We found a small hill to sled on a short walk away from our cabin.

Walks in the woods were so peaceful (except for some whining about it being tiring/having cold hands). Pepper isn't as much a fan of walking in snow as she was in her younger years. We didn't even cross paths with anyone else! 

hydration station

While a winter snowy Southern Oregon getaway surely wasn't in our 2021 plans and there were a few hiccups, we really had a pretty delightful, cozy (and entirely physically distant from other people) time at our secluded mountain cabin in the woods. The kids loved seeing so much snow, and we think this is a place we could try to re-visit some summer (or other even non-COVID year) as it was fairly accessible from our coastal home (the 101-South was also open for one-way traffic on our return trip, which was really smooth and shorter in duration). Two (eight?) thumbs up!