Columbia, CA - Old Timey Town

June 27, 2015 11:34 am

For the past couple of weeks Mom and Dad have been wandering around the western states and last weekend we met up in Columbia, CA.  It's technically a State Historic Park, but it's still an actual town too.  The main street and surrounding area is a preserved gold-rush era mining town (though they have paved the road).

But, before we talk about the town, let's back up a moment to the night before.  The only arrangement we'd made with Mom and Dad was to meet them in Columbia Friday morning.  Then Jess and I decided drive out Thursday night to give us a better chance of getting an early start in the town before it got too hot (forecast was for over 100 F).

I called the hotel at which we had booked a room for Friday night, but they were sold out for Thursday.  So I found another hotel a couple towns over and booked a room there.  As it turned out that was where Mom and Dad were staying.

We left town late Thursday evening to avoid sitting in traffic (it was going to be a ~1.75 hour drive already).  Heather eventually fell asleep and we pulled in to the hotel's parking lot around 10:30pm.  After groggily working her way up the stairs to our room, Heather was startled by Mom stepping out of the room right next to ours to say, "Hello."  Turns out, grandparents popping out of doors unexpectedly late at night was not something Heather was going to tolerate.  She pretty much lost it.

IMGP3124asAnyway, we eventually got to sleep and Heather was somewhat less wary in the morning.

In town we had a blacksmith put our name on a horseshoe (this was something Jess was super excited to do):

IMG_20150621_145908asWe also did candle dipping (again, something Jess was super excited about):

IMGP3196asWe had lunch at one of the restaurants (with sarsaparilla) during which Heather had a few meltdowns; heat and hunger didn't combine well for her.  As it turned out, we then left Heather's water bottle at the restaurant and didn't notice for several hours.  When I went back to get it the worker greeted me with, "Oh yeah, you had the screaming blond-haired girl.  She was memorable."  Yah....

IMGP3134as IMGP3136asWe took a stagecoach ride which was set upon by a bandit:

IMGP3145as IMGP3171as IMGP3158asHeather panned for gold.  She found some rocks, which she declared to be her treasure, but nothing of value.

IMGP3180asAnd we had some ice-cream to cool down from the heat:

IMGP3184asIMGP3187asAnd Heather enjoyed spending time at the antique bowling alley:

IMGP3211asIt was a good time.  It was hot, but most of the buildings were air-conditioned and the old trees along main street provided nice shade.

Apparently the real secret is to go during cooler months and rent one of the cottages (there are cottages and hotel rooms available only through the ReserveAmerica system as they're run by the Park Service).  The cottages don't have air-conditioning, but they seem to have plenty of room and are reasonably priced.

Bonus pictures:

Camping

June 13, 2015 8:29 pm

Heather has been asking to go camping for several weeks, but while I was still in class there was no way it was going to happen.  So once that wrapped up I decided to stop putting it off and pick a date.  So I took the afternoon off on Friday, and Heather and I packed up the car, and then sat in traffic... (Jess and Corinne stayed home.)

I wanted to get on the road by 1:00-1:30, but inevitably it took longer.  We were driving by 2:30 which I thought would still be alright, but no.  It was stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper traffic from Livermore out the other side of Stockton.  That drive should normally take like 40 minutes, but it was over an hour and a half.  Then we had another hour of driving to do on top of that.  Heather fell asleep, which was good given the amount of sleep she was likely to get in the tent.

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We drove out to Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park.  I liked it when I was there last year--quiet, secluded, trees, and shade.  Presumably there are comparable locations closer to home, but I couldn't figure out how to find them.

We got to the campground, picked out a spot and got our stuff unpacked.  Then we wandered about looking at the bark houses and grinding rocks.  The high for the day was in the upper 90's and we probably should have rescheduled, but that's tough to do with a 3-year-old whose heart is set on the adventure.  Once it cooled down a bit we got our fire going and roasted our hotdogs for dinner.

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Once dinner was cleaned up it was time for s'mores.  I had neglected to put the chocolate bars in the cooler.  But it wasn't a total loss, I bought the "fun size" chocolate bars which are still salvageable after becoming bags of liquid chocolate.

After Heather was asleep I played with the camera for a bit.  Couldn't get any usable pictures of the stars, but I got this really fun picture of one of the neighboring campsites:

IMGP3086asI really like the light hitting the trees.  And a picture of the fire:

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In the morning we had breakfast of Silly Circles (off-brand Fruit Loops) at like 5:30 AM since that's when Heather decided that it was too light out to sleep.  Then we went for a hike and back to the bark houses and grinding rocks while it was still cool and shady.  After that it was time to pack up and head home.

Heather fell asleep, but I woke her up for lunch at A&W.  She was excited to discover they have mini corndogs and milk, her favorite meal.  Then we stopped at the Ghirardelli chocolate outlet and ice-cream shop in Lathrop for an ice-cream sundae.

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Heather declared it, "The best camping trip ever," so I guess it was a success.  I think we avoided sunburn and heatstroke with only mild sleep deprivation.

It occurred to me that I could set up the camera on the tripod to take pictures automatically so we'd have some pictures of the both of us camping.  Then I thought about turning them into a little video.  So enjoy the 4-minute abridged version of the trip with more music and less heat (sadly, I didn't take the camera with us hiking or to the historical sites).

If your browser doesn't want to play the video you can download it here: Camping June 12-13 2015 (small)

Audio credits, in order of use:
"The end of the last adventure" by soundtrackmusic.org - Creative Commons Licensed
"Chimney Fire" by reinsamba - Creative Commons Licensed
"Calm Sky" by [SMJ] Music - Creative Commons Licensed
"Ocarina - Sun's Song" by ZREO - Creative Commons Licensed
"Call to Adventure" by KevinMacLeod - Creative Commons Licensed

Let's Go Fly a Kite

May 25, 2015 8:16 pm

IMG_20150525_175612a IMG_20150525_182028aIt was windy and cool today so we met up with some friends and went to the park for the evening.  We picked up some dinner on the way to eat at the park and then play.  This park is up on the side of a hill overlooking the valley near the municipal airport so we got to watch the vintage B-17 and B-24 bombers flying around (Part of the Wings of Freedom Tour).

We brought our turtle kite that we've only successfully flown once.  But, there was plenty of good steady wind today and we had no trouble getting it up in the air.  Heather thought it was amazing.

Enjoy some more pictures:

I'm a tortoise! And Fentons!

May 24, 2015 9:00 pm

A couple of weeks ago I was lamenting to Jess that we needed to _do_ something.  So on Friday the 15th she suggested I take the afternoon off from work and we go to the Oakland Zoo, so we did.  Heather had a blast, as she always does.  One of her favorite things to do is to hop across the "lily pads" in the kids area.  Which she did for like half an hour and made a friend with another little girl.  Then she lost her balance and stepped into the pond and soaked her shoe, sock, and pant leg.  Which is why she's only wearing one shoe in these pictures.

Her favorite thing to see was the zebras, but we also stopped to watch the lions, giraffes, camels, and elephants.  I had read somewhere that elephant sounds were used as the basis for the Tyrannosaurus Rex sounds in Jurassic park.  Well, while we were watching the elephants one of them made this low growling kind of noise which made me think of that tidbit because it was spot on.  It's apparently also true, a lot of other animals were used to (and usually heavily modified).

It was after the zebras that we headed for the children's area where Heather soaked her foot.  After that it was off to see the tortoises and lemurs.  Luckily, it was a cool day and the tortoises were lounging in their shelter with the heat lamps.  Luckily, I say, because at one point Heather took off running and climbed into the tortoise enclosure before I caught up with her (through one cable-fence and over a short wall; tortoises don't really need much to keep them in).  She only got one leg in before I grabbed her but she was ready to bolt.

After retrieving her we pretended to be tortoises:

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And then we rode on a (fake, obviously) tortoise.
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The zoo closes at 4 so we headed to as-seen-in-Up! Fentons for dinner and ice-cream:

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Fentons_UpThe movie makes it look like it's off by itself in the suburbs.  That's a lie.  The food was pretty good regardless, but a little pricey for what it was.