Category Archives: Home & Family

Sputnik and I have almost the same birthday. The space age dawned
the week after I was born. My mother says she showed my older
brother and me Sputnik when it was just a tiny speck of light in
the evening sky above San Francisco. I also share my birth year with
Dr. Seuss’s Grinch and the Cat in the Hat.

To read a history of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite,
check out
NASA’s website.

I took some golf lessons years ago but wasn’t very good at it.
My grandfather loved golf after his retirement and I think my
younger brother plays. However, golf was not a big part of my
life until our neighbor took it up. He has been practicing in
his back yard. For months now, we and all the surrounding
neighbors have been finding his golf balls in our yards. A few
weeks ago, five of us surrounded him at a neighborhood BarBQ to
tease him about his new passion and gently ask him to practice
somewhere else.

Early last Saturday, we heard a great THUMP! on the side
of our house. Another golf ball appeared in the yard. Last Sunday,
we came home from church to find a second floor window shattered and
a golf ball below. Our neighbor was very responsive to our request:
he has been busy measuring the frame and getting someone to replace the
window. The sliding glass is double paned and tinted, with a
metal frame, so it is not an easy fix.

He says he has sworn off golf.

I am still learning to use our new photo scanner and enjoying
the discovery of historic, memorable, and funny family photos
as I sort through old boxes. Here are some of the recent
best finds:

2003, Katy and Angel Fish off Grand Cayman:	2005, Paul’s First Dive, Monterey:
2006, John and church kids:	2006, family computing:	.

Images by John Plocher, Katy Dickinson, John Sack (Copyright 2003, 2005, 2006)

We recently bought an HP full page scanner and I have been learning
to use it and to post the photos to our family web pages. I am
making selections from the many dozens of large plastic boxes
of family photographs from the late 1800s to the present that line
our basement walls. I spent much of the 3 day weekend sorting and scanning. Some of the changes shown in these pictures over time
are fascinating.

For example, here is my parent’s 1884 San Francisco Victorian house
in 1969, 1976, and now:

1969:	1976:
2006:	2006:	.

In almost 40 years, you can see that the house has been repainted
and restored a bit and of course the trees and yard plants have grown.
The real changes are in the surrounding houses, both of which have been
remodelled and restored extensively as the Victorian style and neighborhood have become more popular.

Last Thursday, as part of our vacation at 10th week of the
Lair of the Golden Bear family camp, we spent a day at Natural Bridges
near
Columbia, California. Columbia is a former California Gold Rush boom
town that lives on as a state-preserved historic park and a National
Historic Landmark. Natural Bridges is about an hour’s drive downhill
from
Pinecrest, the tiny town near the Lair.

The turn off to the Natural Bridges trailhead is just past the long bridge
over the reservoir:

If you go to Natural Bridges, bring a swim suit, water shoes, towel, lunch,
water and an inner tube or some kind of big water float. The deep stream
running through the caverns is very cold; it is more fun if some of you is above
the icy water. Water shoes help when walking on the slippery stones.

Even in summer, the floor of the big cavern is under water but the
stalactites, limestone
formations, and waterfalls of this living cave are spectacular. There
are three areas in the cave: the entry chamber at the base of the trail,
the vaulted middle chamber, and the exit chamber where the stream enters
the cavern. There are crawdads (crayfish – like tiny lobsters) and
little fish in the water.

The abundance of water makes for lots of plants outside the cave,
including poison oak and
prickly blackberry vines. The steep hike downhill from the trail head
goes through a dry grassy border then enters a scrubby forest of
madrone and live oak and manzanita and California buckeye, with poison oak everywhere. At this time of year, hikers must avoid poison oak on
the ground and even vining through the trees. “Leaves Three – Let
Me Be”!

Images by Katy Dickinson (Copyright 2006)

On our vacation last week at the U.C. Berkeley

Lair of the Golden Bear family camp, we spent a day at Cleo’s Baths
above
Pinecrest Lake. Pinecrest is at an elevation of 5,600 feet in the Sierra Mountains. The lake has a dam and is surrounded by rustic family cabins.

Camp Blue of the Lair is only about a mile from the lake (walking
through Camp Gold) but at 8 a.m. last Monday, eight of us drove part way round the lake
so that we could start walking closer to the trail head. We took lunches, snacks, swimsuits, water shoes, towels, hats, and water bottles plus a
CamelBak water backpack and a
Katadyne water filter for refills.

There are a variety of trail markers to Cleo’s Baths: some steel signs, some arrows
painted on rocks but mostly there are graduated piles of small stones to mark the
best trail. Here is my son sitting by the marker at the trail head:

The trail goes along the edge of the lake, then through fields of granite
boulders, alpine meadows, along the stream, and up granite walls edged with manzanita,
pine, and scrub oak. The walk is long and tiring on a hot day but the swim at the
end makes all worthwhile. Here is the view from Cleo’s Baths toward Pinecrest Lake:

Most of the trail has no view other than rocks, water, and plants but the details
are delightful:

Cleo’s Baths itself is a series of deep cold pools and waterfalls. When we hiked there
last year, we only found two of the pools but this year, we found three more above
the main swimming area. Jumping off of a cliff into deep green water or sliding down a
mossy waterfall into a rock basin is a delight. One pool ends in a small cave with a
waterfall at the back; the falls are warm from the water going over hot stones above.
It is hard to leave.

Images by John Plocher and Katy Dickinson (Copyright 2006)

On our vacation last week, we went by
Poot’s House of Cactus
twice – driving into the Sierras and then going home. In the
14 years we have been camping at the U.C. Berkeley

Lair of the Golden Bear in Pinecrest, California, we have always
meant to stop at Poot’s. This year, we finally did. Poot’s is right
on the freeway between little towns and almond groves. It
has the most amazing cactus showroom and garden I have ever seen.
Only a small part of the collection is for sale. We came home with
six new plants (cacti, euphorbia, and succulents) and lots of photos.
Driving home with a truck full of kids, sleeping bags, dirty laundry, and cactus was interesting. Here is Poot’s
address:

Poot’s House of Cactus

Unusual Plants from Around the World

17229 E. Highway 120

Ripon, CA 95366

Telephone: 209-599-7241

Here are some of my photos:

Images by Katy Dickinson (Copyright 2006)