I've had plenty to keep me busy, not to worry. Just haven't' taken the time to write it down. And my sense of humor seems to be hibernating.
Lets see.. in the past month since I posted much we've done quite a bit.
One of the bigger events was a field trip to a farm in the mountains. The charter school made the reservation. There were several other schools there. Normal-send-the-kids-from-school-on-a-bus schools.
And we left the house at 7:30 and it was 58 degrees at our house. Sure, chilly by our standards. And I'm sure that's the temp the kids went to school in. (which would be why they were in shorts and t shirts and freezing! there was a fire in a building the teachers were supposed to take their inappropriately dressed students to warm up by periodically)
But there that particular phenomenon that happens here where the higher in altitude you go, the colder it gets. As we were pulling in at 9:45 it was 42 degrees.This farm is the site of historical re-enactments and in the mountains. Just below the current snow line.
Anyway.. another new experience for us.. it was in the mountains that burned in one of the recent San Bernadino mountain fires. So the landscape as we neared the farm was 'standard burned out wildfire', but the new part was the mudslides- because it's been raining this winter. And when you pour rain on the burned dirt, there is nothing to keep the dirt in place- not that a whole lot was there to keep it in place, anyway.
So as we're driving the windy mountain roads, we see warning signs about mudslides and then.. the road is covered in mud and the road recently dug out form the last mudslide that had covered it.
I of course had to take pictures of this, but the camera is with Larry in Arkansas today (ask me about that later). So no pictures on the blog.
As we pull into the farm, the van's 'low oil pressure' light goes off and the idiot 'ding ding ding ding ding' starts going off for those of us who rarely look at the control panel. This of course put in into a bit of a panic. We were 2 hours from home, a good 20 minutes from the nearest something that resembled civilization and I wonder if AAA wishes I wasn't a card carrying member.Oh, yeah, and in the last 30 minutes Kayla got car sick, so I was OH.SO. ready to get out of the van for a while. Have I mentioned that we have kids that get carsick often?
Anyway.. since there was nothing to do about it, I get the kids out of the car and bundle them in their winter coats while listening to them complain about it being cold. If there is a next time we'll bring gloves, too. Sadly our gloves were eaten and nest-y from a mouse infestation so they were thrown out. And gloves are a little hard to find in stores here.
So the kids were spilt into groups with the guise they were from the town they were grouped under. Since this was a Revolutionary War field trip, our kids were from Concord. They rotated through stations where they had a blacksmith show how to make musket balls and tin soldiers out of pewter.. but the 2010 California twist to it was the blacksmith fire was run by propane. lol.
They had a weaving station, a period etiquette tent, a games area (the hoop and stick and graces games), a few discussion areas on the conditions leading up to the revolution- corrupt judges and taxes in partucular.
And then they had a period "militia lunch" of cornbread, an apple a piece of cheese that was probably cut last week and a small piece of beef jerky. The kids were glad I had packed them peanut butter on bread.
The final event of the day was a re-enactment of a revolutionary war battle, including the statement don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes and the marching and firing in lines and then reloading their muskets.
The adults fired real gunpowder, they gave the kids sticks and let them pretend, lol.
I hope our kids remember something from it.
In all it was a neat experience. And much like living in New England- they had classic capes, colonials and barn there, in period dress and it was COLD and you could see snow in the distance. I really like being able to visit this and still make it home at night.
Part of the day brought us through parts of California that were both beautiful, not crowded and rural. (oh, yeah, even had green grass since we've seen rain). If I had a pick somewhere to live, I'd probably move there. Really being this close to the beach is over rated.
Especially when there is a big ole earthquake and your area gets Tsunami advisoraries. Not that we'd have much to worry about where we live even if a 30 foot surge came on land, but it would certainly make life here difficult for a while.
Oh, yeah.. the van?
At the end of the day I decided to try to coast down the mountain as much as possible and find a gas station of somewhere that sells oil. I find a hardware store get 2 quarts, return to the van and... it's oil is still full. Just like it was the week previously when I had it's oil changed.
*sigh*
Well.. it's running as it usually does. I refuse to admit I might be driving it long enough to make pricey repairs on it. In fact it's needed shocks for a year and I've been reluctant to spend the money to repair those because that means I'm committing to driving it another 3 years or so..
Of course this means I could be driving it another 3 years with lousy shocks. But any further trips to the mountains will be in the truck. Which I really should have taken anyway, particularly had I known about the muddy roads. We even have chains for the tires now so we can go play in snowy mountains.
Hmmm.. maybe we'll go this weekend
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