Our Life In Transit

This was a fantastic long weekend exploring the eastern Sierras with the Dixon family! Du, Cato, and Breana headed over earlier on Friday in order to check out Alabama Hills in Lone Pine (very worthy camping area to spend more time hiking around looking for arches…as well as getting to know the movie history more). We woke up to a beautiful sunrise on Mt. Whitney right from our tent window!

On Saturday, we met up with Barb, Dave, and Colby to explore the back roads of the Owen’s Valley trying to follow the route that Mammoth Lakes Pack Outfit uses to drive the horses from winter pastures in Independence up to summer jobs in Mammoth Lakes. We found some cool ruins and only a couple gates (mostly unlocked). The surpise highlight was stumbling upon the Black Rock Fish Hatchery and getting a private tour including feeding the Rainbow Trout! We were super excited to find the actual camping spot marked on Barb’s map where the horses spent one of the nights along the horse drive. The last stop of the day was driving on the beach at Crowley Lake to view the stone columns (Cato was more interested in wading in the water with Grandma). We found a fantastic camping spot up on the bluff overlooking the lake and out to Mammoth Mountain. Cato was super excited to help Grandma make the shish kabob’s for dinner.

On Sunday, we drove on into Mammoth to take care of some errands (including Colby dropping some money at the mountaineering store) and grab lunch at Distant Brewing. After lunch, we aired down the truck tires and started the four-wheel drive climb up to Laurel Lakes at 9700′ of elevation. It was a fun drive that included lots of rocks, some nail biting cross slopes, and a 5+ point turn to get around a switch back (not intended for long crew cab Tacomas, but they did it!). The lake was stunning but windy and Colby got to go sailing across the water on an air matress while Cato threw LOTS of rocks.

Monday morning, the group opted to skip cooking breakfast (cold and still breezy) to just head down the mountain. We had a lovely brunch at Tom’s Place and did some recon of the cabins for a future East Side trip. To wrap up the trip, it was a loooong drive home including sitting in Labor Day traffic on Hwy 395 for an hour. What a jam-packed, fun weekend!

The season is wrapping up for summer activities! For our last day at The Ravine, we took advantage of cooler weather to finally play put put golf like Cato’s been begging to do all summer (fun course!). Then we still had enough time for some water play on the slides before heading home for lunch and nap.

It was super fun to check out the rainbow boat graveyard at Cuesta Inlet  for the first time, and Alex introduced us to a fantastic hidden play area! Another gal brought two dogs as well, so Jasper had a blast jamming around off leash with a new friend.

This was a fun overnight trip exploring out Hwy 166 to the heart of the Gifford Fire burn area (Aug 2025). We stayed at Buck Spring “Campground”… a remote, minimalist location that required some 4- wheel- driving to access and just provided a flat clearing with a fire pit and two picnic tables. The road pass the camping area was closed due to fire damage, so there wasn’t any traffic passed camp. The main adventure was when Cato crashed the drone, so then we all got to go bush wacking through sharp thistles and yucca plants up the ridge to find the drone… thank goodness it’s light was on, and it was in the shadow of the hill!! On the way home Sunday, we stopped at Avila Dog Beach for lunch.

We might have overdone it this week, but it was so much fun! Cato’s preschool was closed for summer break and this was Du’s first week of freedom after his last day at Amazon on July 31st, so we had some extra time to play around with friends!

We kicked off the week with a Camp Sky group “Bubbles & Lawn Games” gathering at Paloma Creek Park. Then it was time to escape the heat at Avila Dog Beach with Parker and Hudson. Mid-week, we met up with Clay and Sierra at The Hub in SLO for a beer and pizza dinner (the copious amounts of games were lots of fun and Cato even scorred a Michelangelo Ninja Turtle monster truck!!). For some additional water play, we went up to The Ravine Waterpark one afternoon with Du and Grandma.

We also had a playdate at Wyatt and Levi’s house on Wyatt’s actual birthday to play in their backyard pool, but the boys never made it outside because there were too many fun games to play inside (Margaret and I didn’t mind just getting to relax on the couch and chat while finishing our morning tea, lol). Then on Saturday, we went back for Wyatt’s birthday party and had lots of fun playing games in the back yard (including racing monster trucks down the slide…always a fan favorite!)

We decided to take a little road trip up to Watsonville to check out their annual strawberry festival (if nothing else, it was an excuse to escape the 100 deg heat at home!). There was lots of music, food, vendors, and carnival rides to check out. Du enjoyed some delicious street tacos with strawberry salsa and the group split a strawberry shortcake dessert. The fresa aguas frescas drink hit the spot as well!

Everyone braved the triple digit heat for the backyard bonanza to celebrate. The water play was a huge hit, but the trampoline, swing set, and sandbox also got some attention. Naturally, once everyone was bored of water play, they moved to mud play (created from the water play.) I tried to get a nice picture of Casey and Cato together, but the closest thing I got was them on the swing set while Cato was showing of a trick on the rings, lol.

Tried to make it to 10 years but got burned out by workload and oncall shifts.

Here’s to being unemployed and enjoying some time off.

Per usual, it was triple digits hot for the fair, but we still had fun checking out the vendors (in AC buildings), 4H and FFA animals, and all the little kid rides. This year, we got the unlimited ride bracelet so that Cato could do laps on his favorite rides. He especially enjoyed his first time in a ferris wheel! Taking the shuttle bus to and from the fair was a fun bonus ride 😆