Day: October 17, 2006

On the last weekend in California, October 6-8 we went camping to celebrate Andy’s birthday. It was Leilani’s first backpacking trip (hiking+camping, as opposed to car camping), and her coldest camping. The resident ranger even took our photo, because it is so unusual for people to go camping with babies there—and because Leilani is so cute in her little mouse-ear hat.

We drove up highway 9 from Santa Cruz, through the beautiful redwood forests. We hiked in pretty late on Friday, the trail was 3 miles instead of 2, it was cold and misty and we were wondering if this was such a good idea. But we got to the deserted campsite in plenty of time to find the best spot, build the tent, and eat dinner. Then Leilani got very cranky and started crying a lot—we thought she was tired or afraid of the dark, unfamiliar surroundings so we walked and bounced her until she calmed down and fell asleep 9:30 pm or so.

Fortunately she slept most of the night pretty well, just from 3:00 to 4:30 she was awake, occasionally nursing, grabbing a nose or whacking Andy, or talking loudly to herself. The next day we found a big insect bite on her, so maybe that’s what set her off.

We all slept until 7:30, quickly had breakfast, and hiked out, just in time to meet our friends. Peter, Alan and Anant showed up very much on time, so we did a short walk to Castle Rock and had our picnic lunch while we were waiting for Ruwan and Eric (Xiangrong). After watching the climbers for a while, we climbed into some eroded formations and on some of the nearby rocks.

Around noon we loaded up with some more food (and “beverages”) and hiked back to the campsite. The weather was perfectly sunny this time, and the views spectacular.

We had a relaxing afternoon mostly sitting around at the campsite, playing with Leilani, and drinking beer. Peter and Alan came only for a day-hike and went back to their cars, then Lisa joined us in the late afternoon, and Ruwan showed up in the evening.

Leilani made a lot of noise at one point, she had not taken long naps and was cranky, and so the campers at the next campsite moved their tent. Later she was good again, and slept well all through the night—thank you, Leilani.

Leilani got up really late (2nd last of all the campers!) the next day, we had a warm breakfast, and slowly packed up. Jane showed up a few minutes before we were ready for the hike out. We took a different route than the day before and again we had great weather and views. Leilani even fell asleep in her carrier.

The adventure of the day was a rattlesnake right in the middle of the trail, but everyone made it out alive and unhurt. When we got back to Kauai, we found a black spider in the backpack (actually on Leilani’s suit) so maybe that’s what bit her.

Warning! This article is – against the spirit of the Baby Blog – very negative. But all true.

The houseswap in the Bay Area did not work out as planned. Instead of sharing the house with one very quiet person, who is hardly ever there, never leaves her room… we found 3 people, 2 sisters and a little boy, living there, obviously very inconvenienced by our stay. They had a few – heavily tatooed and shaven-head – friends on Sunday night. My immediate call to their dad changed things a little, but mostly shifted hostilities underground: Tablecloth down, tablecloth up and other un-babyproofing games…, 3 loads of laundry a day, each soaking for hours…, heater thermostat cover removed, and heater turned off 4-5 times the 2 mornings when I bathed the baby until the temperature was at least around 20C / 65F… (I gave up trying most other days.) In the end it was turned off at the funace and we had to call their dad again… We had to clean up after ourselves (and after the baby) all the times, no matter how inconvenient, otherwise we found our stuff in the playpen… we had their car only for 5 days instead of the whole stay… also there were lots of toy weapons of every kind and lots of books on guns…. I guess that their mother cleans up after them, I’m not much of a housewife and it just bugs me to have to take out the overflowing trash every day (OK Andy did that most the time), do everybody’s dishes… I am not sure if we’ll ever do a houseswap again, but if we will we will research much better, and certainly insist that nobody else is in the house, not even occcasionally. At least the parents seemed nice enough, and they left our house clean and as they found it.
[End of Rant]
When house swapping with a baby it is extremely important to have privacy, private space, and the ability to spread out, and that’s just not compatible with roommates.