One hot day in June, on my workday we had a “carwash” – all tricycles, cars, ride-on toys and other vehicles were washed by the preschoolers.
And it wasn’t just that the kiddos loved it – everything was sparkly clean at the end.
To see more photos see Leilani’s school’s website
Leilani still takes riding lessons in HMB.
No stirrups. How are those heels doing?
No saddle…
Sometimes Olivia comes along.
The long weekend continues. Here’s our campsite, before taking down the tent and packing the car:
We’d heard there was snow farther up the forest road, so we sent looking for it because Leilani wanted to play. Andy even packed the snowball maker, and Leilani had lots of fun:
We went back to the same mushroom hunting grounds as Saturday, a closed road so we weren’t bothered by the motor-”sport” crowd. We found no more mushrooms, but enough flowers to make up for it. Dogwood in bloom:
Another unknown:
A wild rose:
Dark Mullein (Sonja is pretty certain, but not 100% unless she sees the flowers):
While Leilani played in a little stream and Andy looked for gold, Sonja found a pretty little meadow:
The purple flowers are lupines:
The white ones were some sort of Mallow:
And there were several yellow ones: a Golden Brodiaea:
A type of Mariposa Lily:
And Yellow Mountain Violet:
Well, these are not flowers. I think a millipede and a cricket. I looked into an earth mound and found a rotten mushroom and these two who thought it was still fresh and delicious. We left it to them…
Time to head back to the car for the drive home:
We drove up Saturday morning, and claimed one of the last camping spots. Then we went looking for mushrooms and flowers.
On the way to the first trailhead, we drove past this small meadow of flowers, right next to the road:
Five Spot:
On Sunday, we left the car parked and explored around at the campground (since Sonja found mushrooms nearby). There was a trail along the river, past some swimming holes and on a boardwalk through a meadow (not shown):
While Sonja looked for mushrooms, Andy and Leilani looked for gold. This is Motherlode country and long ago, Andy had told Leilani how to look for gold. Now was our chance to get rich, so we found a place to buy the gold pan and shovel on the drive up, and Andy tried at several places along the river.
In the end, Andy found the gold in the practice kit, and perhaps two tiny flakes of real gold at this spot:
Everywhere else was a wash. At least we found a gold bug…
So back to the flowers—a Snowplant:
Unknown:
Our neighbors at the campground had a little girl that came to visit. Leilani was happy to have a playmate, and played very nicely with Ashley, even though she was much younger:
Later, Leilani buckled herself into the front seat of the car, pretending to be a big girl:
Memorial Day weekend, a bit early for the Sierra, but we heard of Pi Pi campground in the foothills from the Mushroom club. No, it had nothing to do with Pippi Longstocking… we went there for morels and flowers.
We found enough mushrooms to have 6 meals of them. A few very tasty morels (we think they all got picked before us) and some very crunchy Spring Kings (boletus). We only regretted one thing… we did not bring a nice frying pan. They were still very tasty, and now we do have a special camping frying pan and a bigger camping pot.
Putting the gold pan (more on that later) to good use:
Blond morel, one of the few:
It was the boletes, not far from the campground, that made the trip:
And made Sonja smile:
