Everyone, but me got a haircut today at Seasons and everyone looks great!
Haircuts
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Stress and Joy
I felt very fatigued and stressed today. But my view from work was amazing, and I absolutely loved playing basketball with Lydia and Mary in the evening. Lily has also been cooking a lot this week. The food has been delicious and I have really enjoyed having family dinners.
Jere, Pinnacles, San Francisco and the Hongs
We woke up early on Saturday morning and drove an Nour and a half to Pinnacles National Park. Jere came with and helped us know where to go.
The trailhead was hard to get to because the rangers were blocking it off due to “10-15 cars up there circling for spots.” We convinced them to let us through to drop off another man who was trying to get back to his family at the trailhead. They said we could go through on condition that we returned immediately. But when we got to the trail head, there were no cars circling and a ton of open parking spots! We didn’t know what to do but eventually just parked because we couldn’t find a ranger to talk to.
The trail was amazing, and the ladybugs were swarming. There were literal clouds of ladybugs, and Clarissa was content to just stand in the clouds and try to let as many crawl over her as possible. The other kids loved it too, but Clarissa almost could not be persuaded to move from the clouds.
Poison Oak 
After the Pinnacles, we drove back to San Francisco. We first parked in China Town and trekked to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. We bought a lot of fortune cookies and then parked near Little Italy. From there we walked down to Pier 39 to watch the seals, and then we hiked up to Coit Tower to watch the sun set.
After that we went to Tony’s Pizza and got some slices to go. We sat in a park by the Washington Square church and ate our pizzas at the end of the long, very fun day.
But our day was not over yet! After we got the kids down at 10pm, we rushed to shower and get to our friends, the Hongs. We visited from 10:30-midnight. It was SO fun to see them. Jon and Abe have been friends almost their whole lives, and Shirley and I text a lot. It was wonderful to visit in person. We love them so much!
The Malibu and the Getty Villa
Today we woke up in Malibu. It was magical. We slept right on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. In the morning, Ammon and Clarissa played on the beach, even though it was cold.
We then went to the Beach Cafe at Paradise Cove after having eaten there yesterday. I was feeling sick. I wasn’t sure if it was from the seafood dinner the day before, getting sick (after being cold in Universal studios), or a combination of the two, so I didn’t eat much, but everyone had a really good time. Everyone loved the noodles straws they gave us, and the kids actually at them. While we were waiting for our food, I took Ammon and Clarissa to the doc to occupy them and give myself some air.
noodle straw 
We then went to the Getty Villa. It was likely the highlight of Lily’s whole trip. The Getty is already her favorite museum, and she has never been to the Getty Villa. The story is that Mr. Getty was the united state’s first billionaire. He got his money from oil and he was devoted to the arts. He was especially interested in ancient collectables and so he built his villa to store his art collection. When he died, he made a stipulation in his trust that 4.7% of it had to go to advancing the arts every year. Eventually his trust got to be worth over 7 billion, and so the amounts of money that had to be contributed to the arts got to be very large (100s of millions). The trust couldn’t just purchase art with all that money (they would have actually disrupted the art market), so they used the money to build the Getty museum for which they transported beautiful travertine stone from Italy. Once the new Getty museum opened, the Villa shut down. But then they made improvements to the Villa and reopened it. Also, during Covid, so many museums were on hard times since people couldn’t visit them, and the Getty trust gave out a ton of money to different museums to help keep them afloat.
The villa is super thoughtful. It was built to represent an excavation site because much of it is meant to be a replica of one of the residences of the father in law of Julius Caesar, Piso (villa of Papyri) which was excavated during the life of Paul Getty. Paul modeled the buildings and the gardens after the villa of Papyri. As you walk up to the Getty, you approach it from the top, looking down into it as though it is an excavation site. I think the weeping stones in the fountain below creating the wet wall also represent the moisture in excavation sites. The plants in the gardens, the statues, even the buildings are all modeled after that villa which was located in Pompeii. The whole tour was so fascinating. We had a garden tour and Lydia and Mary entertained the little kids so Lily and I could really hone in on what was being said.
The beauty of the gardens reminded me and Lily of Vilandry.
ancient roses 
clean hedges like at Vilandry 
After the garden tour, Lily and the two oldest girls had a tour involving sculptures and Greek mythology. Since I wasn’t feeling well, I hung out by the pond with Ammon and Clarissa.
Ammon and Clarissa were completely over the moon with the fish pond. The tour guide explained that in Ancient Rome, there were no fish in the pond, but some goldfish got in the Getty Villa pond at some point and then they grew into coy. Ammon and Clarissa spent a solid hour petting them, naming them, and telling anyone who would listen all about them (getting other visitors to pet them too). I was feeling ill and was zoning out on a nearby bench, but I couldn’t help, but to be delighted by the scene. Some of the fish names I think I remember are Goldy, Brownie, Princess Peach.
We had such a great time at the Getty Villa!
Then we had a long drive to San Carlos to stay with Jere. I think it was 6 hours or so. We didn’t bring devices on this trip and for the most part, we never gave the kids our phones. I’m very proud of how they entertained each other and themselves in the car. For example, here is Ammon turning his apple into a skeleton.
Aunt Geri, Goldilocks, Visiting Ben and Aunt V’s grave, La Brea Tarpits, Beach Cafe
Today, Lily planned an outing for us to go to the La Brea tar pits. I had never heard of them, and the experience magical (one of kids and my favorite things from this trip). The La Brea tar pits are the only active urban tarpit excavation area in the world (they are in the middle of LA!). The tar pits are not actually tar. They are asphalt, a component of crude oil that was forced to the surface from cracks in the earth’s crust from deeper-lying oil reserves. About 10,000 years ago, these tarpits were the cause of death to thousands of animals. Scientists theorize that a mammoth or sloth would get stuck in the tar, and then predators could resist the temptation and would go to eat the mammoth or sloth and then get stuck themselves. So they have found a lot of predators (see the gallery of 400 dire wolf heads below). There aren’t any dinosaurs that were found because these fossils (well preserved in the asphalt) are more like 10,000-12,000 years old, but there are mammoths, mastodons, teratorns, huge sloths (some 20 feet tall), dire wolves, saber tooth tigers (twice the size of lions) and more. The museum came about when the oil tycoon who owned the fields in the 1800s donated the land to the government for scientific exploration and education when he discovered the fossils. What an amazing thing to do. It was fascinating! Also, we started our visit by watching an incredible video about the ice age and about global climate change generally. We learned that the last ice age ended around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago and that during the ice age, the planet was 16 degrees cooler Fahrenheit (on average). The earth has historically gone through ice ages and then come out of ice ages on a cycle. Human activity has now become part of the pattern of change.
I could barely lift the handle because the asphalt was so sticky. 
400 dire wolf skulls 
After visiting the tar pits, we picked up aunt Geri and ate at Goldilocks, a Philippine restaurant, with her. It was so wonderful to visit with her and catch up on her life.
Afterwards we all visited the grave sites of Ben Llamzon, Lily’s dad, and his sister, Aunt V. We FaceTimed with Georgia so she could be part of the experience and we also talked about Ben and Aunt V. and their lives.
We then drove to Malibu and ate dinner at the Beach Cafe at Paradise Cove. Lily and I had a hard time deciding if we should splurge or not on the full seafood spread. Kids were chanting “lobster, lobster” and we took the plunge. It felt right given the moment, and our desire to create experiences together and the food was delicious and memorable. The cafe is very famous and has signed pictures on the wall of all sorts of celebrities.
We stayed the night at a home on stilts on a beach in Malibu. What a day!
Universal Studios
King’s Canyon National Park
In the morning we packed up the car, said goodbye to Clark and Swathi’s gang, and headed to King’s Canyon National Park. The drive to the park strongly reminded us of Greece. There were olive and orange groves everywhere, and the landscape looked like Naxos!
Once we got close to the park, the giant sequoia forest and the misty air took our breath away. It was the most gorgeous park entrance I have ever seen.
After the hike, we debated going to Sequoia National Park, but because of this year’s snow, most of the roads in both King’s Canyon and Sequoia National Park were closed. If we had gone, it would have taken two hours and we wouldn’t have seen any sequoias.
Instead, we opted to drive straight to our magical Airbnb in Hollywood. We drove through the central California valley and were stunned at how much food is produced there! It was just farm after farm after farm.
In Hollywood we loved our airbnb but didn’t take pictures! It was a darling house hidden behind rose gardens and towering shrubs. We were so grateful to have a washing machine because Clarissa and Ammon were having so many accidents, and we were getting very low on clothing.
We ordered Ethiopian food for dinner, and it was okay. We always remember an amazing Ethiopian dinner we had in Tucson, and that is hard to beat.
Mist Trail
In the morning we headed to the Mist Trail. It was an absolutely stunning hike! The views were incredible, and because of the epic snow this winter, the waterfall did much more than “mist” the trail. When we got to the waterfall, we got drenched! Everyone but Abe, Swathi, Soren and Ammon turned around. After helping Clarissa back down with me, Jere turned back around and joined them all at the top. From there Abe, Swathi, Soren and Ammon hiked back on the loop while the rest of us went back the way we had come.
Tom was amazing getting Clarissa to walk! 
Ammon and Meera were so cute hiking together 
A Stellar’s Jay 
A view from near the top of the waterfall
Clarissa and I went ahead, and I enjoyed spending one on one time with her. We looked for spots of sunshine and made it to the bottom of the trail about thirty minutes ahead of the group. That gave us a lot of deep time together to look at the river. Clarissa threw a couple sticks in and watched the way they bobbed downstream.
After the hike, we all had lunch in Curry Village, after which we had ice cream. We talked to a ranger there who told us a lot about different species of wildlife in Yosemite.
After that we took a shuttle to the visitor center, and from there we walked to the big general store. I bought some t-shirts because we were running low on clothes.
Then we walked back to the car. The walk was as stunning as the hike!
After we drove home Clark and Swathi cooked us all dinner and cleaned everything while Abe and I did nothing. Well, Abe napped on the floor and I sat on the couch. It was our anniversary, but more than that we were pooped. I am so grateful for my amazing brother who just saved the day for all of us. What a gorgeous day full of beautiful images!!
First day in Yosemite
In the morning we drove and hiked to Mariposa Grove. The road was closed so we actually had to hike over a mile to the trail head. It was a very pretty hike.
The grove featured the tree where John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt first envisioned our national park system! Incredible.
After our hike we walked back to our car via the road. It was also so pretty.
Then we had lunch back at our condos. After a couple hours of rest, we headed into the valley. The view at the end of the tunnel was absolutely stunning.
And then we hiked to Lower Falls. Apparently the water is five times as much as any other time Jere has seen it!
After that we watched the sun set by El Capitan. Abe was googling the person who free-climbed it and remembering a documentary he had seen about that. It was so impressive.
What an amazing introduction to Yosemite.
Driving day
On Saturday morning we learned that yet another campsite had cancelled because of flooding. So we rejiggered our entire trip and packed as fast as we could, and we finally pulled out of the door around 11:30am. We hardly stopped except for a couple bathroom breaks and to grab some food. We arrived around 1am in Yosemite, which felt amazing because we kind of suspected we’d arrive closer to 3!
