Hippo's birthday celebration proceeded along the lines of dignified and mature serenity.

Lisa in Cajon Pass.

Pavlíček's had moved to San Diego some five years ago, and although we had been planning to visit them since then, we worked it out only now. I admit that the idea of a long trip had discouraged me just as my idea of San Diego. For some reason I had the impression that it would look quite like some Los Angeles neighborhood — a hopelessly ugly desert filled with one subdivision merging into another like a series of tumors (without making sense in a place lacking water). But the desire to see again our old friends and visit the attractions (e.g. SeaWorld), which I and and the kids had never seen before, eventually trumped various objections.

We planned that we would set out on Saturday right after breakfast and get to eat Pavlíček's dinner. Hippo had, however, startled me with a Friday three o'clock afternoon phone call that he was coming home soon and that we could go. I was mentally ready to cook dinner, gradually finish packing all we needed, sleep one more time in my own bed, would have enough time in the morning to take a shower and wash my hair, and then we would drive all day as it was. To rush out on Friday and split the journey into two days was naturally much more sensible, but my body and my mind did not count on it, and so I stumbled through our house in confusion and tried to organize within an hour what I had planned to spend a whole evening on.

Yet, I resigned to the fact that we were not leaving for three months to Antarctica — and actually not even leaving the state of California; we would be in civilization and at our friend's place — and if I forget something, we would either buy or borrow it — and very few things can go completely crazy in mere four days. We had a dinner in Paso Robles and took a motel room in Tehachapi (here Hippo took almost voluntarily the kids into a hot tub — they got spoilt by the one at Kirkwood) — and we had to stop in the morning at the local K-Mart to purchase all that "someone" had not packed along during the departure chaos. We have been shopping at K-Mart in Tehachapi rather frequently, for we keep forgetting small things even on trips with less of a running start.

Take your Hippo to see hippos!

They have beautiful hippos in San Diego ZOO.

Several driving hours followed, through a landscape matching my ideas about Southern California — an ugly desert with nonsensical, half-empty sub-divisions of very new houses that nobody wants to live in. We had a lunch at some generic mall, an pseudo-Chinese on formica, well, at least it was warm. And then the landscape abruptly changed, turning from a desert to green valleys enclosed by mesas, and we had arrived at Pavlíček's; proceeded to sit on a deck on one of such mesas, watching across a narrow canyon into the hills, with beers in our hands. The kids — I actually don't recall how and when they integrated with Luke and Veronica — I have the impression that they just merged in among existing toys, books, children's rooms, princess costumes and remote control helicopters.

After a while we organized a trip to a playground, to prevent juniors from demolishing the house. Again, everything happened somehow naturally. The only misunderstanding occurred upon a discovery of a caterpillar, when Adam said that they were going to give to Lizzy — I did not comprehend what our Lisa could do with a caterpillar. Over time I learned that Lizzy was Pavlíček's lizard, but even so the names kept mixing up a few times.

On the second day Péťa had raised the bar pretty high by making pancakes for breakfast, and then we were ready to enjoy local attractions. San Diego offers a relatively famous Zoological Garden, where we had to take our Hippo to see the hippos. I have to say that a ZOO where you walk though a maze of trees and other plants, through aviaries full of birds and butterflies, had really impressed me. And the hippos that you can watch through an under-water glass, are something completely different that the usual immobile pair of eyes barely sticking up above a pond surface. And the one-year old hippo calf was showing off, jumping over its mother, playing — all this under the surface with the elegance of a professional ballerina.

Rescuing Luke from under a mammoth's foot.

Trying to herd cats and take a picture of them.

We found refreshments at a sushi bar and continued to Cabrillo Point, believed to be the first spot on the west coast of the United States where in the year 1542 the first white man, Juan Rodriguez Cabríllo, disembarked. We explored a lighthouse and tried to access the coast with the children, who even after a half day at the ZOO kept running and jumping. A snag developed with parking; we had no idea that an extremely low tide was currently taking place and about half of San Diego came to see a beach with tidal pools. Eventually Petra and the kids and I ran out to the ocean, while the men had to wait to resolve the traffic situation (they had subsequently found parking spots).

Adam had to go to work on Monday; after some hesitation, Péťa let us talk her into coming along with her kids and us to SeaWorld after all. We wished not and could not miss this local attraction, but I completely understand the aversion people develop to a tourist trap like that. It starts with a huge line to pay for parking, continues by looking for a sport to park, then another crazy line for tickets. Not that there would be so many people ahead of us — only about three — but the last one was an Arab mother with about five children, who dictated to a (slow) Chinese clerk letter by letter all very complicated names for season passes. Uuuuuuh. We, too, obtained season passes, for these until the end of calendar year cost THE SAME like a one-day ticket (and it's no small price).

Before we passed all queues, Péťa had finished studying the schedule and rushed us to the dolphins. It pays to have someone with you who knows what's worth seeing and what's OK to skip or leave for next time — especially with a grandiose establishment like SeaWorld. I had seen trained dolphin before, but I had not known that it's a whole show, including acrobats, jumpers — and birds. Lisa sitting next to me (she had to stick to mama, as she's mama's girl) was excited.

Cabrillo Point Lighthouse.

Pavlíčeks with four kids.

From dolphins we (and another whole crowd) moved to orcas. This time I was ready for the show, Petra had also warned us a few times that the animals are set up to splash people with water. Fortunately when it was our section's turn, an orca baby was assigned to it, and it did not have the range and we survived dry.

We had a lunch, checked out sharks — and queued up to another hit, this time an Arctic Expedition. Simulation of the helicopter flight would have impressed us more, if the machine did not break toward the end. Still I consider the Arctic exhibit the most impressive one of the whole SeaWorld. I had seen trained dolphins before in other shows a few times, and wild orcas in the ocean — but I had the honor to watch walruses and belugas for the first time in my life.

After the Arctic Expedition we all had had enough of crowds and attractions, and there was a long journey to Tehachapi ahead of us, so we said good-bye to Péťa, Luke and Veronica, and headed north. I must say that San Diego made a very good impression on me. A beautiful city, in a beautiful location, full of trees and greenery. With an awesome ZOO and SeaWorld, nice coastline, cosmopolitan inhabitants — and we did not have much time for most of it. And, naturally, it's been a huge relief to find a sanctuary with locals — and if the locals even have children of similar age, much of the stress from kids turning obnoxious at some point of the trip, simply disappears. Now since the locals are actually friends, with whom you pick up a chat where you had interrupted it five year ago, it's all very pleasant and comfortable. And now that we own the annual tickets to SeaWorld, we made a promise to return here once again this year, for sure.

In the show auditorium in SeaWorld.

Trained dolphins.

On Tuesday we then finished the rest of the journey home, unpacked unhurriedly, and recovered a bit from all those impressions. Hippo had to go to work on Wednesday; I continued the kids' holiday by making another trip to Kirkwood. I bought some more food in the morning and shortly after noon, i.e. according to plan, I set out with the kids. I was taking fairy tales on CDs along — children are used to watch movies on the "bus"; we don't have this luxury in our subaru, and so I tried audio books that Gabka left me long ago. Kids were very happy and so was I — better listening to fairy tales than endless bickering and whining.

Alas, in about half way I realized that the "German" had won again and I had packed meat for Saturday dinner, but all vegetables stayed in the fridge at home. We had to stop in Martell Safeway and shop some more — while our Lisa plays a donkey and therefore is willing to consume carrots and lettuce, I am determined to keep her supplied with vitamins. The cashier was impressed by the fact that while Tom asked her to not bag the M&M's so that he could open and eat them, Lisa was leaving the store proudly carrying an open bag of carrots.

We were alternating in the "cabin" with Daněk's in the middle of spring break holidays; they had left already, but one could still feel the room having been intensely heated for several days — no unpleasant, creepy chill. We settled in, kids ran out once more to play before it got dark, and they found another boy there and I had hard time getting them back indoors. Simply an easy cabin groove.

On Thursday we went skiing in the morning, stopping at the ski school in mid-morning to make certain that the kids were to start their classes at one-thirty. First I thought that this would be the best moment to discuss their qualifications, for they were surely no beginners, but such a chaos ruled there that I'd given up. After all, our experience of previous year was altogether positive, the school was able to cope with every one and sometimes the instructors outnumbered the children, thus I thought it would go well, and went back to skiing with my kids.

Orcas.

Tracking an arctic expedition in San Diego.

We had a break and a lunch at the "cabin" and then we took Sentinel Bowl (black diamond) run to the ski school. A few uncertain children were hanging out there, accompanied by several no less confused-looking parents. Only one mother looked like she was going to drop her kid off and go back to skiing instead of standing at the fence to the training meadow. The classes' manager showed up then and ordered that the children who need to learn to ski should take off their skis and line up behind said fence, where instructor will pick them up. To my surprise ALL of the children took off their skis and trotted behind the line. This left only our kids and the manager standing there; she gazed at their beat-up skis and poles, and made an inquiry at to what run they can ski. I said that they handled groomed black diamond. When she caught her breath again, she asked why had I not put them in All Stars. And so I explained that Angie of All Stars wrote to me that for such program the children must be comfortable skiing ALL black diamond terrain, which my kids don't. The manager rolled her eyes and concluded that she would have to call another instructor.

This did not strike me like a bad solution; it started to look like the juniors would receive a more or less private tutoring. An instructor named Tommy ordered them to get on the lift and they disappeared from my sight — classes get a right-of-way at the lifts, and before it was my turn, they were gone. I left my offspring to their fate and went ahead to ski my way. I spotted Lisa in one moment (her pink combo gear can't be mistaken for any other), disappearing in a forested ditch next to a regular run, and I naively rushed after them, thinking we could perhaps wave at each other down next to the lift. Well, kids with their instructor vanished in the turns between rocks and trees at the speed of lightning, and since one can turn off to several lifts from there, I had not found them again. Perhaps it should have warned me, but I kept my cool, decided to take advantage of the last free hour for my personal program.

I picked up the kids right before the end of the operations hour of the lifts. They were issued certificates indicating that they had learned everything, and containing a recommendation for All Stars. We jumped on the chair lift and got to the "cabin" on the other end of the valley. And then quickly moved on to warm up and relax in a hot tub. Juniors collapsed like dead in the evening and I had spent a pleasant evening with a book.

On Friday morning I woke up to a tooth ache and a pair of enthusiastic descendants who insisted that they must show me The Drain, which they had skied with Tommy. First we found the wrong clearing, and we proceeded through some weird grove, but in the second instance we found the proper gully — and I discovered that I had known it: it's the place into which several double diamond routes lead, where Vendula and Bára had taken me the previous year. Also I discovered that this year, the gully was completely iced, with trees and rocks and stumps sticking out of the snow. Juniors eagerly rushed through this terrain — and I had tested in practice that my weight transforms me into an unguided missile. What more, kids had apparently learned to jump, intentionally running into various humps and let themselves be catapulted into the air while yelping joyfully, while I was avoiding the same in a brutal plough.

Favorite Drain.

A book about a hamster.

I was able to keep up for about two hours; then it got so warm that the snow turned into a deep watery slush wherever sun could reach it. The morning ice was horrible, the noon melt just as bad — in the combination, when shady spots are frozen stiff and sunny areas let you sink ankle-deep, it impressed me as being rather dangerous and so I ordered a retreat into the "cabin". We had lunch, I gulped two ibuprofens for my teeth, and proceeded to lie down a bit; the kids meanwhile created a booklet about a hamster. At two o'clock we still thought we could try it. In the afternoon, most slopes move into the shade, and I had hoped that the slush might stiffen up a little. Well, it went sort-of half-way — the slush had melted through the ice and mildly thickened into more or less consistent cotton, but one could ski.

Hippo was to arrive in the evening with the rest of the weekend skiers, but he called me at six that he had a car accident and he may not be able to make it. He did not cause the crash, stopped at a red light and the driver behind him —did not notice" the red. Fortunately everything got sorted out rather quickly and Hippo arrived with the Friday bunch and the news that he had managed to drive the car (granny's forester) home, but the car was making odd noises.

On Saturday the juniors wanted to show Hippo The Drain, but he said no, thanks. I don't blame him, for since I with my weight blast through it like an unguided missile, Hippo would fare twice as bad. Even so he managed to fall on a normal, blue slope with such effect that Tom has been completely awed and impressed ("daddy flew from this pole all the way down to this spot"). Tom later separated from his skis twice on his favorite jumping hump, and we had to tighten up his binding — he is simply no mere beginner. Either way it seems that we have arrived to the point when the children can ski at more or less our level. We can still outrun them on groomers (thanks to our greater momentum), but in the terrain where your mass works against you, our offspring can easily beat us.