Hee Haw!

Bill and ranch means one thing for the kids: horses. Misty (the youngest and Praline's daughter), Nugget (oldest "and sort of the boss" (Eitan)); Honey (yellow-golden) and Praline (she, just like Misty, has a white stripe going down her snout - pictured). Missing is Buckwheat, who was a cross between Nugget and Honey, with the same colour fur as Honey and a black main like Nugget (Eitan informs me). Nugget and Praline are ridable while Misty and Honey are too young with Bill "working them in." Martine takes each little cowboy for 45 minute rides up to and along the wall (she saw a mountain lion several months ago, and this morning - bear tracks!) in the evening and again, before breakfast. It is a lot of work, too, with saddling the horses. They are strong, beautiful animals whose line bread for the quarter-mile; they are excellent ranch horses as well, with sure footing and even temperament. Gentle souls. Bill is a real cow-hand who is able to break in the new animals, which requires patience and know-how. Every autumn he goes on a 100-mile ride into the Rockies, though this year may be more difficult after injuring, or even breaking, several ribs in a fall (Martine, with black toe-nails: "and that is why you wear cowboy boots"). The horses weight about 1,000 pounds. Fortunaly Bill tossed onto a soft, dirt ground - if the outback, "it would have been serious" Martine says.

Charlie's At La Veta

Madeleine finds herself in a familiar spot as we arrive in La Veta. We are here for one night before pushing on to Taos where we will see Stan and Silver. Martine takes the kids out for horse rides in the evening and morning, God bless. They are different little dudes away from the concrete and high-expectations of London.

Sonnet has been following an intense training routine, gifted her by our uber-athlete Edwin. One day easy, the next repeats or a timed run. All done in the early morning hours to avoid the heat, which has been around 90-degrees since arriving in CO. Unfortunately the altitude has played havoc - I join her and we shuffle five miles outside La Veta or 6,187 feet. My parent's cabin- house around 5,000 feet while I write from Taos or 6,969 feet. Sonnet's half-marathon in late September and she hopes the suffering will pay off at sea-level. Here is the science any way: at altitude, the body adapts to the relative lack of oxygen hypoxia in one or more ways like increasing the mass of red blood cells and hemoglobin, or altering muscle metabolism. Proponents clamim that when the athletes travel to competitions at lower altitudes they will still have a higher concentration of red blood cells for 10-14 days, and this gives them a competitive advantage. some athletes liver permanently at high altitude, only returning to to sea level to compete, but their training may suffer due to less available oxygen for workouts (sources: Formenti, Federico, et al, (June 2010); Wehrlin, Zuest and Marti (June 2006); and Gore, Clark and Suanders (September 2007))

Sonnet: “How about a 12-mile hike when we are in Santa Fe?”

Madeleine: “No way!”

Me: “Sounds excellent.”

Madeleine: “I could barely do six miles!”

Me: “Well now you will do twelve.”

Madeleine: “This is some vacation.”

Spanish Peak West With Moon, #4

This beautiful mountain is one of the Spanish Peaks, which we have seen before and I think one of the most beautiful spots I have known. The peaks are a pair of volcanic mountains located in southwestern Huerfano County and behind Bill and Martine's ranch. The two peaks, West Spanish Peak and East Spanish Peak, are easternmost outliers of the otherwise non-volcanic Culebra Range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Formed by a massive igneous intrusion during the tertiary period, the mountains designated a National Natural Landmark in 1976 as one of the best known examples of igneous dikes. Geologists come from around the world study the unique wall-formations which frame the mountain; photographers set up on Martine's property to take photographs "every three minutes at sunrise and sunset" she tells me and it is easy to understand why: the mountain's personality changes with the light and cloud movement.

The peaks were an important landmark on the Santa Fe Trail, and can be seen as far north as Colorado Springs 133 miles away, and as far west a Alamosa (85 miles) points south to Raton New Mexico (66 miles) and points east of Trinidad (up to 15). I first spy my friends on the highway an hour outside of La Veta driving 75 mph (CO speed limit, dude) and, at first, dismiss them for being misplaced in my memory. We track them all the way in.

Self Portrait XVIII

I pack up the SUV and we are off to La Veta. As with the majority of families across this great country of ours, I drive. The car may be the last bastion of the 1950s male. Here we are, the American Dad, behind the wheel with our aviator sunglasses, in complete control of the family and by extension - everything else. No doubt the children fight in the back and I swing away; we get lost which causes the only serious arguments in my relationship with my wife; we stop at family restaurants and sit in booths and eat hamburgers and french fries. A vacationing family with two attractive teen-agers sit next to us at the car rental and I note to the father that we are a few years behind them; he eyes me up and sagely replies: “Expect the unexpected.” The teens stair at me blankly. Can't wait for the next five years.

Denver to La Veta is due south and a pleasant drive through open space. We pass through Pueblo, Fort Garland (Air Force academy there) and Colorado Springs where we pull off the highway for lunch at Chilli's (ghastly) and I run across the street to a 7-11 to use the pay-phone to call Astorg Partners. I learn that there are very few public telephones left while mobile to Europe stupidly expensive. 7-11 is a vision of hell. A woman waits for a call and smokes away - two-feet from me. Another, not unattractive, pulls in to buy fags and fill her brown Dodge with gas. There is a video rental machine next to me. Scruffy children buy candy that would make mine cry if they were here. Nasty. The other thing about CS, and I think most sprawling cities, is how difficult it is to walk. Crossing the town's main street, which is more like a highway, takes patience and care – these driving bastards will hit you. There is a narrow, unused, crosswalk and, to somebody's credit, I find a pedestrian light. I wait five minutes for 20 seconds which is barely enough time to cross five lanes. After Chilli's we complete this American moment at Baskin Robbin's 31-wonderful flavors. Gotta roll with it.

Eitan examines a box of Russell Stover chocolates: “Oh, I need to eat this.”

First Day, First Grade

Tess has her first day of school and there are some emotional moments around the table. Tess is mostly oblivious to the excitement while Thia makes sure she remains firmly in the picture. A pattern to be followed forever, no doubt. Later on we discuss Eitan and Madeleine's reception year – both ready thanks to day-care, where Eitan spent the majority of his day .. from ten-months (I still recall his carer, Ingrid, an large Jamaican who scooped the boy up in her enormous loving arms.. he knew a good thing while Sonnet and I felt mildly guilty about the whole thing). Madeleine the risk-taker back then and first day butterflies? No problemo. She could hardly get away.

Many US public schools now begin the fall term in mid-August. What's up with that? School hours also seem to be longer with the day ending at 4PM. The American summer a cultural occurrence, unifying generations of families and a God Given Right for any youngster lucky enough to grow up in the US of A. Who wasn't bored out of his mind by Labor Day? From my generation, it was not unusual for both parents to work so kids were left with .. a lot of freedom. Combine that with the suburbs and pot, well, a lot of good memories there, for sure. For me, this meant walks across the UC campus to Telegraph Avenue to buy comic books or vinyl records followed by Blondie's pizza or frozen yogurt (the first fro-yo in America, my sister tells me). Eventually swimming soaked up the free time while MTV took the rest. My pals and I in Walnut Creek did nothing between morning and afternoon practice - it was fab-u-lous. Sonnet and Marcus's solution was summer camp: Trojan Ranch and Prairie Mansfield in Colorado. These long breaks a far cry from England where the annual holiday time might be about the same – 12 weeks or so – but spread across the year. Each good in its own way.

Me: “Are you guys missing anything from school?”

Madeleine: “Art?”

Me: “Anything else.”

Madeleine: “Not really.”

Me: “How about you Eitan?”

Eitan: “Friends, literacy and maths.”

Me: “Are you nervous about your new teacher?”

Madeleine: “Yes.”

Me: “Why?”

Madeleine: “Because sometimes she is a bit strict.”

Me: “Like what does she do?”

Madeleine: “I don't know. They just said that.”

Thia

Denver Museum - Libeskind

Thia and Tess, King Tut

We are with Beecher, Whitney and Frank from yesterday and here the kids take a break for this photo. Tess starts first-grade tomorrow. These kids grow up, I will sure say.

Today we are at the Denver Museum to see the Tutankhamun exhibition, which is the largest collection of its kind assembled outside of Egypt (I have a hard time removing the Steve Martin song "King Tut" from my mind BTW -classic). Since its discovery by Brit Howard Cotter in 1922, the cause of Tut's death has been debated: was the Boy King assassinated at 19? A CT scan taken in 2005 proves otherwise (and robs us of our mystery): Tut had badly broke his leg and it became infected. DNA analysis, conducted in 2010, showed he had malaria - these two conditions, combined, led to his death.

SFO To CO - Fallen Tree

The kids have been good travel companions excluding those moments when, Sonnet points out, "they about to kill each other." This is a far cry better than their earlier life when an air plane meant only one thing: screaming. Loudly. Non-stop. We reminiscence about the time Eitan nine-months and we flew to Florida for my Grandmother's 90th - the boy good from London to Washington but inconsolable from Dulles to Sarasota. We received a number of dirty looks on that one, oh boy. Now they quietly sit in their seats drawing with crayons or, more likely, plugged into the entertainment unit watching whatever catches their fancy and Sonnet allows - from London to SFO, ten hours, uninterrupted. No wonder long-haul means something different to them.

Meanwhile in London we learn the shocking news that water and wind have tumbled our beloved ancient pine tree. Fortunately it occurred around 6AM so nobody about and it missed the house. Aggie, who is house-sitting, is helping us sort the mess - she reports that we "will now get more sunshine in the backyard." I am feeling sad about this - that old, dignified, tree was one of my favorite things about our home.

Le Cat

Madeleine loves "Sweetie Pie" who is a curious and friendly soul and puts up with a lot. Madeleine, as we all know, has been on a two year campaign for a dog and when we return to London, she will be rewarded with .. a cat (two working parents and a dog don't quite foot, we have decided). From this morning we are saying good-bye to Grace and Moe and the Bay Area until the next time. Everybody feeling glum but soon we will be in Colorado for the second part of our touring road show.

Altamount Pass

The future is here. I hang my ass out the window to take this photo of the wind turbines at Altamount Pass just beyond Livermore on HW580. We are about one hour from San Francisco having just come through the valley. No wonder the turbines here, too - the wind gusty (wind speeds are up to 8 meters per second) and sounds like a growling animal. The turbines form scattered lines on the ridgeway across an area of about 15 kilometers in diameter. Hundreds are visible from the road. A quick Internet troll notes that there are over four-thousand of these babies, making this the world's largest wind farm by number of turbines. There are at least seven varieties visible, including one type that is vertical like an egg-beater. There are no paved roads leading to them either and the wind, anyway, is too strong for a leisurely walk. A small parking area is located at the top of the pass (about 1,000 feet altitude) for trucks and us to check our breaks before the steep decent. We have been here before -emergency poddy stop.

The turbines in my photo are the larger type with blades - and I am guessing here - five-meters in length. The towers must be 25 meters in height or higher. 100% of the windmills in action as we pass while usually only a batch in play depending on the wind direction, force and etc. I have watched these things go up since the mid-1980s. Pretty cool.

We have a discussion at the French Hotel about whether smoking should be a choice.

Me: "What if I told you that you could not have that piece of cake you are eating?"

Madeleine: "That would not be fair!"

Me: "What if I told you that piece of cake was going to cause you to die a slow and awful death?"

Madeleine: "Well, I guess that would be fair."

Me: "Would you still eat it?"

Madeleine: "Probably not."

Eitan: "I would not."

Me: "Why do you think people smoke?"

Eitan: "Well, mostly because they become addicted. When they are a teen-ager."

Madeleine: "They smoke even though their parents say no."

Me: "Good going. Have we learned anything?"

Madeleine: "We can eat cake?"

Lake Alpine Sunrise #8

One departing shot of Lake Alpine whom I have known since '84.

We leave the Sierras yesterday, crossing the San Joaquin Valley which, historian Kevin Starr notes, is "the most productive unnatural environment on Earth." The SJV is also known as "The food basket of the world" or "The nation's salad bowl" producing oranges, peaches, garlic, tangerines, tomato's, kiwis, hay, nuts, grapes, tangerines and about any crop imagined. The J. G. Boswell Company's farming operation in Kings County is the largest single cotton farm in the world, occupying over 40,000 acres. Go figure. The major river supplying the valley is the San Joaquin, with tributaries of the lower Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Merced, and Fresno rivers. The California Aqueduct extends the entire length of the bioregion. The southern portion of the bioregion includes the Kings, Kaweah, and Kern rivers, which drain into closed interior basins. No significant rivers or creeks drain into the valley from the Coast Range. We pass through it all, stopping, as we always do, in Farmington to fill the tank, load up on junk food, and take a leak.

Remarkably, the San Joaquin Valley has the state's highest rate of food insecurity according to California.

SloanKlein Advisors

Sloan, meanwhile, has started her next business, www.sloanklein.com, advising seasoned professionals on their career development. In less than two years she has 22 clients. She is one of those people who attracts success - from idea to implementation - she makes it easy. Of course it never is which is one reason she is way special.

2505 Shashone Drive

We re-union with Rob and Sloan, Sophie and Jaimes plus one new addition to the family: Ozzy, who receives some considerable attention from Madeleine who is 'dog mad' (Ozzy is a "golden doodle" which is a mix between a Golden Retriever and a Poodle). Sadly missing are Amado and Mary and their clan, who have moved to Seattle while Mary starts her new posting as Head of Strategy for Starbucks. This is a Big Ticket job and none of us are surprised though of course we are keenly interested to know how things are going six weeks into her tenure (full disclosure: Sonnet and I go to Peet's in Berkeley, one of my favorite places). I am buying stock in the company.

Me: "Why do you think people get married any way?"

Eitan: "Money?"

Sonnet: "Is that what you really think?"

Eitan: "Well, why else?"

Sonnet:

Me: "There must be other reasons ... "

Eitan: "Power?"

Sonnet:

Eitan: "Well, look at Henry VIII. He married for money and power."

Me: "Good point."

Sonnet: !

Canoe

Shades

Kids snapping at each other. Patience in limited supply. Yep, we are well into the holiday. Yesterday sees us at the lake where we have lunch, pictured -- Madeleine has her quotient of 'burgers' or one a day (at least). We are blessed with blue skies and perfect alpine temperatures allowing us to keep the windows open throughout the night. I tap away at some work, sometimes stressful work since I am away from my office, but it is hard to beat the scenery. How nice to be away from all that concrete, if only for a brief while.

Boy And Tree

Madeleine: “What do you want to talk about?”

Me: “Well, that is a nice idea. How about cats?”

Madeleine lights up: “Ok.”

(We have promised Madeleine a cat when we return to London. She has been on a pet campaign for some long time now.)

Me: “Why do you want a cat anyway?”

Madeleine: “Well, it is because I love animals. And I want a bigger pet. And one that is not nocturnal.”

Me: “Do you have any names in mind?”

Madeleine: “Eitan has already come up with a nick-name. His nick-name for the cat is 'dog.'”

Me: “Dog?”

Madeleine: “Yes, get it dad?”

Me: “That is going to be one confused cat.”

Madeleine: “You just don't understand pets that's all.”

Me:

Ze Family

Here we are this morning, shortly before Gracie and Moe return to the Bay Area (we stay through the week end and will see the gang tomorrow). Katie is sadly missing for the picture as she return to New Yawk on Sunday.

More dinner table discussions about work.

Sonnet: “How many years of education do you think Moe and Grace needed to do what they do?”

Madeleine: “Including reception?”

Me: “Including reception.”

Madeleine: “For Gracie, 25 years.”

Eitan: “For Moe, 25 years and for Gracie, 15.”

Madeleine: “What? Only 15? They call Gracie 'The Big Cheese!' (Grace was the Executive Director of The Link To Children, a non-profit that she founded to provide early childhood mental health; she is now Clinical Director).

Grace: “25.”

Madeleine: “See! I knew it!”

Grace: “I was unusual since I was working so spread my PhD over several years."

Moe: “I went straight through to Law School, so 20."

Sonnet: “I would like to bring home the point: you have a lot of studying ahead of you.”

Eitan, Madeleine:

Sonnet: “A lot of work but it can be a lot of fun.”

Lake Alpine West #5

At the dinner table.

Sonnet: “You were a ping pong champion?”

Moe: “Seventh grade.”

Sonnet: “Moe grew up in St. Louis. In Missouri.”

Moe: “I beat Jimmy Chervitz. I beat him in his home, which was unusual. He was more experienced then me. We had some tough matches but I won two out of three. We then went to the principal and informed him that we had played at home. The principal said we had to play at school, during lunch time. So we did it again. And I beat him. Seventh grade champion. Then I got to play the 8th grade champion – Bob Allen. And he beat me, it was humiliating. All his friends were cheering. Bob Allen then played the 9th grade champion Ronald Scher in the school auditorium in front of the whole school. Ronald Scher was a nationally ranked ping pong player who just toyed with Bob then killed him. I was thrilled.”

We discuss what adults do at work.

Eitan: “Well, first they wake up at 7AM to get ready. They are grumpy and drink a lot of coffee, which they take with them to work”

Madeleine: “Do they play video games like in (TV program) The Office?”

Me:

Sonnet: “What do you think I do?

Madleine: “Play video games?”

Sonnet:

Madeleine: “Work on your computer and stuff?”

Sonnet: “Close enough.”

Eitan: “Computers are not innocent, you know. People can get killed on them.”

Madeleine: “No they don't.”

Eitan, matter-of-factly: “Yes they do. Like that time on Facebook when a teenager met somebody who said he was a teen-ager then killed her.”

Madeleine: “Is that true? Why would he want to kill a teenager?” (We have been discussing the Internet and never to communicate with somebody who approaches you or you do not know)

Lake Alpine Sunrise #2

Madeleine and I agree to rise early and take photographs at Lake Alpine. The alarm goes off at 5:20AM and I force the poor kid from her deep slumber. She clutches doggie but pulls herself together and we race up the highway as the dawn stretches before us, rewarded by the most spectacular morning – pictured. Madeleine shivers - “can we go yet?” but I give her a hug and thank her for joining me – I hope she remembers this. Sometimes it is nice to be reminded where we really are in this cosmos. Afterwards I gas up at Camp Connell – it is 7AM – and a greybeard sits at the counter drinking black coffee. We nod at each other while I pay for Madeleine's hot chocolate. “Good to be alive,” we agree.

Madeleine: "Dad, how long did it take you to learn to fast type?"

Me: "It took a while."

Madeleine: “How long?”

Me: “I don't know. I took a class in high school.”

Madeleine: “Yeah, but you only went for one day.”

Me:

Madeleine: “You didn't go back because of that girl!”

Me:

Madeleine: “The one that lost all her back teeth.”

Me: !

(Madeleine correctly recalls the story but it was sixth grade and I dropped computer sciences at Lawrence Hall of Science, too scared to join the class 15 minutes late because of my crush on Erin O'Leah who, indeed, had no back teeth.)