Going to Alta

We have decided that Zozo is ready to visit the cabin up in Alta. Max had some crazy idea about getting "an early start." With Zozo an early start is either 4am or 10am, but he promised me that I could sleep in the car and that he would do all the driving so I agreed. I carefully packed 3 changes of clothes and 15 clean diapers for our day trip. Even Zozo shouldn't be capable of going through that many in a 12 hour period. (Her record is 3 changes of clothes and 9 diapers in 12hours). Well, Zoe did her 4:30am feeding and I managed to doze off for about an hour before getting up at 7am to feed and dress the little imp as well as myself. We were on the road by 8am, so not too shabby with the new baby!

After a breakfast in Auburn at Awful Annie's (they have the best waffles around, so I was quite insistent that we go there), we arrived at the cabin. At this point I was beginning to realize some of the challenges of going up to the mountains in winter to an unheated cabin with no electricity or running water with a little baby. The ground was frozen hard with a crust of ice and the inside of the cabin was not appreciably warmer. Zoe was not terribly impressed with having her diaper changed under such conditions. Here she is inside the cabin with only her little nose peeking out in the frigid air.



Hiking around didn't work out that well, although Gail and I managed to make it into town with Zoe where we discovered the Alta deli/cafe. We stayed until closing time (3pm) and reveled in the electric heaters and easy access to a flush toilet. After that it was back to the cabin, which by now had warmer up due to Kenji's obsessive stoking of the wood burning stove.


Max had been sawing things with his newest toy- a 50cc Stihl chainsaw- for the past 3 hours and showed off his handiwork of new cut trails, piles of small saplings, and 2 potential Christmas tress for Berkeley.




A few hours later we headed back to Berkeley leaving Gail and Kenji to spend the night up at the cabin. Max had pumped up some water from the steam to fill the hot tub, so they had at least a little comfort that night. Zozo was rocked asleep for the next 3 hours in the car and we arrived uneventfully back in Berkeley, having decided to spend the night there since it was closer than our own apartment in Oakland. I told Max to open up the house while I undid all the car seat restraints and brought Zoe down. By the time I had freed the little imp from her car seat the burglar alarm was shrieking full force, attracting the attention of neighbors and passerbys. I ran downstairs with Zoe to find Max wandering around the hallway unable to remember the code for the alarm. Using my few remaining brain cells I dredged up my mnemonic for the code and finally got the alarm off. I went back up to the car and told the small crowd (well 3 people anyway) that had gathered that everything was under control. I met the new neighbors across the street who seemed very nice (at least the hadn't called the police on us).

All the driving had been very relaxing for Zoe and other than her diaper changes she had basically remained asleep the entire day. By 10pm she was completely awake, her eyes glowing with an alertness and vivacity particular to little babies during the middle of the night.