If a tree falls in the forest . . .

And nobody is around to hear it, did the tree really make noise? Well, at least that's what The Husband is hoping.

Anyway, it's been a busy, busy time since the last time I updated around here. Getting the house appraised for a re-finance, going up into the mountains to visit some friends who have a brand new baby, getting stuck on a logging trail with our truck and a trailer full of quads (very temporarily), having hot sex with The Husband bent over my quad in the middle of the forest near the top of a very tall mountain, pulling trees out of our way with the manly-man quad, tempting death with the motorhome and its wheel that spectacularily managed to have its brake drum completely disintegrate on us before coming back down the mountain, and then spending the Fourth of July (what remained of it after the brake drum incident) soaking in our bathtub-like swimming pool for a while and then crashing exhausted into bed. Whew! What a spectacular few days, indeed!

Yeah, so, to get away from the oppressive heat of the High Desert, we went into the High Country up in Kennedy Meadows to meet with our friends N & V and their three children who live there in a gorgeous A-frame house with a spectacular view of the valley they are in. Instant temperature change of approximately 25 degrees. We went from 107 with nasty humidity to 80 in the space of 45 minutes. Ahhhhh! Bliss!

Now of that 45 minutes, about 30 of them were spent traveling up a stretch of road called "Nine-Mile." Nine miles of torturous weaving your way up the side of a mountain in a barely two-lane road (sections of which you pray that there is nobody else coming around the corner coming the other way because you don't want to fall off the side of the cliff, thankyouverymuch!). The Husband in the big Dodge diesel truck pulling our fifth-wheel and me in the Ford truck pulling a trailer full of our quads - one for each of us. Yeah, so it was slow going even with the powerful trucks. Gotta be safe! But it's still killer on the brakes. So much so that just as we were about to pull into N & V's place, I noticed that the left rear of the fifth-wheel was smoking. I let The Husband know once he got parked, and he examined it all looked fine, just a bit hot and obviously it would have plenty of time to cool down before we were going to go back down Nine-Mile.

We procede to have a good time with our friends that we don't get to see very often, and much tequila (Cabo Wabo - very smooth, very dangerous) was consumed between the four adults. I got my baby fix as V had a baby girl six weeks previous. She's still so very tiny and precious. I love that little age, when they can't crawl away from you, can't push away from you, and they just love falling asleep on your shoulder. I'd almost have more spawn of my own but for the fact that they have this bad tendancy to grow out of being babies and eventually become children and then "pre-people." And then adolescents. :::shudder::: Anyway . . .

As we always do, we went on a quad run with them. Nick wanted to take us to Beach Meadow which is up higher than they are in the mountains. So we loaded up four adults and five children and headed out, trailering our quads, the food and the fire pit. We finally reach Beach Meadow, and discover that people with horse trailers are already there. Drat. Can't spook the horses with the quads. Not very friendly, right? So, we decide to head for Lion Meadow, which is up even further.

For some reason, it was decided that the people (read: The Husband and myself) who had never been to Lion Meadow should lead. Umm, not a good move. And Nand his truck had trouble with a curve and were delayed a bit, which meant that we were a good deal in front of them. And then there was the road that we were on. Eventually, there were no more signs directing us to the meadow that we wanted, so we just kept going on the more-traveled roads. Until there was a huge freaking log in front of us. Blocking the entire road. And there's nowhere to turn around. Oh my!

After a few moments of panic, The Husband decides that he'll back down the road. Not a bad idea considering how good he is at it. Seriously, I have never seen a better backer-upper in my entire life when you have a trailer or something of that nature behind you. It's magical, I swear!

So, we're backing down the road, and then a really hairy turn comes up and we have to stop. About this time, N, who safely parked where there was a place to turn around, comes hauling ass up the road on his quad with his oldest son (age 4) riding with him. We assess the situation, and decide that we need to offload quads, and then use The Husband's big Grizzly to tow the trailer back to where V, the baby and their other son (age 2) were waiting. The girls and I gear up, as does Nick's son, the guys unhook the trailer and turn it around, hook it to the Grizzly, and we all head off, me on the Grizzly and The Husband backing the truck down slowly behind us. The quads reach V, but then N pulls up behind me and has to unhook the trailer so that he can take the Grizzly back up to help The Husband out. Seems he sunk the front end into very soft dirt trying to turn around and now can't get out. Feh! Thank God that The Husband bought a winch for that quad of his. It's going to be a lifesaver!

A very short time later, The Husband and N arrive, all safe and sound. Whew! Turns out that the sign to Lion's Meadow was broken off and that's why we went off on a wild hare. Them's the breaks, right? So we figure that right here was a good place to base from and we'll just go on a caravan on the quads to the meadow later.

We start gathering wood for the fire, and N & V take off on their quads up the road to scout things out, as well as to get a mommy and daddy break. I happily take the baby, and our girls and their boys amuse themselves by playing in the trees, and all is happy and well. N & V get back, and tell us to head out on our quads. Sweet! So we go on our merry way. We go around the mountain and find a lovely small meadow. No other humans around. Nature at its best. The Husband motions to me to get off my quad. And, well . . .

Have you ever seen the movie Mallrats? And the scene where Brodie (Jason Lee) drags Rene (Shannon Doherty) into the elevator right under Shannon's (Ben Affleck) nose while TS (Jeremy London) distracts him? Yeah. That scene. Sort of like that. Complete with me doing the little happy song and dance Brodie does afterward, but without the "too little, too late" comment from The Husband. :::grin:::

Anyway, the rest of the afternoon was marvelous. We encountered another fallen tree in the road, but were able to move it with the help of The Husband's Grizzly. That thing has already more than paid for itself in my book. Wowzers. Eventually we pack it all up and head back for N & V's place, and then collapse into exhausted sleep.

The next day, we're going to head for home. Everything's packed and ready, the fifth-wheel is set to go. We pull out of N & V's driveway, and The Husband comes to an abrupt halt. It seems that the left rear wheel on the fifth-wheel is canted nearly 30 degrees to the left. Very bad, not good. So, we gingerly back it back onto N & V's property, and The Husband and N pull off the wheel and survey the damage. Ummm, not good. The entire brake has disintegrated, and pulling off the drum reveals a host of little tiny chunks of metal that aren't supposed to be there. Very bad, not good. So, we left it there, and the local shade tree mechanic of the area is going to look at it for us.

Hopefully it will be fixed in time for my surgery because we were going to use that to stay in during my immediate post-op period. But for now, I'm looking for a hotel instead.

So all in all, a good weekend, I would say. But definitely another adventure in the annals of The Husband and Sarah show.