Out and About...

The girls really enjoyed taking the train to San Francisco for the day. They walked a lot, including up Lombard Street, the world’s most crooked street...

...and to Fisherman’s Wharf to visit Boudin for the world’s best sourdough bread.      

They also visited several bookstores, Pier 39 to see the sea lions and Giant Stadium. Their adventure ended with a 1.25-mile run to catch the train. 

They enjoyed seeing Dad play at the San Jose Jazz Festival...

...where they helped entertain the audience as well.

Auntie Time...

 The girls had an adventure with Auntie Leigh that included hiking...

 ...getting manicures...

...eating lunch at a vegan Asian restaurant...

...and having a sleepover which included making pizza and playing with Louie. They also had a sleepover with Auntie Eden, which included gossiping late into the night without any photographic evidence.

Back to California...

For the first time since 2013, the girls flew together to visit my parents in California. It was Veronica’s first visit in two years, while Ashlynn was there last summer with me.

Dad and Ann were clearly happy to see them.

As in past visits, Ann spoiled the girls with beautiful new clothes...

,,,and Dad spoiled them with fantastic sushi.

Grasmere and Keswick...

Jimmy and I enjoyed our stay at the Chestnut Villa, where we had a large room with cool vintage furnishings...

...and a nice view.

It was hard to tell from the other photos, but Carlin and I had our hair braided the morning we flew to England as a test for Nepal. While Carlin had taken her braids out by the first night, I kept mine in until the following weekend.

We had originally planned to trek again on our final day, but rain was predicted and I was beat from yesterday’s arduous trail, so I was relieved to be off the hook. Instead we packed up, hopped in the car and headed for a walk through the village of Keswick.

It was a charming little town...

...with lots of shops and some pretty buildings, including Moot Hall, originally built in 1571 and rebuilt in 1813...

...and this little church.

Although Jimmy had gotten a run-around over the entire weekend about where his bag was, we were shocked to find out that it was delivered to our neighbor’s house while we were on our return flight. If anyone should have known that we wouldn’t have been home at that time, it should have been KLM. While we understand that bags go missing and were thankful to get it back, we wrote a scathing complaint in the multitude of ways that they had messed up and thanks to the EU Passenger Bill of Rights, KLM paid for Jimmy’s new fell running shoes.

Don’t Intellectualize, Just Do It...

We weren’t 100% sure that we followed the official Corridor Route the entire way as we noticed that some folks were following a different path.

The big shock was when we came to this sheer cliff face with an up arrow painted on it (I didn’t take this photo as my camera was safely packed away in my backpack). Needless to say, I was terrified. Kent scrambled up while Jimmy stayed behind me and the two of them managed to talk me through grabbing onto the right spots to pull myself up the cliff. Rather than thinking about the danger, I just concentrated on getting through this obstacle in one piece. Kent’s advice was perfect: don’t intellectualize, just do it.

The rest of the route was a long slog, but that was to be expected since we went up 3,000 feet (916 meters) and then back down in one day. There was definitely a big feeling of accomplishment when we made it back to the car. Little did I know at the time what good preparation this hike would be for Everest Base Camp. That evening we had a nice pub dinner with Kent’s uncle and aunts.

Summiting Scafell Pike...

Thirty minutes later, we made it to the summit. Jimmy arrived just in time for the final push up the steep hill, and to join us for lunch...

...and to take some photos of us.

While the start of the Corridor Route looked very rocky...

...it quickly evened out into an actual walkable path.

We were surprised by the large number of people coming up towards us, but apparently we were crossing the path in from Wasdale Head, the shortest route which attracts more than 100,000 hikers per year.

The Corridor Route, however, quickly turned another way. Little did we know what was still yet to come.

The first bit wasn’t bad, but there were several very steep and rocky parts with some minor hand scrambling (personally, I prefer to hike with my feet rather than my hands).

Reflections on our 13th Year - Part 1....

Our 13th Anniversary of living in the Netherlands was on November 22, but our celebration was delayed until December 27 so Veronica could join us. As per our tradition, we had dinner at La Lanterna in Scheveningen, the same restaurant where we ate on our first night 13 years ago. Also continuing our tradition, we made a list of our highs and lows over the last year. As usual, here are our lows first:

• Feeling bad for family members: Grandpa due to shoulder problems, and Buddy and Debbie for relationship complications
• Climate breakdown and impending sense of doom 
• White family brownie experience
• White girls’ knee troubles
• TRUMP
• Jimmy: new non-profit, The DIG, struggling more than anticipated; disappointed that efforts at Amsterdam H3 haven’t panned out; lack of time to run the Lakes District; missing disco house mornings when Ashlynn is away
• Melissa: boulder fields in Lakes District; lack of flat in Nepali Flat; getting sick in Nepal; losing Kindle on flight; scared of winding roads in Madeira; missed out on seeing Ashlynn leave to start working as a full-time model; also missed out hashing in Paris and Athens; sleeping on floor in Ashlynn’s studio apartment in Paris
• Veronica: getting her heart broken; leaving London; having to clean-up after sloppy housemates; no longer having an income; snow disrupting trip on sleeper train; dissertation; Brexit; not windy enough to go paragliding in Madeira; dropping her camera
• Ashlynn: wallet being stolen in Paris; missing Kati, friends and family togetherness; life being so expensive, especially food; Kavos complications; deep concern after Indonesia earthquake