From the Headlands to Headers and Hemis

Every four or five weeks my wife takes call at the hospital on Saturday and Sunday. These "call weekends," for Mimi and Papa at least, are really our "adventure weekends," with most of the adventuring occurring on Saturday (Sunday is for recovery). We don't generally have a plan, but most outings begin with a seed of some kind, be it running an errand for Mama, going to a new park for Mimi, or seeking out a pinball for Papa.

Two weekends ago Mimi had a request: find tampopo (dandelions). I decided to take the challenge, little knowing where the next 4 to 6 hours would take us.

On her way to work, Mama had called us to say that there were several good garage sales that she'd passed on her way to the freeway. Never wanting to pass up a chance at a good deal, we jumped in the car around 8:45 and drove the neighborhoods of northern San Rafael, looking for bargains as I considered where to seek out tampopo.

The last time I'd seen anything like dandelions was up in the Marin Headlands. Sure, we probably could've found some in our neighborhood - at the park or perhaps even along the street - but had we simply gone for a walk, we would've missed the view!

I've been up to the headlands countless times, but I never tire of the view. Mimi, however, being a three year old, simply looked out through the railings, yelled out, "Golden Gate Bridge!", and then went back sifting gravel from the dirt walkway to throw over the picturesque headlands.

We walked through the abandoned batteries of cliffs: the remnants of the pacific defenses fully manned following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It still astounds me that today I can now walk these empty corridors, their massive cannon removed, with my half Japanese-half American daughter looking for dandelions. With all the contention in the world today, it's a nice reminder just how short-lived conflict with current enemies can be.

On the back side of the installation we failed to find dandelions proper, but did come across some plants that produced cotton-like puffs perfect for setting free on the bay breeze.

Mimi had been talking about finding dandelions almost constantly for the past 3 or 4 days, but she spent only a few minutes with the tampopo we found before she was ready to head back to the car. As is the case most of the time with toddlers, the thought of something can hold their attention for hours, even days, but once they have it, the magic quickly fades.

Back in the car, we headed further west toward the Point Bonita lighthouse. I have been wanting to take Mimi out here since we moved to the Bay Area but, once again, I realized that she's still a bit young for the walk, especially given that I had forgotten the stroller. Putting off the hike to the lighthouse once again, we headed back to San Rafael. En route, we stopped off at a furniture store, a thrift shop, and a recycled computer shop (Papa would like a new [to me] monitor for his home office). Mimi was a trooper, at least until the last stop. By then she was chanting "Koen! Koen! Koen!" That's Japanese for "park."

We headed over to the park and community center in Marinwood. We had a spot of lunch that we'd picked up earlier (that's right, we'd also gone shopping that morning) and then Mimi hit the slides.

In a stroke of luck for Papa, there just happened to be a neighborhood car show at the park that day! That stroke of luck was tremendously short-lived. By the time we reached the star of the show, a pristine 1963 Split-Window Corvette Stingray, it was 2:00pm and Mimi was ready to head for home. She tolerated the first picture...

made her displeasure known for the second...

and just completely rejected Papa on the third. Yeah, it was time to go home.

Call weekends can be challenging - it's sometimes hard to find the energy to keep up with a toddler, by yourself, all weekend after a full work-week - but I think I'm pretty lucky to have them. Once a month or so I have a built-in Daddy-Daughter weekend: a weekend filled with tiny discoveries, small adventures, big fun, and, occasionally, even bigger tantrums when nap time comes too late. Mimi may not remember these outings in the years to come. But I certainly will.