Hey Jakey,

Well, we did it. We waited until your six-month birthday (um, okay--a couple days before...) to slowly start you on solids. We waited this long because your mommy has issues with a few foods (cow's milk and wheat), and I wanted to make as sure as possible that I didn't pass them on to you. So your nana fed you your first bite of rice cereal before she left, and I've been trying to give you a little bit at lunch time ever since. Today you tried some squash, and you scarfed it down like a little piggy. You scrunched your nose, clamped your mouth shut and turned away after the first tentative bite, but soon enough--you were gawping at it like a baby bird.

So we had a nice day today. You and I went to Highland Lakes, and we went the long way around, down 395 past Topaz Lake, and over Monitor Pass. Monitor Pass is the prettiest drive in all of California, I think. It slowly loops through some really gorgeous alpine scenery, and towards the top, when you look south towards Yosemite, there's this beautiful little valley, I forget the name of it now, that's just as pretty as a painting. It looks like an enchanted valley out of that Tom Cruise movie "Legend" or a scene from "Lord of the Rings." Very isolated, surrounded by steep mountains, and it looks like there's a tiny desert of sand dunes on the far side. I expect to see an army of Orcs marching across it. You can barely see a little dirt road that traverses it, and for the life of me, I cannot find where that little road meets the main road. I've been looking for it for years. Someday, you and I will find it, and we'll see if it's as magical down in there as it looks from on top of the mountain.

Anyway, I had to switch to 4-wheel drive to get to the Lakes, right after we passed by the campground on Highland Creek. That's me and your daddy's favorite place to camp. I remember, about eight years ago, when I camped there the first time, meeting someone there who said he and his family had been returning to that same campground for eight years. I thought he was crazy, and more than just a little boring. Who keeps going back to the same campground for eight years? Me and your daddy, that's who. It's that cool. There's a beautiful creek, nicely spaced campsites, well water, a clean pit toilet, and fish. Lotsa fish. And some great hiking. I know the place like the back of my hand now. Just think, daddy and I used to drive 5 hours from the Bay Area to spend a week there, but now we live about 45 minutes away, and can just pop over there for lunch when we want to. But we passed that up, and kept going down towards the Lakes, about 10 miles farther down the road.

You really like to 4-wheel drive. The bumpier the better. It knocks you asleep in about two minutes. When we got down there, you got a snack and a fresh diaper, then we set out on a little hike between Little Highland Lake and Big Highland Lake. I dipped your toes in the freezing cold water and we sat on the shore for awhile. We almost had the entire lake to ourselves, but there were a couple of guys fishing a few hundred yards away. For some reason, they started to creep me out, so I packed you up and we hiked back to the truck and that's where I fed you your first tub of squash.

There really was no reason for those guys to creep me out, and they eventually passed by us on the road and said a nice hello. It's just that I suddenly realized that I was dozens of miles from civilization, alone on a lake with two strange men, and you. I've been extremely lucky all my life, and have never had a bad run-in with strangers, but I have managed to put myself in some pretty stupid situations. I should just remember that on outings like today, your daddy should come along. It's kind of difficult, though, when we don't have the same days off. Today was fun, though, and it was nice to get out of this sweltering hot house and do something outside.

I just put you down for the night. I nursed you to sleep outside on the patio, gazing up at the night sky. I counted four satellites and two shooting stars. Cygnus the Swan was directly overhead, Casseiopeia was off to the left, and a big, gibbous moon was behind the fence on the right. I hope you're interested in that kind of stuff when you get bigger. When I was around 12 years old, my mom and dad gave me a book about stars in the night-time summer sky. I would lay for hours on top of the houseboat (yeah, I used to live on a houseboat--I'll have to tell you more about that later...), and memorize dozens of constellations, only a few of which I can remember now. I think you'll like science-y stuff. You seem like a bright kid. Daddy can immerse you in sports-y stuff, the SF Giants and the Oakland Raiders and the Golden State Warriors, and video games and such, but I'm hoping to be the one who gets you into stars and clouds, and trees and birds and bugs. Try as I might, I can't get your daddy to appreciate a beautiful sunset or a perfectly shaped tree. Once in a while I can get him to find shapes in the clouds with me, though. He's surprisingly good at it, and more than that, I can get him to recognize the outlandish things that *I* can see in the clouds.

Okay, Squash-Boy, it's off to bed for me. I love you!