Feisty Female Road Trip
When Maddie was six months old, we moved from our beloved Victorian apartment to the UNofficial Married Student Housing at Berkeley. They were long low buildings perched on the steepest of hills between a grove of eucalyptus trees and the Hayward fault line. Our next door neighbors were another LDS family at the law school. Their daughter was one month younger than Maddie and my only memory of her was that she was perhaps the most darling baby ever. Emma and Maddie mostly screamed through the wall at each other until Emma's family moved away.
Twelve years later and guess who is on the same swim team and going to the same school? These girls are so funny and brainy and enthusiastic and similar that it's a kick to listen to them. One minute they're critiquing tween pop, the next they're reciting Shel Silverstein and then they're discussing swim strokes and cracking open the Complete Works of Shakespeare.
For their birthdays, Kathrine and I decided to take the two girls down to the Shakespeare festival. Emma and Maddie are also alike because they each have three brothers and no sisters. They were so excited for a girls' road trip where we promised them there would be no stops at the side of the road for bathroom breaks! We drove down on a Tuesday, got lunch and saw a matinee of Pride and Prejudice.
Then we checked into our motel, swam, ate dinner on the grass and watched Much Ado about Nothing in the evening. Both were just fantastic productions.
I knew that Maddie would love Elizabeth Bennett and Beatrice, witty women of quick retorts.
The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast and then drove up to Cedar Breaks.
We took the alpine pond hike this time and it was a completely different feeling than the Spectra Point hike we'd done before with the family. We had lunch by the pond, nearly wore out Kathrine's brakes, and came home to happy husbands and brothers by dinnertime. It was such a fun trip!
Comments
Maddie, I love the white jacket with the skirt. I didn't think of that.