camp jalama beach 2012!!

have you heard of jalama beach yet?



well, you may never see this surf spot from any california highway (because you can't). the place may never get written about in a travel magazine (because it won't). and yet those are the reasons to love the place.



last month, the traveling band of kids, families and dogs reconvened for 'camp jalama beach 2012.' for a very short weekend, we camped out at the cabins and left all concrete worries and stresses behind. together, we shared bellyachin' laughs, and the men surfed; everyone listened to music and we feasted on each others' jokes. the kids played in the cabins and we had marshmallow smores and ate a TON of tasty vittles cooked up on the grill.

but really, we came to get a glimpse of this:



and this:



it's simple really--just a rugged, deserted stretch of coastline visited mostly by die-hard surfer types and beach rats. sitting on the sand, you're surrounded on all sides by craggy cliff, sky, flocks of sea birds overhead, sunsets and nothing more.

there are coves and caves to poke around in; and not much to see from here to santa barbara and up to lompoc. miles of farmland, where herds of cows and bands of horses roam and run freely, keeps major highways quite a distance away.



the only civilization to notice is the amtrak making its way down the tracks and the little grocery store that sells the famous jalama burger.

other than that, there is no 'there' at jalama.

















but WE were all there. all of us. and not a lot of anything else.








and that's how we'd like this place to remain.

until next year everyone!!
love to the camp jalama crew for all the great memories.

read about last year's surf camp that started it all here.

kyoto and arashiyama, summer 2012

video of our trip to kyoto, nara, and arashiyama. http://youtu.be/1P5tNcO4NpM

new york city: moma's material lab thursday

no sooner than landing at jfk in pre-dawn hours last thursday, john, dylan and i found ourselves walking smack-dab through rainy, downtown manhattan with cousins sunny, gabriel and katherine by noontime. our destination: moma and the petting zoo at central park. whew---talk about a whirlwind tour of new york city! our first stop was moma's material lab, a must for kids and parents. moma---quelle musee. browsing its galleries and exhibits, i was moved to tears and could've spent days and weeks browsing each floor filled with early 20th century modern art.

the dramatic view from the fifth floor at moma: new york, rainy and historic. 

i viewed matisses, picassoes, calders, and elbowed my way through the crowds gathered before truly iconic works by modern american and european artists: marcel duchamp, andrew wyeth, andy warhol, etc. moma's modern coffers were satisfying and immense--i'll definitely be back to study the galleries a bit more.




and the kids had a load of fun too. after a dirty-water hot dog and pretzel-cart lunch, the kids dove into the lab's digital painting, collage and sculpture labs. cousin katherine and dylan started composing on-screen and the adults couldn't help but start painting too. the digital painting was hands down, the most impressive computerized painting i've seen anywhere (hint, hint children's museums everywhere: time to update those tired old 90s era computers!). using the latest techno from microsoft, this moma-specific software and interface allowed kids to use a soft stylus brush directly onto the monitor to paint. 

after you pass warhol's cows, you'll be on your way to the material lab. 

katherine and dylan dove right into the digital painting and created these masterpieces...

everyone got into the act, sunny, katherine, dylan and john.

the material lab entices kids to create, as seen here with dylan. totally absorbed!

cousins! they could've painted for hours. 

gabriel, on the other hand, loved manipulating this very cool folding cardboard chair...

pressing it into an accordian/book shape....

then back into a couch. fascinating and architectural.  

dylan's van-gogh inspired painting.  

kids could make dolls and sculpture out of raw material (the view outside is of the famous sculpture garden--but we got rained out and had to skip it). 

each lab was inspired by artists' styles and different mediums. here, a lightbox displays cutouts to create vignettes.  also included were assemblage boxes inspired by the work of artist joseph cornell. 

inside the lab, it was calm and cozy, creating art. but the galleries were mad-house with the tourist rush. so we headed to another tranquil oasis for kids: central park and its zoo.

traipsing around the city was the most fun, according to dyl, kath and cousin sunny. more to come!

...stay tuned for part ii of our new york city trip!


read more about the material lab here on moma's blog.


(and a big thanks go to cousin ken for picking us up, sunny for chauffering us around, and to gabe and kath for the good new york-style fun--thank you!)

a trip to bodie ghost town, eastern sierras

in january, we got to visit bodie state park while visiting mammoth mountain with friends, our first trip in the new year.



and if you've never heard of it, a visit to bodie is highly recommended. it's fantastic: an actual, intact, perfectly preserved ghost town. think spaghetti westerns, gold mines, shoot-outs, brothels, saloons, gambling dens and the lawless west.

it's quite a drive to get to bodie, about an hour if you're coming from june lake and mammoth. after a long, rough ride up a winding, rocky 13-miles, the last three miles on unpaved road, you get the dreaded sense you're going nowhere.

and then you see it.



and your heart starts to beat, as you feel this excitement and wonder.

what is this place?



at 8000 feet elevation, the town is located on a forbidding, isolated mountain and is a scatter of old buildings--churches, cottages, shacks, barns, lean-tos--servicing the old mining industry. resting amongst the grass are rusted equipment and machinery.

i love exploring ruins, it is one of my absolute favorite things to do. i can imagine i was the archaeologist i never was yet i can fantasize about the past, like a kid.



it was nearly dusk when we arrived and the setting sun cast this golden, red-hued 'magic hour' light onto the entire mountain high up in mono lake county--and when the light hits, creating these grand shadows, bodie became one of the most mysterious places i've visited and seen.

my photos really doesn't do it justice, folks.

i remember feeling the same awe when walking through the ruins of pompeii in southern italy, another place where i hope to visit again (and where i will spend countless hours wandering and getting lost, yes).

inside the old methodist church

looking into some of the houses, you could well imagine everyday lives and the people who lived here. the rooms reveal, in their 'frozen in time' state, that perhaps the residents just up and left yesterday and not over 100 years ago.



on the road rangers had erected a small sign, written in french of all things, stating it was forbidden to remove antiquities and objects from the park.

c'est interdit!

it made me think of rumi: 'where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.'

especially for french-speaking artifact-hunters.



and the little ones absolutely loved exploring.

dylan, zayla and zowen, right before they got chased out of bodie.

we'll return...with a vengeance, mr. park ranger!

and JUST when we were having fun, the park ranger drove up and knocked us out of our wild west daydream. he rounded up our group and shooed us out before we had a chance to pee in bodie's functioning outhouse. we scrambled out of the weather-beaten houses and its haunted rooms, the intimate, preserved living quarters, the shops, places of worship, totally fascinating and worth visiting again. we didn't have time to tour the mine or visit the bars or banks.

but we'll be back!

thanks to our friends diana, zeth, zay, and zo for making our trip so great!

more info on bodie here.

happy holidays from dylan mac and cheese!

...in which we say goodbye to 2011. we had a BLAST this year.

hugs,
the dylan mac and cheese crew

kauai, the wild life on moloaa bay

the temperature in l.a. has been getting a bit chillier with the chance of rain imminent this weekend. and our thoughts of course, go to memories of tropical, humid, beach-y places we've been.

we flew to kauai last month (thank you frequent flyer miles!) and the place left a warm impression on us: the friendly locals and their kids, the wild rivers, roosters and chickens running around, fiery, blazing sunsets and sunrises. all of these things.

kauai was this lush jungle isle and nothing more. intersecting the island were wide, navigable waterways, amidst flowering trees and vines, swaying palms, hurricane-damaged properties--it was all very old hawaii.

not only famous for its kodachrome sunsets, kauai was, for me, these smells--burnt beach bonfires, decomposing seaweed, guava, and everywhere you turned--white and pink blossoms. you string them together and make a lei, i told dylan, a necklace of flowers.

at kamokila, a reconstructed hawaiian village on the banks of the wailua (where many films have been shot), a tour guide talked about village life in old kauai, pointing out medicinal leaves and herbs, showing us altars, ruins and singing songs with her ukulele. we peeked inside the birthing hut, where women used to give birth, the natural way, straddling two flat boulders. fascinating.

the 'birth hut' at kamokila. just squat! 

we also stopped to pet the village cat, napping in a woven palm-leaf basket. cozy.




dylan picked flowers, fed chickens and wild boars, and stayed clear of heavy breadfruit falling from the sky ; then a rain broke, forcing us to take shelter in a palm hut. it was dylan's first tropical rain storm.

let it come down.

the plumeria kid.

dylan befriends breadfruit at the hawaiian village.

how fantastic, we thought, to be a child and living in a place like kauai--rowing down its waterways and swimming in bath-warm waters, traipsing through forests and fern grottoes--all of it.



we had rented a house on moloa'a bay so we could be steps away from a locals-only beach; dylan said he wanted to stay there and live there. every morning, dylan and john boogie boarded and played gilligan's island, building driftwood huts and forts.

this was just fantastic in my book.

dylan watches out for waterbirds (and indiana jones) on the wailua river. 

this is hawaii when you're three and a half:

you befriend local kids, and together, swing from vines and look for frogs hatching in the marsh. it was like tarzan, indiana jones, tom sawyer, huck finn, gilligan's island and robinson crusoe tales coming to life.

the most memorable scene: dylan and his friend tristan, a kauai local, are rafting through the moloaa river on body boards; they're catching frogs and pulling each other onto the riverbanks for hours on end. the sun is about to set, the light streams through the trees, making the marshy water sparkle and turning everything into a deep haze.

of course, the time came to go back home, and none of us were ready--we needed more time for neighborhood meetups at moloaa beach--we still hadn't tried all the shave ice stands, and we needed more time to hike the napali coast--and dylan would reply, 'i want to live here. in hawaii.'

what are the names of those flowers, we'd ask him.

'plumeria, hibiscus, ginger,' he would say. 'look! there's the bird of paradise!'

a huge thanks to dylan's buddies in moloaa bay for your generosity and friendship--we hope to meet up with you on our next visit! 

DIRECTIONS TO MOLO A'A BAY:
heading on the kuhio highway toward the north shore, turn right when you hit the molo a'a sunrise fruit stand (pictured below). follow the road to molo a'a beach, where they filmed the pilot for gilligan's island. you should have the entire beach to yourself.

check out more moloaa bay photos here.

the moloaa sunrise fruit stand for fresh smoothies, local fruit and veg, and healthy snacks. 

aloha from molo a'a beach!