Last weekend, we celebrated Father’s Day with fresh guacamole and beer margaritas. They were so good, we gave it an encore this week, and I think I’ve got my recipes perfected. So here you go, and don’t say we didn’t warn you about their addictive qualities:

The Crumpacker Family Guacamole

• 4 avocados - peeled, pitted, and mashed
• juice of 1 fresh lime
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup diced onion
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 medium tomatoes, diced
• 1 1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Mix everything together thoroughly. Place it in the fridge for an hour. Eat way too much of it.

Beer Margaritas

• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can frozen limeade concentrate
• 12 fluid ounces tequila
• 12 fluid ounces water
• 12 fluid ounces beer
• ice
• 1 lime, cut into wedges

Pour limeade, tequila, water, and beer into a large pitcher. Stir until well-blended, and limeade has melted. Add plenty of ice, and garnish with lime wedges.

So we’re back home from Sequoia. In lots of ways, the trip was everything such trips are meant to be. If you haven’t been up in the redwoods, you can’t imagine what it’s like — it’s like church. My eyes crave lots of green, lots of wildlife and lots of tiny flowers — result of having grown up spending every free moment wandering in the woods. You don’t so much get that in Orange County. There is a particular charm about looking out the lodge window and seeing deer grazing 10 feet away. About seeing a black bear lumbering through the meadow. About a hundred varieties of tiny wildflowers. And of course, those incredible trees. Now here come the highlights:

Wholesome Family Activity: The most major undertaking was a tour of Crystal Cave, which was really breathtaking although in retrospect, I sort of wish we’d just bought some postcards instead. The inside of the cave is eerily beautiful, with rushing streams inside, and the park ranger was very nice although very, very verbose. The main problem I had with the Cave was the steep 3/4-mile hike on a dirt trail to get down there — and, of course, back. The altitude differential is over 300 feet and most of it is unfenced, with a drop of a few hundred feet as your reward if you lose your footing. I just don’t take well to spending every step terrified one of my kids will fall off a fucking mountain.

Is This A Felony? Probably: Both Matt and Boolie ended up having to take a whiz along the trail back from the Cave (no restrooms for hours). It’s probably a felony to take out your dick in a National Park, although if you’re a government official such as a Senator, probably not. Perhaps it’s even required.

Study In Personality Contrasts: Sam completed the requirements for a Junior Park Ranger badge, which involved a bunch of nature observation and completion of a little workbook. After he was sworn in and received his badge, I turned to Matt and asked if he would like to be a Park Ranger too. Matt’s response? Nah, I don’t want to work so much. Rock on, my hippie slacker dude. This, in a nutshell, is the difference between Sam and Matt.

Inappropriate Comedy Moment: Just after climbing back into the van outside the Visitor Center, I turned to Ben and howled God, that woman’s ass was gigantic. Not realizing that Ben had just wound down the window so that everyone in the parking lot could hear every word I said. I spent the remainder of the trip hiding behind things in case I had to face her again. But dudes: That was one big ass. I mean preposterously disproportionate.

Barf-O-Matic: The drive home was extremely vomit-intensive. Take a bow, Matt and Boolie. I now get to spend most of tomorrow devising ways to rid my cloth upholstery (WHY the hell didn’t I spring for leather?) of extremely noxious stains and odors. Bool, in fact, was sweet enough to give us an encore performance after our late lunch in Bakersfield. While I was trying to clean things up as best I could, some stupid bitch tried to panhandle me in the Arco parking lot and received my full wrath for her troubles. (In retrospect, I should have offered her five bucks if she’d clean up the yarp.)

What We’ve Learned: Probably nothing. But next trip = nice flat, shortish drive to Palm Springs.

Roxanne Hack of the Orange County Register wrote a column this week about hating mommy conversations — how just because you have a kid, everyone assumes you’re interested in everyone else’s kid, their bowel movements, their teething issues. Roxanne hit that one out of the park. Oh, I blog about my own kids, a lot — too much. I’ll mention them on Facebook. That’s the beauty of the Internet: you can close the window, ignore the post, choose not to read. But in realspace, please don’t hit me with the mommy talk.

Waiting to pick the kids up from school, I sit on the schoolyard benches with my nose buried in a history book on the Kindle. The rest of the moms are chatting in little groups. About what? Cupcakes? The PTA? Play dates? Who knows. If they would like to discuss criminology, or foreign policy during the Kennedy administration, I’m their girl. But I get the feeling they don’t. Shit, just for reading a book instead of chatting, they look at me like I’m from another planet.

I’m not totally lacking in mom friends, of course. I have my Facebook buds, and also a private online group of longtime Internet mom friends I hand-picked for their wit, intellect and lack of female cattiness. We talk about our kids, sure, but we also talk about everything else from our careers to sex to religion to our sons’ equipment to politics to our coochies. I’m not going to find that level of discourse on the playground, and besides: these girls aren’t going to ask me to pick up their kids from school or expect me to sit in their kitchens sipping coffee. I like it this way.

I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy, of course. I spent my entire early childhood catching turtles, snakes and crawdads in the woods. At parties, I don’t hang with the women in the kitchen, I hang with the guys — that’s where all the fun is, the dirty jokes and sports talk. I’m pretty damned comfortable with who I am. I just wonder if my kids would prefer a normal mom? A classroom-volunteering, cupcake-baking, SUV-driving, scrapbooking, coupon-clipping kind of mom? Does it bother them that their mom is, well, not like the other mommies?

My grownup daughter, who should know because I really haven’t changed, says it’s okay — she wouldn’t have wanted me to try to be like that, and I’d have done a bad job if I tried. I hope she’s right. I hope for my kids, hikes and tarantulas outweigh the lack of cupcakes and volunteerism.

Next Monday the family leaves on an abbreviated vacation to Sequoia National Park. This an extremely beautiful place, and I’m looking forward to going back there, because I haven’t been in, Lord, 14 years? But travel with three small kids can be extremely daunting, and I’m anticipating the trip with a mixture of pleasure and trepidation.

I did the smart thing and made reservations at the Wuksachi Lodge, even springing for the deluxe room. We were going to go with the rustic cabins, which are much more economical, but which can best be defined as mostly like a tent, but with walls and electricity. I worried, with the kids, though. We had an adventure in camping nearly three years ago which still gives me nightmares. So I’m playing it smart.

But Sequoia is, well, a national park located in the middle of scenic nowhere. It’s nearly a five-hour drive, and the kids just aren’t used to that stuff. They complained plenty about the length of the trip the last time we went to San Diego. In general, here are my fears:

• The kids will start complaining on the way up there, which will drive Ben crazy while he’s trying to drive because they complain in three-part harmony, and boy are they good at it. And where is there to stop on the way? Ha. Mostly nowhere, or places which are even worse than nowhere.
• Boolie will have to pee every five miles, and little girls just aren’t good at peeing by the side of the road.
• The kids will get to Sequoia and say, in essence, Right. Big trees. Cave. We’re bored. Can we go home and play Wii now?
• We will all be eaten by a bear, and I’m a huge fan of not being eaten by a bear.
• Although at least if we are eaten by a bear, the kids won’t be able to complain they’re bored.
• The food will be both abysmal and expensive, and there are extremely limited dining options in the park.
• I will forget to pack something extremely key, for which a replacement won’t be available in the park.
• The van will malfunction somewhere along the way.

That about covers it. It’ll probably be a good trip, but at this point, imaging how many things could go wrong, I’m pretty much shittin’ kittens. If was just Ben and me, we’d get by. But when you start traveling with kids, it’s a whole new ball game.