Freaky Times

The news always goes sideways a couple of weeks before a national election. The question is, who presents and stands behind truthful statements and who continues to lie and exaggerate. Well, it can go both ways because this is a competition here and absolute fact goes right out the window. Don't hold your breath until after the election...keep breathing and try to keep a clear head. There'll be sour grapes and cries of foul play and there will be joy and celebrations. Thanksgiving neatly follows the election (victories and disappointments) three weeks after, giving us an opportunity to forgive, forget and accept that the next four years will not really be that different than the previous four years...even though the wheel-wobble seems a little more severe in recent times. Generally, we all need to find common ground between us and act in a civilized manner, lowering the stress levels we experience for the remainder of our days.

9/11 Gives Me Reason To Pause and Pray

We were on a City bus, in Paris. An American lady with two children in tow, grabs my arm, "Have you heard? New york City and The White House and The Pentagon have been attacked by terrorists." I pulled my arm away. This lady was obviously disturbed. The kids looked healthy, well fed and obediant. We departed at the Eiffel Tower...and stood in line for the tour...people were buzzing, "Bush...Pentagon." I started to wonder. I said to our son Colby, "let's go over here and sit in this little park." He threw a small tantrum..."No, I've always wanted to go up the Eiffel Tower!". "Ok, our turn is up, let's get on." We rose up to the observation deck. "I want to go higher." The man in the uniform said, "No, we are not going all the way to the top today." We returned to the concrete plaza at ground level and another man said, in English, "We need to clear the plaza here, we are closing for the day." It was getting to be late afternoon so I said, "Let's go get something to eat." We walked down the Left Bank to the bridge over to Notre Dame Cathedral. Lisa said, "Let's go look inside." A pastor met us at the door asking if we were there to pray. Non. "No tours today." Obviously many had showed up to pray, the church was busy with true believers. We strolled back to the train/subway platform and rode a crowded car back to the airport where we had rented a room. A crowd had gathered in the lobby and were intently staring at the huge wall-sized TV monitor. It appeared that a disaster movie was playing...a jet plane crashed into a large sktscraper in New York City.

Nearly 50 Years ...A Symbiotic Relationship.

My best times almost always include my amazing wife Lisa Jo. We are in our 49th year of play and companionship. She always looks out for my best interests and I for hers. We are a team, we have created so much together...a story, a home, a child, a business, dreams and follow-thru. Our travels include spectacular settings and cicumstances, and quite a bit of skinny-dipping. We look for outstanding natural settings and we revel in the breezes and the birdsongs. Not always on the exact same wave-length, we listen to each other and find the common ground. We work at understanding our differences. Best Times happen in our local National Park, in France or in Italy or in Utah or just when were riding our bicycles in the neighborhood. We have developed parallel interests.We are not museum gawkers, we don't trust restaurants, we don't choose locations where we are required to wait in lines. We love the 'outback', the wide open spaces. We are so fortunate to have each other and an almost perfect symbiosis. The realization that we have had a great run and that it cannot go on forever has hit us hard here in the 2020's. Cancer diagnosis' and surgeries for each of us in the last four years have reminded us that this life is finite. We seem to be losing friends every month now to unexpected tragedies and surprising health complications...reminding us once again that Each Day is a Gift...a precious Gift.

Last Visit

Mid-July..."Let's stop in at Kerry and Judd's, I have a present for Kerry." We'd just pedaled California Hwy 172, out and back, which starts and ends at the Circle S Ranch. A family inheritance lorded over by my friend of four decades, R.Judd Hanna. My best friend and cycling companion, Lisa went in search of Judd's wife Kerry Burke while Judd and I sat on his spacious horseshoe-shaped deck while surveying the Dixie Fire/Morgan Fire damaged ridge to the East for the umpteenth time. "It really devastated every tree up there." I observed. "The ash is so deep that nothing green is coming back." he added. "Whoa, see that puff of cloud. I wonder what's causing that." A doughboy pool-sized cloud lingered a couple of hundred feet above the Mill Creek meadow to the East between us and the burnt ridge. "It'll break in two and then be gone before you look back." I waited and sure enough the puff broke and then disappeared. We talked about something else while looking the other way. "Wow! There it is again. I wonder what causes that?", he hadn't noticed anything like it before. "Maybe it develops from the Growler Hot Spring up the way.", I guessed. "No, that's quite a ways up the valley. I think it's some kind of spirit." he offered. Wow, you're getting metaphysical on me here Judd. "Yeah, right." was his retort. Post script: R.Judd Hanna died on August 10 while driving his homemade fire truck from the Circle S Ranch on Mill Creek toward Wilson Lake road (the backroad to Chester). We had been coaxing him to get out of the ridiculously bad air of Mill Creek and take refuge at our house, where the air was much improved.

It Happened Here...Again

We climbed in the 'Go Van' and embarked on a ten day 'Smoke-cation' to breath-friendly campsites within a two hundred mile radius of The Park Fire. This most often includes a long and wnding hwy to the coast. We camped and played North of Arcata...Trinidad, Patrick's Point, Crescent City, Gold Beach and Bandon, Oregon...where the breathing was excellent, even if a little salty. Oregon, it turns out, was having it's own problem with fires (over sixty lightning caused fires up and down the Cascade Mountain Range). We crossed over to the backside of the Cascades near Crater Lake...not good, AQI well over 200. The air improved as we drove South into California and Susanville was looking great. We could see the Fire Dragon standing up tall as we drove West toward our home of Chester. It was time to check on our garden and home and to launder a bag of dirty camping clothes. We thought we'd just make a day visit and then motor on to better air. Surprisingly the plume of smoke moved to a column twenty miles North of Chester. So, I decided to open the Bicycle store for three days...and much to my surprise, customers showed and I had three good Summer days of business in-a-row. Not all is lost but our summers have definitely been lackluster these last three years due to fires and the resultant smokey days that come with them.

Fire Season Dread, Chapter 6

Six years ago a firestorm raged downstream from us in the little town of Paradise. A really ugly evacuation scene where nearly ninety people lost their lives. Thirty thousand people ended up relocating their lives after losing almost everything they were familiar with, including their homes. Every year since has featured these "blowtorch fires" from which Californians and Oregonians have had to run for their lives. 2024, July is proving to be no different. Fire is everywhere, ash is falling sixty miles West of the big one. The Park Fire which started yesterday afternoon in Chico, California has burnt over 75,000 acres in 24 hours. It is marching North aided by 25 mile an hour winds that, inside the fire these winds triple in strength. We are seventy miles from the origination of this latest fire, however ash is falling on my keyboard as I write this. I am more than a little anxious, as i cough my way through this workday. We have our 'go vehicle' ready to launch. Even though I can't really imagine our little wagon circle of green going up in flames.