So, I am clearly a terrible summer blogger. I have too many projects and events to take care of during the summer and if I get a speck of downtime, I sit on the sofa and drink wine. I have taken multi-tasking to a new extreme this summer and all I can think about is the next chance I'll get to sleep in or have a free evening.
Let's begin with an update from this past week. I drove over 1,400 miles between August 27 and September 3. It's kind of a relief to just sit and drive, but the problem I have with it is that I think of 7,000 other things I could be doing rather than sitting in the car. If I can listen to a book on CD or my iPod, the time goes by much faster. I always like to take a different route on the way back from somewhere so I can see something different, but it doesn't always work out that way.
My Aunt and Uncle came to visit from Montana. I haven't seen them since 2008 when my Grandma died and The Brown Eyed Man has never met them. When I was younger, I spent a couple of summers with them and always had a great time. We would take the horses up into the Bob Marshall Wilderness and scout for places for them to go elk hunting in the fall.
I learned to try new foods, how to hobble a horse, the scientific names for the American black bear (ursus americanus) and for the grizzly bear (ursus arctos horribilus), how to read a blazed trail mark, how not to whine when it's raining and 40 degrees on the 4th of July and you know all your friends back home are water skiing, how to drink whiskey (I was only 15 - but it was cold and please don't arrest my aunt - it was just a swig and I hated it).
I loved my time with them and I was always sad when I had to go home. Anyway, we had a great visit. They are just the same as I remember them and it makes me want to see them more.
The boys and I played around on the hill behind my parents house. I tried to take them to all the places that Tim and I played when we were kids, but I couldn't find them all. I think they were grown over. We did manage to pretend we were rescuing one another. Great fun.
This kid is pretty funny.
We went home on Sunday, but I returned to The Dalles on Monday afternoon as I had a meeting in Sunnyside, WA on Tuesday morning. There was a grass fire going on at Wishram, WA, just up the Columbia river and I got this picture when I arrived at Mom and Dad's house. Smokey Sun.
I suppose I shouldn't take pictures while I drive, but this was Mt. Adams on Tuesday morning. The picture doesn't do it justice.
I drove through a little town called Granger, where I saw this:
What in the world does a dinosaur have to do with September 11th? I wondered that too so I googled it for your benefit: http://www.grangerchamber.org/tourism.phtml It still doesn't really make sense to me but to each his own.
Thursday brought me to Tillamook, OR. I saw this little beauty on the side of the road leading into our job site. She has a fawn with her, but the fawn bolted when I crept up in my car.
And a lovely view of the Oregon coast from the top of a local hill:
Guess what? I had several other days of interesting activities, but it seems that I didn't take any pictures. I'm trying to get better at that. I may have mentioned previously that I want a funeral with lots of pictures. Not just those that someone found an hour before they went to the funeral home to make my arrangements.
I've been reading my Grandmother's journals the last few days. I'm all the way up to 1976 and while she doesn't list a lot of information for each day, she does list what is important to her: weather, the animals she saw, the fish she caught, and other small notes (So-and-so's funeral, This guy and that girl came to visit, etc.) It has inspired me to try to start writing my own journal with similar small details. We don't live in a cabin on the Mississippi river so I won't be seeing any otters, mink, flying squirrels, or bears, but I see my fair share of wildlife.
I guess the point of my two previous paragraphs has something to do with the Shawshank Redemption. Do you think I'm high right now? How in the world are these things tied together? "Get busy living or get busy dying". I watched that movie for the 375th time the other night and the quote has stuck with me. I've said it to myself every day. We'll see how good I am at it.
Have a great day!
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