Saturday: sunshine + sagebrush

Part 1:  Win Win Situation

Adam likes to go for a drive.

The destination doesn't matter so much.  He just likes to drive.  I don't.  Call me the product of a task oriented mother.  It feels like an enormous waste of time to just drive.  We have arrived at a solution.  When I am Seattle weary (clouds and gray sky), I will go for a drive.  I will drive as long as I need to go.  To find sunshine.

We took Braeden (and Leif) to the mountains on Saturday for a scout activity at Ensign Ranch.  We left them there and headed east east east.  Towards the sun.  Towards the blue sky.  Towards the...

...sagebrush.

we inhaled a couple of deep breaths to take with us to my mom and dad in Illinois

We took a little hike and looked at some petrified wood in the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park.  We saw some petrified wood.

And some sagebrush.

(It's possible I am homesick for Nevada.)

Happy Adam.

Happy Thelma.

Part 2:  Splendour in the Grass

...nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower

William Wordsworth

Laying in the grass on the banks of the Columbia River in the sunshine may be one of the best things that's ever happened to me.

I look like I was shot in the back and left there to die...

But I fell asleep and had a wonderful nap with my face in the grass.  (I've been sick--I think I can sleep anywhere.) The trees there were like the ones in my grandma and grandpa Dahl's yard.  I showed Emma how to snap them and see stars inside the twigs.

Of course, everyone wasn't as restful as I was.

I don't know how to explain him.

Part 3: Speaking of Mark

He had one goal.  And it was to hike.  He packed himself a backpack which included food, a change of clothes, a blanket and the tin plate he made at cub scout day camp last summer.  (Which incidentally looked very convincing as a UFO when it was tossed in the air.)

We were being a little too leisurely for him and enjoying the view of the Columbia River.

Mark said, "Have we already hiked?"

Adam said, "No."

"Then what are we doing sitting around here?"

Mark was the enthusiastic leader of the hike.  He tried to bring a water filter but Adam intercepted that idea.  He did bring walkie talkies.  He and Emma would get ahead of us and call back to Adam.  They were "Blue Hawk" and Adam and I were "Red Bear."

The conversation went something like this.

"Here's a spruce, Red Bear.  Over."

"OK, Mark...I mean, Blue Hawk."

"Copy that.  How's mom?  Over."

"Mark, let's save the battery.  Only talk to me if you need me."

"Roger that.  Over."

"Red Bear, we're turning right.  Over."

"Mark, we're trying to have a conversation.  I'm turning the walkie talkie off."

"Copy that.  Over."

Mark keeps things interesting.  It's his role in my life.

That and being the spotter of things on the horizon.

Part 4:  I like teenagers.

Emma makes me happy.

Braeden (and his tall friends) make me happy.  I was happy to reclaim him from his scout activity.

They're actually the same height...Leif is uphill a little.  I'm not sure how Janet and I let them get so big.