Carl tells the story... Guest post

Hi, Carl and Cutter here.
We came home from our first trip to the ocean yesterday. Cutter and I are sitting on the couch with Farmlady. She is having her Latte...

and we are waiting to lick the cup when she is done.
I'm suppose to tell you about our trip first.... so here goes.
We didn't see this coming. I knew something was up when The Prospector drove that big monster thing up the driveway and parked it in front of the house over a week ago.

They bought this noisy thing, "...so we can take trips and bring the dogs with us. "
Well, that's what they did.
They spend the weekend carrying stuff out to the "BUS" and putting food in the refrigerator. All that activity should have been a sure sign that something was up.
On Monday morning they put our leashes on and took us thought the gate. This usually means A WALK. We got all excited. We pee'd on a few bushes and then...it happen. We were lifted into the BUS. We tried to say "No!" , but they didn't listen.
We were kinda trapped.

"Cutter, I think this is something we haven't done before. Be brave and don't whine."
Cutter was being very quiet.

He tried to look out the windows but they were too high. He was trying to be as calm as he could be... and then the Prospector started the engine. That blew our cover. I started barking and Cutter lost it.

I tried to act calm. I gave them my best "excited dog" look and sat on my pillow... on the couch. Every now and then, I would look over at Farmlady. She would smile and say "It's Ok, Carl." That helped.
This was not going to be fun. Then the BUS started to move.

 Cutter lost it completely. I knew he was afraid, but he panicked and tried to get into the Prospector's lap. He hunkered next to the seat and put his head on Prospector's leg. He can be such a wimp. I knew this would happen.

I guess he wasn't watching me. I tried to show him how to be brave but he's a year younger and he gets scared.
After we drove for a long, long time we stopped near a bridge in a place called Vallejo.

 I heard Farmlady say that this was the turn off for Mare Island. I also heard her say that she had to go to the bathroom and there wasn't one around. She was desperate so she climbed over our crates, that we sleep in, and use the BUS bathroom.
They took us for a walk. Then we got back in the BUS, ate some lunch and started moving again.
We drove for a long time. Finally it looked like home... sort of. The road got small and there were not so many car sounds outside.
One time we passed a big truck and I barked at it.

We finally stopped again and this time we stayed in one place. It smelled different.

The Prospector said it was the Bodega Bay RV Park. He did what he called "hooking up the RV". Farmlady was happy because she was smiling. There was water and the bathroom worked. They put our leashes on and took us for a walk. We went down to a place that was enclosed and we got to run around and pee everywhere. I barked at some other dogs and , for the first time , I thought that this place might not be so bad.

That afternoon we took a walk on a trail to a strange place. It was a pole thing in the middle of a rock wall. Farmlady said it had bells hanging from it. She will tell you more later. Cutter and I pee'd on everything.
We got to go outside again after dinner and it was getting kinda dark. We didn't like being outside in the dark.
I threw up four times that night. Cutter threw up once... and again the next day. The Prospector had to wash all of our bedding the next morning. I think it might have been the brown stuff I ate on the trail. It was pretty good going down.
Well, this is only the first day. Things got better after this. We stayed here for three days and then we got to see the Ocean, for the first time. I will let Farmlady tell you all about it.
Now, I have to catch up on my sleep.

I'm so lucky.

I have a sister. She is my only sister and the only real complaint that I have about her is that she's seven years younger than me. I really think that my mother and father should have made more of an effort to put LESS space between us, but that's kind of water under the bridge now. They waited for me to ask them for a sister before they made one for me. Then she appeared, out of nowhere. Imagine.
Everything was fine until I hit... oh, about 50. Before middle age ( Yes, I might live to be 100 the way things are going.) I kind of had the upper hand with Sis. She was my "little" sister and she was quite helpful when she wasn't being a nuisance and telling Mom that I did something that I didn't.
Most of the time she looked up to me. It was a good arrangement.
Somewhere around that half way point, she started changing. Kind of like her front porch on Halloween night
She went from this...

To this...

She toughened up. She, somehow, became an equal. She grew up.  I couldn't kick her, under the table, anymore. ( She knows what I mean by this.)
I'm not sure what happen, but we've kind of had a role reversal. Now, she is the "older", saner, introspective person who makes me look at things with a more rounded perspective.
I, on the other hand, have gotten more opinionated, grumpy and I tend to let my inner Sagittarius come out... way too often.
My sister is a kind, liberal minded (and I mean this in a good way) person who loves me and puts up with my conservative attitudes, my cowgirl shirts and my inability to understand a situation when I think I have the answer. She has become this tolerant person who accepts the fact that people are sometimes crazy and you can still love them.

When I call and say that I'm coming down to visit, (That includes Sis and her family, my sons, my Beans and anyone else I happen to visit while I'm there.) I always get a "Wonderful... when?" I have a place to stay, a comfortable bed, a private bathroom (that's huge.) and special little things that she leaves on the dresser, like pictures of the Beans, two little Corgi statues and a wonderful new magazine... or some flowers. She includes me for dinner as if I was just part of the family... as if I'm always there. He hubs and her youngest son, Ben, are always glad to see me too. They are comfortable with my being there and even though I come and go a lot, I always find a warm reception when I return.

This post is just to say Thank you, Sis. I'm so lucky to have a sister like you and your generosity has not gone unnoticed... even when you make your point about something I don't want to hear... even when you stand in from of me and ask me if I cut my own hair again... and even when you go on a diet and lose more weight than me. I love you.
Thanks for the Persimmons.

From that beautiful Persimmon tree.

Thank you for being such a good mother. I don't think you give yourself enough credit.
Thanks for helping me and being there, when the sadness was overwhelming, and we lost the two most important people in our lives. Mom and Dad would be so proud of us. They always were.
Thank you for trying to understand why I have a hard time committing to other human beings. You've made me more aware of why I seem to let go of some people so easily and why I feel so trapped other times.
And, finally, for being the best shoe shopping, Ikea hopping, vegetable wrap at McDonald's, driving Ms, Daisy, Sister anyone could ever have.
I may have had to plead with mom and dad when I was seven... and there were moments when I wanted to send you back... but, all in all, it was, and is, a wonderful thing. I'm glad they "brought you forth". I'm glad that you are here and that I have an "older" sister to keep me in line... oh, wait... I'm the older sister. That's right.
I love you, sis.

Revisiting a favorite poem

"This morning I watched the deer...

with beautiful lips touching the tips of the cranberries, setting their hooves down
in the dampness carelessly, isn't it after all
the carpet of their house, their home, whose roof
is the sky?

 Why, then, was I suddenly miserable?

 Well, this is nothing much.
this is the heaviness of the body watching the swallows
gliding just under that roof.

This is the wish that the deer would not lift their heads
and leap away, leaving me there alone.
This is the wish to touch their faces, their brown wrists
to sing some sparkling poem into
the folds of their ears,

then walk with them,
over the hills
and over the hills

and into the impossible trees."

I love this Mary Oliver poem and always wish that I could "...walk with them, over the hills..."
Does anyone else feel like this? 

Wordless Wednesday: Saturday Soccer Games

Time Traveling on a dark and spooky night

Thursday night was filled with anticipation. I arrived at the Bean's house in time to walk down to their school with my daughter in law, Robbin. There was a crazy thrill in the air. Children were running everywhere.
My Beans could only talk about Halloween and what they were going to do.

The monsters were lying in wait.

We did other things, but the anticipation of the coming night activities were looming.
We carved Jack-O-Lanterns...

the new improved way... with an attachment for the Ryobi, that made a quick job of the pumpkin debree.
Then we carved the pumpkins.
 I started transforming the squash, which went from this...

...to this, faster than you can say "Happy Halloween."

Which took on an errie presence as the night turned to dark.

And another little pumpkin was waiting on the lawn...

 along with a "little pumpkin" waiting patiently, at the door, for darkness.

The Beans were Delta Force Army Rangers this year. It was the first year they had decided to wear the same costume.

Very cool uniforms. Big Bean looked really good in this uniform as he set his Halloween blinker bracelet in motion.
Little Bean had to roll up the sleeves and cuffs on his outfit... but he wore the uniform with pride.

 They were ready for any counter terrorism that might happen on their street... as long as they had their candy bags with them.They were ready for combat.
The darkness came... and so did the creepy fog.

How many nights, in my childhood, did I venture out onto this same street to knock on doors and ask the magical words, "Trick or treat?"
 This home was my home. This street has my memories floating on its air and it breaths names. There are ghosts here... real ones. I see them... even when others don't. The Cantrell's, Hansen's, the Tieman's, the Woyteck's... I see all the kids, with names I remember so well... Tom, Bob, Barry, Dawn, Jimmy, Sandra, Anne, Donna... running down the street on Halloween night. Then, the lawns were new and fewer leaves fell from the Sycamore Trees that were planted in 1950. I see the same curbs and wide streets that we followed from one house to the next.
It was a good place to grow up.
It is a good place for my grandchilden to grow up.

There's a  pirate ship out in front of the house that, for the third year, beckons the children and a machine behind it that makes the fog that fills the street, that waits for the little ones in their fearless pursuit of goodies and their wonderful costumes.
There is a lady giving out candy on the porch with me, but it's my daughter in law... now.

A blurred image of what could be my mother sitting there. The same dark hair... the same lovely smile.
Is this the same ivy growing under the bedroom window?  Has it really been so many years? Is this the same concrete porch, the same brick and shingle siding?
Do you know how happy it makes my heart to know that our son and his family live here, now?

Hey, funny face, do you know how happy it makes your Noni that you live in my old house?
It's your house now.
I hope you build memories that will someday float down the street with mine... holding hands and talking about the good old days when we waited for darkness and goblins ruled.

Wordless Wednesday: Leaving home for Halloween

Leaving today to spend Halloween with the Beans. Be back Sunday.

Returning to Pinecrest Lake and memories of Summer.

This is where the Prospector and I went on Thursday. We drove south on highway 49, then east on highway 108. Pinecrest is 30 miles east of Sonora, at about 5600 ft elevation.

This is where I came, this summer, to camp with our boys, daughter in law and the Beans (our grandchildren).
The water level is much lower than it was when I came in August.  You can see the huge boulders

and old dead trees that folks swim and boat over in the summer.

Now the bottom of the lake is exposed and the people are gone. 
It is quiet and beautiful.

This is the hiking trail we climbed up to the dam on, this summer. Hardly any people walking on the trails now. Just a man in a Kayak on the water below.

The campground is closed and empty. We walked C loop to the site that our family filled with tents and camping things a few months ago. Remember the posts on my experience as an old lady camper? Here's one.
The site is empty now.

Seemed so different without people, activity and children running around.
 The autumn leaves were in abundance.

 It was peaceful, quiet and even the animals seemed to be gone. No ground squirrels, no raccoons... I think they come because people are here... and food.

How different a place can look within such a short amount of time.

We went down to the water and the Prospector fished for a while. I took my tripod and camera and walked about taking photos and resting on old logs. The fishing was not very good and we probably didn't stay long enough to give the fish a chance to taste the power bait... or Paulski's... or whatever it is that attracts their attention. I don't fish so I don't pay attention to the critical aspects of catching them. But my ol' fisherman does.

 He only caught one fish and fried it for breakfast the next day. The fish were not jumping that day and are all safe in the bottom of the lake.
We drove to Strawberry for lunch. This is on the south fork of the Stanislaus River and a way over the Sierra Nevada mountains. This is called Sonora Pass.
Strawberry is a very small community of people. There are 86 people who live here year round. It's beautiful... I can see why they live here, but this is a rough winter area and they are hardy folks.

 I slept here once,

  on the open ground

 for the first time... just after we were married. Those were in the days when I didn't care if a spider crawled over me (I guess.) or a bear got curious about us laying on the ground in a sleeping bag. I was young, unaware of the consequences of sleeping in the wild and kind of a half-baked flower child ...  but it was fun. Now... you wouldn't catch me dead sleeping ON THE GROUND... without, at least, a tent around me.
I guess, somewhere along the way, I grew up. Darn...

We ate lunch and headed home. The traffic through Sonora was a nightmare. They are building a bypass but this has been an ongoing project since as long as I can remember and still, downtown Sonora is bumper to bumper traffic.
 Pretty town...

Just no way around it. No way to go south accept through it, unless you want to go west to Jamestown and take some country roads over to Columbia. But... I need to bring my sister and come for the day because this town has got some great stores... and looks like a fun place to SHOP.
We drove home, past Mark Twain's cabin, New Molones Reservoir, the towns of Angel's Camp, San Andreas, Mokelumne Hill and down into Jackson. Home again. This was a wonderful day's ride for the two of us. Next time we will take the dogs and stay longer.

Bu the way... I have to tell the Beans that we saw Big Bird's foot prints on the beach at the edge of the lake. They had to be his because they were huge next to the puppy prints. We looked around, but we didn't see him. He's quite yellow you know. I'm sure we would have seen him if he was there... but maybe he was walking around in the campground, looking for some kids to play with and we just missed him.