For the Love of California

I was born and raised in California so when I see, for me, the quintessential California scene my heart won’t be quiet and my eyes refuse to be still as they rove from one delightful scene to another.   My feet want to walk and walk, exploring the nooks and crannies.  They want to jump  from rock to rock as the little girl in me did, but my jumping from rock to rock days are mostly over.  I lull on the edges of the water, tossing stones, dreaming, loving my memories.  These  rolling foothills, sparse trees (mostly pine and oak), grasses, sage, manzanita make up the understory and huge boulders with plenty of smaller rocks and a river running through it.  All awesome!  Absolute perfection.

We are on the Kern River here, just below the Isabella Lake damn in Southern California.  

Benton seems to be equally happy in this landscape but I’m pretty sure he only has eyes for the ground squirrels, putting his nose deep into one hole after another, then wildly running to the next and next.  One happy dog!  Of course he would be happier if we would throw sticks into the river for him to chase, but the river is high and fast with winter waters.  It would be dangerous.  Ed and I are saved from Benton’s constant stick chasing love by the ground squirrels that capture his attention.

The rain and snow this year in California has been epic, after years of  dry, so the landscape is green and beautiful.  I’m hoping the snow pack will help curb wildfires.  After years of draught California has not had a lick of summer water flowing down the streams, melting into the shady canyons, or oozing over the meadows for a very long time.  All valuable ways fire is curbed.  Raking doesn’t quite cut it!  But snow pack does!

I could stay here for weeks, it is so beautiful.  Plus, although cold at night, the days are warm, but not hot and the sky is blue.  More perfection!

We just finished a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and roasted potatoes, but now we hit the road.  But first a walk about to enjoy this beautiful spot one last time before driving away.

~~~

All Nature’s wildness tells the same story:  the shocks and outbursts of earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, roaring, thundering waves and floods, the silent uprush of sap in plants, storms of every sort, each and all, are the orderly, beauty-making love-beats of Nature’s heart.

John Muir

Summer Catch Up

Where have I been?   

Clearly, missing from my Thistleadventure blog for quite a spell.  I have not been in Thistle writing mode for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of health issues.   Plus I was blocked because of password problems, and it took my dear daughter-in-law, Yessi, to figure it out.

As some of you know, but probably not all of you, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in the fall of 2017.  It had metastasized with growths in my liver and lungs and was also showing up, in a more minor ways, in other spots in my intestinal tract.  It was too deep in the liver to remove with surgery or radiation.  So, I’m on the chemotherapy path of hold-it-back to pick up time to live a bit more life.  My energy is way down, the chemo side effects bothersome, but still I’m getting out and about and enjoying life, between treatments.  

This past summer we made a number of small Thistle trips, like Keystone, close to home on Whidbey Island, for one or two nights.  The North Cascades snagged us as well, as did Lake Chelan and the Olympia area.                                            

                                         
                         


Lake Chelan was fun, sharing the trip with friends, very cold, but very beautiful.

                                    

                             

A trip down to the Olympia area for the Senior Olympic Games, saw Ed receiving two gold metals for race walking.

                                                      

At the end of August I decided I didn’t want to give up my past few years of riding the years of my birthday.  So I did it again, cancer or not.  We camped at Keystone on Whidbey Island, and I rode my birth years. This year I took three days, rather than doing the ride in one, and rode on my new e-bike, but still I rode 78 miles, with lots of support from my family and friends, grinning the entire way.    A wonderful birthday celebration!

We also managed to get to Lopez Island to visit friends and enjoy a kayak spin.

Tiny outings, but wonderful to be thistleadventuring once again. My doctors are impressed and not worried about the fatigue I experience after a ride.  

The summer trips will be local this year, grabbing a day here and there between treatments, but home is a glorious place to be too, so it’s a wonderful combo of good options.    

It’s interesting to note the changes in one’s philosophy when hit with the news of inoperable, metastasized cancer.  Suddenly the small things in life are more important and each day takes on a significance not quite recognized when the end of life was less in view.  I’ve had a truly wonderful life, for which I’m grateful.  

Summer is now over, and we really truly are on another thistleadventure.  Stay tuned.  More postings coming from the SW where we are spending the winter.

~~~

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments

Of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at a time of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King

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Vancouver Island Wrap-up

Sometimes the timing is off or the expectations are too unrealistic or our own quirks become too quirky. When this happens, to write about all things vacation being perfect is dishonest or at the very least, pretty darn Pollyannaish. Traveling is wonderful, but not always. Out of synch happens. Take our most recent sojourn on Vancouver Island.

The first scapegoat for any traveling discomfort is the weather. Ed and I always play with it a bit, and delight in heading to higher or lower elevations or going south or north, to find "ideal". On this trip we simply have not been able to get it quite right, moving from sweltering to shivering throughout most days. We'd head up off the coast to escape the cold seashore fog, and bake. We'd go back down to the beach to escape the heat, and freeze. We've turned into crazy yo-yos of discontent.

Add mosquitoes to the equation and the complexity intensifies. In the woods the mosquitoes fiercely attack, leaving red welts on top of red welts. During the night I turn into a crazy whirling maniac with fits of itching. To avoid more bites we hide out in Thistle, but that is confining and hot, plus the mosquitoes still sneak in. Sleeping with even one mosquito in Thistle is challenging and hearing the telltale buzzing, I dive under the blanket. Waking up hot and sweaty, I throw off the blanket to cool off, but soon I am chilled, so seek cover again. Throughout, the mosquitoes feast. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

And then, what were we thinking? The crowds of August vacationers caught us off guard. We have done so much traveling in the off season, we had somehow misplaced our recollection of summer vacationers. People are as thick as the mosquito bites on my body, overflowing the beaches, highways, ferries, coffee shops, and campgrounds. The people we've encountered are quite lovely, there are just way too many for my spoiled country ways. I avoid Langley in the summer, and definitely stay away from Seattle, why did I think Vancouver Island would be different?

And finally, change has unexpectedly caught me in its grip. I anticipated finding the small, quaint towns I remembered from 30 plus years ago changed but not too changed. Ha. Take Sooke. This tiny town I stopped at when cycling the Galloping Goose all those many years ago is no longer tiny. Sooke has sprawled every which way and is plagued with bumper to bumper traffic. I am critical of people's resistance to change in the political world, yet here I am trapped in my own mindset of "what it was" in the physical world.

We have seen many wonderful parts of Vancouver Island and greatly enjoyed many of our destinations, but as vacations go I was caught off guard enough to examine my ideal. I was forced into self reflection. Our dear friend, Greg's words rang in my ears: "No expectations, no disappointments."

And, a final word for travel on Vancouver Island -- take a boat!

Any boat…

                           

It's the rugged shorelines and small off shore islands and abundant wildlife and hundreds of lovely little lakes that are the drop dead wonders of this place. A boat enhances the experience, as I know from previous trips, but failed to fully appreciate until I found myself without a boat.

~~~

“Everything that looks too perfect is too perfect to be perfect.”

~ Dejan Stojanovic

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Racewalking

Tomorrow we have reservations for the Pt. Townsend ferry, to take a leisurely drive down the peninsula to Olympia.  We will camp Friday night at Millersylvania State Park.  Us, and thousands of others, year in and year out, enjoy this park because of the Miller family's generosity.  In 1921 they turned over this 842 acres, including Deep Lake, to the state, with the request that it always be used as a park.  Thank you John Miller family!

Looking up from our camp site.

We even found a beer garden, in a state park.  Such pleasure sitting
 in the shade sipping a cool one.

The lake was being enjoyed by all manner of people and their water toys.

Early the next morning we make our way to North Thurston High School for the Washington State Senior Games.  Ed, a racewalking enthusiast, is ready for competition.   The senior games start at age 50, and have a class for every four years of age, up through 100+.   The oldest competitor this year was George Rowswell.  He is 100 years of age and throws the discus from his wheelchair.  He also lifts 10 to 20 pound weights, 200 times daily.  Grit comes to mind.

For the past three years, training and practicing the proper racewalking techniques have motivated Ed.  He's been to Green Lake racewalking clinics a few times to learn from the masters.  Otherwise he walks here on the island, as well as when we travel, increasing his time all the while perfecting the proper form.

Doing it wrong can be harsh because the judges, after issuing three warnings of rule violations, will disqualify you, and the decision is final.  There is no appeal.  

You've no doubt seen racewalkers.  They look somewhat strange until you become familiar with their gait.   There are two basic racewalking techniques required:

1) Taking steps so that the walker connects with the ground with no visible loss of contact.

This is the difference from racewalking and running.   The heel of the front foot and the toe of the rear foot must be in contact with the ground at the same time. 

 2) The advancing leg must be straight-kneed from the moment of first contact with the ground until in a vertical position.

This is the difference between racewalking and walking. The rule is that the knee is held straight when the heel strikes the ground, and remains straight until it passes under the body. Then the knee bends and swings forward for the next step.

So here's Ed…

Two gold metals!
 (5k and 1500 meter)

~~~

"Setting a goal is not the main thing.  It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan."

~ Tom Landry

                                            

Whidbey Island Summer

A summer right here on Whidbey Island, a summer at home, is unfolding…

Too often it seems to have fun, one is expected to be somewhere other than home.  Flying away to far off lands or driving to exotic places is how to explore and find adventure.   Or, so goes the common story line.  Telling a friend you are staying home for the summer too often is met with words of regret.  "Oh, we're sorry, too bad you have nothing planned for your summer vacation." 

Although we love our Thistle adventures, we also love our close to home explorations.   Despite the push-pull between staying put or another Thistle adventure, we don't think it's possible to make a bad decision.   

Our summer at home, with family and friends will be delightful as well as restful.  Our activities somewhat predictable, but predictability can be just the ticket on occasion.  Although we will not refer to our at-home activities as "adventures" we also will not relegate them to the trash heap of boring.  

Family, always a delight, will be high on our list of "time delightfully spent"…

Yessi, Fran, Brad, Ed

Thistle will rest in the driveway, perhaps a little too much, but we will definitely venture out on short outings, even setting our sights on the not-so-distant, but in a foreign land, Vancouver Island.  We also have visions of more deeply exploring Lake Chelan, the North Cascades and hiking on the ocean beaches…

Digging Brad and Yessi's Klepper out of storage and going for a sail sounds perfect…

And, as always, a bunch of riding is on the agenda.  This year we will repeat a past year's island explorations by again riding all the connecting roads on Whidbey Island…   

Each day we will try to be more like our pup, Benton -- enjoying every minute whether sleeping in the garden or romping on the beach.  Dogs are the prefect creatures to teach us to be happily in the moment…

Plus, what could be more beautiful than our summer garden.  Our Airbnb guests think they are in paradise, and so should we…

So yes, a summer at home is what's happening this year.  A summer of slow, lazy, happy days on a beautiful island in the Pacific Northwest.   And to enhance our at-home enjoyment we have an outdoor bedroom.  Upstairs, in the building housing our office and carport, that we call the barn, is a recently installed Murphy bed high above the garden…

~~~

"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration."

~  Ansel Adams

"Gardening is the Best Exercise of All!"

I don't know why I agreed.  A weak moment, perhaps?   It's not as if life is not busy enough with Thistle travels, political involvement,  running an Airbnb and just plain day-to-day life.  But I did hear "yes" come rushing out of my mouth.   I think it might have been my physical therapist's words, newly delivered, "gardening is the best exercise of all.  Keep gardening!"

So here I am, day in and day out, gardening my body into some semblance of fit as I prepare our garden for the Whidbey Island Garden Tour on Saturday, June 17.  As the day draws near,  preparation panic sweeps over me.  I rush to eliminate all weeds, prune all trees and nudge each and every garden corner into a thing I know doesn't exist, but I'm still striving to achieve, perfection.  Ha!  Both my garden and my body resist mightily.

But, despite the work-in-progress nature of a garden, welcome to our Fredley Garden.  Our home and garden are in the city limits of Langley, on Whidbey Island.  We have 1/3 acre of peace and quiet, hidden from neighbors, yet a short walk to town.

This is the front gate, built in our son's wild and playful style. His company, dbBrad, built our home and Brad is our family's creative genius.

First couple of steps through the gate…

A little stroll around the garden…

Our pond…

Please, come again…June 17?

Tickets are now on sale for the tour.  Proceeds from the annual Whidbey Island Garden Tour are donated to selected causes and non-profit organizations that support the improvement, restoration, and maintenance of our common island habitat. Projects that emphasize public space enhancement and education are of particular merit in the eyes of the WIGT Board.

~~~

If you want to be happy for a short time, get drunk;

happy for a long time, fall in love;

happy forever, take up gardening."

~ Arthur Smith

Life is a Dance

Our last night on the road we camped at Dungeness Recreation Area, where Clallam County provides 66 beautiful camping sites right next to Dungeness Spit.  The spit is walking paradise, plus there are other walking trails and equestrian trails throughout the park.

Both Ed and I were astonished when we compared notes and discovered neither of us had walked the spit.    Five and one-half miles of narrow spit beach walking, with unlimited views, culminating at a light house.  We did not walk the entire eleven mile round trip because tide and dog issues forced us into restraint, plus provided me with a good foil against needing to blame my ankle.   And then there was the threatening rain.

Clallam County camping opportunities are vast.  They have about 16 county campgrounds so for camping close to home, head for the peninsula.  

Ed and I did our usual turn into homing pigeons once we finished our hike on the Dungeness Spit.  Although we thought we'd stay another night or two exploring the peninsula, instead we headed for home.  Before hiking the spit, we visited the Elwha Dam visitor's kiosk (dam removal recovery is impressive), walked the beach at Salt Creek Campground, camped one night at Dungeness Recreation Area, then hiked the spit the following morning.   But our hearts had already returned to Whidbey Island.  By mid day we were on the ferry to Whidbey.  By 7:00 we were enjoying dinner with our kids, Brad and Yessi.

~~~

"Life is a dance between making it happen and letting it happen."

~Arianna Huffington

Grateful

As we travel I ponder my blessings, my circumstances, my world. My ponderings range far and wide, taking me first to my good and full life…friends, family, community, good health, a beautiful home, travels...

I have never spent a night outside, without a shelter, except by choice. I have never missed a meal. By world standards I am wildly rich. Privileged beyond measure by the chance of my birth. I am grateful for that. I understand I don't have the power of vast wealth or a white man's body -- both would provide me with a great deal more advantage. Nevertheless, I'm close to the top of the heap in privilege-by-birth. I understand this sad truth.

The mood of the nation is, from my observations, not enough about gratitude and too much about discontent. The sounds of hate and fear ring out, loud and clear. This anger allowed a man who yelled the loudest and hardest about what is wrong with America to walk away with the key to our country. His face, in angry distortion, led his campaign with hate as he yelled, "Make America Great Again"! He lied to scare us about our failures and weaknesses. He continues, as president, to spew hate and fear. There has been no attempt by this new leader to modify his words, to see the good and kindness all around him. To soften.

We're been told by the psychologists that it is easier to motivate with hate than love and this, I fear, is what we're now living. We hear hate daily and not just from the current president, but he is the cheerleader. People spew their hate for taxes, women who don't know their place, other religions, homelessness, poverty, criminals, other drivers on the road, bicycle riders and intellectuals. Many hate the government, the other party, the weather, and politicians! And immigrants, oh the fury. Perhaps, most especially, many have hated having a black family in the White House, for crying out loud, for eight long years.

Hate and fear have become the national pastime and it is ugly. In saying this I don't mean to say for a second that there aren't people hurting as income distribution is flowing upward or jobs become obsolete. Clearly reform is needed in politics, at all levels, and policies are needed to stop the rich from taking all the gold. So I do understand the desire for reform and change, but why, I keep asking, why the deep hate, the deep anger, the deep frustration, and the deep fear?

And in the stew of ugly discontent a mad man stepped forward to feed the hate, and a leader-of-hate was born. I refuse to let my heart or mind become hate fueled. Love and kindness must prevail and I hold hope it will.

My commitment is to protest and block our new president, when ever necessary, not because my party, my principles, my philosophy lost the election but because I believe the man we have placed in the White House is unqualified in temperament and experience. In his hate and ignorance he is dangerous to the democracy we strive to achieve. I do not believe America has a road to a future of great without civility, equality, integrity and love.

I am grateful for the country of my birth and I am grateful to be able to speak freely for what I believe is right and true...

                                      

~~~

“I've seen you, the American people, in all your decency, determination, good humor, and kindness. And in your daily acts of citizenship, I've seen our future unfolding. All of us, regardless of party, should throw ourselves into that work - the joyous work of citizenship. Not just when there's an election, not just when our own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime...And when the arc of progress seems slow, remember:

America is not the project of any one person.

The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word 'We.'"

~ Barack Obama

President of the United States of America

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