Showing posts with label chris korbulic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chris korbulic. Show all posts

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Ordinary Day, Ordinary Life

January 19, 2012
Awake to NPR's Morning Edition, as usual, around 6:30 a.m. More blah blah blah about the revolting GOP. Good to learn Perry has finally done something smart: drop out before another humiliating debate. Doze. Radio quits at 7:20 a.m. signaling it's time to rise.

Check weight. Moderate low-carb regime makes for about one pound a week loss with little sacrifice. Make decaf. Can't handle leaded. Brew as usual, freshly ground, boiling water passing through a filter into insulated cup. Put teapot on for PK.

Check news online. Historic storm floods, ices, buries-in-snow Washington, parts of Oregon. Look out window. See small-scale flooding in orchard. Rain falling.
 Garden trenches are moats  every winter during prolonged and/or heavy rains.
No big deal. But is problem if crops are planted out there. Only garlic this year.
Marooned trailer will be there for a few months.
Prepare low-carb breakfast. Drag out frozen blackberries. Dump handful into bowl. Microwave on high one minute. Mix in Greek yogurt and a couple shakes of stevia. Top with homemade low-carb flax granola. (recipe below) Check Facebook while eating. See that Chris has survived yet another death-defying day in Zambia. Or Zimbabwe? Somewhere in Africa. Lose track.

Gear up mentally for yoga.  Meet friend in town to carpool to the funky Wimer Grange 8 miles into the countryside where Shanti holds forth Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Not like the yoga person parodied in this viral video. Instead she says: You think this yoga shit is easy? Ha! (smirks)
Her students pant, perspire, suffer. Return for more.

Limp home. Change sweaty top for Rotary meeting, but don't change all-purpose black stretch pants, perfect morning through evening—dancing, dining. hiking, yoga. Keep it simple with limited wardrobe.
Check solarium plant life. Geranium lookin' good.
Check greens in cold frame. Need thinning soon. 
Talk with friend at Rotary who has taken on clients I bid adieu to during past seven months of my client-by-client retirement process. After Rotary, she meets with my former (and favorite) long-term client to plan annual publication. Sigh. Smile.

Pick up materials for volunteer gig on behalf of WCST this weekend. Confer with organizer about how to get stuff to event in rain.

Visit 96-year-old mother, LaVone, who, two days ago learned her 92-year-old sister had died, and young pastor Evan from the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, who will help her through grief and into acceptance of the inevitable. Feel warm and good. Better than meeting with former client.
Spy on PK, who is scooting a wood stove into position
in his garage/shop. Retired four years. Always busy.
Get email from daughter-in-law. Reno is on fire again - five square miles.
A young man they know lost his wife soon after childbirth, left hospital alone, with infant son. Recall daughter-in-law's dicey birthing experience. Happy ending, but without excellent intervention, could have been tragic. Feel warm about her, son Quinn, grandson Noah. Tear-up.

Cook low-carb dinner: Thick pork chops in garlic/onion/vermouth/port/Creole mustard/cream sauce; steamed cauliflower with butter; green salad with chopped cabbage, peppers, avocados. Fried potatoes for PK. No suffering with low carb. But no potatoes, either.
Keep thinking about grieving young father and motherless child.

Best of the day to come, continue reading Cutting for Stone in cozy bed nest.


Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Change-of-season madness


Yesterday, for the first time in months, I awoke to the sharp smell of the gas stove firing up,
warming the kitchen and heating the tea water. Dang. Summer's gone!
Given the date, it shouldn't be a surprise that fall crept in after just a few days' warning. Sunflowers, cosmos, and cornstalks have been leaning toward the compost, longing, I think, for restful rotting after a summer of boisterous growth and the recent marauding of feasting birds. The sweet smell of rain has been in the air, leaves have crackled underfoot, and honking geese have swirled noisily overhead. What a great elongated summer we've enjoyed! But still. saying goodbye to the garden and fresh food in magnificent abundance is sad, as is depositing into the memory bank soft summer air and lazy barbecues. Sigh.
 Outside, fog drapes across the hills like a swath of cotton batting, cooling the forest and fields and settling in for the long winter ahead. Variations of this scene will be evident beyond the garden for the next six months. Eeek. It'll get a lot wetter and colder and the vegetation in the foreground will soon disappear into compost. Not a bad thing to become, really.
I spent yesterday holed up in the kitchen with tomatoes and peppers, onions and herbs, making salsas and marinara sauces.
Marinara sauce bubbling on the stove.  Wow. It makes the heart race!


On the brighter side, at the kitchen counter son Chris tapped away on his cranky computer and plotted logistics for his next adventure. He's home for a few days after returning from Brazil, where he does crazy stuff like this. Don't be deterred by a foreign language—Portuguese. The link is to a trailer for a popular Brazilian adventure/reality series in which Chris is one of three "stars." He's headed back to Africa soon, then back to Brazil.  His is not at all an ordinary life!

Back to my world, currently dominated by tomatoes. Not too exciting, but I will be so jazzed this winter opening jars of salsa or thawing marinara sauces for quick dinners.  Maybe I'd rather go to the Congo with Chris?
Hmmm.  I don't think so.

Salsa!  And it only took ALL DAY to make!
But we also prepared a dozen quarts of sauces for the freezer thus justifying an entire day in the kitchen.
Today's garden take could be the last as frost is predicted tonight. The green beans, cucumbers, basil, and peppers can't tolerate frost, and the giant zucchini leaves will blacken overnight. So sad.
I love gardening and cooking and all the rest of my little Southern Oregon reality show. It's just that when Chris alights for a few days, I become restless and wondering. What if I had diverted 40-some years ago from the well-beaten path into middle-class life? What if I had followed my heart into travel and adventure? And then I worry, what if Chris doesn't do this?  What if he finds himself 20 years from now stranded on a bridge between his youth and an unsustainable level of risk-taking?
I'm not too worried. Just wallowing in the usual over-protective mama kind of crap. He'll be fine. Won't he?

All those veggies I harvested today are sitting in the kitchen awaiting attention, as are several boxes of tomatoes on the back porch. Should I dehydrate some, or just stick them in the freezer whole? More sauces, salsas? I admit I'm so ready for harvest and food preservation to be over! In a couple weeks, it will be except for apples, which are just now coming ripe out there in the wind and rain. Applesauce? Dried apples? Pies? Cobblers? Decisions, decisions.

What if like Chris, I was deciding whether to go to the Arctic or Angola—or both, plus several other possible destinations on his ever-changing schedule. It's certain that he'll provide ongoing vicarious thrills plus ample cause for maternal angst as I remain here in the cool and indifferent landscape, so recently spilling over with vegetables and berries and now so close to shutting down for the winter.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Too Many Photos!

Baby Noah displaying his outrageous independence at almost nine months.  No cuddling, please!
Just feed me and give me toys and space. And can I pull your hair?
I lost my camera the first day of our March vacation to Death Valley and other places in California and Nevada. Fortunately, I managed to keep track of it while in Reno with grand baby Noah, and fired off a shot worthy of archiving, if not for technical proficiency, at least for recording the reality of  a baby who is not at all interested in being cuddled. Grandpa Paul enjoyed the hair pulling as he provided sustenance.

This is Death Valley as seen from the gravel parking lot-type camp at Stovepipe Wells. It is my last vacation photo before my camera  disappeared.  This was also before I determined to take only photos that might mean something to me in 10 years .... or more. Or to someone else. This shot, while pleasing, would not make the cut.
This is how our bikes look hanging off the back of our little Four Wheel camper.
Exciting, right? This is what can happen when you have a camera and feel compelled to use it and SHARE the photos.
This does not make the 10-year cut, and is for demonstration only. Others may be interested in your children, your pets, your vegetables,  your toenails. But your bikes, probably not.

Traveling sans camera was a revelation. First I realized that not taking photos is a vacation in itself. How many pictures does the world need? How many do I need? Pictures of Noah and other family members have a small but appreciative audience. Pictures of Death Valley and the Sierra Mountains, however, have been well documented by photographers who are a million times more skilled and better equipped than I am. We discovered Galen Rowell in a Bishop, California gallery. Wow! It's clear that my landscape photos are not needed. I secretly like some of my own shots, but I can keep them to myself. Maybe.

What happened to my camera? I thought it was stolen, or even worse, that I had left it by the sink in the campground restroom. Paul discovered it soon after we returned home beneath the bench cushion in our cozy camper. I was disappointed, as I had already selected a replacement. My pocket Nikon Coolpix has been obsoleted over the past three (four?)years with much-upgraded compact cameras. Why I need sharper, brighter images, and even more foolproof technology, I do not know. But I want them. I would have shot hundreds of photos. I'm not kidding. I would have snapped my way through Death Valley, then captured myriad scenes along the incredibly beautiful highway 395 skirting the eastern edge of the magnificent Sierra Mountains through Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills and Bishop and Mammoth Lakes and then onto South Lake Tahoe and our fabulous day of bluebird skiing with vast, crisp, magnificent views of the lake. Post trip I would have been overwhelmed with  images, editing like crazy to decide which shots were worth salvaging. And who cares? Key question.

Of course after Paul found my camera, I gradually resumed photography, but with more retrospection. I was once a "professional", shooting to illustrate articles for small newspapers and a statewide business magazine. That was when 35mm film came in rolls of 20 or 36 frames, and you had to think and frame and anticipate to use those few shots judiciously. It was a discipline that I, for one, have almost forgotten with digital photography. Temporarily losing my camera brought me back to something I'd all but forgotten: pre-editing. Think before you shoot. So here follow some recent random photos that mean something to me, and why.
Chris, the professional photographer, and I, took turns at the magnificent cactus in  our solarium.
What Chris saw. This could be enlarged 100 X and still look great.

What I saw. Don't make it any bigger, please. 



Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Costa Rica—lessons from a journey south

Paul toasting our good fortune to be at Cabinas Jimenez on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica in December 2010. 
Note to readers: This post includes numerous links, which, if followed, could direct you toward journeys far deeper than my little excursion to Costa Rica leads you. I travel where I can, when I'm able, and in comfort. But my son's journeys are wider and deeper and challenging in every way. If you have time to follow only one link, choose the Great White Explorer. It can transport you to explorations you may not know exist in this day and age.

When I started this post long after returning from our Costa Rican respite, it was raining like hell here in Southern Oregon. February 14 shattered the 1904 rainfall  record in the Rogue Valley and interrupted weeks of balmy days when winter plantings vibrated with springness, and when we uppity Northwesterners looked toward the hideous Eastern blizzards with curiosity and said, "Oh, poor things!" But. Here's winter again.  And now I'm looking back to Costa Rica, where PK and I escaped for most of December 2010. Ahh. It was glorious. But.

We had been there only two days when our son, Chris, emailed us to say that his African kayaking expedition leader. Hendri Coetzee, had been killed by huge crocodile on an African river. Chris was two feet away, and another kayaker, Ben Stookesberry, was close by. A lengthy piece about this tragedy is the cover story in the March 2011 edition of Outside Magazine. (This is a 9-page piece profiling the amazing Hendri. It is well well worth your time. Hendri was charismatic and an outrageous adventurer. His is a riveting story, despite the tragic ending. It's almost as if he saw it coming.)
If you lose your child by a crocodile snatching, it's no more grief-making than by any other means. Car accidents. Diving mishaps. Bicycle crashes. But to us, this news was disturbing beyond belief, perhaps because we'd gotten to know Hendri though his writing on his Great White Explorer blog. The guy was an incredible writer and an extraordinary person. And partly because we felt guilty.

Hendri was taken. Chris lived, and we were grateful he did. Nearly three months later, we're still in wonder and so incredibly thankful that our son is alive and has moved on to his next adventure. Because what else could he do?

Hendri, rest in peace. Please accept the profound regrets of your companion's mother, and I know I speak for his father as well. We're grateful that Chris knew you, and know he loved you and will never forget. He takes many lessons from you. And so do we.

And so we moved on, as parents of survivors can do. (Had Chris been the crocodile's meal, we would still be muddling in a corner.) The next few weeks were a wonder of sights and sensations taking our minds off the tragedy. Two things stand out. One was our stay at a B and B called the Erupciones Inn at the base of the Arenal Volcano. The other was a lesson in letting go with good friends Catherine and Michael Wood, our Southern Oregon pals who live several months a year near Mal Pais on Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula.
The story: This Costa Rican dad raises Arabians. His wife runs the Erupciones Inn, a bed and breakfast at the base of Arenal Volcano. I took this photo (and more) from the patio of our modest accommodation. The little guy is two years old, and on his first "round-up-the-horses" mission with his father. Seeing this strong yet gentle parenting was somehow comforting to us, fortunate to be the parents of two incredible young men. 
The story:Here's Catherine Wood napping in her hammock on a lazy Costa Rican afternoon.  In her non Costa Rican life, she's a whirlwind. She works tirelessly for the non profit she founded, Bright Futures Foundation. But CR time is laid back. She reads. She refreshes. She and Michael play dominoes and entertain friends. They get plenty of hammock time. She's younger than me, and I have NEVER achieved the level of relaxation that she demonstrated.
There's no reason not to enjoy some down time, and so I am going to learn to do it!
Thank you, Woods, for the life lesson, and for being such good friends.
More photos from Costa Rica. 


Thursday, December 30, 2010

A mother's nightmare; a mother's dream

Chris' self portrait taken in the garden in late December 2010 is symbolic. This is his home, and he loves it. But he's a ghost here, always en route to a new adventure. 
 I read about your son--truly a mother's nightmare. I was wondering how you restrain yourself from locking him in his room until I read the follow-up story about how much he loves what he does. I'm glad he is home for a bit--I'm sure you are too.
The email message above arrived yesterday and made me study my wonderfully alive and well son sitting at his computer editing his photos from Africa. What happened in Africa in early December was a "mother's nightmare," and a father's and a family's nightmare as well. A horrific tragedy occurred, and Chris could have been the victim as easily as the man who died. 
If you're reading this, you likely know that Chris was one of three kayakers on an expedition that entailed paddling rivers never before navigated in the heart of Africa—the Democratic Republic of Congo. They successfully ran incredibly challenging whitewater, something they've done all over the world. They know how to measure a rapid's or a waterfall's risk and weigh the consequences of error. They can walk away, and they often do. But a giant crocodile exploded from the Lukuga River, grabbed one man by the shoulder and capsized his kayak. Hendri Coetzee was gone. 
Chris and his companion, Ben Stookesberry, were stunned and horrified. There was nothing they could do for Hendri, so they paddled furiously and pulled out of the river at a village less than a kilometer downstream. They told villagers the tragic story and asked for help looking for Hendri. But the villagers, who were otherwise helpful, refused to enter the river. The croc, estimated at 15-feet long, had already killed nine people in recent years. 
The next day, vacationing in Costa Rica, PK and I got an email from Chris informing us of what had transpired. Our first thought, "Thank God it wasn't Chris!" Then guilt  because somehow that equates to we're glad it was the other guy. But that's not true. We're deeply sorry that anyone died this way. Our hearts go out to Hendri's family and friends. I  regret never getting to meet such an incredible young man, and am grateful that Chris was able to benefit from Hendri's energy, experience, and insights.


Media frenzy ensued. 
An AP  quote, via email,  from PK and me in Costa Rica:
All of us with loved ones engaged in extreme risk as a lifestyle and vocation live in dread of getting bad news, but at the same time we are wildly proud of our sons for their courage and determination to be explorers in a time when most people think terrestrial, social, and environmental exploration is over. We didn't know Hendri, but will miss his presence on earth and in the life of our son.
Amen to that. But what about that impulse to "lock him in his room?"
Last spring I called Chris as I was obsessing about his plans to run a big, bad waterfall. "Why do you have to do this," I asked. "What's the point?"
The point was he wanted to do it, he said. And, he added, I was in greater danger driving than he was running waterfalls that he had carefully measured himself against. Ten minutes later,  on a deserted street in our quiet little Oregon town, a man had a heart attack while driving and plowed into the back of the vehicle I'd exited about a minute earlier.  My car was totaled, spun around and pointed the other direction. The errant driver died. So could have I. 
Ok, Chris, I believe you. Perhaps risk is relative, and the greatest danger is mediocrity, of playing it safe, of avoiding risk. (says she with a blog entitled Ordinary Life!) Well, I have to tell you. One of life's greatest risks—and joys—is having children. You raise someone as far as you're able, then they're launched and all you can do is watch and hope. Loving someone as deeply as most parents love their children is a huge and unavoidable vulnerability. Loving children is a exploration into the depths and heights of being human. It is at once dangerous and thrilling. I hope one day you dare to take the plunge. 
I'm not advocating that our youngest son forsake his adventuring soul and give it all up for a  home in the suburbs or work in a cubicle. My dream for him is that he can continue exploring the globe and his inner self, accepting physical and mental challenges, and make a living doing so. He's one of an elite group of seekers who dares to step far outside the boundaries of what most others think possible. But I also hope  that he never turns completely away from the ordinary life of making a home and  having a family. Because it's good, too, and has its own rewards—and even an occasional thrill. 

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Crisis of confidence

I've started four blog posts since Oct. 31, and have yet to complete one. I reach a certain pathetic point and say, who cares? And then ordinary life calls me away from the computer.
Years ago when I wrote a weekly newspaper column, I often had the same self-defeating thought but had to forge ahead regardless of everyday demands. There's a lot to be said for deadlines. Dogs resulted, but I occasionally produced something that pleased me. Reading over those columns 25 years later, too many make me cringe. Others make me a proud of what I was once able to think and write. I'm older now. Can I still do it?
My everyday life is focused on gardening and cooking, much of which is linked to my 36-year marriage to PK; keeping fit with yoga and cycling; fulfilling my requirement for heavy backbeat music and vigorous dancing; shepherding my sweet almost-94-year-old mother through her last years; keeping up a part-time writing/editing business; maintaining precious friendships; traveling when possible, and sustaining a supportive role for the Women's Crisis Support Team, a domestic violence non profit in Grants Pass. What comes gasping at the end is artistic expression via blog writing and photography. I also dream of textile art (why else have I saved all those fabric scraps and wine sleeves?)  drawing, painting, and putting together creative projects on behalf of our adorable first grandson, Noah Preston Korbulic, nearly six months old.
That's him. Noah. Most adorable Duck fan ever. 
Our two grown sons, who were once at the dead center of my universe, are still prominent but they have edged into outer orbits with their own so-interesting lives to be followed from afar. Electronic telescopes work. Email, Facebook, blogs, text msgs,  occasional phone conversations, and the too-infrequent in-person visits that always surprise and delight me. Who is this handsome young father, husband, and about-to-be Ph.D? And the extreme athlete adventurer whose current African expedition keeps me awake at night?
The young father will soon learn that his child is not his for long, but belongs to the universe; and the wandering son will know, if he doesn't already, the truth of this Stephen Crane poem:


          A man said to the universe. 

"Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, 
"The fact has not created in me 
A sense of obligation." 

And that brings me back to my universe: the simple little plot of Earth that PK and I temporarily claim as our own. It is 3.5 acres of Rogue Valley bottomland. We live in a modest but much-loved home that we started building 30+ years ago. The soil here is sticky fertile black clay, but through the years we've reclaimed a sizable piece, and with mountains of organic matter, have turned it into sweet friable soil that releases an intoxicating fragrance when turned over, and produces, with much toil and love, food that sustains us. This piece of land is small. But it belongs to us, to PK in one way and to me in another. So let's get to that.

These late-season serranos, jalapenos and assorted others were harvested earlier this month. Peppers are PK's labor of love. I love them too, but am glad he plants the seeds and nurtures the seedlings and weeds, thins, harvests, and makes the pepper flakes and cans the sauces and so much more. 
After having declared the summer harvest over and done several times, last on November 13, I was delighted to discover the world's sweetest cherry tomatoes still ripening in a once-hidden corner of the garden. I picked a berry basket and declared it quits on summer harvest. On Nov. 18th, I ventured  into the rain and wind, and little golden nuggets beckoned again. Unbelievably, there was another basket to pick! See how jewel-like the universe can become when one is focused on an infinitesimal patch of Earth? Well, I guess you had to be there. 

These are the last- harvested round and paste tomatoes, Nov. 8 Many years the garden is inundated by this time.

And these are Roma types that have been ripening inside since early November. 

Tomato removal in progress. So many green ones didn't reach maturity, but we still had the most prolific tomato harvest in memory. All those green ones on the vine will go into the pile in the next picture.

These are spent vegetable plants tossed into a thick row in the field outside the garden. PK will run the tractor/mower over to grind them into mulch. We won't put this stuff back into the garden, however, because we don't want to reintroduce any bugs or diseases.
This is the garden as it looks now, more or less. It's to-bed for the winter. But beneath the white permeable cloth are broccoli, kale, brussels sprouts, and cabbage plants. The cold frame has been placed in front of the house, and in late December (when we return from a trip to Costa Rica) we'll plant spinach, lettuce and chard. The elevated rows are heaped with compost (grass clippings, leaves, kitchen waste, manure) that brewed in the trenches all summer. At the right rear, covered with a layer of straw, is next year's garlic crop. Beyond that, tattered prayer flags that need to be replaced. And beyond the garden fence, the future home of bovine and porcine types that PK fancies will join us.
 Nite nite, garden. See ya in February, when I'll be cutting kale, weeding garlic, and planting beets and peas. Unless the uncaring universe plucks me up and sets me down elsewhere. You never know, do you?

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Summer garden's last gasp

It isn't pretty out there in the cold mist of the garden, but since we haven't yet had a hard frost, some summer veggies are holding their ground, mainly tomatoes and zucchinis. Now we know who our friends really are.  But fall/winter gifts are coming, and we look forward to some tasty and nutritious winter salads. The work is winding down!
For now the garden tasks include: processing the remaining tomatoes, about 50 pounds that are now ripening on the  dining room table; making serrano sauce out of the peppers languishing in the back porch,  chopping/freezing the remaining pepper varieties, then cleaning and storing garlic harvested in August and now endangered in the moist damp of the garage. That's it!
Tomatoes and peppers harvested October 27, 2010. Late!

A season-transition harvest photo: the last of the zukes, but fall/winter chard and lettuce are just getting started. 
I'm grateful for all the bounty—which required a lot of hard work—but so happy that harvest is all but ended and we can kick back for several months and pull great food out of the freezer, the pantry, and the winter garden/cold frame and just sit around and read and start thumbing through the spring catalogs. (That "sitting around and reading" part was a big lie, but written with complete faith that someday we will both be able to relax enough to drop into a chair mid-day and read for a couple of hours. How old do we need to be before we're really "retired"?)

Truthfully, I look at the spot where I stand in my kitchen to process the garden and just generally cook, and wonder how many hours, over the past 30 years, I've been anchored in that same corner chopping, measuring, seasoning, tasting, drinking wine, and wondering. Wondering why.

Most of the time I'm in a Zen space. Chop chop, peel peel, sip sip. I enjoy on a primal level the colors, textures, and perfumes of the fresh foods beneath my knife and in my much-esteemed Cuisinart food processor, a treasured work-reducing friend. Lately, since the family is down to the two of us (with occasional extended visits from world-traveling-expedition-kayaking son, Chris, ) I question whether all this food production is necessary. Why can't we just go out to eat? Or buy deli food or something.

But crap. I know that I'm ruined, habituated to fresh food lovingly prepared, and PK is too. So while we can still plant and hoe, harvest and shell, chop and saute, it'll be cooking fresh, and we'll be eating incredibly well. Maybe we'll get over it. But probably not.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Nomad kayaking son ..... will I survive?

As I begin this post Nov. 18, son Chris, 23, is en route to India and perhaps Nepal, China and Tibet, on a two-month kayaking expedition. This is not "ordinary life" but it is his life. Here he is, my baby, 20 years ago dipping a paddle into the river for the first time. (That's his dad's vintage blue Dancer) And here he is a few years ago in a circling-the-drain Chilean waterfall. Actually, I"m not sure that's Chris. He and a Spanish kayaker explored this creek and took turns with the camera. Those days Chris was on his own with a hunger for adventure and a quiet determination to join an elite cadre of kayakers who travel the globe pursuing primo adventure and first descents. That's what he's doing now—primo adventure and first descents. And that's what he did in 2008 in Pakistan and Brazil, and in 2007 in Newfoundland and Chile. It's a ridiculous life. He toils for a few months to earn enough for life support and airline tickets, and then hops around the world with his kayak. It's not something that you envision, or can even imagine, for your child. But Chris is driven by an endless well of ambition and passion, so I go along, oscillating between pride and terror. Despite my fearful motherliness, I say, Go Chris!

Saturday, October 17, 2009


Does this look like the perfect biking road? It is. And today we discovered it because when we were en route to Klamath Falls, OR,  on an entirely different mission, we got a phone call that directed the day elsewhere.  No longer were we headed to a Klamath-area bike ride, a soccer game, and then out to dinner with our youngest son, Chris and others, because, at the last minute, he was going here instead.

Chris is like that. Adventure calls and he pirouettes on a wave of impulse and desire to follow his kayaking dreams. Well, hell. We can change plans too, and we did and this is what we got. Not bad. It's the road to Elderberry Flats campground and, if you keep going, to Cow Creek, and Azalea, and Glendale. We can't wait to bike the whole route, but not today. Today just six miles into the potentially 46-mile round trip,  the sky dumped buckets. That meant riding six miles downhill in a torrent, but in a perverse sort of way, I enjoyed it. It was 64 degrees, not quite cold enough for hypothermia, and wet leaves are more colorful and pungent than dry ones.

Vine maples glowing despite the rain.
It was heaven, but I didn't mind being blasted by the car heater.




                                                                Done for the day.