August Activities

Iron Canyon overlook, a photo by suzipaw on Flickr.

I continue to consider blogging, then promptly find other tasks to occupy my time. What gives?

Anyway--

Camping was good. Perhaps a little too good. We arrived on Sunday afternoon after much packing angst (luckily the cooler didn't upend on the dogs in the truck bed til the end of our journey), and it was one of the better outdoor experiences to date. Yahoos were at a minimum (one night of loud talking by the excited young adults and a couple of hours of modern country music during the day--really, I can't complain) as were neighboring campers. The motorized boats for the most part took off during the day to ferry fishing folk to the far reaches of the reservoir fingers, leaving us to our own devices. We cooked just enough to have fun but didn't spend too much time on it, sharing courses with Mom and Don. I somehow managed to forget my knitting needles, so couldn't start my tshirt project and was forced to read and nap and play Bananagrams with Mom instead. Don caught fish; M did not. I regretted forgetting our binoculars. I think the toughest part for me was getting a good night's sleep. I didn't find a way to insulate the air mattresses until the very last night, so spent three nights oddly chilled on my underside and overcompensatingly hot on top. The water was pretty darn cold, but there were a few instances of floating far from any shore in the perfect quite of a beautiful day.

Roxy probably had the best time of us all. Thought she got off to a rocky start, mysteriously vomiting for most of the first day, she apparently arose from that episode as a squirrel zombie and when she wasn't panting under the picnic table she was sniffing the underbrush for varmints. She spent most of her last evening ripping apart a fallen log with her jaws, the faint taunting "eep eep" of some creature inside egging her on. On our last morning, she was animatedly digging at one of the boulders lining the boat ramp; when I went over to see what she was so excited about, a chipmunk popped out and made for the blackberry brambles, Roxy in hot pursuit. I backed away at the sounds that I thought indicated an unwilling death. Roxy must have heard M's skepticism as I relayed the hunting tale--she soon passed slowly in front of us, striped quarry limp in her jaws, we assumed she was looking for a safe place to stash it for a later snack.

We ended up coming home a day earlier than planned. We resolved to find a way to bring the boat next time so we could venture out from the campground with the dogs. They were both deeply depressed for several days upon our return. It took several days to notice that Roxy was missing a tooth from her lower jaw, we assume from her log chomping exercises.

M and I kept the vacation feeling going after we got home. We went to out to breakfast, saw a movie matinee ("Cowboys and Aliens," perfectly pleasant if your expectations are low), went to a dinner party with his colleagues, and took the bike up to Clearlake to visit with Jim, Enid, and their friends on Sunday, effectively keeping my Sunday blues at bay. It was really a nice treat to seem them.

Wings over Wine Country air show, which was a lot larger than I expected it to be. We're both sunburned, and I have even more admiration for pilots and their skills.

And I've finally started my knitted tshirt project. Wish me luck.