Marion's Miscellaneous Musings

One of the problems with camping at the same place for 25 years is that you eventually run out of pictures to take. We have enough of each other, the sweeping vistas when you hike to the top of the road, each other at the sweeping vistas, friends, friends at the sweeping vistas, friends' dogs at the sweeping vistas, sweeping vistas in the rain, sun, clouds, etc, etc, ad nauseum. Some years we don't even take the camera out of the backpack.

But it is a comfortable place to camp, we can let the kids run around and not worry about anything but the creek (once they got old enough, that is). And I did see a cougar once. Or was it a deer? I decided not to follow to find out, but headed back to where everyone else was. Rattlesnakes have also been sighted. One was killed fed it to the ants. My daughter's best friend is very good at catching lizards. She got a pine bark beetle once. Not squeamish, that one!

We go there for the friends, mostly. It is a place where there is no cell phone service, you are not worried about cleaning house and if you really need a latte there are a bunch of places (not all Starbucks) within a short drive and you can always find someone to go with you. If not for a latte, for the quilt shop.

Sometimes, though, you look away from the sweeping vistas and find this on top of a 5 foot tall tree stump.