My dear readers, I am so happy to be writing to you from
Bass Lake, CA, sitting in the dappled sunshine of pitch #10, Forks Campground,
having just finished my earliest in the season ever mountain lake swim. Which makes it sound like I have been keeping
track but really, I haven’t. I just know
that since I have owned Beagle, I have not swum in a mountain lake before May
7. (Yes, it was cold but completely do-able
if you swam parallel to the shore in the shallower water. I even floated on my back for a while before
the goosebumps took over.)
I have started out again for a long Beagle trip, the previous
attempt last fall named the “No Expectations Tour”, lived up to its name as I never
would have expected to end up in an ER and then spend the next six months in
and out of brain surgery; that kind of accuracy is going to be hard to beat.
So what shall we call this one? I thought about the “Whenever Whatever Tour”
as I don’t have a real plan other than to get out of the gloomy Morro Bay spring
and into the fabulous Pacific Northwest, but Covid has made it difficult to just
cruise into a campground and find an open pitch.
It seems half the country has discovered what the other half
already knew: Camping is heaven. And cheap.
So I left home with many more reservations than I normal hold; which actually
aids me in keeping my blood pressure low; I don’t have to worry about
finding a place to stop. Life always
knows best.
*
It’s fun to be out with people again. Today, while filling up Wurzig, one of the
three young men opposite me said, “That’s one hell of a car.”
“Thank
you”, I replied.
“And that’s
one hell of a trailer.”
“Thank
you again”, I said, then added, “And I am one hell of a girl.”
Laughter abounded!
Laughter where you can see teeth!
All masks were down. It was
delightful.
“I bet
you are!”, he responded, and then more slowly with a slight hint of regret, “I
bet you are.”
*
Ahh, it is six o’clock and the sun just moved between two
branches to warm my face. I smell the warm
dirt and pine needles and taste the freedom.
This is my life! Give me a second, I have
to pinch myself.
I have not been cleared for full activity yet so my days
will be speckled with walks and swimming which suits River just fine; she loves
nothing more than a short walk and a long nap whereas Opus and I prefer long
walks and short naps. It will be a couple
of months full of changing expectations and making adjustments to be sure.
*
Once the sun went down the temperature dropped quickly and I
happily snuggled under my down comforter, thinking as I have often thought when
going to sleep in an Airstream, I could be anywhere in the world, I have all I
need, I couldn’t be happier.
I woke around 4 AM to the near freezing temperature, covered
my head with the comforter, making a small tunnel for the cold air to reach my
nose, and thought of a good trip title: The
Simply Let It Be Tour. Part of it
actually came to me last week in Maui, floating on my back over the gentle swells, I thought, “Maybe this is all I was saved for; this relishing
the experience of living life on Earth. Just let this be enough."
So I will endeavor to let it be. Sam Harris might win after all; two and a half
years ago I set out in Beagle determined to study the difference between free
will and fate. Let It Be seems to fall
more on the fate side.
-K
PS: After a lovely
morning hike up Goat Mountain (yes, brother, a short lovely hike), a leisurely
breakfast of left-over potatoes from Luciano’s fried up with an egg, we are
headed to a new spot. (Some things
are the same, I do have an order of Luciano’s Duck a l’Orange in the fridge. How I wish I had some lemon tart. :-))
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