Fidget

Another excellent book by George Eliot (aka Mary Ann Evans). She is one of my very favorite authors. Like all of her books, this one has great characters. This book excels in character development, exquisite plot turnings and details, and a very unusual storyline.

Themes in Gwendolen’s young, naive, selfish, beautiful life (singing, gambling, willful independence) are revealed in their logical conclusion by other persons appearing in Daniel’s life. Daniel is to Gwendolen exactly everything she could not find (and indeed did not look for) in everyone else, who only valued her for her outward charms and whom she manipulated to get what she wanted. Eliot carries Daniel successfully through the story with his virtuous, sensitive, wise, but lovable and believable character intact. Gwendolen, beyond all expectation, finally learns, grows and changes. Some of the most intense character development that I’ve ever read, and could really engage with and relate to. I guess that means it’s realistic?

Yesterday BN and I took a bike-riding adventure. We had to hurry a bit to make it to the downtown bus station to catch the last a.m. bus to Cottage Grove, which is about a 30-minute drive south of Eugene. A few weeks ago was our first attempt at this route, and that time we’d gotten off the bus in downtown to catch some breakfast. This time we wanted to get right to the bike trail, where we’d caught the bus home last time, near Walmart. We didn’t realize the bus made a complete loop tour of greater Cottage Grove before finally getting to Walmart. Now we know.

There is a wonderful “bicycle freeway” that goes from Cottage Grove all the way past Dorena lake, almost all the way to Wildwood Falls swimming hole. The Row River Trail used to be a railroad, so it’s perfectly level, smooth, lots of shaded sections, and only crosses the road a few times. Ideal for biking, and it was about 15 miles to Wildwood, with lovely views of the lake for a long stretch.

Wildwood would be a perfect, idyllic swimming hole, except the careless-teen types who frequent it leave cigarette butts, beer cans, and broken glass to ferment in the puddles of rainwater trapped up in the sunlit rocks. It took a matter of 3 minutes to fill a plastic bag with trash before we left. But in spite of that, it’s a pretty cool spot. There is an 8-foot waterfall, 15-foot cliffs to jump from into the round, deep pool, and even rumored lava tubes down below the water level. The water was very cold, but still swimmable.

I got these “shelling beans” from LL’s CSA farm box this week. Maybe we should have planted them to see if we’d get a magic beanstalk… You couldn’t really tell from the pods whether the beans inside would be white with magenta speckles, magenta with white speckles, or pale green. Unfortunately once they were cooked they all turned a pale lavender color.

Last year, BN and I summited the South Sister. We went on Labor Day weekend, and there were holiday crowds all throughout the day. Even before we’d made it out of the forested approach, BN said, wouldn’t it be cool to hike at night and see the sunrise from the top? I figure he should wait till we’d made it to the top before making any wild plans like that - and sure enough the hike really took a lot out of both of us. But, BN was determined and he did the night hike, solo, just the very next weekend.

This year it was my turn. Not for a solo hike, but the hike-all-night sunrise vigil. I don’t think I would have committed to do it if I hadn’t gone during the day last year. I knew that I could do it, and I hoped it would be less painful because I kept up with running and working out and even did some extra stair-work to try to prepare. Also we had hiking poles, which BN had tried on his solo hike and found they really helped. The part of the hike where you are actually on the mountain is mighty steep and painfully gravelly.

What I was worried about, was the no-sleep part. BN felt fine last year, but I know that I am less able to cope without sleep. I was also a little concerned because we’d had a colder winter and we were hiking a few weeks earlier than last year’s trips and what if there was lots of snow on the trail?

Well, we made it. I took a short nap during Wednesday afternoon and after dinner we drove to the trailhead. We got started about midnight, and well-fortified with caffeine, we set out with our headlamps and hiking poles. The first leg is already steep, through a forest. That part was spooky, with the nearest layer of trees ghostly-gray in our headlamps with pure black behind. Hiking at night feels different in the passage of time, because you can’t see how far you’ve come or how far you have to go. Just one step at a time. Leg 2 is across gently rolling hills, and that was my favorite part of the hike because it was open to the sky and the full moon allowed us to turn off our lights and stride along freely. Then comes the gray gravel, and lastly the red gravel. At night of course the color is less noticeable and it’s just one long blur of step forward, slide slightly back. My ankles were starting to hurt from the angle and slipperyness, when there was a mercifully flat spot - we had arrived! And no snow on the trail, except for a very short spot. BN noticed one of the rubber tips from his hiking poles had stuck in the snow and come off and he stopped to pick it up. I realized I’d lost one of my tips and both of the plastic clips that hold the poles together for packing purposes. They could be anywhere!

One of our other goals for getting to the summit well before the sun came up was to check out the meteor shower, which had peaked just the previous night. By the time we’d set laid out our mats and looked at the stars for about 5 minutes, BN realized it was starting to get light and we needed to move up to the true summit where we could see the eastern horizon. So we didn’t really do much meteor-watching. But at least it was a fairly clear night. I was feeling the lack of sleep, and there is nowhere comfortable to sit on top of a volcanic peak. But I hung in there for the sunrise, and it was beautiful. One of the coolest things about being on the summit is you can look west and see the shadow of the mountain, projected on the low hazes and fog as a giant cone.

Last year when we were on the summit just past noon, we could only stay there for a short while before getting chilled to the bone from the wind that sweeps over the glaciers. In the early morning, it’s still and just cool. BN set up the backpacking stove to boil water for instant chai and backpacker’s curry. We were going for a Himalayan theme. I think I could have slept right there but it was cold and rocky. Once the sun was well up, we packed up to head back down.

The hardest part coming down is that silly little forest. It seems about six times longer than it did when you were fresh and trying to psych yourself up for the hard segments you know are coming. My toes were killing me! BN wrapped my toes in gauze and tape, which helped a bit. We stopped at Elk Lake for a refreshing dip. Driving home was tough, and we had to stop a short ways from Eugene for just a short rest.

I was sore the next few days, but not nearly so sore as last year.

Hi, remember me? Yes, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. Summer has been quite busy, with some work but lots of fun stuff too.

In early August we went to Family Camp. The actual time we spent at camp seemed to go by very quickly and the parts that stood out to me were making a dozen institutional-sized-baking-sheet pizzas on Saturday which would have been pure fun except it took pretty much my whole afternoon; and a good long chat with my friend EL.

The unusual and fun stuff happened on our way to camp and getting home.

Remember back to October when we dressed up for the Harvest Party? BN was a sock monkey and I was a princess. Well, we won a prize in the costume contest and it was a day pass to the Oregon Wildlife Safari. I don’t know how well known it is, but it’s this crazy drive-thru zoo with all kinds of real live African (and other) animals. We didn’t even have time to go through all of it, and it was the middle of a hot summer day so a lot of the animals we did see were settled firmly in the shade. Some llamas and ostriches came right up close to our car, though. The safari is pretty close to the camp, so we went on our way there and due to the confusing wording on our gift certificate, we got a day pass for a future visit. So maybe next time we’ll try to go on a cooler day for more active critters and better lighting for photos. The ones we did manage to get are posted here.

Before leaving the vicinity of camp, we made our usual stop at Colliding Rivers which is the coolest swimming hole ever. It’s like a natural water park. There are places to jump from cliffs into the water, places to jump into swirling rapids and travel downstream, and also an ideal riverboarding spot. We’d tried this last year with the intrepid LR and this year he had built a better board and the guys had already set up the log anchor the day before. This year I totally got up and had an awesome run. I even impressed myself. BN wowed the crowd by surfing no-hands. (It’s similar to wake-boarding or something like that but you are not being towed, just stationarily (new word) positioned on the swift, smooth current.) The water was fairly deep but you could see clear down to the pebbly surface. What a rush! It’s really a shame to not have a picture to show you but you have to swim to the spot and there’s not a good way to bring a camera.

Wow, the summer is moving right along. The weekend right after our anniversary I took a drive down to the Bay Area to visit my family. Blair couldn’t go because he was still in the middle of summer teaching, but a friend from church has elderly parents living down in Santa Cruz so she and I drove down together to share gas & driving. We had been planning to take my car, since it gets good gas mileage, but then we discovered a coolant leak (we had overheated on our trip to Bend, that’s probably why) so we ended up taking LL’s minivan. It had cruise control which made such a difference. I wasn’t exhausted like I usually am after the 10 hour trip.

I got to hang out with my “kids.” Except now they are young adults. My youngest 2 sisters made the flower fairies shown above, and they remind me of the things SS and I used to make when we were their age. I also got to hang out with my siblings that are married with their spouses. That was fun - thanks S & N for hosting me, and J & S for treating me to a lovely dinner.

Big changes at my parents’ house - Grandma M has come to live with them, and GC & RC now live in the “dorm” that was constructed in what used to be the garage. It felt really strange to go into a new room in the old house I grew up in. It was also good to see my Grandma since I haven’t much in recent years. Everybody is adjusting to each other, and it’s often not easy especially for my Mom since my Grandma needs a lot of help. I was only there for a few days but I was wishing I lived close so I could help with cooking and driving and such. I did drive the ‘burb, which felt like driving a tank - I mean it’s an automatic so it’s actually easier to drive than my honda, but it’s very wide, long, and heavy.

I took MA and HN to go visit JI and her new little guy, JMI. He was born premature, just little less early than his big brother SM was, 2 years ago. As of this writing he is home from the NICU and doing well. It was really special to be able to see him when he was just 10 days old.

Click here to see pictures.

So, that was 2 weeks ago now… I have had a busy time with work and trying to keep up with my fitness regimen - we are planning to hike the South Sister again this year and I vow it won’t hurt as much this time! Other than those activities I’ve just been hanging out and enjoying the warm and mostly sunny weather. I’m also knitting a sampler from a book I checked out from the library about how to design your own sweaters, “Sweater Workshop” by Jacqueline Fee. That’s fun. I have gotten so many invitations from friends to join Facebook that I finally did. It’s actually caused me to get in touch with a few friends-from-the-past so that’s good.

What’s new with you?