You Rule (more added)

My Awesome and Beautiful Angel,

I am just now getting home. I saw your Bill Watterson link right after I got to Pearl's, but every time I clicked on it, her computer crashed. I guess it was just too much awesomeness for it to handle. Anyway, it was the first thing I clicked on after coming through my door when I got home just a few minutes ago.

And reading it has just made my day. I Love You So Much , and we are gonna have an awesome life.

That's one thing I know for sure. I had to tell you right away, because that was such a great cartoon. I am gonna read it several more times during the course of the evening. I will be back later, at the usual time, to write more, but my goodness was that ever an awesome post. You Rule!  :):)

(back in a bit........)

11pm : This morning, after dropping Pearl off at her Golden Agers meeting, I drove up to Placerita Canyon, as I had mentioned I was planning last week. Wow, talk about a time warp. I think I mentioned that the last time I was there was probably 1968 or so, and it is once again one of those deals like the other spots I've visited recently - it's only 14 miles from my home. All of the spots I have visited this summer are under a half-hour's drive, and two of them I hadn't been to in years, and the other two I'd never been to. Strange, huh? But what was really neat about the Placerita trip was that I avoided freeways. I wanted to take all the old, two lane roads and highways that I remembered my Dad taking when we were kids. These are the roads that were in place before Los Angeles became a freeway mecca in the mid-1950s. And what I discovered - what I am discovering on all my little road trips of late - is that once you drive a short distance into the hills, or through them going north, you are really in the boondocks. I am living in this Valley of millions of people, but all around are places that seem frozen in time from a long time ago. In Los Angeles County, only the areas that are commercially viable have been developed. And of course there are a lot of areas of commercial development. Developers have an eye for any space they can pave over. But I am seeing all around me that there is much that will never be developed, and that makes me happy.

I took all the old roads to get to Placerita, and when I got there, I took a hike about a mile into the canyon. There were only a few other people there, and I mostly had the trail to myself. It was dead quiet once again, except for the sounds of a slight breeze, the occasional rustling in the bushes of a critter, and the faint buzzing of distant bees. I was immediately thinking of you, and sending you the energy, and imagining you with me on the trail. I was also energized by the change in environment, so different yet so close at hand. My Dad was a driver - get in your car and go somewhere. I mentioned that I had never really been that way, except to go to concerts or Hollywood or the city. And it's funny, because I am not a city person, per se, though I love the city too. At least the exciting parts. I guess you could say I am mostly a creature of the in-between, of suburbia, and in Northridge I have always lived in a mix of development and nature, a balance. But now I am discovering - or re-discovering, on my own - the other Los Angeles, the one that nature built, that surrounds the vast area of suburbia and city that I am so familiar with. My Dad knew about it, he sought it out, the canyons, mountains, forests and wilderness, but then, he grew up in northern Indiana, surrounded by swamps, lakes and woods.

I took a few pictures at Placerita. I saw a few burnt out tree trunks from a terrible 2009 fire that devastated the area just north of the Valley but mostly left Placerita untouched, thank goodness. Wildfires are a part of life in California, as you can see by the current Yosemite fire. Everything dries out here, because of the sun and heat. You have a different climate, where everything is very green, and your wilderness has an ancient look as does ours, though each has it's own character. Wisconsin's is lush and glacial, forested in places, with lakes carved from the Ice Age, and California's is dry and mountainous, the terrain broken and erupted from earthquake faults. But both have majesty.

One story I remember my Mom telling me about Placerita Canyon. We went there fairly often for a couple years in the mid-1960s. It seems such a long time ago, but when you revisit like I did today, all that time disappears. There is a picnic area, with many tables, just off the parking lot. It is on the edge of the trails, and we used to have lunch there when I was about six or seven. My Mom told me, and I vaguely remember, that one time when we were picnicking, I was throwing a football, a kid-size football, and it got stuck in a tree, way up high in the branches. Mom said I was disappointed, but we went home and I eventually forgot about it.

We went back to Placerita Canyon a month or two later, and this time it was Fall and the wind was blowing. We were in the picnic area having lunch, and suddenly the wind blew my football down from the tree.

Today, 45 years later, I found the table I think was the one we used to sit at. And I got goosebumps.

Today was a really awesome day, and then I read your post when I got home from Pearl's, and it became a perfect day. Thank you, my Darling, my Elizabeth, for your heart and inspiration.

This is a Summer to remember.  :):)

I Love You.

P.S. - That's an excellent photo of your friend Hannah, with the dandelion in front. I just now saw it.