Wayfarin' Journey: A Sentimental Journey..19 years ago we were here at LaPine with our two Boys

yes I am still alive!

Happy Father's Day. 19 year ago when the boys were small and Pat decided to give up his job at Grumman to become a stay a home Dad, we hiked Newberry Volcano National Monument and saw slick black obsidian and learned how it was formed in volcanoes here in Oregon near Bend. We went to the High Desert Museum where we read the news for the first time in at least a month and heard about the TWA 600 catastrophe and those that died near Smithpoint. (For Thanksgiving after Thanksgiving we camped at Smithpoint and walked the Memorial. I always said my form of a prayer. We always walked the beach and National Seashore board- the board walk that is now gone because of Hurricane Sandy. Looking for shells, digging deep holes in the beach sand to hunker down in to avoid the wind to tell stories of Pat’s and my youth.)

Toby and Ben sat around the fire at LaPine and sang with their Daddy as I cooked dinner. Ben and Pat almost fell off the log they were sitting on as Toby sang “It’s a Big Country”. He had earphones on and was singing as loud as he could with a Walkman, remember those? This was practice for when later he would sing like an angel in the honor’s choral group at WMHS. Ben found out that rocks would explode like fire crackers in a fire, but he was the one to ask always hard questions during the trip about where we were and where we were going and why. We always didn't know the why. He also was the leader of making the most mischief like putting “Mousie” (Toby’s stuff animal) in the chicken boats (black plastic boats you bought grilled chicken in at the grocery store) and floating the boat down small creeks until Mousie almost disappeared. Mousie was also almost dropped into geysers as well. If I have time I will expand on those stories when Toby became a map maker and Ben a poet.

The following day after the sing around the fire and harrowing rock incident, we drove to Crater Lake, but didn’t stay more than a night because I needed the smell of salt water so we ended up at Cape Blanco on the Oregon coast and walked on the beach there until the fog rolled in and we almost lost sight of each other. That night sleeping under the huge evergreens it sounded like a rainstorm as the fog dripped off the branches ---that summer was an experience that can never be replaced in my heart or my memories.

Tomorrow we will kayak the Deschutes here at LaPine. I am so lucky. Love me.