Vacation, My Vacation...

The lack of postings over the past weekend had a lot to do with the fact that our little gang took the last two days of last week off and went on our Family Vacation. Which, although the whole idea of loading the station wagon and heading out makes me think of Chevy Chase and dumbass National Lampoon jokes, turned out to be a lot of good, clean, relaxing family fun at our first stop from May, East Lake Resort.

The cabin was comfortable and cozy, the scenery spectacular and the pace leisurely enough to suit a couple of grownups with no particular agenda but rapid enough for a Peeper with cars to play with and volcanos to climb.

Rememeber that thing I wrote about parenting and fear? Let's say that scrambling around savagely jagged volcanic glass and up on top of 7,000-foot peaks gives a whole new meaning to "nearly pissed myself"...

But the Peep was a little darlin', mostly saving a few hurricane-force-four-year-old-tantrums. He was Mister Chatty Cathy, though, for some reason, excitement, the whole newness-excitement-difference of sleeping in the cabin and seeing something you don't just amble across at the corner of N. Monteith and N. Yale.

And it is pretty spectacular. Newberry is landscape with the sharp edges still on it - literally, at times. The clinkery pile of Big Obsidian Flow makes you think it was erupted fifteen years ago instead of fifteen hundred.

I think Peep would have been perfectly happy running across the road to look at the deer tracks - which we did at least once a day every day we were there - but we were good little vacationers and went all over the place: up Paulina Peak, across the Big Obsidian, around East Lake (and across, in a rented canoe). Good times.

Couldn't resist this - great glass flow between the a'a clinker.

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I didn't want to drag the camera everywhere, so there are no pictures of our canoe trip, where Peep trolled for kokanee (well, he trolled - we didn't set the rig deep enough for the salmon, but he got the flavor all the same), of our deer track walks, of our journey around to the hot springs at the south end of the lake. But they're there, in my mind, recalling a very peaceful and happy time.

I wish I had been able to take a picture of some portion of our days, just for the pure visual grace. Moments like...

The steam rising from the hot pools amid the wild mallards resting from a busy day of eating pondweed.

The furled power of the young brown-mottled goshawk that glided down past us trying to take a junco older, smarter and (at least that moment) faster than it.


The quiet morning calm of East Lake with the sun slanting across it, steaming coffee warm in my hands and rich in my nose.

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The excitement of a little boy discovering the fun of deer tracks (did I mention the deer tracks) and nighthawks and campfires and chunkin' rocks.

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All adventures have their ends, and so do Peepers. So I'll let his end be the period at the end of our trip. We had a lovely time, got back safe and are ready for more fun with home improvement! So I'll be back soon with...

...the Invasion of the Deck Guys!

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Be there! Aloha!