It was time to get away from everything and just be with each other for a while. For some reason, that never actually seems to happen when we’re at home; people call and there are things to do with them, the duties of running the house take over, and I can never get fully away from being on-call to that damned job.

So we packed the truck with the sleeping bags and some snacks and headed for the hills.

We checked out camp, only to find that the loggers who’d intruded on it last year have completely taken it over. There’s a 20-foot high stack of former pine trees laying on the spot where we got married. Clearly, we’re going to have to find another place to camp this year, and maybe next. But it was getting close to dark, so we drove around until we found a nice quiet mountainside, blew up the air mattress, laid on the bug spray, and watched the moon set and the stars come out. We stayed up way too late, considering the sky started lightening at 4:30 in the morning, but it was great to sleep in the open like that.

In the morning we packed our tiny camp back up. I wanted to watch the sun come up over the badlands and Cherry Lake, so that’s what we did. Then, with no firm agenda, we started wandering.

Junior wanted to show me a hidden waterfall on a creek I’ve been all over and around, which I had never seen. It was still early morning when we pulled up to Jawbone Falls, and we climbed on the granite and had a little breakfast.

I wanted to show Junior the end of the creek that I’d found while waiting for him to come back from a bear hunt last year. I had thought he was further up the creek at that time, so I went to see if I could hear him and found a really interesting diversion structure. It turned out that he was closer to the middle, and once they got the bear to the creek, there was no time for sightseeing. So we went this time, taking our time and admiring the trout in the creek and the newt we found along the trail.

After that, we thought we’d head into Yosemite. Junior thought the crowds would be something he could deal with, but when we rounded the corner and saw a sign announcing a 20-30 minute wait in traffic just to get to the entrance, we turned around. We’d just passed the turnoff to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, also a part of Yosemite, and neither he nor I had ever been there, so that’s where the truck took us. We didn’t know what we’d find, but the ranger at the entrance gave us a brochure that said there were a number of small hikes right around there. We weren’t exactly prepared for hiking; the one time I don’t bring my little day pack and we want to hike, of course. 

We drove over to the O’Shaughnessy Dam, the one that holds back San Francisco’s water supply, and were pleasantly amazed. One of the available hikes was a moderate five or six mile walk to Wapama Falls, so we had our lunch and stuffed water bottles in our pockets and went for it.

It was a good way to start getting in shape for bear season for me; just enough of a hike to get my legs wobbly but with a cool, refreshing reward at the end as we stood in the spray. The hike back didn’t take half so long, and before we knew it, we were grabbing a burger at our usual place, where the waitress doesn’t know us but recognized that we were hunters, not tourists, and wondered what we were doing here before September. Ha! Fooled her, we actually were tourists for the day, but it was pleasing not to be lumped in with the yuppie crowd we’d been immersed in all afternoon.

Sanity trips used to be a time for me to reset my internal calibrations; to not go anywhere in particular, but to pay attention and quiet the voices in my head. I’m quite pleased that they work just as well with my husband along. We kept it loose and just enjoyed the day and each other’s company, and that’s all I needed.

Well, there was something you don’t see every day. Actually, I see a lot less crime since I moved from the ghetto house.

I was driving home to lunch yesterday, minding my own business. Right at the spot where my road home fronts the freeway for a little bit before going over it, there was suddenly a giant dirt cloud in the equipment yard between the road and the freeway. I looked over, and there was a Highway Patrol hot on the ass of an SUV, which had just blown through the chain link fence at a high rate of speed. Now, to get the way they were going, they would have had to flip an extremely fast U-turn off the freeway exit, have been travelling excessively fast down the other end of the frontage road, or have been going the wrong way on the freeway. I don’t know which; I only saw it from the fence-smashing on.

The other cars and I slowed down to gawk. I saw the SUV swing around the one building on the lot and someone jump out of the car and run. Well, that was fairly stupid of them, as there’s nowhere to run to there. A cop was running around the building after him, but the SUV had continued its swing around the lot and was more or less headed towards me. The next thing I knew, that SUV had blown through another section of chain link fence right behind me, trying to get out on the road where I was. Apparently it didn’t make it, because the driver wasw running towards me. I was busily rolling up windows and locking doors, but as far as I could see, there wasn’t another cop on the scene yet. So I flipped on my caution lights because I’ll be damned if I was going to go anywhere, and yanked out my cell phone and called 911.

I got right down to the point with the 911 operator, and she obviously was aware of what was going on because she didn’t ask me to back up and slow down like they usually do. I was watching the guy run across the field, away from me at this point, and towards the livestock auction/flea market. So I kept up a running commentary to the operator, giving as good a description of the guy as I could. I could hear her relaying my information and sure enough, here comes another cop on foot floowing the guy across the field. Some more cops from the local police were driving around into the flea market area, but by then the guy had ducked behind a semi trailer and I couldn’t see him any more. It wasn’t flea market day so there weren’t as many people there as there could have been. I hope they got him.

The operator finally got my name and thanked me, and I got off the phone and went home and had lunch. As I went over the freeway, I could look down into the yard and see that the first cop had the first runner down on the ground. By the time I drove back, there were ten assorted police cars there, the SUV was all open like it had been searched, and the cops were standing around unexcited. I considered stopping in and telling them I was their RP and seeing what had happened, but they probably hate that. I may see it in the paper today, or I may never know. One of the cops I saw was a guy I’d just seen an hour before when I was reading the water meter at their hangar, so maybe I can ask him. Still, it was a fairly exciting interlude to a regular day of water meter reading. It probably would have been smartest just to drive my truck on out of there when I saw the guy running toward me, but if everyone did that, this world would be a pretty miserable place. Someone’s got to stand behind the good guys.

Edited to add a link to the story in the local paper.

Since this is my last day in my third decade, the past ten years have been on my mind a lot. It’s been a busy time; I’ve felt more alive in this decade than any other before it. It hasn’t all been good, but at least I didn’t feel like I was wandering through it in a fog, like most of my 20s.

I’ve grown a ton in the last ten years. I’ve done a lot of different things. I’ve come a long way towards being the person I want to be, although I’m not done yet. I will probably never be done.

I parlayed a part time job into two part time jobs, and then negotiated one of them into a full time job. I kept jumping in place, always reaching beyond what was comfortable and where I felt competent. I worked for six different companies, all at the same basic location. One job led to another, a stretch for me each time, until I went off on my own. From scratching to feed the kids, I now own the business and a house. I don’t have to feed them macaroni and cheese for dinner any more.

I got divorced, which was one of the smarter decisions in my life. I picked myself up from the pieces of that, fell in love, and had my heart stomped on again. Somehow, I managed to pick it up again and make much better choices, and fall in love yet again for the last time. I started the decade ending a marriage and am ending the decade starting one.

I spent my single years having a ball with a good group of people. Things that I had never relaxed enough to let myself do when I was younger, I embraced.   I spent a summer just about living at the lake. I went to more rodeos than I can count. Hell, I even announced a rodeo. I bought that horse I’d always wanted, sold him at a profit when he turned out to be all wrong for me, and bought a better horse. I spent a lot of those years on the back of a horse, even with a cast on my leg.

I got hurt a fair amount, physically and emotionally, and didn’t let it stop me for too long at a time. I lost thirty pounds, twice. I wore a bikini for the first time since sixteen. I changed my hair color three times, but only changed my hairdresser once. I went through four trucks in a decade, but I still own and use two of them. I grew from a decent cook to a really good one, and built a kitchen to be proud of.

I lost three grandparents, found and lost a family, and found another one. I doubled my children, cleverly without having to actually be pregnant again. I really went through an excessive number of dogs, but the best dog ever is still with me after most of the decade.

I travelled. I spent a New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas. I saw the National Finals Rodeo, twice. I went on a couple of cruises. I saw Alaska and Mexico. I flew to Colorado to see friends get married. I went to Washington, DC, twice. It was much better with company than alone, but alone was interesting too. I spent time on the beach and lots of time in the mountains. I never let being alone stop me from doing what I wanted to do.

I worked hard at becoming the person that I wanted to be. I’m not there yet, and I could spend a lot of time detailing how I’m not there yet, but I won’t. I’m a lot more patient, and I try harder to think things through before I do or say them. I fail a lot, but it doesn’t stop me from trying any more. I’ve come out of my shell. That shy person sometimes lurks in the background, but I can walk right over her if I want to. I learned to dive right into things that seem intimidating, and learn how to do them as I go along. I learned to be comfortable in my own skin.

All in all, heartbreak and everything, I think it was an astoundingly successful decade. I seem to be on the path that I’ve chosen, for once, rather than blindly going wherever I was pushed. And if my 30s were so good for me, I can’t wait until my 40s, to see what happens next. Fortunately, that starts tomorrow.