And a nice silly time was had by all

Just wanted to post a few pics of our trip over to Redding. We didn't go to the Home and Garden Show after all. Hubby reminded me he had to be back today in time to work swing shift. Oh yeah, some people have to go to a job. I forgot. Silly me. I knew there was a reason we could pay our bills.

Here's Sam practicing his wakeboarding moves on his new trampoline.

Hubby, William, and Sam's girlfriend Kyla on the Sundial Bridge. It's a really cool place. Beautiful during the day, but absolutely magical at night. You walk across the Sacramento River on a bridge of light. And here are some even better shots of it then I could manage. And if you want to know more about the architect - Santiago Calatrava

Sam and William being..... sneaky? Magnets? Improvisational dancers?

Here's the bridge from the "other side", once you've walked across it. You can see everything but....

...the fin. Or dial I suppose. It stretches up to a fine tip up there in the darkness. Some nights I think it's lit more dramatically then other nights. We were there on a drizzly Thursday evening in March, not prime tourist time. Still, there were a lot of folks there, taking advantage of the late hours the bridge stays open.

This was a gaggle of teenagers. They had been hanging out on one end when we arrived at the bridge. When we were walking back across, they had begun dancing across it. First they were waving their arms and jumping in a small circle. When I took this photo, they had just begun to march robotically. Like a flock of birds, they seemed to change direction or rhythm simultaneously. It was really fun to watch, listen to their energy. Oh, to be young again! Of course there's also the angst of youth.... hmmm, I'll have to think on that one.

Back at the parking lot, just a cute pic of Sam, Kyla and Rosie. It really started to rain hard a few minutes after this picture was taken. It rained all night and I was really dreading the drive home over the mountains, worried it would be slow, snowy roads. Fortunately, it was mostly rain and the 30 miles of snow didn't accumulate on the road. Whew.


I pulled over on the way home to take a picture of this snag. I've passed it dozens, maybe hundreds of times, every time I take this road and I have always wanted to photograph it. Isn't it a beautiful old thing?! One of the most majestic snags I've ever seen. Even though it is no longer living, it's still such a vital and important part of the forest and landscape. It always reminds me that growing old isn't necessarily a bad thing, that if we honor the stage that we are in instead of bemoaning that which we can no longer be, that we can have an important role to play no matter what our age.

And finally, just a view from the driver's seat. I had mentioned in a previous blog wishing for an opportunity to go down to the valley and get a bit of "green therapy" to help me through early spring. Well, it turned out that the winter has been so wet and cold in the valley that, although it was certainly greener then up in the mountains, it was well behind schedule. I wasn't sure if I was disappointed, or smugly happy in a misery-loves-company sort of way. Silly me.

I just have to keep reminding myself that the snow will melt, that "this too shall pass." Eventually.