So. It’s been a while. For everything it seems. Writing, photographs, travel. Not to mention motivation and desire. Though I haven’t been under ‘lock down’ orders I have honored our state’s ‘Stay at Home’ orders to do my part to curb the spread of the Corona Virus. At least part of the time I feel like a line from the Bob Seeger song “Betty Lou (bigtom) was bad, her momma got mad, now her momma says that it’s all right.” Freedom returns.
But just like Betty Lou, I’m getting out! Restrictions are easing and I’m going to Laguna Mountain tomorrow for a bird watching hike.
It gets even better. I’m meeting a woman I’ve known for 65 years for this hike. I believe it’s been at least 25 years since I’ve seen her. I’m sure we’ll discuss that very fact.
Things change. Things always change. I moved on from my place of birth and left much of that behind. I’m sure it was a net good thing for me, I needed to go to grow. I also became much harder to find for those people that I’d gotten to know and love in that portion of my life.
In the fullness of life we sorta met again for our 50th HS reunion. I was so broke I felt like I couldn’t make the trip last summer, but I participated online. Through that, I was able to pick up with a friend that lives in Newport, Oregon. She’d been in relatively close contact with two more good friends and we sorta became a foursome. Sorta.
We decided we needed to meet up. We were all planned for a resort in Palm Desert, CA in early April after ‘winter rates’ eased. Silly people. We really hadn’t planned on a world wide pandemic. How could we not?
The good news is that boredom and isolation allowed/forced/exacerbated our contacts. Through it all I learned that two of them are pretty dedicated bird watchers. While I am more casual than those two I do like to see and identify birds.
The two photos here are taken from a shoulder of Mt. Laguna. We will be hiking on the other side near where the clouds are in these photos. It’s the wet side, complete with trees and lots of birds.
So comes the hike. My friend in San Diego has a connection on the mountain. Her boyfriend and his brother own a lodge there. They decided that it was a good time to sell so have listed the property and spent the spring cleaning it. It looks like they have a buyer so the time for the hike is right now. Maybe the hottest weather of the year.
I’m really looking forward to this excursion on several levels. My friend is a genuine maniac that has lived her life, all her life, exactly on her terms. I’m looking forward to not only catching up but ‘currenting up’. If we see some birdies on top of that it’ll be gravy on the potatoes.
Do I have anxiety? Yeah. Anticipation? Oh yeah. The very worst thing that can happen is a nice hike.
Betty Lou is getting out TONIGHT!
All words and photographs in this post are mine. For better or worse
Thanks for reading this all the way to the end. Anything can happen and often does.
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