What I Did on My Summer Vacation...

There is just something wonderful about summer vacation…especially, I believe, the ones that are at the end of the summer. Maybe it’s a holdover from when we were kids, hanging out, goofing around, wearing your favorite casual clothes - usually sans shoes, doing pretty much what you want…and when it’s all over and we are all refreshed, it’s suddenly fall and a ‘new year’ is ready to start up again. Apparently Cesar was on a different school schedule when he decided that the new year should start in January, I believe most of us who spent at least the first 18 years of our lives in school feel like the new year starts in September…

For our summer vacations we once again traveled to the top of California and visited a cabin that sits right on the Smith River, just inland from Crescent City…it’s absolutely idyllic! The house is off the grid and is ‘powered’ by solar panels which somehow always seems to make me feel a little more connected to the earth, which is a good thing after a hectic year…it also eliminates TV, computers and other nonessentials and cell phones don’t get a signal. Your whole body just does a big exhale once you get settled in.
The weather was wonderful, warm in the day, cool - sweatshirt weather - at night. We had friends stay with us for the first few days and then my husband and I chilled by ourselves for the remainder of the week. We swam in the beautiful clear river, wetsuits preferable; we hiked on a historic mule trail that was built by Chinese workers to facilitate transport of gold from mines to San Francisco Bay during the gold rush; we read books and played cards; we stayed up late and slept in late; we

picked blackberries and canned blackberry jam; we even went down to the harbor in Crescent City and purchased fresh caught tuna from one of the commercial fishermen and brought it home to can for the upcoming year. All in all it was a pretty perfect vacation!
Now we are back at home and back at work. The days are getting shorter and fall is in the air. Feels like we are ready to start that new year!