bunnies and swallows

Just back from an impromptu camping trip that bequeathed four wholesome days and three nights without showering, being indoors, touching a keyboard, or looking at a screen. I feel refreshed, grateful, clean, and flummoxed. What do I do with myself? Take another walk? Photograph the exquisite wild roses growing by the back porch? Prepare to start teaching Hamlet tomorrow? Respond to e-mails? Blog?

Too many choices and commitments and distractions flood my life.
I love being away from all of it.
I love traveling more than anything (except writing)
(And M) 7 mos ago I wed him :)

There is a magic for me in experiencing life blow by blow, not knowing who or what or where or when. I'll never forget the terrible excitement of landing in Bangkok the first time, at midnight, without a plan of any kind.

I love the surprises of travel.
Even this long unexpected Easter weekend yielded a few...

... a super cheap and quiet campground for ten bucks a night,
that just happens to be on a military fort in the valley of the oaks,
a surreal place of army jeeps, camouflage, target practice, rivers, wildflowers, lone roads, and lots of merry cottontails, including one little rascal that raced our car.

... a remote mission where we went to Easter mass with a bunch of soldiers and cute squirmy babies, and where the first ever Christian marriage in California took place.

... our own Eden, just a short mile hike from the campsite: we bathed in a cool flowing river while swallows performed in the afternoon sunlight.

... a big ole hike at pinnacles, through caves and up steep deserted trails, watching our food supply dwindle right down to a humble evening meal of tortillas, veggies, cheese, instant soup, red vines, whiskey cokes, and of course, roasted marshmallows.

What I loved most was the fire.
Each night I'd just stand (stretch, dance, gyrate)
close by the fire,
watching it go from twiggy to fierce to smoky
to nothing but a bunch of sparkly orange nuggets
whose captured heat I took with me
into the cozy tent.