KLAMATH RIVER VIEW

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

I bought a cool tye dyed t-shirt in Grants Pass this last weekend. How cool is that? Well.............I tell you how cool that is. Just a sec. I'm getting my pen. :)

I went down south a few weeks ago to stay with my grandson Benjamin while my daughter and her husband went on a Catalina cruise. It has been the best summer I have had in ten years and why stop it in August? I decided to get down to my old hometown and see the sights and visit with my family. What a great time it has been.

The drive from there to here on the river is about a ten hour drive and I hadn't had my driver's license in five years, needless to say through the summer months, including the two trips I've made down to stay with Alicia and Kenny their car has been across 7500 miles. The good worth of spending  time in the wilderness.

The last trip the Honda made to come up here was a half one. 500 miles and my son-in-law driving straight up the state to pick me up and take me back round trip. What a guy!

We came up over the hill in the oil fields looking down on town from the north, a warm feeling comes over me every time. No matter how many times you leave that hot, dry, ancient river bed..........coming back into town always makes you catch your breath. (Ahaha). ;0)

Back now for the second time this year, Alicia, Kenny, I and their friend sat and had a beer on the porch of their home right down the street from the house my parents bought when we first moved to Coalinga in 1971.

The next few days were wonderful while the kids waited to go get on the boat for their cruise. I walked Ben to school a few times. He is in the third grade, which is at the school that used to be the fifth grade when I was a kid. I went there for the fifth and sixth grade. Mr Watanabe and Mrs. Lacey, Dawson Elemtery school. It's the first school I went to when I moved to Coalinga.

A lot of my friends from school are teachers. Very cool! I made it around town a few times in the week I was with Ben. I saw the new Walgreen's and the new Dollar Tree. I absolutley love the museum addition that Wayne James is doing. The old gas station is quaint and inviting. The car museum looks like it's shaping up to be something worth visiting repeatedly. Town is look'in up.

For those of you who are not aware, the city of Coalinga was devastated by a huge earthquake in 1983. At least 90% of the buildings in the city were destroyed and then a few years later there was a killer frost that destroyed many of the trees in town. It has taken thirty years, but a walk through Coalinga that week was a pleasure. Bigger, knowing that it is only the beginning.

I watched Netflix and played on the computer. I visited old friends and picked a few pomegranites and visited with my oldest grandson Ben, and just had a wonderful time.

The kids came home from their cruise, having had a mahvelous time and promptly took me and Ben on a secret Sunday trip to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium................YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the beginning of the second week I found out that there was a car available for me to purchase at a very reasonable price and I had the finances, so I bought it. WT????!!!! I BOUGHT A CAR! Ok. Cool. But the truth is, I had let my license go five years ago because I had not enough finances to continue registering my truck and so had let both my vehicle and license go. The way the world has steadily gone to hell in a handbasket I had decided to wait until better times to get a vehicle. That day came swiftly and blessedly, the other day. Oh happy!

So, From "Kenny's gonna drive me back home to, buy a car, get it registered, get it insured, and get the driver licensed, I did it in about three days. Mmmmm..........and AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! Hahahaha".

I went walking to the store one night late to buy a pack of cigarettes. Yuck. I know I know......so anyhow, there i was walking up main street to Fast Trip. I was praying as I walked as I so often do and I was complaining to the Lord about money. Well, in my case the lack of it and I was paying attention to my actions as I spoke and it seemed to me that he was saying that if I quit smoking, I would have an extra fifty dollars in my pocket each month. (I get my cigs in Native territory and they are cheaper), but anyway I was pretty much ignoring what I felt the lord was saying to me. I went along thinking to myself that if it was just after two in the morning, the drunks probably had dropped some bills around the parking lot.....so I was looking. I have actually found a few bills that way. 

I was on my way back towards the house and as I walked through the parking lot of the Mountain Oyster Bar and Steak House I said out loud, "O.K. there has to be a dollar laying around here somewhere." 

I looked over and laying not ten feet away from me on the macadam was the most perfect and unblemished cigarette I have ever seen! No Joke. I could hear the lord laughing in my ear at that and I had to stand there like a crazy woman and bellow out a good honker myself. Only me.

So, my stay went great and I had such a wonderful and awe inspiring time that I had to get home and blog it so here it is. A few days after I got home to Happy Camp Alan and I went over to Grants Pass for what would be my first time and our last time of the season. The road snows over in winter and you can't get there from here so to speak for sometimes six months. I drove and I had a good time shopping. Alan doesn't do well in large stores as he has reverted back to caveman stage since we've been here in the woods. I have to admit I know how he feels though because there was a four year stretch where I didn't leave Happy Camp and my first trip into Walmart almost short circuited my color receptors. I swore I had never seen so many different colors of towel. I actually had to leave the store that day and ranted to my daughter all the way home on the evils of modern society and bathroom accoutrement.

We bought a few dozen movies at Big Lots. One of my new favorite stores, and almost got lost in Walmart town, or whatever they call those HUGE Walmarts. We bought more movies there too. We may hibernate like bears in the winter where I live, but we do so in style. :)

I have a question. Why didn't anyone think of those smiley's a long time ago when typing. They add character to grammar if you ask me. 

We went into the city center and stopped off at the Champion Outlet Store where I bought my shirt. Expensive store. Not what I expected, but the shirt is very cool so I bought it. I've worn it a few times since I got it only a few weeks ago, I like it so much. It's my new symbol of independence and what happens to you when you get up enough guff to actually get stuff done in your life. 

I left the world all those years ago, fully intending to disappear into the woods never to be seen again. Silly me. God had other plans. I'll share those too sometime, but for now I just want to say that after you do a good God job, God always pays you well, and with interest(ing) stories to share from along the way. 

I'm walking back in. With a new car, a new attitude, and a cool new tie dyed shirt. Let's see where this takes me.........I can't wait. :)