We awoke at Dan and Ann’s place today. Dan took Cody and Eden off to Ann’s parents who were good enough to watch them today while Ann worked and Dan, Colette and I played.
We met Lare-dog, a long term friend of both Dan and I, at the Mugs-Away Pub down in Mission Viejo where Ann was working and the four of us took of for an adventure in the Santa Ana Mountains. As an aside, Lare-dog was down to visit us in New Zealand for 10 days this last September.
The mission was to go up a trail used and maintained by Dan and Lare-dog and their mountain biking friends and to un-decorate a live Christmas Dan and Lare-dog had planted on a remote trail some years ago. They decorate and undecorate it each year for their mountain biking community and any one else who uses the trail.
First, we drove some miles up Highway 74 into the mountains, then we turned off onto a single lane paved road that then turned into a very rough dirt road. After five miles or so of that, we came to the end and parked and then hiked another two miles or so to the tree itself.
Along the hike to the tree, Dan took us off trail to a clearing he’d located in a remote side area from Google Earth. In distance, it wasn’t far from existing trails (maybe a quarter mile) but it was a very isolated and surely unvisited clearing. We all sat for 20 minutes or so enjoying the luxury of having such a beautiful and unknown place for our own.
Once at the tree, Colette and I sat in the shade and ate a ham sandwich we’d brought along while Dan and Lare-dog un-decorated the tree. When I first saw the tree back in 2003 on my way to New Zealand for the very first time, it was only two to three foot tall. Now it stands about 7.5 feet tall.
Then we hiked back down and, while Colette and I sat in the shade by the truck (I read aloud to her from “The Last of the Mohicans” by James Fenimore Cooper), Dan and Lare-dog went up another trail carrying tools that they were going to ‘position’ for some trail work on another day soon.
When they returned, we came down from the mountain and rolled into the lot at The Mugs-Away Pub just as the sun was setting.
A pitcher of beer and a few games of pool ensued. Dan and Ann both work there and he’s also very well known all around the area because of the band he’s led for 20+ years; “A Bunch ‘o Guys”. So, it’s always fun to be out in public with him. Tonight, I was introduced to several people and I had the distinct idea that they all wanted see what Dan’s father might look like (like, where did this wonder of a rock and roll band man and mountain biker with a beautiful wife come from
Lare-dog took his motorcycle back out to where he’s got his RV parked (we’ll see more of him tomorrow evening) and we then took off to pick up the Kids (Dana and Ann’s; Cody and Eden) at ‘Bubbies’ (that’s what they call their grandparents on Ann’s side – I’m ‘Grandpa Dennis’). We visited with Sally and Bernie (Ann’s parents for a few minutes) and then we were off for a surgical supper meal strike at “Panda Express” for Chinese take-out (or Take-Away, as Kiwis say).
While we were loading up in Dan’s truck with all of our food (there was a lot), Colette got a call from her son, Jonathan, in Christchurch.
He’d sent an instant message asking her to call him. That’s pretty unusual and she was a bit worried at what might have happened down there. It turned out that this most recent series of earth quakes had broken the water main to her house so there’s no water at the moment. But, the plumbers have been called, in spite of it being a holiday there, and Jonathan seems to have the situation well in hand. So, while that was bad news, it was still a relief in that it could have been something far more serious
Home again with a pile of Chinese food to eat. The kids turned on a episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos and we all chuckled our way through the waving chopsticks.
Kids in the bath, Colette banging away designing a web site and me snoozing on the couch.
End of another day here; and it was a good one.
dennis