Friday evening
Valerie and I carpooled up to Sly Park in El Dorado County, just as we
had in the last weekend of July for several years. It's a great
tradition. I wasn't there as a photographer. It was more about hiking,
hanging out, and relaxing. Saturday I hiked to the waterfall, which was
just trickling over the rocks, and then half way around the lake before
swimming back. Then Saturday evening Greta reminded me that
if I was going to get pictures of Ruthie and the other day campers, I
better do it soon because they were leaving.
What I remember of the evening is a lot
of talking around the fire, making smores, and passing it around. Every
now and then somebody would add more wood to the fire. I did some of
that later in the evening. By that time it was something of a challenge
to get out of my chair. All that hiking and swimming had made my limbs
rubbery.
Craig took care of putting out the fire
Sunday morning. First he dumped water on it until adding more didn't
cause massive plumes of steam. Then he stirred the ashes to make sure
everything was wet.
When he finished we
could be very sure our embers wouldn't light the tinder dry woods
around us.
Somewhere in that general time frame I found myself listening to Don.
He was telling me a story about his friend that got turned down for a
construction job because he didn't speak Spanish. The guy just didn't
appreciate it, safety issue or no safety issue.
Jean got this sticker
from the German Greens when she was over there (last spring? last
year?) She said they gave it to her when she visited with them during
her vacation. It was left over from their breakthrough election, when
they got seats in the Bundestag for Petra Kelly and a couple of others.
That was the first that a lot of us who remember those times had heard
of the Green Party.
