Father Son Frogs and Fish

 
Last night I loaded up the van, shepherded Lennon into it, and took off for Rancho Seco Lake. My church was having its annual father and son (make it plural if you have more than one son) camp out. It started off a little rocky when both Rachel and I refused to allow Lennon to take any video games. He spent the drive reading The Silver Chair with a surly expression on his face.

Once we pulled up to the campsite though, things got much better. I found a few friends to talk to. Lennon found a bunch of little frogs, which he put in an empty orange juice bottle. We set up the tent. We took a friend and his 3 year old son out in the canoe. We tried to fish, but didn't catch anything. (Lennon was using his frogs as bait).  When we got back and I was loading everything into the car Lennon yelled that he caught one. Sure enough, he landed a crappie.

We got back in time for a fireside devotional where I took a seat to listen and Lennon went to get closer to the fire.  He came back a little while later with one of his frogs impaled on a stick, telling me that he just ate a frog leg--in the car on the way back he had asked me if I dared him to eat one. Of course I did. Sure enough, his little frog--maybe a 1/2 an inch long--had a missing appendage. Lennon ate a second leg and told me it was ok, but the foot was gross. Then he put the rest of it in his mouth, bit down, made a hilarious disgusted face, and then swallowed. He told me later that he knew it was ok to eat it because Bear Grylls said that all frogs are ok to eat except brightly colored ones.

After the fireside we grabbed our box of Sour Patch Kids and bag of Cheetos and headed over to play some Dominican Dominoes. I guess it's a tradition now because we played last year with the same guys. We played till almost 1, or at least I did. Lennon was downing Sour Patch Kids like crazy and getting kind of loopy. He was starting to lose focus. Then he got out the ipod and pretty much gave up on the game. After a while he went back to the tent, where I found him about an hour later blasting the ipod (I could hear it as I approached the tent--and he was wearing head phones) and playing solitaire.

So even though the sun was up at like 6 o 'clock in the morning and by 6:30 it sounded like the whole camp was up (there was even a soccer game going on), Lennon slept in until almost 8. Coincidentally, his awakening coincided almost simultaneously with the serving of breakfast.

This picture was taken after I had packed up everything in the tent, including the sleeping pad that he had been lying on.

While he was asleep, I decided I would do a little fishing from the bank, so I grabbed my fishing rod, still rigged with a plastic worm from the night before, and headed down to the lake for my first fishing of 2011. Within 10 minutes I landed this bad boy:

When I got back, people were lining up for breakfast, so I decided to get Lennon up. (He probably would have slept in longer if I hadn't.)

We ate breakfast and then went out for one last fishing trip before we had to get home.

Lennon caught two more fish: green sunfish, one decent, one smallish, but I didn't have any more luck. At least not as far as the fishing went, but I did feel lucky to be able to spend some time with my boy. On our way back to the boat ramp, Lennon was standing up in the front of the canoe with one foot on the bow deck, like George Washington in that famous painting of the crossing of the Delaware River. I wanted to tell him to sit down and be safe. But I didn't. I let him be. I gave him a little freedom to do what he wanted to do. Maybe he was testing his balance. Maybe he was testing his courage. He didn't seem entirely comfortable standing up in the rocking boat. Maybe he was testing me, seeing how I would react. Maybe he wanted me to tell him to sit down and be safe. I don't know what he was doing. I guess I rarely do. But what I do know is that as I sat back and watched him, he didn't fall. He wobbled a little every now and then. At one point he almost went over, but he didn't. He dropped his front foot back down to the floor, bent his knees a little and threw his arms out to the sides. He almost sat back down, but he didn't. He regained his balance and put his foot back up on the deck. And I didn't say a word. I just watched and thought about how my boy is growing up. He's taking chances. He's trying to keep his balance, maybe trying to find a balance. And I realized that he's still standing. He has a lot of challenges in his life. I'm probably one of them. No, I'm definitely one of them. But he hasn't stopped trying and sat back down. He's staying up and I should give him credit for that. As he stood tall, the morning light reflecting in the gently rippling water around him, I was reminded that he's a great kid. And for some reason, this becomes more apparent when he's away from home and school and his sisters and allowed to stand up in a canoe and, I guess, when he's dared to eat a frog.

The Elusive May is Bike Month T-Shirt:

or How I Got Hosed for Choosing the Bike over the Car

May is Bike Month. I'm not sure if you're aware of that or not, but it is. You can click here and get all the info, but suffice it to say as a bicycle commuter, I am participating. In fact, yesterday I got an email informing me that today from 11 - 1 at the West Steps of the State Capitol was going to be an event called the "Capitol Bikefest." It sounded exciting, but I work. Then I read further and saw that if you bring in a printout showing you are logging your cycling miles on the official website you get a free t-shirt. As you faithful followers know by now, I'll do a lot of things for a free t-shirt, so I was in. I did the planning: Lunch starts at 12:15; my prep (the period I don't teach) is immediately following lunch, so that gives me about an hour and a half to get to the capitol, get my free t-shirt, and get back to school. I asked Rachel if she could pick me up at school and pilot me on my mission and she replied in the affirmative. It was on.

Let me pause here and mention that I had already made one attempt to pick up a free May is Bike Month t-shirt. At the beginning of the month I looked on the official website at the frequently asked questions and was informed that the free shirts would be given out at special events and I should check the events calendar, which, of course, I quickly did. I saw many events scheduled for the month, but did not see any specific mention of the shirts, so I made the assumption that all of the events must have them. I saw that on Thursday afternoons at the Guy West Bridge (behind Sac State) is something called an "Energizer Station" which, according to the website provides refreshments for cyclists. After school I got on the bike and followed my google directions for bikes through some some South Sac neighborhoods and across a few shady walkways across drainage canals (and when I say shady, I'm not talking about the cool respite from the sun provided by trees and other things, I'm talking about the kind with trash, graffiti, and low visibility). Anyway, I eventually made it to the Energizer station only to find that the refreshments consisted of a pack of gummy snacks and a Dixie cup of fruit punch--which I'm not complaining about. It was very kind of the folks who put it together to provide anything at all. The real disappointment was the complete absence of Bike Month t-shirts. The trip wasn't a complete waste. I did get an official May is Bike Month sticker. I also saw two dudes jump off the bridge into the river below while their friend video taped them from the bank. (I just searched for it and found it. Here's the link).

Anyway, this morning I was thinking about my pending trip to the Capitol and I decided that having Rachel pick me up in the van and drive me to get my Bike Month t-shirt was kind of going against the whole spirit of May is Bike Month. I mean the reason it was created in the first place was to get people to use their cars less. I checked google directions and saw that the from the school to the west steps of the Capitol was a little over 7 miles. I did some mental calculations and decided that although it would be close, I could make it on my bike. I would get there right around 1, when they were ending. I could probably even get there a little earlier. That was the way to do it!

At 12:15 I rushed my students out the door, I grabbed my bike, and I walked it through the throng of bustling teenagers scurrying to the cafeteria like hyenas to a wildebeest carcass.

I made it to the west steps with 10 minutes to spare.

I stopped to take it all in. There were all kinds of booths and all kinds of people. It was cool. I decided I had plenty of time to spare, so I stopped and took a few pictures with my cellphone.

My bike wanted its picture taken (I could tell)

To the left of this picture (stage right) was what I was looking for--the booth with the free shirts. Unfortunately, they were packing it up and carting it off. All that remained were a bunch of empty boxes.

On the ride back to school, I had plenty of time to reflect on the irony of my situation: If I had just had Rachel pick me up and drive me to the Capitol, I would be wearing my new May is Bike Month shirt right now. Instead, I chose to actually ride my bike to the bikefest . . . and I got hosed.

Cosumnes River: Second Attempt

In my world things don't happen the way I imagine they will. For example, a couple of weeks ago I took my family up to Placerville to check out a couple of climbing locations described in a rock climbing guidebook I have. In my mind, I visualized us following the directions to the places, going out to the rocks, setting up the anchors, and having a great time as a family, rock climbing. Well, that isn't exactly what happened. We tried to go to two places, both around Placerville. I thought that the first place was now private property and the second missing the anchors that the book promised. Well what actually happened was that I didn't really follow the directions in the book to the first place and ended up a half a mile away from the place it describes in the book. I found the second place, but discovered after arriving home that while the location was correct, I wasn't climbing the right rocks. The rocks I was climbing, and on which I was searching for the bolts to anchor my rope, were just to the right of the rocks that actually have the bolts. (I could actually see a couple of them when I looked at the pictures I had taken). Needless to say, I wanted to take another trip.

Yesterday, while we were getting ready to head out for Rachel's (first ever) race--The Apple Hill Blossom Festival Trail Run, I realized that we could make it a multi sport day since her run was near Placerville.

So after her run (and a good lunch), we headed for the place we had originally missed by 1/2 a mile and this time I really did follow the directions in the book and here's what we found:

A testament to the benefits of proper hydration--You can't cry when you're drinking. If you look carefully, you'll notice that daughter #1 is about ready for some water herself

This is the only place we saw people actually climbing

Here's a closer shot of their setup

It was beautiful and we had a good time but we didn't climb. There were a fair number of people out there and I've made it pretty clear in other posts how I feel about that, but I did have a lot of fun just checking the place out and taking pictures. So it didn't go the way I imagined it, but I pretty much knew I could count on that happening.