Wie geht's?
Facebook often distorts people's lives. It can varnish the truth and lapse into a look-at-the-great-life-I'm-living approach. I get that. Who wants to present the reality of things when the platform exists to air-brush that stuff out.
Travel can have its strains and stresses fersure, and, unfortunately, we were not complete as a family because of Keegan's absence.
I note all that as a preamble/caveat to my top ten highlights from our roadie in California and the wedding in Denver.
The three weeks certainly had travel's usual mix, but I easily listed 26 moments from my travel diary that were mind-blowingly great. However, 26 rosy-tinted moments would be OTT, so - here are my top 10.
10) Celebrating our 41st Wedding anniversary and Jacky's birthday (twice as we crossed the international dateline).
9) Capitola - staying at The Inn at the Depot air B'n'B and dining down by the sea.
8) Babysitting/spending time with Poppy and Asher at 3236 Arapahoe St, Denver.
7) Finding Arsenal kit at the Soccer Warehouse in Anaheim.
6) S'mores at Fanfa/Drew's house with everyone (toasted marshmallow with chocolate inside a Graham cracker).
5) Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland with Jacky, Jade, Chris and Asher.
4) Best scenery - the Big Sur coastline and listening to two whales slapping the water with their fins.
3) Best finds - tough one to select but I've whittled it down to two. Both had that rush of can-I-believe-my eyes. First would be finding copies of three albums by The Cowsills. The best being a copy of Captain Sad for $6 in Wax Trax Records in Denver. Second would be finding a copy of Robert Bly's Iron John book in a secondhand tool store, also in Denver. Another big plus: loved my record shopping expedition with Adam, Ashleigh and Poppy - three generations of record lovers is special.
2) Best Meal - While in Sonoma we drove to Bodega Bay and the Armstrong Woods. Driving back to Petaluma via Highway 116 along the banks of Russian River, we stopped at a roadhouse for lunch - grabbed a pizza slice each and a House Coffee. OMG. It was amazingly good sitting it that almost empty roadhouse having that simple meal with Jacky.
1) A solo father-of-the-bride dance with Samantha to Bruce Cockburn's Wondering Where The Lions Are was my personal number 1 highlight. Some context: when the kids were little I'd wake them up by singing the opening lines to the song:
Sun's up, uuh huh, looks okay
the world survives into another day
and I'm thinking about eternity
some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me.Samantha clearly remembered that and honoured that memory by choosing it for our dance. It's a moment of ecstasy that I will cherish forever.
Love and peace - Dad