Christmas

So, Christmas was fine. I didn't even get weird until the very last part of the day. I missed being with my family, but wasn't depressed and made the best of it. I knew all my kids were happy and in a good space. Even Deanna, who is having a time of it trying to deal with sharing her kids and grandkids and not being with family on the day. She and I kindof in the same space. No kids, no family, but she had Keith, I had Mo and we both had basically a good time.

It was 66 degrees in Jamestown yesterday, a little bit cloudy, some sun showing up now and then. We drove up to Calaveras Big Trees for a hike in the Sequoias. Took lots of photos and walked a few miles with the dog. There is often snow there in the winter, but not this time, so we drove higher on Highway 4, all the way up to Bear Valley Resort. Ebbets Pass is closed over the Sierra's not far from where we turned around, but just before you get to the valley is this great overlook. I felt like a stupic californian, tottering over the snow in my tennis shoes from the highway overlook to get a snow photo. "Going to the Snow". I used to do that when I was a kid growing up in Southern California. We would drive up to Big Bear for a day with coats and mittens and shoes that were basically worthless. Lots of sledding and yelling and getting very very cold and wet before we drove back down the hill. Maybe 2 hours from 60 degree days and sunshine on Christmas Day.

The Sierra Crest was beautiful, however, even in the overcast, and every once in awhile the sun would light up the distant mountains with gold. Speaking of lights, I have to go take a photo of the house in Jamestown. Melody and Kevin stopped at Halloween to see it with the kids and now at Christmas those people have outdone themselves again. I don't think I ever saw so many lights on one little house. All lit up it reminded me of a Thailand temple in the sun. Still working on the Thailand photos. I may never get them done. I keep wishing that somehow I could have captured that sparkling moving sunlight over all those mirrors, but photos just can't quite get it.

And speaking of photos, Deanna made a great collage of my great grandkids for me all done up and framed in black. Wonderful. Funny. we both did photos for each other this year.

Back to work today and trying to stay focused. But it's lunch time so I thought I would drop a note to myself.