Used to be this night was filled with promise, excitement, the deep seated idea that I should be doing something absolutely fabulous. Reality, however, is that it turns out more often than not to be a quiet night at home trying to stay awake to watch the ball fall. There are several times during the year when I feel the need to reflect. The night of my birthday is important, reviewing the past year. The night of the winter solstice to me is the real ‘new year’ when I know that the sun has reached it’s greatest distance. New Year’s Eve, of course, is another one of those nights, another time for thinking about the year past, for remembering and reflecting.
I could write a litany of what we did this year, a summary of the trips, the travels, the fun times. I could write about family changes and milestones, another litany, another list. Instead, as this day comes to a close, I will attempt to think about what moments stand out most as something totally new and surprising, and maybe look back to see just what I learned this year, how I possibly grew a bit. Who knows, by the time I am done, it may still be just a list of what we did and where we went. I guess I’ll know more as I attempt to backtrack and see the learning tidbits buried beneath the stories. So for now, as the year comes to a close, I thought I would track down some sunset photos until I get around to actually reflecting. It’s just a bit easier to do. The surprising thing about that little exercise was that I take a LOT more photos of sunrises than I do of sunsets. Guess that shows what time of day I like most, I guess.
It was 11 degrees this morning when we woke up, and we waited for it to warm up to a balmy 14 before going outside to haul a couple of loads of wood to the back porch. We are burning dry juniper this year and I love it. It smells wonderful, and it burns hot and bright with a brilliant glowing color that feels as good as it looks. In this area, we don’t have access to much hardwood, except for the laurel over in Medford that runs 200 a cord. I’ll settle for juniper at 130.
10 comments:
LaurieDecember 31, 2010 at 3:48 PM
Have a warm and cozy New Year's Eve, Sue (and Mo). Meeting and hiking with you in 2011 was great!
I sure enjoy your blog - good writing, interesting ideas, and grat photos. Definitely a part of my blogosphere reading.LaurieDecember 31, 2010 at 3:49 PM
Oops, make that 2010! I'm getting ahead of myself again... but maybe we can meet and hike in 2011, too! :)
Sue MaloneDecember 31, 2010 at 4:27 PM
You bet we will, Laurie! I wouldn't miss it.
Travels with EmmaDecember 31, 2010 at 6:05 PM
Thanks for the shout out! Hope your new year is everything you want it to be. :)
RickDecember 31, 2010 at 8:34 PM
Beautiful sunset photos!
We are spending a quiet New Year's Eve in our 5'er and I'm looking forward to going to bed soon (it's only 8:30pm) and just reading a good book!!
Happy New Year!
ErinJanuary 1, 2011 at 3:43 AM
May 2011 dawn bright and colorful .... it's still dark here on the East Coast, so I am waiting to see what the day brings as we start the New Year ... health and happiness foremost.
Sam&Donna WeibelJanuary 1, 2011 at 4:20 AM
Thanks for the mention on your blog, WE too are looking forward to the day Donna can retire and we can do some serious 5th wheeling.Hope to meet up with your someday. Be safe out there. Sam & Donna.
Al BossenceJanuary 1, 2011 at 5:07 AM
We can't even remember the last time we ever made it to the midnight hour, New Year's or not. Just not the priority anymore like it used to be & we're both happy about that. All the best to you folks for 2011:))
pidgeJanuary 1, 2011 at 6:28 AM
Hope you have a great New Year!!
Luci & LoreeJanuary 1, 2011 at 8:11 AM
I love the way you write!! There is always something to ponder on.
I swore I didn’t need to post another photo of snow at Rocky Point, but I was wrong. After returning home from our desert travels on Monday afternoon, it was wonderful to be here. At first. The snow was manageable and home was so welcoming and comfortable once the fire was blazing in the woodstove and we warmed our achy bones with a dip in the hot tub under the night sky. 
Mo runs the tractor, I do the shoveling and we often share the snow blower duties. After two hours of shoveling a foot thick load of moderately heavy snow over a six inch dead weight of frozen slush, I was ready to move to Florida. Mo could barely push the stuff around with the tractor, and spent nearly three hours out there trying to get our road cleared down to Rocky Point Road. Once again, I was the grumpy one. Hmm, do I see a pattern here? I was so sick of lifting heavy snow, trying to toss it, only to have the entire load stick to the shovel and jerk me around, that I just said, “I quit. I am done. No more.” As luck would have it, I had managed to get the most of the snow out of the way enough that Mo could get the plow in the rest of the way. 
By late afternoon, the snow finally stopped, and Mo came back from her foray to the mailbox all excited, (at least as excited as she usually gets which is pretty low key). She wanted to take me out to Rocky Point Road, which hadn’t been plowed at all during the entire day and looked wonderful. The baby car has studded tires and four wheel drive, so it was great fun running around the neighborhood and checking out all the deep drifts, the snow laden forest, and the unplowed roads. I jumped in and out of the car, snapping away, oohing and aahing at how beautiful the lake looked through the trees, how clean and white the snow looked, and decided that moving to Florida really wasn’t an option after all.
Stopping at a particularly gorgeous overlook, Laurie commented that she thought the huge rift below us looked like a fault. Bingo, Laurie! That was the San Andreas Fault, bisecting the park, lying beneath us. The fan palms are there due to the seeps and springs coming from the fault zone, and the fabulous warm waters of Desert Hot Springs are also a result of the active fault. Lucky us! Great hiking, hot pools, palms for shade, and no earthquakes!
Back on the road for one short hour of hard driving rain and wind before we found a little KOA at the 
We heard many languages spoken on the tram and in the visitor’s centers, and even had a great conversation with a local Palm Springs resident who was sharing the great tourist attraction with visiting relatives. I think I’ll just link to the tram information since the hour is late and I am a bit worn. Lazy? Maybe, but why rewrite it all? Sometimes people tend to avoid touristy attractions, but often they are attractions for a good reason. 
We wandered off into the desert toward the huge windmills that fill the valley, unencumbered by rules, people, or anything else to bother us except the ever present desert garbage. 
I just don’t get the garbage thing, but it seems to be strewn everywhere, huge piles of household trash, shoes, books, hangars. Abby didn’t care, and we didn’t either as long as we just kept looking up to the gorgeous skies and brilliantly shadowed mountains capped with fresh snow. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful walk.
The garbage of humankind can be ignored I guess, if you try hard enough. Is it somewhat strange that all this garbage and all this opulence are just a few hundred yards apart?
This evening, settling in to the twilight, I carefully took the SD card out of the camera, selected all the photos to move, and somehow hit a key, an unknown key on the LEFT side, NOT the delete key, and BLIP! Gone. Every single photo, just gone. How the heck does that happen? Of course, they are nowhere, into the ethers. External stuff doesn’t delete to the recycle bin, we all know that. I have no idea where they went, but they are truly gone. 