Traveling Again

The "Awesome" shows up

With two of my kids working in other countries as teachers (along with my grandson) and one going to college in San Francisco a few hours from where I live, my wife and I are empty nesters kind of trying to get our bearings because we actually are the kind of people who love to be parents and take care of our kids. However, if people are ONLY self centered they might not understand having your whole life built around taking care of your kids and getting them through college and into good lives. However, now we have to do something else until someone needs us for something.

However, the good news is our youngest daughter who just moved to San Francisco appears to be happy in her life there. And our two older kids are busy with their lives in other countries now.

So, I was trying to avoid my wife and I taking all this out on each other so I left for Mt. Shasta because both of us I guess are classic parents and having a hard time with this latest adjustment to our lives.

Many parents break up when there children leave and there is no reason for my wife and I to join this group because we are still very good friends and love and respect each other. So, it is a matter of taking enough time apart during these kinds of adjustments to make our relationship work. She is visiting friends near San Francisco and I am visiting friends in Mt. Shasta as you can read in "The Awesome shows up" in the word button at the top.

It was cloudy all the way up which was nice because these reduced temperatures 5 or 10 degrees to average temperatures of 84 to 86 degrees with the hottest temperature I saw driving north of about 90 to 95 degrees which was good.

I had gotten used to living in 102 to 109 degree temperatures in Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Sedona two weeks ago, so I was glad to have lower temperatures than the 109 in Palm Springs we lived through while staying overnight on our way back home to the Greater SF Bay area.

So, though I'm a little sad none of the kids are visiting or living with us right now, I'm very happy to be out in the wild open country of Mt. Shasta. Also, the nearest fire is in Klamath River north of Yreka so it's at least 40 to 50 miles away from me and luckily right now at least the smoke is blowing in another direction so it is crystal clear and sunny and supposed to be 83 here today with a little rain but I see no clouds at all right now so I'm happy to be here in the beautiful mountain air with clear skies. Have a Great Day wherever you are here on earth or beyond!

Later:

My friend and his girlfriend were talking to me about bears. It started when we were walking his 2 1/2 acres of fruit trees and organic gardens and pine, cedar, oak and fir trees (that were left over from when we planet trees together in the 1970s (so we could stay in Mt. Shasta longer and longer periods then) by making money up here rather than in the city (SF or LA). I asked as we walked around the land "What kind of poop is that?" I thought he was going to say, "Deer or Elk or something like that because it was a huge mound of stuff. Instead he said, "That's bear poop there's several of those from the last few days on the land. He also showed me where the bear had broken a few limbs on his fruit trees which he wasn't happy about.

Later when we had lunch (since he has a master's degree in the History of all religions on earth specializing in Sanskrit and Buddhism, he spoke about how early men lived with Cave bears which were mostly docile and wouldn't attack men so men slaughtered them when they got hungry but otherwise shared caves with them. He also said that they would put the skulls of the bears in a circle in the cave and this became part of the start of cannibalism then too. It's strange how one thing leads to another that you completely would not expect down through history.

We were also talking about new stone tools found which predate ones we knew about before. I think they go back 3.5 million years of tools made by our human like ancestors. Although he mentioned that tools go back in some studies 12 million years on earth too. They also believe now "Lucy" fell from a great height like off a cliff or a tree which is what actually killed her then.