Summer!

Ok. Despite what ever the calendar says, it's summer here.  Granted, pretty much all seasons are the same here. June isn't the hottest month of the year, infact it's usually one of the cooler ones.

So with summer being here, I have the kids with me all the time. And we've been to the county fair. And we've planned a pool trip but it was just too cold to go, so we've been to 2 parks.

This weekend Larry planned a trip to the mountains to pan for gold. Just like the old stories of Californians. You see... they didn't get ALL the gold out of CA in the 1800's. There is still some here. And if you join one of the prospecting (yes. Prospecting) clubs you can use their claims and go hunting for gold.

One of the closer sites for gold was in the mountains about 1.5 hours from here, so we drove up for a day trip, followed the directions and turned off the paved road and found the claim site. Since it's in a national forest, we shared the road with others there for picnics and hiking and even a prius made it down the 1 horse rutted road.  Speaking of cars... the truck smells like fast food now that the concentration of bio diesel is higher. The exhast smells like french fries. Not great french fries- the french fries you'd get in a pinch off a truck.

So  that you can live vicariously through us.. here is evidence of our trip

The highlight of the trip was playing in the creek. You have to understand that real clear, running water that doesn't come from a tap or spigot is pretty unusual here in our daily lives. And this water almost looked like you could drink it. In fact.. the town does drink it. At the bottom of the mountain is the water treatment on the side of the river.

The lowlight of the trip was my sliding down a rock, getting my foot wedged between 2 rocks and falling. Into the river. The wet wasn't so much the compaint as much as the foot pain was. Anyway.. we went to the emergency room for crutches and an xray yesterday. The PA who breezed by the room said the xray was normal. So I assume it is until Larry looks at it today or if a real radiologist reads it. Anyway... it's less painful to hobble around with crutches. But it's putting a damper on my plans to take the kids to the beach or fair this week.  It is slowly improving, so maybe I'll be back to my injury prone self shortly.