Awakened State of Wonder?

 I was just listening to a travel show and a discussion between travelers Pico Iyer and Rick Steeves and they mentioned this feeling I always get when we travel... this ecstatic but calm awakened state of wonder.. We travel for this and find it constantly.. I also know about wanting to hold onto it when I come home and how it dissipates... the sweetness drains away when the natural world is not part of the play of a day.

 Our trip last week meandered back through Childs Meadows, Mill Creek and Mineral to pick up veggie oil then down to the Sacramento River to join our friend Luisa for her 55th birthday potluck and chocolate truffle cake on a (sand)bar at dusk. Still had the beauty of beaver, egrets, the glassy feel of the river as the light departed.

 As the week passed Michael followed his own agenda and I followed mine and for him the quest to find an ever more perfect boat was answered by buying this little inflatable kayak. My week is a blur... really, I'd have to march it out like a tin soldier from the pages of my day planner.

 Meanwhile, trust me, I was doing my usual many things, including tabling for Frack-Free Butte Co...at the theater presentation called The Butcher Shop, down the road from us but on the land of our adjacent neighbor.

 All the while we have been able to enjoy the richness of summer... many of the tomatoes and peppers shown here were raised by our neighbor Bruce here at Riparia. I caught them at the very end of Farmers Market yesterday... still a glorious display.

 Then today, to round out the week from where we started up at Crystal Lake last Sunday, we went out in the new boat on the Thermalito Forebay... enjoying how it moved, what there was to see, the sense of freedom in being somewhere we don't usually go.

 But also seeing the risks... a tiny snake of tar sands bearing rail cars in the distance below Table Mountain emerges from the Feather River Canyon... a canyon that carries precious water down to millions and emerges from the high country we visited with our unlimited sense of amazement last week. Somewhere between enjoyment and responsibility the amazement slinks away but really not the wonder.. it can remain even watching slow death roll by in the distance.