Monday, December 23, 2013

Merry Christmas 2013!



Christmas 2013

I don’t know why we even need another year. We saw it all in 2013. And as far as I’m concerned, I have seen enough age related deterioration of my physical self to know that I will have no more part of it, thank you very much.  Time can stop right here.
For example:
Emily saw snow falling in Southern California.
 We touched the Endeavor space craft and Rose Parade floats.













We met a family in Theodore Roosevelt National Park who suggested we inch our van forward so they could keep its bulk between them and the bison that had just charged through their ranks.  I’m pretty sure infantrymen in WWI did the same thing with the first tanks. It was everything we could do not to ask why they had left their own vehicle in the midst of a herd of bison.  It’s best not to ask insane people too many questions.

We said goodbye to a beloved pet and adopted a new one.
Generally, I don’t see how 2014 can live up to the high standard set by this year; disappointment surely awaits.
Timothy Leary said all great literature is about a trip.  We took trips all right, but not Timothy Leary’s kind. 

Jenn went off with her mother for five days, playing the ultimate tourist in a game of New York City smackdown.  The city never stood a chance against these two. You name it—they saw it. 
 Claire, Emily, my dad and I reprised our car trip from last year from Garden Grove to Wascott, Wisconsin.  We hiked Arches National Park and saw the last unburnt parts of Colorado.  It was a very fun first leg to our summer travels.


Jenn joined us in Minneapolis for our road trip home during August, our highlight of the year.  We spent seven days on the road and stayed at KOAs most nights in our tent, eating one hot meal per day.  It was loads of fun seeing Yellowstone, the crazy bison-baiting family, Little Bighorn battlefield and the Grand Tetons. I devised a wicked little social experiment on the integrity of Midwesterners our first night out: I left my wallet behind in a Perkins restaurant.  Jenn was less impressed, as it meant my turn behind the wheel was performed sans driver’s license.  But the Midwesterners passed, as we knew they would, mailing my wallet to our home address with all the cash inside. 


Outside Yellowstone, Red Lodge, Montana was our favorite small town.  We had pretty good Mexican food, and I tried the sampler platter of beers at the microbrew next door.  It reminded me of Jackson Hole without the crush of tourists.  We walked the downtown and were charmed by its red geraniums in huge flower pots and live music drifting out of the pubs.
By the time we got home, it was nearly time for school to start.  Emily attends the local middle school, and Claire officially goes to Barker, but its campus is closed for remodeling.  Emily was up in our local mountains for science camp in March, and this is when she saw it snow.  Now she thinks she wants to live somewhere with precipitation, like Seattle.  It’s not the traffic, the idiots or the mundane suburbia that will drive my daughter out of CA—it’s the weather.
In November it was time for our annual Joshua Tree weekend with three other families: the Jows, the Kims and the Zeemans. Hiking, climbing, sitting and socializing were the orders of the day.  All activities were accomplished, but not by all attendees.  Age seemed to be a deciding factor. All the families are veterans now and things run smoothly.


As our last memorable excursion of the year, we took a tour of Huntington Harbor in one of those electric Duffy boats to see the Christmas decorations.  It’s similar to Newport harbor, except that instead of ridiculously extravagant the decorations are merely garishly over-the-top.  We had cookies and hot apple cider.
In the non-trip category, there are two big contenders for occurrence of the year. We attended a celebration of my grandparents’ 70th wedding anniversary.  Try not to think about how old you’ll be at yours.  We had a photo montage and scrapbooks to look at while we snacked.

Number two was the adoption of our chocolate lab, Bailey, from a family who couldn’t keep her with a newborn in the house.  At first I thought, “Labs are great with babies!” But after a week with her, I understood that she needs only slightly less attention than a newborn.  She is active, loving and very active.  I thank heavens for the inventor of tennis balls, because without them we would have difficulty filling the time. She is not much of a conversationalist.

That’s it for us.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,


The Leebs

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