May 1/2008
Driving home from work
Thursday afternoon anticipating my little man's embrace and his "Hi DAD!". I started to contemplate what we should do together on this special three day Father and son weekend. I had a hellish couple of weeks, I took on some pretty stressful situations, things that would have left me laid out under a blanket hiding from the world a few years prior. I had overworked myself doing side jobs as a part of it all too. Basically I was spent, but knew i had this little boy looking forward to being with his Dad. I consider our time together as our adventure, its my duty to help make it great. Even though i had already worked
all day and was sick of driving, we would go to my parents place. I figured road trip or camping and camping involves driving anyways plus
a lot of other packing planning etc... no thanks. My parents place is a bit of a road trip but i knew once i got there it would be relaxing, plus Jerry needed some face time with his grandparents. Little did i know how great this was going to be.
I picked my little man at about 7pm, after getting my stuff ready (laundry) and driving out to get him we had about 2 hours of light left to enjoy the mountains. When his mom's vehicle pulls up my heart always skips a beat. the last few seconds before i get my hug i been waiting for what seems like forever are quite long in fact. He dives on me and we giggle
alot. I get him loaded up and off we go. As we go i hear all about the serious
business it is to be a seven year old trying to keep in mind to him this IS serious stuff. We drive up the #5 highway enjoying the mountains. I have driven it many times and i still get pumped about going through there. When the sun goes down we spot the first star of the night and make
wish's.( i wont tell you mine but it came true) He plays his
nintendo and i concentrate on driving. Just being near him makes me beam, I feel as though nothing else around me exists or matters. As the road winds through hills and valley's it gets darker than he has ever really experienced so we pull over. We jump out and the sky is littered with stars. His gasps and
squeals add to my already goofy grin. We sit in the dark in the middle of nowhere, sky watching contemplating aliens and
pokemon. Not far now we are almost there.
After another 30 minutes or so we arrive at my parents place, My parents are ready for bed and so are we. Me and
Jerry hang on the couch for a bit exhausted from the journey. We drag our stuff into our room and after about 3 minutes both sleeping soundly. I wake up to him poking me in the ribs at 8am. "Dad....
I'M LIKE RUBBER YOUR LIKE GLUE!!!" It a goofy game we play, who ever says it first each day owns it. So even when i phone him he answers like that. Little bugger. Juvenile i know but that just makes it more funner. (yea i know) Its earlier than i normally get up for work on any given day but i drag my ass out of bed. Grandma is at work cause its
Friday but Grandpa is there. We all grab our morning gear and sit out on the deck in the sun. Its pretty warm up there so its nice. I got my tea and my guitar Jerry had his juice and grandpa with his coffee. All set to start relaxing. Couple hours go by and we all pile in to grandpa's truck to go visit grandma at the coffee shop. A proud grandma showing off her only grandson that she
hasn't seen for almost 8 months was another sight to see. Jerry groans about her enthusiasm but secretly loves the attention. We leave after our lunch and go to the beach with my little sister. (my parents answer to their boys leaving home) Ruby loves the water, i think
that's the lab in her. Jerry gets jealous and wants to go into the water with her but
doesn't have shorts. So three seconds later he is in the water in his boxers. Splashing around throwing sticks for ruby and me skipping rocks on the water. Serene peace everywhere. Left the beach and went back to the house to be lazy. Jerry
doesn't get to play video games all the time so i let him play his
nintendo and i sat back and hung with grandpa. Not much more happened other than
alot of over eating and laying about for the rest of the evening.
Day 2
I woke up to an elbow in the face, he was still sleeping. So i promptly poked him in the ribs and said," Jerry......." As softly as i could, when he started to stir i boisterously announced, "
IM LIKE RUBBER YOUR LIKE GLUE!!!!!!" He awoke with a groan. Me with a smile. Jerry decided he wanted to go hiking today. Zombie hunting/treasure hunting/general chaos/hiking is more like it. Grandpa had a good idea to go see the Myra canyon train
trestles.
None of us had ever been there so it would be a good thing to all experience together for the first time. Google is a wonderful thing its has the answers for everything. To bad i
dont pay close enough attention to minor details like where exactly it is and how to get there. We got a bit lost on the way there. Amazingly enough we did ask for directions.
Cept asking inbred red neck white trash
isnt always all that helpful. But we managed to find the logging road we had to traverse to get there. 8 kilometers up a narrow gravel road to the parking lot.
This place was very cool. A few years ago an enormous forest fire swept through the area wiping out most of the trees.They called it a firestorm, It was an
environment that neither of us had hiked before so that was another bonus. A bunch of the train
trestles were burned down but had been restored and were about to be re opened and finished in a couple of months. It was the perfect time to go see them there
wasn't a ton of people there. 15 kilometers of the old kettle valley railway was ready to be explored on foot or by bicycle. Its a great place to hike. Trains
don't do steep inclines and neither do I very well. The side of the trail most of the way drops about 500' or more into a canyon. There is no guard rail along most of it and the
view is great. So someone gets the great idea to start dropping huge boulders down the cliffs and we all have fun watching the carnage. A squirrel walks right out to all of us as if it was starving and we were its last hope. With a dog and everything it came up to me. I had no food for him so we snapped a couple pics and off it went
Further down the trail we explored the rocks and cliff side. It had become very brittle from the fire. The colors on the rocks were kind of weird in places too. I can only imagine
thats another result of the fire, cool reds and oranges burnt right into the cliffs and surviving trees. The standing dead tree's made the landscape look like a war zone at times. We pressed on,
gettin to the first tunnel was cool, the trail made a bend around a corner and hidden in the trees was a tunnel. Almost like a dragons lair it appeared spooky.
Not a very long one but still it added to the experience. Jerry spent most of the day running up and down the trail. I swear he hiked twice as far as we did. I told him what i knew about the history of the rail road and he seemed
interested. We talked about the bandits that held up trains and the way the people had to blast the mountain side away to get the train through. I love watching his mind work.
Teaching my son to not fear life and to explore it voraciously. Years past he was afraid of heights and
wouldn't have walked over these bridges. This day however we walked on the part that had huge gaps, so we could see through to the cliffs below.
Vertigo is a cool feeling, learn to go with it and everything is fine, Fear it and remain to paralyzed to enjoy the wonderful beauty that is being on the top of a mountain. Through the tunnels and over the bridges we walked a total of about 7 kilometers in 4 hours. Starving we left for home. The best was yet to come....
I found my spot on the back porch, from there we could see the mountain we had hiked
all day. A beautiful lake nestled at the base, and a sunset in the mountains. Drinking my tea and playing my guitar again we all sat around talking. Then a little girl popped her head over the fence in the backyard. "Who is that over there?" she asked. We giggled and i yelled back, "
That's Jerry, come on over and hang out with him!" His face turned red and he glared at me. But i knew he was cool with that idea. So two little girls from over the back fence came over to check him out. One was 7 ,
Jerry's age and the other was 5. Amanda and Allie and
Jerry all stood in a small circle arms folded kicking the dirt introducing each other. I
don't usually get to see my little man play with his friends. This made my heart melt. At first they were all timid and sort of shy, but they all wanted the same thing. Soon the
squeals of joy were filling the air as they ran around the yard. Jerry managed to get Amanda to push the hammock for him. She was trying to flip him over in it. It was a great sight to see. I know he is partial to
blonde's and he was in paradise. The innocents of a little boy and little girl meeting and becoming fast friends will stay with me forever. Its part of the reason i write this now, I never want to forget
Her mom popped her head over the fence and asked the girls what they were doing. So i introduced myself and told her it was
OK with us if it was
OK with her. They played down in the yard on the hammock. Shoes kicked off and toys littered the yard i never knew so much fun could be had with a hammock. It was dinner time so i called
Jerry up and told Amanda that she had to wait for him. We washed up and sat down for dinner. Jerry was so not
interested in being there. During the meal my Dad gave me a look motioning me to look in the yard. There was Amanda standing in the bushes sort of hiding, waiting
patiently for
Jerry to go back down and play. He
didn't see her standing there but we did. I fed him a pile pretty quickly and let him go off to play. I know how it is. Food
wasn't on his mind his new friend was. They played till it got dark then we all came inside to play cards. Amanda, Jerry, me, my mother and my grandmother all played a card game for 75 cents each. Jerry won two times in a row. He shared his winnings with his new girl.
They were both hilarious to watch. Her mom called and she had to go home and it was close to
Jerry's bed time so the game ended. Jerry and I played the rematch to our first tournament on
mario cart. This time i won, which bothered him a great deal.
hehehe i loved that, now we were tied. I stood in the hallway after tucking him in. He
didn't know i was there. I watched as he played with his hands in the air. Laying there he looked so peaceful so innocent. His view of the world is untarnished. I stared as his eye lids became heavy and he drifted off. The perfect end to the perfect day. I found myself a quiet corner to sit in and soak up the day i just had. Savoring every detail of it. Money cant buy experiences like these.
"
IM LIKE RUBBER YOUR LIKE GLUE!!!" my head is fuzzy, "Huh?" i ask not knowing what just hit me. But Score another point for
Jerry. He got me again. I groaned and pinned him down. We laid in bed talking about yesterday talking about Amanda. He asked me 10 times if i thought she was cool. I giggled and told him he was the man. I wandered upstairs and
Jerry went looking for his friend. Who just happened to be standing right next to the fence ready to hop over at 8:30am. They picked up where they had left off. I drank my tea with a birds eye view of the two of them in the back yard. The morning rays of sun beating down on me felt like a soft blanket. Sore from the hike and tired from
trying to keep up with the energy of a seven year old i stretched and groaned. I eventually wandered down and chased the kids around a bit. Pushing them in the hammock of unlimited fun. The smiles and giggling continued.Soon after I packed all our things up. Jerry and Amanda said their goodbye's. She asked for his number, and being the little man that he is he gave it to her.
Didn't get hers though so she will have to call him. I high
fived him and we said good bye to my folks and hopped in the van for the return trip home. Jerry
didn't talk much on the way home. All he wanted to do was play his
nintendo. I listened to music and sang to him, he hated that. On the way home we decided to stop at another of our favorite hiking places the
Othello tunnels. Its basically more tunnels and train
trestles just further along the same line we had hiked the day previously. We wandered around dropping rocks off the bridges into the water below. we Hiked down to the edge of the raging river. I showed him how the currents were flowing around the rocks why the white water was dangerous. Tossing big sticks and logs into the white water. Watching them flow down the water falls and smashing into the rocks. We found a small piece of jade on the beach while we were rock hounding. Its all treasure to us, i have a pile of "
treasure" that we have collected along our hikes. Little things we have picked up along the way in our travels. Meaningless to anyone else but priceless to me. We climbed out of the canyon back up to the
trestles. Got back to the truck and made our way towards home. Stopped for a small lunch at
McDonald's (
blech!) He was happy though. I called his mom and told her we were close to town and that she could meet us at the 7/11 to pick him up.
The last 15 minutes of our adventure was again precious. His mom managed to be 20 minutes later to meet us 5 minutes from their place. I suppose being a day away from giving birth is a good enough reason to be as late as she wanted. I
didn't mind, it meant more Jerry time for me. Jerry and i had an incredible weekend. This was a very special time for him and me. Not only was everything we did meaningful and fun but it was also the last weekend Jerry would be an only child. Tomorrow his mom is going to have a baby girl and Jerry is going to be a big brother. We talked about it lots and he was nervous/excited and not sure if he was ready. I held him while we waited for his mom. His eyes are so warm and his heart so big. I know Jerry is going to be a great big brother. That he will take good care of his little sister. I am so proud of him i could burst. My boy is growing up so fast i scramble to enjoy him as it slips away from my reach. Jerry if you ever read this I love you. Right or wrong, screwing up or doing the right thing I am in your corner for life. I will be there without hesitation. Together we will own this
existence. So with Jerry driving away and me with another hour on the road home. I turned on some music and pondered the days to come.
Recalling the wish i had made on the first night of our journey, and the fact it came true. Made me realise again that to find the magic in the world you have to sort of help it along. Call me delusional but my life is full of magic. Peace.....