A Many Faceted Day

Poor Maria, Rebecca’s cat, is very ill.  At the crack of dawn, we took her in for a procedure, thinking that we would wait until it was done and then take Maria home to nurse her.  However, it turned out that Maria needed to be there all day, so we had time to kill.  We went grocery shopping, came home, put our groceries away, and pondered what to do next.  Well, yarn shopping is always fun, and as I was just winding up a pair of socks for Becca, and need always to have a pair going, it was the logical option.  There is one yarn shop we like that is far off the beaten track, and as we had lots of time, we “went there and did that.”  Then we checked out the Greenwood library, checking out some books as well – too many for me to ever read in the time allotted. Quite a few hours still remained until it was time to fetch Maria, so we decided to do some Camino walking in nearby Carkeek park.  The park layout, with many trails, was a little confusing, but we found a map, with trails differentiated according to difficulty.  The map was pretty undecipherable, and we decided that the park needed a new cartographer.

Rebecca, who has always been the Sacajawea of the family, was undeterred, and led the way. She scorned the easy trails, as they would present no challenge.  I personally did not see why a challenge was necessary, but Rebecca was in charge. We made our way to the beach with no challenges, other than a high – very, very high- walkway over the railroad tracks.

Note the terrifically high trestle crossing over the train. Sickening!

 If, going across it, you looked down through the grating, you could see the train tracks miles below. This was, of course, no problem for Rebecca, but it caused some anxiety for acrophobic me. 

It was low tide, so the beach was full of interesting things. 

 There were also some “unmaintained” trails on the map, and these appealed to Becca. Deeper and deeper into the woods we went.  “Are you sure this is even a trail?” I frequently asked.  “Of course it is. Look at that,” she said, pointing to a few inches wide path snaking through the undergrowth.  There were numerous challenges.  We had to scale cliffs, make our way across the creek, using fallen logs as a bridges, and slip under other tree trunks crossing the path.

  It started to rain.  I was having visions of one of us (most likely me,) falling and breaking a leg.  How would the rescuers ever find us! Finally, she said, astonished, “The path seems to have ended!”  We turned back, one of us quite relieved. 

Despite my whining, I had a very fun time. We saw wonderful flora,

And interesting fauna. 

When we got back the vet’s however, we got sad news about Maria. Our poor kitty is now on palliative care. Her procedure made her more comfortable, but it is only temporary.  The vet was very kind, and gave us hugs and Kleenexes. Becca took Maria home to make her last few days comfy and happy.