It's Not a Car, It's a Lifestyle

Well, I am obviously behind. This is post 12 in 25 days. So much for 30/30... and yet, I have been writing much more regularly, and that was the point. Still, I'm going to try to step it up, to get to the thirty in under, say, 50 days, though I do know that I just don't seem able to do those little posts, you know, the I ate cherrios for breakfast before walking my dog kind of posts, with a lovely picture of a beautiful bowl with a mound of luscious cherrios in a lake of fresh milk, a few banana slices poised delicately atop, perhaps a blueberry or two, and all sitting on a sweet colorful place mat, with light from the nearby window hitting it all just perfectly. Nothing against those, mind you, just not my cup of tea, if you will. And trust me, I've tried doing that before, well, not with the cherrios, but the short this has been my day type of thing. I've tried again during these past 25 days, in an effort to post everyday, and it just doesn't work. Not for me, anyway. It's not what comes naturally or feels real, and if there's one thing this blog has done, maybe more than anything, is help me discover my own unique writing style and my own authentic writing voice. No small thing btw, as I've struggled mightily around this for years, often feeling more than a little discouraged and frustrated, more often than not wondering if it would ever happen.

That said, here are some pictures from my day yesterday :) My sister and I went with my realtor-turned-friend and his wife up and over the Sonora Pass and then off-road to Leavitt Lake, a small alpine jewel reachable only by serious four-wheel drive vehicles. Through the heady scent of the forest, up over 9,000 feet, with the Stanislaus River tumbling off to one side, and granite cliffs towering like skyscrapers above our heads, to the "road"--not--that would take us in to the lake. It was like the best ride at Disneyland; up and over rocks and into gullies, around huge boulders, through creeks, jostled like marionettes, thrown from one side of the car to the other, off the seats, then crashing back down, and all the while laughing our heads off, with the occasional involuntary scream to punctuate the experience. And the vistas along the way, well, just stunning. Yellow, red, purple, and white wildflowers everywhere, tiny unexpected falls in the clear, meandering creeks, deer, butterflies, and well, the lake itself. A beautiful emerald/teal color, surrounded by jagged mountain peaks spotted with tiny glaciers, the occasional group of coolly sculptured trees, and meadows full of mid-summer mountain blooms. All against the backdrop of a sky so serene, so pure, and light-filled, it seemed ethereal.





Mark insists the Jeep is not a car, it is a lifestyle. And I so get it. It embodies adventure. It is risky without being dangerous. It is intoxicating. The blood pumps, the senses are heightened, the cares forgotten. We were all--even when wondering how in the hell we were going to make it the next ten or twenty feet, even when freezing our you-know-whats off on the way back--we were, fully, incredibly alive.

It is part of what I long for; it is a lifestyle I'm pretty sure I could embrace; and not only that, I'm positive it's exactly what the doctor ordered.







Oh man, thank you so much, Mark and Charlene...