Last Morning in the Park

We make our usual fruit and yogurt meal in the camper, happy to be sitting at a cozy table where it’s warm. I watch the guy in the next campsite as he slowly and elegantly prepares a complicated breakfast. His back is to me. I feel like a stalker, watching his every move from my window. He’s got power in his rig, and he’s running a rice cooker. He just opened two cans of tuna! He’s peeling an apple! No, not an apple, something dark. Is he making sushi? No, the dark thing just went into a pot with some onions. All his moves are slow and considered. I watch him move through the simple choreography of preparing a meal. It’s all I can do to keep myself here with my cereal bowl, not rush out and ask for a plate.

We go out for a walk before we have to leave for home. It’s chilly back in the canyon at Happy Isles. Lots of dogwood in muted colors, a bit more water in the river than further downstream, but not the show you get in the roaring springtime. We poke around along the river bank, then something makes me turn to the left as we cross a little bridge.  And there he is, this magnificent heron, another animal intent on his own business, not much caring about us and our cameras, although he is supremely aware of our every movement. I’ve never had the chance to observe a bird from this close; we can almost count those gorgeous feathers, certainly can see the patterns on his chest, the little flashes of gold. He blends so well into the rocks that it takes us a few minutes to spot him when he comes down from a higher perch to hunt in the river. I feel that Yosemite is giving us one last talisman before we leave for home.

As for the Extra, what do you think? Do you have a sore throat? Do you want one? The sign is, as they say, in the middle of nowhere, in a field of its own at the side of the highway. If you are headed north, you see this panel. It’s only when you are headed south that you see its companion: Pine Brothers Cough Drops.  At no point can you see them together, or even in proper sequence. I remember Pine Brothers; I used to like those chewy honey tasting drops. I didn’t know they still made them.