Last Sunday we took our friend Jenny and went for a drive along some nearby logging roads. It brought back so many memories.

Crossing Troublesome Creek on Sunday (using a bridge!)

Growing up, we often went for Sunday drives. If mom chose the location, it most likely would be driving the neighborhoods she grew up in. She’d reminisce and tell us stories about things like her dad getting drunk and throwing bread at her across the table. Or having to learn how to butcher rabbits. Or Aunty and the day she showed up. She saw their chimney fire, stopped to help them, also saw a single dad trying to raise a daughter, and stayed as their housekeeper. And once mom married and moved away, she became our surrogate granny.

Aunty helping me play

Those drives weren’t too boring because I’d sit in the back seat and daydream adventures and my own stories. And if we were lucky, and mom and dad felt flush, we’d all get the treat of burgers.

Mom at the cabin. 

When dad picked the Sunday destination, a lot of times we’d end up driving logging roads. Mom would pack a picnic lunch. Dad would bring the stack of gold pans. Us kids would get to sit on the tailgate of the truck as we slowly bounced our way up into the woods and mountains.

Dad surveying flood damage

I daydreamed those drives, too, but the stories were different. They almost always involved me slipping off that tailgate, running away into the woods, finding some long-lost tribe of Native Americans, or some My Side Of The Mountain type, where I would live forever out there in the mountains.

Bridal Veil Falls

So here I am, many years later, driving old logging roads with a mountain-kind-of-guy. At home where I always wanted to be. Still daydreaming through those woods though, making up stories as I bounce along in the truck.

Jack’s Pass on Sunday