Wilson

Despite the fact that we just forked over a shocking amount of money to fix it, we decided that taking the newly repaired "Ozziemobile" to Los Angeles is inadvisable, so we did a dry run to the Sonoma Valley Regional Park this morning with Ozzie in the back seat of OilMan's sedan.. 

It has been awhile since we've gone there and the continued warm weather and lack of water is pretty evident …the lawns around the picnic tables are dead, the leaves of the buckeye trees, the first to fall in the autumn are brown and crisp and the wild grasses are bone dry and crumble to dust underfoot.

Although at first glance it is pretty depressing, on closer inspection there is still beauty to be found. The poison oak has already turned bright red, punctuating the trees it has climbed into with spots of color. Hollow cracks in dead branches harbor collections of acorns, russet colored leaves and delicate lichen. Here and there persistent wildflowers scatter spots of cornflower blue and bright white. The star thistles (extra) are bright yellow sporting wicked spikes like tiny maces.

In the distance, the golden grass and tangled red and black branches give way to views of misty hills advancing toward a clearing sky, and the oaks, still green spread their gnarly branches creating patches of shade. A small lake next to a barn in the valley is visible from the ridge where we sit watching the sun emerge from the clouds.

Grandson Will, who is now driving OilMan's old car, has taken an interest in choosing a new car for me. He, like my brother and me and one of my sons has inherited the "Eastman gene"…a taste for luxury and comfort. Unlike the rest of us, Will is also a whiz at online searches, and showed up today with his laptop  and proceeded to show us the preliminary results of his researches (beginning with the newest version of my current car and ending with Mercedes, Porche and Tesla).

Plenty to ponder whilst on vacation with my brother, including Dana's text, "Did you tie Pop up and lock him in a closet?' Dana didn't inherit the Eastman gene….