Loop = Circle (sometimes)

As we scream happily toward summer we are starting to think about plans for vacation and (lucky for you) think about things that have happened in our past vacations. You see, we tend to be much more adventurous on vacation and it shows in some of the adventures we walk into...or in this case, ride into.

A couple years ago we decided to camp fairly close to home and stayed just outside a fun little town named Angels Camp. The campground was an experience in itself but that was only the beginning of the fun. We started our camp out...and I feel the need to explain that we have tents, lanterns, and Coleman stoves (we can camp), but we also camp with microwave, air conditioning, and a queen sized bed in our 30 foot fifth wheel trailer. As I was saying, we started our interesting trip with the owner of the grounds coming over to greet us with the admonition, "Don't kill the King snakes that come through your site. They keep out the rattlers."

Um, excuse me? King Snakes? Rattlers? Check please! We'll be leaving now.

I'm kidding about the leaving but totally serious about this guy's unnatural affinity for his beloved King snakes. I mean heck, they keep the rattlers away! That's good, right? Well no sooner than he leaves on his golf cart we are greeted by the neighbor in the adjacent site. He invites the kids to come over and watch a movie that he projects on the side of his motor home. (It's still camping if we can see a tree right?) He set up his projection TV outside and projected the movie onto the large white flat side of his motor home for anyone to see. And this still isn't what I want to tell you about.

And here we go...One of the places near our campsite is Big Trees (wonder how they came up with that name) State Park off Highway 4. It's a beautiful place to hike and, as it turns out, ride your bikes. They have huge trees! If you happen to be reading this from a far away land I should mention that one of the stumps of one of the medium sized trees has been used as a dance floor. Big! 96 foot circumference. Huge! 325 feet tall. Enormous! The lumber from one of these trees could build 40 five bedroom houses. You get the idea! Along with big trees, the park also has very helpful rangers who work in very helpful visitor centers who sell very helpful bike trail maps. (If you were in front of me you could sense the sarcasm dripping from my smirking lips.) I'm not saying that the rangers are not helpful, wonderful, friendly, great, or anything but professional, but I am saying that the one who helped us find the "brand new" bike trail map needs to be dealt with severely.

He looked over our family, decided that we were at best novices at bike trail riding, and showed us a LOOP trail that would take us about 45 minutes to complete even if we took our time. Perfect! We figured out where we could eat our picnic lunch and off we went. While we were at the picnic benches I found some drug paraphernalia that I put into the back of the truck to turn into the first ranger I saw. Probably should have just thrown it in the trash but you will see how it worked out in our favor.

I would like to take another moment to mention that this kind of serendipity happens to me A LOT!! (Notice how I did wrote "a lot" with two words? That is the sign of a sophisticated writer...attention publishers!) I have no idea what I did to get this kind of special treatment. You know that saying that God only gives you what you can handle? I am fairly certain that God created me as a wimp because I lead a charmed life.

This becomes more evident as I tell more of this story...tomorrow. (Anyone out there on the edge of their seat yet?)