Now I Lay Me

I am foolishly reluctant to settle down and go to sleep because I just don't feel ready to get up and go to work.  Silly me.  I cannot imagine what it would be like if I actually disliked my job.  I love State Parks and I mostly like my work and my co-workers.  I just don't like all the time it takes away from my life.  What I need, though, is to develop better time, energy and other resource management.

It has been a good, but as usual, not sufficiently productive weekend.

Although there are plenty of chores not done, I am glad that Andrew and I took off Saturday and went up to Castle Crags State Park.  We didn't leave until after noon.  Not that I accomplished much in the morning unfortunately. 

At the Park entrance, I told the ranger that we just wanted to take a look.  He said if we wanted to look at the crags, we could drive down the road and look at them for free from our car instead of entering the Park, paying a fee, and taking a little hike.  Which we did. 

Advantage to entering the Park - at the end of the easy hike, there is a telescope and some information.  Also you can see some other dark crags or something to the west and also Mt Shasta to the north east.  And the information  thing tells a bit about how they are different and were created.  It's pretty nice up there.  We have done very brief sneak in stops on the way home from visiting Rosers   But we didn't go there this time.  We might not have to pay the day use fee anyway, since I work for Parks, but I didn't ask.  We decided to try the other views he mentioned.  Glad we did.

As we drove down the road, we realized that it was all Park property.  Until we got to Shasta-Trinity National Forest property.  We did get some great views of the Castle Crags.  We might have been on the side low on the formations to the west and the Castle Crags themselves blocked any view of Shasta. (I think) So we just saw the crags and beautiful forest, but not the other formations.

Coming back down, we stopped at a trail head on Park property that said PCT. Which I failed to comprehend.  We visited a couple of primitive (no running water or 'facilities') walk in camp-sites.  Right beyond them were hiking trails, one of which lead to the Pacific Coast Trail.  Oh, PCT, I should have remembered.

It was beautiful and peaceful there.  So quiet that we heard the rustling of a snake in the grass as it went down to the rocks of a dry stream bed and the skittering of a lizard on the rails of the little bridge over it. 

Andrew is a great companion.  He ENJOYS everything. 

Today was a good day.  My Sunday School class went OK.  Certainly not what they show in the training videos, but ok.  I have more to learn in this new teaching program "Come Follow Me".  The program takes a LOT more study and preparation on my part than the old study the lesson and spit it out routine.  If it helps the kids learn to develop stronger testimonies (and me, too) it's great.  One of the kids was really great at participating. Shared thoughts, insights and experiences.  A couple were quietly with me.  One looked totally bored. 

One "chore" I did not get done was work on a birthday present which I had planned to do today.  Need to get cracking!  I have an idea, a pretty simple one, too, but getting it from hazy idea, to plan, to actuality is not going quickly.  Maybe I can work on it tomorrow after work.

Work. Tomorrow.  I need to go to bed.