When Jeanne, Mary and I were going for one of our lunch outings, Jeanne suggested a picnic in Tehachapi Mountain Park.
Located at about 5,700 feet and only eight miles southwest of town, Tehachapi Mountain Park provides a great escape from the summer heat below. You drive up the same winding road as when you go to the monastery, a place I have written about often. I didn't take my camera, so I went back to the pictures I took on my birthday in 2013, when Errol and I had a picnic in the park.
By chance, we ended up at the same picnic table where Errol and I had lunch back then. It's nice place and I didn't mind. Instead of being sad about that, I have been so upset about my diabetes that I shared my feelings with my friends. Then I felt bad I did. Oh, well, such is life. It ain't perfect, for sure. The picnic table sits on the only available flat part of the mountainside, surrounded by steep uphill and downhill slopes, filled with amazing trees, tilting this way and that, some holding on for dear life.
The trees were beautiful, the breeze was cool, no bears appeared, although there were warnings about bear sightings. In 2013, when I was 73, I wrote this: 'And the place smelled heavenly of pine needles and all the wonderful smells of the forest.' This time, I couldn't smell a thing. If you make it to my age, you will lose a thing or two, so I'm only taking note of a change here. No big deal.
After we finished eating, we sat there for a while, talking and enjoying the cool breeze, so much cooler than below where the real heat arrived this week.
Something else has arrived in town as well. After many years, many hot debates, letters to the editor of our local newspaper, pros and cons among people in town, after many EIRs, a final approval, and it's here: A Walmart Superstore will open in the beginning of August.
We passed it on our way home. Since I wasn't driving, I was able to get a picture of the side of the building. It looks huge. I have never liked Walmart, but a brand new store sounds like a good thing, so does one-stop shopping, and the prices, my goodness, I checked them out online and was amazed. When you live on a fixed income, prices matter.
I had a lovely time -- a picnic lunch with good friends is a very good thing, indeed.
