We’re off on a road trip.
We did it. We packed the car and took off down the road, the three kids in the back. We followed the road out of our pine forest on the coast of Argentina where the kids were on winter vacation and I was working. The road led us to Tandil on a weekday, on a workday, on a day with things to do, on a day we decided to call our own. We went. We drove. The landscape of farm fields flowing past and our minds relaxing from the pressures of the week and a hard year. We played I Spy and stared out at the cows and the horses and the road running into the distant hills. Up a steep hill we drove into a nature reserve to see donkeys, hares, llamas and even a puma. We walked, we looked and we smiled. We climbed to the top of a craggy hill and gazed out at the expanses below, far and wide to horses and cabins, a town in the distance, green fields and brown fields, trees and hills and rivers and a lake. We looked and we chatted as a family, the five of us and just us. We walked down the hill to see the boars, the owls, the peacocks and the quails. The nandus stood tall and then suddenly they darted. They chased away a fox out to snatch an egg, maybe. Down we drove to the lake and lunch, then the playground where the kids raced, climbed and slid, us parents watching, keeping mind and laughing. Happy. Then the car, the road and the setting sun. We drove into the dusk of a crisp winter day and into the dark and down the road and back to our home on the coast and into bed.
It was a good day of our very own.
We saw dolphins and deer last week when we took a trip up to Zuma! No pumas to speak of though, but we did spot a raccoon in the driveway when we got home.
Dolphins and deer? The kids would love to go with you next time. We were watching out for killer whales. We saw them once. A surfer came right in out of the water and didn’t go back out. The puma was in a caged area, sleeping soundly. The fox was on the prowl. We saw another behind our house, or so we think.
The stories are delightful and this illustration is magical. I absolutely love it!
Thanks. The kids get up to some great drawings. I am proud.