A River out of Eden

by John Hockenberry

This book has a great start to it, and it has a great conclusion. The rest in between is what makes you wonder what happened? I did love the way the book took off with a murder mystery, and the start of a terrorist plot in the Pacific Northwest with the book centering on the Columbia River from the head in British Columbia all the way to the mouth at the Pacific Ocean near Astoria. The author started out with some great descriptive writing on the river, it's surroundings, typography, geographic history, all nicely woven into the story. Somehow it all lost steam in the middle of the book, and then at the end he pulled it all back together with the conclusion of the murder mystery, and terrorism. It was a good read none-the-less. I would certainly recommend it if you have any interest in that area at all whatsoever, as it will pull you into the novel with it and the way the author describes it all. It does have a great deal of derogatory language in it that I don't normally like to read, but it is part of a few of the racist characters in the book and I think it was there for the integrity of them. I still feel self-conscious reading a book like that when I am out in public, as anyone can look over my shoulder to see a few choice words and take them out of context and assume I am reading something much less noble than what I am.

Saddleback Butte State Park

Dale and I took a drive up to the Antelope valley the first weekend in April. Well, it was technically the last of March/first of April. We went up to the high Mojave Desert to camp at Saddleback Butte State Park located 17 miles east of Lancaster. (it is about a 2.5 hour drive north) It was a nice weekend, not too hot, and not too cold at night, but just right to make it a cozy time in the tent with heavy blankets to warm you with and snuggle under. Nice enough to wear shorts and t-shirt during the day. The moon was almost full, and the Joshua trees were just about to start to bloom. We went for a nice hike about 3 miles or more up to the top of the butte where you could see the entire Antelope valley from east to west. It was spectacular.
This state park was once called Joshua Tree State Park, but people kept getting it mixed up with Joshua Tree National Monument, so they changed the name.

We had practically the entire campground to ourselves, only 3 other campers were there, and they were in campers, not tents. So it was like being there all on our own. We had beautiful sunsets, bright moonlight, that you could even read by, and also some very pretty stars to gaze at. The weekend was not complete though with out it's drama. My camp stove was leaking, and had been due to a small drip near the control knob, and finally on Sunday while making breakfast the entire thing caught on fire. I shut it off an ran away to wait for an explosion, but it didn't happen, so I quickly took it apart and smothered the flame with a towel. That was all! it was a little tense, but we just went right back to cooking again, after it all cooled off, and it was fine. I think we will need to fix the leak in the camp stove for the next camping adventure.