Spent another wonderful day down at OZ yesterday. My wife, the munchkins and I hiked in to the springs around noon and it was a bit hot on the way but not too bad. The kids did alot of swimming in the creek around the Arizona pool and all the trees a bushes along the creek are looking so green and lush. There is a very large grass island in the creek out in front and slightly downstream from the Crab Cooker area. It is beautiful to look at across the water from the rocks around the Arizona pool. The tree planter man has planted another tree above the Arizona pool. It is a Sycamore and is planted near a cottonwood which was planted earlier in the summer. Had a nice talk with frank a man who cleans up regularly down at the springs. If everyone was like him the springs would be spotless. In our talk he mentioned that he has been to the Burning Man Festival three times and he went to this years event also. He drove to San Francisco and joined a Tortise Bus that goes to the event. I hope to go one of these years soon. I spent the last hour of our day at the springs sitting at the top of the granite peninsula that stick out into the creek in front of the Womb. There is a great flat spot at its peak which is just big enough for one person to sit and provides a nice spot to soak up the sun and take in the view. As I was sitting there I notice 3 youths in their late teens sitting on a flat spot on this peninsula behind me. They were smokin cigs and pot and while I watched one of them threw a full cigerette into the creek. I left the spot on my granite perch and got into the creek and went to the spot where this cig was floating. I picked it up and threw it back up to them and had a few words with them about hiking your own trash out and keeping the area clean. Probably won't change their attitude but sometimes when you see such callous behavior it just makes you want to say something. As the sun was close to setting below the hills a man who I have seen many times at the springs in past years pulled out his flute and started playing it. The crowd had thinned out by then and it was just a perfect compliment to the setting to here his music floating through the air as I sat there enjoying the sunset. I gave him a big thumbs up as we prepared to go. Near the end of our hike back to the car in the last light of twilight my oldest daughter Amber looked to the Southern sky and said " Look Papa, the Baby Sun! ". Such a cute way to refer to the Moon :-)
