Thursday night Kate, Rj, and I set off from campus at 7pm on our road bikes. Rj was carrying a suspiciously large backpack. We rode East into the foothills of the Blues. I singled out a copse of large trees for our destination. Upon reaching the trees we found them to be located on a well kept lawn, whose edge abutted Oregon. These were huge old trees, we were curious why this lawn was out in the middle of fields, why someone came out to mow it, and why there wasn't a house on the grounds, even an abandoned one, and who had planted the trees.

We didn't ponder too long. Rj opened her backpack and rolled out a soft blanket and pulled out some pizzas from the SUB, a bottle of red wine, wine glasses, and a Winnie the Pooh book. We ate, sipped Walla Walla Wine and enjoyed the sunset. I had brought some 88% dark chocolate and we finished the picnic with the mingled flavors of full red wine and dark chocolate. We relaxed, chatted, and Rj read us a story from Winnie the Pooh about their 'expotition' to discover the North Pole (successfully discovered by Pooh). It was a pleasant way to spend the evening and I was glad Rj had suggested it and invited Kate and me.

We made it back to campus at 9, riding home in the dusk. Luckily, Rj had her red light on her bike to we weren't completely invisible to the cars, and probably clearly visible to the large birds soaring overhead, hunting in the dusk. It felt like we were floating, riding back. And not due to the wine. Because it was dark we couldn't make out the details of our surroundings so we were flying through a dark sea, or the night sky.

That's what life's about; it was a good reminder for me. We wanted to spend the night out there looking out over Walla Walla and under those trees with their hidden past.