Sorry the blog has been a little quiet lately. It’s been a gorgeous fall in the Northwest which means more shooting, and less time to spend blogging. However, I update my facebook page quite frequently. This photograph was taken on a walk through one of Chiang Rai’s out-of-this world national parks. My dear friends Fern and Prang coaxed me onto their motorcycles for a little surprise trip to this park one afternoon. In a fit of giggles we cruised through the 75 degree heat on dusty streets passing banana sellers only to hit the brakes for the FRIED banana stand. Friends… if you haven’t had fried bananas they are something of another dimension. It’s a gooey-crunchy-sweet gob of fruit. And it costs like 30 cents. And I would have ate them every day if I could stomach that much grease and not become a bowling ball. But I digress, we climbed back on our motorbikes, helmets strapped on, and cruised under palms with a bountiful bag of greasy bananas. Once we hit the park I saw the Thai symbols for waterfall and started to get real excited. I joggled a faint memory of this jungle book place and remembered a visit three years prior. Stepping off our bikes we were almost in mid sprint as we scrambled over boulders and bamboo bridges to the waterfall. Beneath our feet armies of m and m sized ants got work done, as we ate our lunch. Fern and Prang’s little English coupled with my five Thai words yielded our usual conversation of giggles, body language and enjoying just being present in each others lives. It’s hard to explain how a friendship can be deep without sharing a common language. But once you’ve experienced it, it makes you trust there’s not much separating us humans from each other. And that’s a fine feeling.

This was one of those unplanned-spontaneously-joyous moments. I was on my way to run an errand and decided to make an impromptu visit to my grandparents house. Grandpa was sitting inside napping, grandma was sorting through coupons. The sun was shining outside. It was one of the most spring-like days of March. Grandma hollered for Grandpa in the living room “Gibb! Chantal’s here!” Some what startled he shook awake. “Hello there stranger, long time no see,” he said. This is the standard greeting I usually get from grandpa. Even if I saw him the day before. He’s always teasing me about being a “world traveler.” Anyway, back to the story, inspired by the lovely weather I thought, “Well, I could finish my errands today, or I could take my grandpa to the beach.” So without a moment’s hesitation grandpa and I raced to my car and cruised to the water. (For anyone from California, or maybe anywhere besides Seattle, the concept of changing plans because it’s actually sunny out may seem odd.. but this is literally how I live my life here). I didn’t have my camera on me, just my iphone, so I snapped just a couple of moments from our day. My grandpa and I walked up and down the beach listening to the waves crash and seagulls squawk. His cane pressed into the sand step-by-step as I asked him to tell me stories from his life, probing into my family’s past. After our walk grandpa looked at me sideways with a mischievous smile and asked, “Ice cream?” I responded, “Of course.” So we shared a cone of chocolate chip ice cream on a green bench and soaked up the view for a couple more minutes. It’s a memory I hope will never leave me.