A Lovely Christmas Eve Present (Shallow Thoughts)

A Lovely Christmas Eve Present

I just had the greatest Christmas Eve present.

Yesterday we went exploring bike trails. We drove the length of Buckman Rd (a little over 10 miles of dirt washboard and sand, which I'm happy to say the newer Rav4 handles much better than the old one did) to explore the trail along the river. But we hit a washout about a mile and a half in, and Dave didn't want to try to find a way around it. So we went back to the car, packed up the bikes, and drove over to the La Tierra Trails, which turned out to be a wonderful mountain bike playground, about which I may write at some point.

When we got home, though, I realized I no longer had my Rav4 key. It's one of those electronic keys; the web says dealers want $600 for a replacement, but if you hunt around you can find do-it-yourself programming kits that get you a new key for as little as $150. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed.

But Dave was amenable to ditching our plans for today and going back to La Tierra. I figured I'd most likely lost the key when we stopped for a snack and I had to rummage around in my pack. So we went there first — but no key. We rode a tour of nearly every place we rode yesterday, keeping our eyes glued on the ground, but still no key.

That left the question: whether to ride the interminable 35mph road out to Buckman Rd, then the ten dirt miles down to Buckman Crossing. I was reluctant to put Dave through that, but he cheerfully encouraged me to go, so we did.

We parked by the outhouse and I walked over to where we'd parked yesterday. And I spotted a black thing in the grass ... is it? ... could it be? ... YES!! There was my Rav4 key on the ground.

So we did have to do the 20 miles of dirt road a second time. But we also got to ride the very fun La Tierra trails a second time (we'll certainly be back), and I'm so relieved to have found the key in the end. What a great present!

Dave and I stopped celebrating Christmas over a decade ago; it just wasn't as much fun after my mom was no longer around. Occasionally we break that rule; last week a big box came in the mail, and Dave informed me it was a "not-a-Christmas-present" — an Epiphone Les Paul electric guitar. I'm just getting to the point in my beginner guitar lessons where occasionally something comes up that works much better on an electric guitar, so it was a very timely, as well as sweet, present, and I'm having fun slowly stumbling through the power chords in "Godzilla". But finding that key was almost as good a present.

Merry Christmas to all — whether you celebrate the holiday or not, my advice is to be merry regardless!