Dinner Bell or ???

Thomas and I traveled back to Portland for my brother's wedding last week.  It was a wonderful trip, but living in Miami means the trip takes a while to get started.

My dad was terribly confused when I called Tuesday after work lamenting that his weather forecast hadn't arrived.  Yes, I know there are a ton of internet sites that will tell you the weather in Portland, but not having looked at them, I made the call.  He wasn't expecting a call so early, since he wouldn't be picking us up from the airport until Thursday morning (and my family is not particularly known for packing early).  But life 300 miles from the airport means the trip starts EARLY. 

Tuesday evening we packed our bags, as we would leave straight from work Wednesday for Denver, stay the night at a friend's, and leave early Thursday morning for the airport.  I took off for Marie's to purchase a few of Sara's tie-dyed onesies - gifts for our new nephew and cousin.  A storm rolled in, and I waited for the rain to let up before running to the car and getting home.  At the same time, in an effort to ready the house for our disappearance, Tom made a scrumptious meal, using up much of the produce that needed eating. 

Just after I arrived home, he was dishing up the noodles, and the phone rang.  Pop started telling me about the best way to get to the site, and it took me a few moments to catch on that he was calling in ahead of the page to respond to a fire.  The fish was laid neatly across the pasta, and the pager went off.  We were so close to sitting down to dinner, but it would have to wait.

In truth, the fire probably would have waited if we wanted to eat - but I would never take my responsibility so lightly.  Lightning struck near the base of the mesa and set a yucca cactus on fire.  The rains that followed the lightning quickly contained the fire, but that cactus could smoke!  Tom, Daniel, and I arrived on the scene with Pop already there.  In the time it took all of us to arrive on the scene, Tom hiked up and radioed that it was already out.  Daniel and I hiked up with shovels and broke the cacti apart and dug into the dried grasses around them to make sure there weren't any problematic cinders below. 

It was a quick call, and we were gone little more than an hour, and then the dinner bell rang.