be my baby

Yesterday in our rambling about, our Garmin took us the long way back to my sister's house.  We wanted to go via the Silverado Trail, and make some stops at some wineries along the way.  It's crush time, and I had noticed as we drove along that the grapes are just hanging in clusters, ready for harvesting.  The leaves are beginning to turn, and soon the vines will go dormant.

But Garmin had other ideas.  We had shared a wonderful bottle of Chianti over lunch in a lovely little Italian restaurant in Calistoga, California, and I was pretty mellow as we drove back.  Stevie Wonder wasn't quite as mellow, but we were both enjoying the drive.

Then we noticed we were in a canyon in the middle of nowhere.  How did that happen?  How had we made that turn?  We kept going, thinking that eventually we would run into more wineries.

Wrong.  We passed ranches, and hills, and curves in the road so tight I could see our tail lights when I glanced sideways through my window.

No wineries.  We saw a lake, Berryessa.  Beautiful.  I got a photo or five.  Then we came to a creek.  Putah Creek.  And we decided to stop because there were Canadian geese everywhere.

Putah Creek

But there were no geese where we stopped.  Ok, I thought, it's going to be one of those days...no wineries, wrong turn, no geese.  I was beginning to feel cursed. Then I saw this...

...a peahen and her baby.  Suddenly it was all clear.  The day wasn't for touring wineries, and it wasn't for taking photos of geese.  It was to capture, for a moment in time, a chick following its mother.  Simple, eh? 

As I watched that chick follow its mother, I realized that is how all mothers care for their children as they raise them... leading them along, trying to teach them, keeping them safe.

It was a lesson.  In life.  In patience.  In moments unanticipated, the moments that teach the greatest lessons in life.  Grasp the moments, because once past, they are gone forever. 

Had we gone home via the route we thought we'd chosen, I would have missed that beautiful creek.  I would have missed that sweet moment, watching the peahen carefully lead her baby past us, keeping it close as she strolled through the park.  I would have missed that perfect moment, had it not been for the wrong turn the GPS made.

~cath
I am @jonesbabie on Twitter