DAY 2: 

Country drive. If I were in charge, I'd order two weeks of crystal clear skies so I could leap out of bed each morning to choose mountain, gorge or coast.  I'm not in charge.  But fresh air was on order, so it became a rain coat and muddy shoes at Silver Falls kind of day.

There was a lot to love.  The curvy country road itself, always made better with a stick shift. The stunning power of the water that demanded you pay attention to it.  The fantastically moss-covered trees whose unlikely curves gave the forest an utterly Seussian feel. And the orange-attired gentlemen of the prison work gang refurbishing the storm-damaged trails.

But the filbert orchard transcended it all.  I've always loved the idea of wandering into the middle of a filbert orchard where the only thing visible from every angle is trees.  (Yes, it is decidedly a summer kind of dream, the mystery of the dark leaves and all....) Yet there it was. This fantastic old, empty orchard just waiting for an adventurer.  (An adventurer who asked permission first.)

It was marvelous, the way you feel like you've entered another world, but a world that has decidedly been crafted by a hand that has a very specific idea of how it should be formed. And how after all those years of tending and pruning, each tree was so different and yet so much the same. All waiting patiently to come alive again.

As predicted on the book front, things went south for Maggie.  Like Hazel and Augustus, she ended up navigating an adult world of troubles brought on by her father's inability to reconcile with life's trials.  But all was not lost.  She got her moment of magic when the heron allowed her to touch it.  And Tucker got himself reformed and is no longer a threat to the waterfowl of the marsh. Now "The Great Gatsby" calls from the shelf.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's my comfort food of literature.