I had a hard time remembering even going on a picnic. The one instance I do remember going on one is a relatively good memory. Mr Moo and I packed up some tuna sammiches and other goodies and headed to Portland's International Rose Test Garden. It wasn't anything super fancy, but I really enjoyed spending the day together.

My Mother once packed a picnic with the exact same items (and in the same sort of picnic basket) that Ratty and Mole took with them on their picnic in the book, The Wind in the Willows. We went down to a bank on the Willamette down by Monmouth, Oregon, and watched the river life go by, as did Ratty and Mole. A somewhat more recent great picnic was with (the Moo's inlaws) this last summer on the side of Mt. Hood - eating sandwiches and throwing sticks in the mountain pond and watching Buffy, Claudius and Tippy dive in to get them. Mundane foods taste better on picnics.

Lots of nice memories of family picnics when I was a kid. Went to all sorts of places with parents and grandparents. One particular incident that sticks in my mind is when my grandfather was holding a large cake, and a donkey at the place we were visiting came up and snatched half of it off the plate. My grandfather whipped the plate away so the donkey couldn't grab any more - so the donkey bit him on the butt cheek !!

JOHN:
That was so sweet of your mom to do that. You must have absolutely loved that as a child.

GINGER:
Did you grandfather bite the donkey back? :-) What a funny story!