Return of the Camera

To preface this story, it needs to be known that somewhere between California and Utah, I managed to lost the camera. I didn't have it when we went camping with my family, or for Jonathan's graduation ceremony. I had checked everywhere I could think and had resigned myself to the fact that it most likely fell out of the car at some gas station when we were traveling home and would never be seen again. With that, here is the story.

One day, Jonathan biked to school just as he had many days before. He left about twenty minutes before class started, which gave him ample time to reach his destination. About ten minutes after he left, I got a call from him. "Robin, can you bring my keys to school? I left them at home and the key for my bike lock is with the keys." I really did not want to pack Peter up and drive to school (it was almost his nap time, and it's not really fun to get the small one into his car seat when he is getting cranky), so I asked Jonathan if he could just drive back home and get his keys. It would take about the same amount of time to bike home and back to school as it would for me to get Peter ready and drive up to school. But, he insisted that he didn't have time to bike home, so I grabbed the keys, wrangled Peter into his car seat and drove up.

We got to campus around 11am. Jonathan had told me to meet him at the building where I normally drop him off to print things. So, I drove up to the entrance...cue the cranky baby. I waited for about 5 minutes with no sign of Jonathan, but plenty of noise from Peter. I was starting to get frustrated and Peter was losing any patience he had left. I called Jonathan and told him I'd arrived and he said he would come right out. A couple of minutes passed with no sign of him; we'd been waiting for about ten minutes at this point, cutting more into nap time and Peter was mad. So, another phone call. "Hey, where are you?!" "Where are you?" We explained locations only to find that I was at the entrance at the bottom of the building and he was at the entrance at the top of the hill. Miscommunication strikes again. So we remake plans to meet at the parking garage that was equi-distance apart...try to explain to cranky baby that we would be home soon and thus free from car seat jail. We met, I gave Jonathan the keys, he kissed my cheek and Peter and I started for home.

We were almost home when, another phone call...Jonathan again. "Hey, so you brought me the wrong keys." What?! Why do you have more than one set of keys and why don't you keep your bike lock key on your regular keys? (grumble grumble grumble) He listed a couple of places where the other set of keys might be located. Peter and I got home, and I left him in the car when I ran quickly into the house to grab the other set of keys. (Peter was not pleased with this.) Back in the car and back to school. I called Jonathan on the way and checked on a meeting place (at this point, it was around 11.20....Jonathan's class had started at 11.00). When we arranged a place to meet, Jonathan said, "Maybe I will just come home with you and skip class. Then I can help you with Peter, and then you can just drive me about for my 3pm class. Will that make this better?" I agreed and we met Jonathan, gave him the keys, he ran to lock his bike while we waited, and then finally we were on our way home again.

Peter took a nice nap, thrilled to be anywhere that wasn't his car seat. When the time came, we all loaded back in the car and started taking Jonathan back to school. Peter was a little cranky again, so Jonathan reached back to the back seat to give Peter a cracker. He happened to hit the button for the cup holder in the back (which we never use) and lo and behold what was in the cup holder?! It was the prodigal camera! After about 2 months being missing, it was found! I could not have been happier. Jonathan said, "So, this makes up for everything this morning, right?" Hahaha...no. I said, "You are still busted for at least a week...but I'm very happy the camera is back."

And thus it was, the camera had returned.

First picture after the camera was found.
Peter in a semi-happier mood looking out the window.

Second picture of found camera...joy.

It's nice to have the camera back and to be able to take clearer pictures. Cameras on phones are great because they are nearby, but the camera on my phone isn't the best, and it's nice to have something that takes a clearer photo. Camera found, mama happy.

Does ze minkey have a license?

The beach may have been Jonathan's favorite part of Kep, but my favorite part came while we were on our way home from the beach. We were biking along when we noticed a crowd of people taking pictures. I finally spied what they were looking at. Then, I saw them. There were 2 little monkeys sitting on the side of a trash bin. I was enthralled. 

I tried to get a good picture of them when Jonathan said, "Robin, there are more of them over there." I looked further down the path and saw these guys.

These monkeys were all over that scooter. I was elated. I looked further down the path, and beheld a troop of monkeys! There were so many of them, just walking along. There were babies holding onto their moms, rascally teenagers harassing each other, and dads keeping an eye on the hooligans. I stopped and just watched them. I don't know why I was so happy to see them, maybe just the novelty, or maybe because they were so cute and furry, but I could have stood there for hours just watching them. I took way too many pictures of them, and slowly walked along with them.

Look at all the monkeys!

I was the happiest girl in the world.

The babies held on so tight to their moms.

Look carefully and you can see a monkey on the left side of the tree swinging on a vine.

Piggy-back ride.

The babies would get down from time to time, but would always stay pretty close to their moms.

They were climbing up and down that wall as they made their way down the road. I don't know where they were heading, but it was neat to walk along with them. 

This guy got really brave and came up to Jonathan and touched his leg! (I know, I know, they are wild animals, and they could carry diseases and everything. Be careful Robin and Jonathan! We're good and safe. And really...I loved them.)

Just monkeying around.

Learning how to climb. It reminded me of Peter.

The brave one came back to visit me. He gave my bike a good inspecting. He pulled on the spokes and bit the tire some, not in a mean way, just in a curious way.

Then his friend came over. They checked out that front tire really well.

The brave one.

I loved watching the moms. The babies would just snuggle in and nurse as the mom would just hold him so nice. There were at least 4 different mamas.

So adorable.

I was talking to Jonathan about the monkeys when I felt a little pat on the back of my leg. I jumped and spun around. Behind me was the monkey who is climbing up my bike in the above picture just patting my leg. I was simultaneously nervous and enchanted. I could see news articles, "Tourist girl attacked by monkey" (you always hear about things like that) but at the same time, I could not be more excited that the little fuzz ball had touched me. I wanted so badly to pick him up, but common sense kept me in check, so I just took a step back as he began to climb my bike and a couple more monkeys came up to probe the bike. One of the mamas with her baby came to look. Actually, the baby started coming, so the mama came to, to keep close to the little.  You can just barely see the baby on the mama in the above picture. After a bit of prompting by Jonathan, we slowly began to walk away before they all got too comfortable with us and the bike. As soon as the bike started moving, this little guy jumped off and the others took a few steps away. We got on our bikes and rode away slowly. This was by far the most exciting thing for me in Kep. I loved those monkeys. They made my day.

Bike Rides of All Kinds

One of my favorite parts about Kep is the bike ride we went on. Although Jonathan bikes in China, I haven't been for a ride since last summer. I didn't realize how much I'd missed being able to ride until we started pedaling down the road. I liked biking in Kep because we got to see many things in a short period of time. I know we would not have gone as far exploring if we'd been on foot. Also, you have a constant breeze when biking, so it didn't feel so hot. We first stopped by the crab market, where Jonathan and Leigh had been by earlier that day.

Side-note: Earlier that day, we had been discussing plans for the day, but Peter was super cranky, so he and I went and took a nap while Jonathan and Leigh rented a scooter to go into town for a couple of things (this is when they had found the crab market). When they got back to the guesthouse, they had some stories to tell- the most important was about their unfortunate incident with the journey. I wasn't there, but from what I remember (ask Jonathan for the story), they were at an area where construction was being done, and there were many cars and lots of muddle puddles. They were trying to go around a car (?) and hit a slick mud patch and while trying to avoid something else, lost control and took a tumble. Jonathan, who was on the back of the scooter, got a couple of scrapes on his ankle and some bruises, but nothing too bad. Leigh, on the other hand, got some pretty sweet bruises (and by sweet I mean huge) along with a fairly deep cut on her knee. Her knee kept bleeding the entire day. It didn't bleed a ton, the cut was about the diameter of a pencil eraser, maybe a bit bigger, but apparently it was deep, and it just slowly soaked through everything we tried to patch it up with. This made us a little worried, so the next day when we got to Phnom Penh, she went to see a doctor. They cleaned it up and gave her some antibiotics. She's fine now, but it was a little worrisome then. She got some good stories with that one.

Back to the bike ride- so, because of Leigh's leg, she road the scooter while Jonathan and I took bikes. We strapped Peter to Jonathan's back, and off we went. We stopped at anything that looked cool.

Jonathan and Peter by a statue of Sdech Korn, a king, at some point.

View with my back towards the statue. Palm trees, and the crab market.

Family Picture time.

At the beginning of our journey, Jonathan taking the lead. 

As Kep is a coastal city, there were lots of little boats like these one. 

Peter loved the ride along the coast, as did we. It reminded me of Highway 1 in California, just driving along the coast, beautiful blue water and lovely weather.

Along the ride, we came across this guy. Just a giant crab, welcoming us to the wonderful city of Kep. Kep is known for it's crab. There were tons of crab fishers that we saw, and we had a taste of it one night for dinner. So, I guess it only makes sense to make a giant one to put in the ocean for everyone to see.

Cool statue. 

Peter was snoozing at this point.

It was nice to enjoy the fresh air, and to just ride. We weren't in a hurry to get anywhere, there weren't any tourist traps, just bikes and a road. It was lovely.