Camping!!!
Aflac and I went camping last friday and saturday night. It was awesome. First we tried to rent a paddleboat but they'd already closed. We'd left our cameras in the truck, and since we'd hiked down to the lake, we simply wandered around and went back to our site. But once we had our cameras, we wandered around taking pictures until it was almost too dark to see the trail. Then we watched the Perseids from a cemetary right in the grounds. Okay, near the cemetary, anyway. There's this cemetary on one half of a big open area and the other half is just... open... with a picnic table there. But we were close enough to the stones to make me slightly nervous. (Why I'm immensely interested in cemetaries during the day and immensely terrified of them at night is beyond me. Perhaps I saw Thriller too many times growing up.)
Anywho, I saw four shooting stars in that one hour we were out there. First time I'd ever seen a shooting star. At the time it was pretty darned exciting, and even now I can recall how cool it was. But in all logical honesty, big whup. A momentary streak of light no more wondrous than the stars in the sky, other than for the fact that the stars are usually there and the streaks aren't. If I didn't know the cause behind the phenomenon, I'd probably be more awestruck. Despite my logical side, however, I do remember intense feelings of magic. This is because I was sharing this first experience with another first experience - deep love. He was laying right next to me in the grass and was excited that I was excited. Some might say it was almost romantic, but you know me and romance (blechhh). Thus I say it was intensely magical and failed euphemisms of course change everything. ;) At any rate, it can't get better than that no matter how much logic invades your brain!
So then we went back to the campsite and decided against building a fire, opting instead for the warmth of the tent. It was pretty chilly outside those two nights. Summer is throwing tantrums now and will soon be hibernating to rekindle its hot disposition, see, so it got down to perhaps the 40's. Even I, in my 0-degree bag, woke up shivering a few times that night. Aflac looked like he'd been in the fridge all night.
Saturday morning dawned sunny and warmer, so we went down to the lake in hopes of renting a paddleboat. They weren't open yet. This time we'd brought the truck with us so we went back and got our cameras. Heh heh. After wandering around a bit, we finally put the cameras away and ended up getting a paddleboat.
My first paddleboat ride. Pretty neat experience!! We donned our lifejackets and away we went, paddling happily together around the island in the middle of the lake. Exploring. Enjoying. And what beautiful weather it was!! Sunny but not hot. Lovely! And on the way back, a couple of damselflies landed on us. One was blue, the other was purple. They hung around for a while before one took off. The other stayed on my leg until Dale had almost finished pulling the boat back onto land. Then it alighted on a nearby paddleboat. I love damselflies. Not only are they perty, but they eat mosquitoes. *evil laughter*
We got hot dogs and ate lunch together on a nearby stone wall as more and more people showed up to swim and enjoy the cool sunny day. Then Aflac says, "Blueberries?" We had discussed going blueberry-picking that afternoon at a nearby blueberry farm. They've got 2000 bushes. And there are a LOT of blueberries, ripe for the plucking. I was good and didn't eat a single one until we were back at the campsite. It was tempting, though. And after picking enough to fill my big ol' bucket, I started filling Aflac's, which was almost full but not quite. He says, "Okay, I think we've got enough." We tried to leave but I kept finding new bunches of big juicy berries to pick. Finally he took one of my hands and my other hand was holding the bucket, so I started to leave with him. I saw another bunch and thought, "Heh, I'll just put the strap around my neck, freeing up my left hand, and then I'll pick from the next bush!" But by the time I did that (we were still walking you see), the next bush was ... gasp ... EMPTY. I whimpered and whined but Aflac (bless him) kept walking. What makes blueberry picking so addictive?!
We stopped at the little camp store and bought a package of hot dogs and buns, which surprisingly wasn't a bad price. We also bought more firewood. See, we skipped the fire the night before, and me with my fires... well, it seemed we'd probably have a verrrrrrry long one this time. So we returned to the campsite with our 13 pounds of blueberries (I kid you not), the hotdogs, buns, and of course, FIREWOOD.
Let me tell YOU something about FIRES. They only burn well if the wood is actually somewhat DRY. I don't know what kind of wood this was, but it was moist enough to resist catching no matter how long we had kindling going. Paper wouldn't do it. Twigs, leaves, fire starter sticks, etc wouldn't do it. It literally took a few hours to get it going properly. But we had enough flame from the smaller pieces to cook our hot dogs, and thus we ate dinner. Afterward we read, listened to our ipods and danced. Okay, he read, I danced. :)
We turned in probably around 11 and slept a bit better than the night before. The next morning we stopped at his work, picked up his car, had breakfast at Denny's, and then I went right to work. And realized that I'd forgotten my badge at home friday afternoon. Doh...
Anywho, several days and thousands of blueberries later, here I am. Don't EVEN mention the word "blueberry" to me EVER EVER AGAIN. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten creative with the darned things, and it was fun to make blueberry-banana-peach-apple juice smoothies. It was a hoot to make blueberry-banana-yogurt-wheat germ smoothies. And the blueberry-pineapple-milk-banana-coconut milk smoothies were sensationally out of this world. But we still have a good two pints left and we've been GIVING THEM AWAY ALL WEEK...
Not to mention this headache that crops up after I consume blueberries in excess. We're supposed to go picking again this weekend, but I'm starting to wonder if we really /need/ to do this. On the other hand, if I don't retch at the sight of them, we could freeze them this time. But I don't think there's room in the freezer for another 13 pounds...
~nv
~blueberries are eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil~
Anywho, I saw four shooting stars in that one hour we were out there. First time I'd ever seen a shooting star. At the time it was pretty darned exciting, and even now I can recall how cool it was. But in all logical honesty, big whup. A momentary streak of light no more wondrous than the stars in the sky, other than for the fact that the stars are usually there and the streaks aren't. If I didn't know the cause behind the phenomenon, I'd probably be more awestruck. Despite my logical side, however, I do remember intense feelings of magic. This is because I was sharing this first experience with another first experience - deep love. He was laying right next to me in the grass and was excited that I was excited. Some might say it was almost romantic, but you know me and romance (blechhh). Thus I say it was intensely magical and failed euphemisms of course change everything. ;) At any rate, it can't get better than that no matter how much logic invades your brain!
So then we went back to the campsite and decided against building a fire, opting instead for the warmth of the tent. It was pretty chilly outside those two nights. Summer is throwing tantrums now and will soon be hibernating to rekindle its hot disposition, see, so it got down to perhaps the 40's. Even I, in my 0-degree bag, woke up shivering a few times that night. Aflac looked like he'd been in the fridge all night.
Saturday morning dawned sunny and warmer, so we went down to the lake in hopes of renting a paddleboat. They weren't open yet. This time we'd brought the truck with us so we went back and got our cameras. Heh heh. After wandering around a bit, we finally put the cameras away and ended up getting a paddleboat.
My first paddleboat ride. Pretty neat experience!! We donned our lifejackets and away we went, paddling happily together around the island in the middle of the lake. Exploring. Enjoying. And what beautiful weather it was!! Sunny but not hot. Lovely! And on the way back, a couple of damselflies landed on us. One was blue, the other was purple. They hung around for a while before one took off. The other stayed on my leg until Dale had almost finished pulling the boat back onto land. Then it alighted on a nearby paddleboat. I love damselflies. Not only are they perty, but they eat mosquitoes. *evil laughter*
We got hot dogs and ate lunch together on a nearby stone wall as more and more people showed up to swim and enjoy the cool sunny day. Then Aflac says, "Blueberries?" We had discussed going blueberry-picking that afternoon at a nearby blueberry farm. They've got 2000 bushes. And there are a LOT of blueberries, ripe for the plucking. I was good and didn't eat a single one until we were back at the campsite. It was tempting, though. And after picking enough to fill my big ol' bucket, I started filling Aflac's, which was almost full but not quite. He says, "Okay, I think we've got enough." We tried to leave but I kept finding new bunches of big juicy berries to pick. Finally he took one of my hands and my other hand was holding the bucket, so I started to leave with him. I saw another bunch and thought, "Heh, I'll just put the strap around my neck, freeing up my left hand, and then I'll pick from the next bush!" But by the time I did that (we were still walking you see), the next bush was ... gasp ... EMPTY. I whimpered and whined but Aflac (bless him) kept walking. What makes blueberry picking so addictive?!
We stopped at the little camp store and bought a package of hot dogs and buns, which surprisingly wasn't a bad price. We also bought more firewood. See, we skipped the fire the night before, and me with my fires... well, it seemed we'd probably have a verrrrrrry long one this time. So we returned to the campsite with our 13 pounds of blueberries (I kid you not), the hotdogs, buns, and of course, FIREWOOD.
Let me tell YOU something about FIRES. They only burn well if the wood is actually somewhat DRY. I don't know what kind of wood this was, but it was moist enough to resist catching no matter how long we had kindling going. Paper wouldn't do it. Twigs, leaves, fire starter sticks, etc wouldn't do it. It literally took a few hours to get it going properly. But we had enough flame from the smaller pieces to cook our hot dogs, and thus we ate dinner. Afterward we read, listened to our ipods and danced. Okay, he read, I danced. :)
We turned in probably around 11 and slept a bit better than the night before. The next morning we stopped at his work, picked up his car, had breakfast at Denny's, and then I went right to work. And realized that I'd forgotten my badge at home friday afternoon. Doh...
Anywho, several days and thousands of blueberries later, here I am. Don't EVEN mention the word "blueberry" to me EVER EVER AGAIN. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten creative with the darned things, and it was fun to make blueberry-banana-peach-apple juice smoothies. It was a hoot to make blueberry-banana-yogurt-wheat germ smoothies. And the blueberry-pineapple-milk-banana-coconut milk smoothies were sensationally out of this world. But we still have a good two pints left and we've been GIVING THEM AWAY ALL WEEK...
Not to mention this headache that crops up after I consume blueberries in excess. We're supposed to go picking again this weekend, but I'm starting to wonder if we really /need/ to do this. On the other hand, if I don't retch at the sight of them, we could freeze them this time. But I don't think there's room in the freezer for another 13 pounds...
~nv
~blueberries are eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil~
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