there is no 'and then'

The weekend wrap up is called for, I guess. Friday night I set up a campfire, had tiki-torches lit and was ready for a party with my work-weary husband. He got home at 7pm, after I grilled swordfish to perfection, and he promptly fell asleep. No lie. 7pm in the door, 7:05 snoring.

So there was this pitcher of gin & tonic that I'd made.

By about 9pm it was gone, and so was I. Wheeeee! Even though it is one of my cardinal rules that you never EVER do this --- I drunk phone called my sister (she didn't know I was drunk) and Amy.

Yes, I'm pathetic.

I had the camp fire until well after midnight, and then came in to get ready for bed, but got sucked into "I love the 90s" and watched until 2am.

Saturday morning dawned too soon. I slept until about 9 and then we got up and ready to go geocaching.

Needless to say, I didn't feel well in the first place, but my Atkins based lunch of sausage and cheese and a salad was sitting in my stomach like an exploding penguin on a telly. I thought I might be sick. The first cache we did was incredibly easy. The second one entailed hiking up a huge hill that just wouldn't end. We'd come to a flat part, a fork in the trail, and head further up. Bleaurgh.

While at the top of the hill searching for the cache, another cacher came to the site and we got to chatting with him. When we introduced ourselves by username he cracked up "I see your logs all over! You're famous!" He accompanied us to the next one that we did, and it was fun to spend time with someone on the trail other than us... we talked about favorite caches, places we'll never forget, Kinger jumping off a cliff in Londonderry. The usual.

We went to a fourth site, but it was a multi-staged cache, and the clues at each set of coordinates are smaller than your thumbnail, no lie. We found the first clue, but not the second... so we gave up.

I slept like the dead that night.

Sunday dawned and looked beautiful, so what did we do? We went geocaching again. We hit our first one and while we were hiking to the site another hiker approached us, with GPS in hand. We introduced ourselves, and he was thrilled to meet us "Oh! Team Screamapillar! I see your name all over the place!" Second time in two days and we meet someone very familiar with us.

We hiked with him, found the cache, and hiked back to our vehicles. He really liked our dogs, and we found parts of a woodsy haunted hayride thing on the trails, including a fake electric chair, which I can't wait to download the pictures for. Heh. It was good for a laugh.

We headed up into Nashua where we did a cache in a little park off Spit Brook Road, and then into Dunstable to an old railway bridge on the state line.

There are two caches in that area, one was easy as pie, and the second provided quite a challenge. We missed the turn that we wanted, ended up at a quarry about .10 from the cache site. Kinger couldn't jump up the rocks in order to climb up and around the quarry, so Jessie volunteered to stay with the dogs (anything to get out of bushwhacking!)

Doug, Geoff and I set off, and climbed up the quarry counter clockwise. It was a really pretty area, and I was jonesing for a swim, but didn't want to fall in. Jack jumped in the quarry and swam across it, scrambling up the rocks to join us. Scared me shitless. He couldn't deal with being apart from us, so he came with us to the site. I'm just glad he didn't wipe out and plummet to his death!

Getting to the cache was a bitch and a half. We basically had to hard-core bushwhack for over 500 feet to get to the actual site. It was hot and sticky, the sun was brutal... gah. The cache was pimpy and lame, but hell. We did it.

Everyone got ice cream when we got home.

I so wish we had a pool to jump into when we get home from days like yesterday. What a refreshing treat that would be.

Anyway. Slept like the dead last night too.

This morning dawned too early, I did two hours worth of Dart People work, including writing up the "this is your final product" document and an agreement for further work to be based on a per-hour charge with limits as to what my involvement will be. I sent the second draft of the Salem in History page over to the director, haven't heard back from her yet. I then took Geoff over to the pond for a couple of hours, where he swam like a fish with the fish, and I got a little sunburn on the flatland of my chest. But it'll be okay.

I remembered while I was sitting there that this week my boss from 2 jobs ago (at CMGI) is renting a cottage on the ocean in Seabrook NH. I could have taken Geoff there to swim today. Gah. Hopefully the weather will clear up enough this week to make for a good visit day. I have been invited for the past three summers to join her there, but never have had the chance to go. Nex week isn't going to work because a week from today I'm teaching at the college with professor CM, and the kids have to be in camp.

Suddenly realizing that it is a week away freaked me out. I stopped by the camp and paid the deposit and dropped off their medical records. They have to be there for a swimming test next Sunday. Jessica wants to do sleep over camp, so I just have to figure out where the rest of the money is coming from (hopefully my tenant will pay the rent totally on time!) and what time the class I'm teaching gets out, so I can jet up here to grab him. I'm hoping Doug will do the dropping off bit without being too pissy about it, so I can get down there early for set up.

And then my parents come up for a few days.

And we go to a wedding, and then the kids go to NY for a week.

And then?

And then?

"There is no AND THEN!"

Well, that's about it for me. I've got some cleaning to do. I need to get an oil change in the truck, want to load the back of the truck up with the returnable bottles and cans, and get some serious crap done around the yard. More later peeps. Enjoy the rest of your day.