Okay, so it's officially been summer since June 21st, but this weekend really hit things off for me. This month is THE month of summer. There's Independence Day festivities, our town holds its Lumberjack Festival, the weather is hot and several flowers are blooming. Kids don't have to worry about school and seemingly everyone takes a vacation around this time.
What I like most about summer is the opportunities to be outside. It's warm out, and I enjoy wearing dresses, shorts and skirts. I like taking pictures of flowers and leaves and things as well as just going outside for walks or trips to the state park. Like I said, last weekend was really great for me, and want to know why? It's because I spent most of it outside.
My grandparents own a little piece of land out in the middle of the woods, a couple miles out of town. It takes quite a while to get there, mostly because the road you travel in on is completely dirt and rocks and you have to drive about 10 mph in order to keep from bouncing up and down too much. Anyway, they built a simple cabin out there and invited my sister and I to sleep over the night before our Independence Day family get together.
That first day was kind of cool- around 70 degrees- and after helping unpack the vehicles, my sis and I went around to the stone wall to search for salamanders. Just like that, we caught a black one with white spots that was covered in a slime that resembled Elmer's Glue. The slime made it kind of hard to catch him/her and it took some good scrubbing to get it off our fingers, but it was worth the pictures we got. We returned him/her to the stone wall and moved on into the woods to look under logs and more rocks. There we found mostly slugs, one Red-Backed Salamander and a toad.
For the rest of the day, we walked around, got our bunks ready for bed and did crossword puzzles. After a delicious steak and potato dinner courtesy of Grandpa, we scratched off a couple lotto tickets and then went to bed.
The next day we woke up, and had breakfast. Seeing as there no electricity up there, it's understandable that there was no toaster; I instead toasted my cinnamon raisin bagel over the fire, and it was simply fabulous. I then went inside with the others to get ready to welcome the rest of the family. When everyone was there we started one of the best annual meals in the world. First out were the shrimp and drunken shrimp, then was oysters rockefeller, then chicken, clams, macaroni salad, crescent rolls, and fruit salad. It was all delicious, and by dinnertime I only had room for a grilled hotdog (actually, I didn't, but I made room because it looked so good). A couple walks in the woods followed and we just visited until it was dark- and time to go home.
And that's just one of the reasons I love summer so much. All the fresh air and good spirits. I felt so fresh after coming home, despite missing a shower that morning. Afterwards, we just couldn't help but go back outside to look at the stars. It was one of those super-clear nights when you can almost make out every one of the billions of stars in the milky way- they're not just a cloudy swath in the sky- and we even saw a few shooting stars!
Oh it was truly the best weekend I've had in awhile! I can't wait to see what the rest of this season brings!
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