What a four-hour drive gets you!
Our wee family took a vacation last week. Yes, I know we just took a vacation last month, but that's how we roll, suckas!
We spent five days together in a beautiful cabin next to a pristine lake (the cabin is actually located in a National Forest). A friend of mine owns the cabin and lets us use it every year. It's a four-hour drive (involving lots of dirt/gravel roads) to get there, so we don't go unless we have at least a few days to spend.
There is something to be said for a vacation with no internet access. Hell, I can barely get a cellular signal at the cabin. I have to sit out on the deck and face North, and then maybe I get two bars. I did a lot of reading. I read The Memory Keeper's Daughter and also finished When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris. I also completed a good chunk of Dog is My Co-Pilot. It is pretty rare for me to find the time to do that much reading. When I wasn't reading, I was eating and/or drinking. And plenty. Oh Weight Watchers, how I have forsaken thee!
On our first day there, I thought I would take a quiet walk with the dogs. The boys and I headed up a dirt road that actually has a fair amount of grass poking through. The kid saw us leaving and insisted on coming along. Now, before she was born, I took a lot of quiet walks up there with my dogs each summer. We'd walk those peaceful, scarcely-used roads and check out the scenery. Now, with she-who-must-narrate-every-nuance-of-daily-life along . . . not so quiet.
My senior dog, Karl, was still wrung out from the long car ride, and started chewing grass to calm his old-man stomach.
"Hey, Karl is eating grass! Now he's puking! Why is he puking? I puked one time, but I puked in a bowl. I didn't puke outside. Why is there grass in the road? The grass tickles your tires when you drive on it. There are a lot of bugs here. Hey, Karlie is puking again! I puked last time, but I puked in a bowl."
We went "into town" once and to a state park on another day, but other than that, we generally hung out either in the cabin or by the lake. We played Hi Ho Cherry-O (a lot) and we watched the one channel that the cabin's television agrees to broadcast - PBS. I've never had the heart to ask my friend, the cabin owner, what's up with the TV (since we're supposed to be communing with nature and whatnot while we are up there). It is a mystery, though. I mean, you get PBS clear as a bell and that's it. Sometimes you get CBS up until 11 a.m. or so and then it bids you adieu. There is a DVD player in the cabin so we watched "Toy Story" ad nauseum.
I have some other random thoughts about the trip and I may bore them with you later. I just thought I'd better get a blog entry out there before I lose my massive readership!
It was nice to have days where my biggest concern was whether or not the hummingbird feeder was empty. But now, I must pay the piper and work . . . (well, technically, I am paid by a corporation and not a piper, but you know what I mean).
Karl on the boat - we couldn't tell if he liked it or not. Guessing not.
Gideon, checking out the lake. 
Comments
I know exactly what you mean about your quiet walk, but, in what will be almost no time, you'll yearn for another walk along that road with, "she-who-must-narrate-every-nuance-of-daily-life along . . ." My daughter went from that, to a 14 year old in what seems like the blink of an eye. I'd give anything to relive those days again. It is so good that you've taken the time to blog about your experiences. As she gets older you'll be able to re-live these special times and cherish her even more.