I’m not going to say that tonight’s adventure was the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life…

…but it’s on the list.

It’s 11:20 PM as I start writing this, and I may not be able to finish this post tonight. I have to start it, though, because I HAVE to tell you about this experience I just had.

Tonight – AFTER all the space stuff that I also need to tell you about – I went on a kayaking tour. I was pretty excited going into it because I like kayaking. My friend Leslie had never been in a kayak or a canoe before, and I admit I felt a little proud that I have a lot of experience in this area. Welcome to my house, space friend!

Our whole group was from the NEH program, so it was fun being with a bunch of other teachers for this experience. It was a 7-10 PM three-hour tour. Three hours have never gone by so fast.

Disclaimer: none of the pictures you’ll see here were taken by me. Our guides warned us that everything in our kayak would get wet, and the clear-bottomed kayaks are prone to sinking. I didn’t want to risk losing my phone. So if you’re the type to say “pics or it didn’t happen!” then none of this happened. If you’re the type to believe I’m probably not lying about this, then read on.

Leslie and I put our tandem clear-bottomed kayak into the water, and Leslie barely knew how to work the paddle before we saw MANATEES swimming in the water near us. MANATEES, y’all. Just hanging out near the mangroves. They were popping out of the water to breathe, and there were several swimming all around us. I was about dead of shock and awe. Then – okay, this gets a little weird, but stick with me – two were MATING. AHHHH!!! *insert inappropriate joke here*

How many people have seen manatees mating in the wild?! Well, I have. And I’ve barely gotten you through the first fifteen minutes of the tour. What cute little hippo dudes.

We stayed near the manatees to watch them doing manatee things for a little while, then we headed out to the open part of the lagoon. Out there, we saw dolphins swimming. I could also see the sandy bottom of the lagoon through the bottom of my kayak – it was awesome. We paddled around for a while before heading to a small island in the middle of the water. We pulled up our kayaks and started wading in the shallows to look for wildlife.

WELL. We found a lot of wildlife. I got to hold a horseshoe crab AND a spider crab. I also could have stepped on a stingray (but, for obvious reasons, chose not to). It was that close to me, though! Just floating along and being adorable. Here are the types of crabs I held:

At one point I motioned to a fin in the water. “Look, guys! Another dolphin!” Well, this fin didn’t bob up and down playfully like a dolphin fin. It stayed up.

It was a SHARK. I accidentally found a shark! Aaaaeeeeeee!!!! Run for cover!

Not really. It was pretty far off, and it seemed like a fairly friendly fin. We stayed in the shallows and kept looking at cool stuff.

After the sun set, it got dark pretty quickly. That’s when the real fun began (yeah, I’m with you. I thought the exciting part had already happened too).

Did you know Florida is one of the few places in the world with bioluminescent plankton? When we kayaked after dark, every time our paddle touched the water it splashed ELECTRIC blue. It literally lit up. If you put your hand in and swished it around, it looked like blue pixie dust was shooting out of your fingers.

At one point while we were still by the island, Leslie said she wanted to go swimming and make a snow angel of electric blue.

“Do it!” I said, thinking it would look awesome but not really wanting to go swimming myself.

“I don’t know…” Leslie looked at the water doubtfully.

“I DARE you,” I said, knowing that Leslie is a middle school teacher and would understand the severity of this challenge. She immediately began unbuckling her life vest. This, in my opinion, proves that she understands middle school culture well.

So Leslie made bioluminescent angels in a Florida lagoon while I splashed around and looked like I had magical powers. I’m telling you, this was completely unreal. I called Rex afterward and said, “I don’t know if you know this, but this experience is now on your bucket list. I added it. You HAVE to do this.”

You should add it to your bucket list too. I’m serious. It was completely breathtaking. Here’s a short YouTube clip (not my video), but it’s very accurate to what we saw. This footage was taken in the same place where I was tonight:

The video doesn’t even do it justice, if I’m being honest. It was SO AMAZING!

While we were still playing in the magic, lightning started forking across the night sky. The storm was headed toward us fast, so we had to ditch the island and head to shore. Now, I know kayaking in a lightning storm isn’t the smartest idea, but since you have the spoiler alert that we all made it back okay, can you appreciate how AWESOME it was to have electricity buzzing above our heads in a lightning storm AND the electric blue below us in the water?! I have no adjectives for you. The English language is failing me. Please do yourself a favor and come do this.

Okay, now it’s almost 12:30, and I haven’t even begun to tell you about visiting the Space Force base today or watching the reveal of the James Webb telescope photos or all of the other cool space things I did! Ack! I’ll have to wrap that into tomorrow, because if I don’t get to sleep soon, I’ll be the kid who falls asleep in class. No one likes that kid.

See you tomorrow! Stop reading this blog and go book your trip to the Space Coast!

Before I got to the Kennedy Space Center, I thought I was looking pretty cute in my first-day-of-space-school selfie:

Unfortunately, my outfit was not quite up to par. One teacher showed up wearing a dress with a rocket pattern on it. Another showed up wearing a shirt with lunar rovers all over it. My friend Leslie picked me up (in her red Mustang, if you recall), and she was wearing sunglasses with stars on them and cool space shoes. When I complimented her shoes, she said, “Oh, thanks. Those are infrared patterns from the last eclipse.”

Right. The eclipse. She has eclipse shoes. Mine were nude flats. Let’s not compare coolness levels, okay?

So I am spending the week with some total space nerds enthusiasts, and I can’t even pretend to know anything close to what they do about space. For example, I wouldn’t tell this to THEM, but I can tell you because you’re a trusted blog follower: I didn’t know the USA is planning to send another manned mission to the moon.

Did you know that? Can someone please comment and say, “I didn’t know that either” so I don’t feel so completely UNINFORMED?! Everyone today was all jazzed about the Artemis Project. Artemis this and Artemis that. I guess Artemis is the twin sister to Apollo in Greek mythology, and that’s the perfect name for the companion to the Apollo missions because this project will be the first to put a woman on the moon. Neato, huh?? YOU KNEW THAT ALREADY, DIDN’T YOU? How did I not know this? *sobs a little* Oh well. I know now. This is one of those learning adventures. I’m learning.

Leslie’s cool. She knows tons about space, and I think she’s quickly caught on that I’m not quite as much of a space nerd enthusiast as she is. She’s really patient, though, and explains things well. She is a teacher, after all. At one point, one of the speakers showed us a website where you can look at a map and see where the International Space Station is at any time. Leslie pulled out her phone and said, “You can actually have the ISS text you when it’s over your house so you can look up and see it. I’ve had this app since 2016.”

I told you she’s into space. She even took this picture of my face when I first saw the Saturn V rocket, because she said someone did that for her and she wanted to make sure I had it. She’d already seen the rocket before, OBVIOUSLY. I couldn’t get a good picture of it for the blog, really it was too massive, but here’s my lame attempt:

The other teachers here are pretty nice (not the thirty-six meanest people in America as I’d feared). Here’s your weirdest small-world plot twist for the day: my high school computer science teacher is here! Out of teachers from all over the country, two are from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and one was my teacher?! How weird!! For those of you who knew Mr. Houtrouw back in the day, he hasn’t changed one bit. Like…not at all. Here’s proof: I snapped a picture of him explaining the binary system to another teacher today:

We had some great speakers during our lecture sessions. I don’t want to put their real names on here because I don’t want them to Google themselves one day and stumble upon this blog. Let’s call them Dr. History and Dr. Space.

Dr. History has her doctorate in the history of technological advancement, specifically focused on the space program, and she obviously loves it. She reminded me a little bit of Rex when someone asks him about grouse hunting. Her whole face lit up, and her lecture was really engaging. I learned lots about the Space Age. She talked like someone in love with her topic. Like, if she could marry the space program, I think she would. I’m serious. She loves it that much. When someone is that interested in their topic, it makes you want to pay attention even if the topic is boring (which doesn’t really apply here, because her topic wasn’t boring. But still).

Dr. Space, on the other hand… Well… I don’t want to say anything mean about his presentation. I’ll just say this: Leslie passed me a note partway through his presentation that said, “I’m falling asleep.” Then, a few minutes later, she whispered, “He still has almost an hour to talk. I THINK I’M GOING TO DIE.”

It wasn’t THAT bad, really. Here is the problem with Dr. Space: he is too smart. He is an astronaut (like, a real life went-to-space astronaut!!), and he wanted to talk about the science he did while in and around his flight to space. This is HIGHLY COOL STUFF, really it is. But how many slides like this can you look at without your mind wandering off?

I found myself wishing he would talk about things like how to use the bathroom in space or whether or not they really eat that gross dehydrated ice cream. Because apparently I have the maturity of a ten year old or something. When it came time to ask questions at the end of his lecture, I told myself, “DO NOT ASK HOW THEY USE THE BATHROOM IN SPACE! DON’T DO IT! GLUE YOUR HANDS TO YOUR CHAIR, CHRISTINE!” And I didn’t ask. So on the one hand, be proud of me. On the other hand, now you’re wondering about this too, aren’t you?

We got to tour a lot of stuff today, and I can’t post all the pictures I took. Here are a few, though:

I got to touch this moon rock! And okay, yes, it seemed very germy and unsanitary because lots of people were touching it, but it was like kissing the Blarney Stone in Ireland. How do you pass up the opportunity, no matter how gross?? I immediately went to the bathroom and washed my hands three times afterwards, but I touched a moon rock! Cool!

Here’s the Apollo 14 capsule:

Here are a bunch of rockets. It’s hard to convey to you how tall these are. I took a picture to try:

Here’s the countdown clock they used for all the launches:

Here’s a shirt at the NASA gift shop:

Allow me to zoom in for you:

SPACE PUG!!!!! I feel like this shirt is really weird, but I kind of want it. Because SPACE PUG!!!

I took so many more pictures of space things, but I don’t have time to post about them now.

For dinner, the people staying near me went out together. We went to Rusty’s Seafood, and the view was gorgeous. Here are my people: Leslie (Tennessee), Bryan (New Mexico), Cory (Texas), and Jon (Pennsylvania). Rex would have been so proud of me – at one point, I asked Jon, “Pennsylvania…isn’t your state bird the ruffed grouse?” Ha! I’m ashamed that I get a solid week to go without talking about grouse, and I still had to bring it up. But when you’re conversing with total strangers, you pick odd topics. State birds were safer than “What was your favorite Apollo mission?” (another topic!!) because at least I know my state bird (and Jon’s, as it turns out). I don’t have a favorite Apollo mission (because…erm…I know so much about all of them, and it’s so hard to narrow down a BEST one. Right??). It was a great time, the food was delicious, and there was even live music. What a fun night!

Now I’m blogging before heading off to bed and dreaming starry dreams. We are scheduled for lots more space adventures tomorrow. Before I go, take a look at our cool bus – star seats and moon floor! Can’t wait to tell you more. 🙂

Rex dropped me off at the Grand Rapids airport this morning, and my stomach was a bit unsettled. It might have been nerves, and it might have been the Burger King breakfast. In reality, it was probably a bit of both. I always get a bit nervous before a big trip, especially when I’m traveling alone. Especially ESPECIALLY when I’m traveling alone to meet a bunch of strangers. Rex asked me what part of the Space Camp trip I am most excited about, and I said it’s the same part that makes me the most nervous: making new friends. Teacher travel grants have always been a blast, and I’ve met some great people, but what if this is the one travel grant where everyone hates me and is super mean?

I mean, out of thirty-six other teachers, I’ll probably make at least ONE friend. But still. They could have picked the thirty-six meanest people in America. I have no control over this.

The airport check in was fairly uneventful, except for the part when I had to run after Rex waving a pair of my black high heels. My suitcase was overweight, you see. (What’s up with a forty-pound weight limit??) I was close enough that taking out one pair of shoes made the difference, so I hustled outside where Rex was still parked so I could ditch the shoes. It’s not like I really NEEDED black high heels, but now I’ll be slightly less fashionable on Gala Night. Alas. Wait until you see pictures. You’ll think, “Wow, she looks nice…but she’d look a little nicer with black heels. What a shame.” And you’ll shake your head sadly.

Blame Frontier Airlines, not me.

Anyway, I don’t have much to say about the flight (which is great, am I right?? Who wants an eventful flight?!). I told Rex on the phone afterwards that the lady next to me was carrying a cute stuffed corgi with her, and he freaked out. “A stuffed corgi?! Why??” I wasn’t sure what about this was SO weird, but then it clicked. “Rex,” I answered. “It was a stuffed animal. Like for kids. Not a taxidermized dog.”

“Ohhhhhhh.”

*hard eyeroll* Who would bring a taxidermized dog on the plane?? Now THAT would be a whole blog post in an of itself, I would think.

I had over an hour to wait for my shuttle, so I explored the airport a little bit. I got some Panda Express (yum), and I found a candy shop that had some of my favorite difficult-to-find candies like sour coke bottles and candy eggs. I was very excited about this UNTIL…

I bit into one of the candy eggs, and it tasted like butter. Ewwwww. It tasted like I was munching on a pat of pure butter. WHY DID I PAY HYPERINFLATED AIRPORT PRICES FOR A BUTTERY CANDY EGG??? #poorlifechoices. It doesn’t even look that tasty, if you really look at it.

Luckily, the dark chocolate sea salt caramel was delicious, so I nibbled on that as I waited for my shuttle. No picture of that one because it is all already eaten!

I am very happy with my hotel. Look at the view out my window! I overlook the gardens.

And here’s a pic of part of the pool and one of the walkways:

When I got to the hotel, I had to decide how to spend the evening. The Space Camp teachers are on a Facebook group, and Bryan suggested that the people already in town meet up at a brewery tonight. I thought that sounded kind of fun…but no one commented on his post. He did say a place and time, so I could have showed up anyway, but what if it was just Bryan and me? I couldn’t even see if he looked creepery since his profile pic is a cat (which, depending on your opinion of cats, makes him very creepery or completely trustworthy).

I also saw that there was a Presbyterian church in walking distance of my hotel, so I could hit up the evening service since I missed church this morning due to being airborne. When it came right down to it, the blind date with Catman at the brewery had too many variables. And, well, it’s Sunday. Church felt like the right option here.

I’m glad I changed into a dress before heading to church, because this church was very old school. The guys were in suits and ties, the women in skirts, the whole nine yards. There were only about fifteen people in the whole service, so I stood out like a flamingo in a group of pigeons. Like, “HI! I’M CLEARLY NEW HERE. CAN I SIT IN YOUR PEWS EVEN THOUGH I’M A LITTLE SWEATY FROM WALKING IN 95 DEGREE HEAT?!” Everyone was super nice to me, and lots of people (well, a lot for a congregation of fifteen) introduced themselves.

After a great sermon on Daniel 7, I started walking home. I stopped for dinner at Kelsey’s, a fish-themed pizza place (yes, I was confused too). The hostess asked if I wanted my food for takeout or dine in, and on a whim I said “Dine in.” I don’t think I’ve ever gone out to a sit-down dinner with just myself before. I thought it would be a fun new experience, like it would be all transformational and I’d really get to know myself better and discover all the things about my inner psyche because I took the time to “date myself,” a phrase which I’ve never really understood.

In reality, I spent a lot of time looking at the empty seat across the booth and wondering if this would be a good time to resurrect the imaginary friend I haven’t talked to since I was about three years old. I should have done that. “I’ll have the main course, and Lucy here will have the side salad.”

In other news, look at the cool lamps that looked like they were being dangled from fishing poles!

Anyway, I don’t feel enlightened, but I do feel full. That’s worth something. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have new friends to eat with me, but if not then I guess there’s always Lucy. *shrug*

I’m doing a rideshare tomorrow with Leslie, one of the other teachers in the program. She told me that she’ll be here to pick me up bright and early. I’ll know it’s her because she’ll be driving a red Mustang.

A red Mustang?! Looks like I picked the right rideshare. I already like Leslie. NOT because of her car (that would be shallow), but because of her generous spirit in giving me a ride to the Space Center. She’s clearly a giving soul.

A giving soul who drives a cool car. That doesn’t hurt.

More tomorrow – wish me luck at SPACE CAMP!!!

What kind of irresponsible lout loses their passport? I mean, come on – it’s your PASSPORT. You should know where it is at all times.

Additionally, what kind of frightful procrastinator wouldn’t even notice their passport is missing until the week when they’re supposed to leave on a trip? It’s arguably the most important travel document, and they have the audacity to assume they know where it is until the last minute, when it turns out they actually have no idea?

I mean, who would do that?

WHO?!

*sheepishly raises my hand*

Yesterday was not my finest day. I spent four hours turning my house inside out looking for my passport. It should have been in our safe. I mean, where else would you keep a passport?! Rex’s was there, in our red box in the safe, exactly where it should have been. Very nice. Now Rex can leave the country while I stay home, take care of the dogs, and wallow in my sense of irresponsibility.

“Where else would I have put it?!” I exclaimed, feeling panicked. “We always keep our passports in the safe!”

“I know,” said Rex. “Which is why I remember it was so weird that you didn’t want to keep it in the safe last time you took it out.”

I wrung my hands. “Where did I put it instead?”

Rex looked around, like it would float by in the air or something. “I have no idea.”

“Why didn’t I want to keep it in the safe? That makes no sense!”

“I know! Women make no sense! I stopped questioning this years ago!” (Hahaha – he didn’t actually say that, but I think I saw it in a thought bubble over his head).

To Rex’s credit, he was very concerned about the missing passport even though this was totally my fault. He helped me look, and we both tried to brainstorm why on earth I had taken it out (we haven’t been out of the country since before COVID). WHY WOULD I TAKE MY PASSPORT OUT OF THE SAFE? AM I INSANE?

Well, yes, a little, but that doesn’t really apply here.

Here’s a list of important things I found, none of which were my passport:

• Marriage license
• Birth Certificate
• That one turquoise hat I’ve been missing

Like, why weren’t THOSE items in the safe? (okay, maybe not the hat). To be fair, the papers were in our desk in a section labeled “important papers.” Though now, the important papers are a little disorganized. I was pretty frantic looking for my passport. A cruise to the Bahamas was on the line – you’d be frantic too.

Looks like I’ve got some reorganizing to do. My usually clean office now looks like this:

AND – spoiler alert – the passport wasn’t even in there. I had this one moment of relief when I THOUGHT I found my passport, but actually I found my expired one (appropriately filed in “important papers”). That’s just mean. I was mad at myself for keeping the expired passport, since it tricked me into thinking I’d found the right one.

Rex and I did our best to stay calm and talk it out. When would I have needed my passport without him? I finally tried thinking of this another way – when was a time in my life when I would have made really dumb decisions like NOT PUTTING MY PASSPORT IN THE SAFE?

That turned out to be the key – the time in my life when I had zero brainpower was right after Charles died. I kept thinking about that time period and when I would have needed my passport. Then I remembered: I took the passport to Key West with me when I went there for spring break just over a month after his death. I thought I might need it because….okay actually I have no idea why I thought I would need it. But I thought maybe I’d taken it. I had already looked in the luggage I took to Key West, but I decided to check again JUST in case. There it was in a hidden pocket. It all came back to me, then: I’d put the passport in a secret pocket because no one would be able to find it.

Ha. Right. Joke’s on me.

When I came home from the trip, I guess I forgot to take it out of the secret pocket and put it back in the safe. I’ve used that bag multiple times since that trip with no idea that I was toting around my passport. *facepalm.*

Anyway, my house is a mess, but I found my treasure! Bahamas, here I come!

Well, not quite yet.

Before I go to the Bahamas, I’m going to SPACE CAMP! That’s what I’m calling it, anyway. It’s not really Space Camp, but saying I’m going to “an NEH seminar to study the Space Age on the Space Coast” doesn’t sound quite as catchy. So I say…SPACE CAMP!

Through the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), I received a grant to go to Cape Canaveral in Florida to study space for the week. It should be pretty fun…we get to talk to some astronauts, learn about the space program, and maybe even watch a launch! The protagonist of my second novel would be drooling over this opportunity, and I think she may be part of the reason I got the grant. I put in my application that I wrote a young adult novel about space (coming soon from Peachtree Teen!!), and in my revisions I’d like to make sure that the book is as accurate as possible. No matter the reason why I got it, I’m really thankful for the opportunity. Plus, “Christine Goes to Space Camp” should have some interesting blog posts, right?? I miss blogging.

I’m not sure how I made this connection, but somewhere along the line I realized that Cape Canaveral was right next to Port Canaveral, where lots of cruises leave and arrive. Since NEH was paying for me to fly to Port Canaveral, I thought why not stay a few days longer and hop on a cruise? I’ve never been on a cruise before. It’s *technically* crossed off on my bucket list (yes, I have a literal list) because I lived on that research ship in the summer of 2017, but that seems vastly different than a real cruise for a number of reasons. Here are some:

1. I don’t think I will dissect fish brains on this cruise.
2. There was no “Gala Night” on my research ship.
3. I won’t have to wake up at 4 AM to study zooplankton.
4. There will be more than 32 people on the ship this time.

Therefore I think I should uncross it off of my bucket list and re-cross it off after this trip. This seems much more cruise-y. Probably because it’s ACTUALLY a cruise. My mom is flying down to go with me, and Rex keeps calling it the “Bahama Mama” cruise because I’m going to the Bahamas with my mom.

I leave Sunday, so stay tuned for more posts next week. Space Camp is first, and then my first-ever (real) cruise. Now that I have my passport in hand, who knows what kind of adventures I’ll find?

To my fans (you small but loyal group!),

I wrote this post on my way back to Michigan from Miami, but I never posted it. Then I got multiple complaints that I never finished out my blog posts from Florida. I admit, I felt very touched. Like, hey! Someone actually READS this blog and NOTICES if the posts don’t go up! So I’m going to post it after all, just so you can see some more of Rex’s amazing pics and pretend you’re in Florida with us. Enjoy! Thanks for being loyal readers. Speaking of loyal readers…for those of you who don’t know, I have a book coming out in October! YAY! So there will be even more Christine fun to read (though the book’s not about me…mostly). Thanks for encouraging my writing. I appreciate you!

Now. On to the post!

I’m sitting at Gate 51 at the Miami airport, waiting for our flight to take us back to Michigan. Why can’t THIS flight get cancelled, hm? If they said they can’t get me home for a couple days, I wouldn’t even fight it this time. “Oh well, travel. You know how it is. Sorry boss, I can’t make it back.” Alas.

The last couple days have been so relaxing – absolutely worth the hassle it took to get here. We’ve done so much chilling and walking the beach (20k+ steps per day) that I don’t even feel like I have a ton to tell you. We didn’t go on a grand adventure. We didn’t get stranded somewhere and have to befriend the locals. We didn’t find ourselves in any pickles. We simply relaxed and enjoyed our time with family, and it was AWESOME.

One of our favorite parts was visiting the bird sanctuary. We did this usually multiple times a day, as it was only around a ten-minute walk from Nana’s. I would bring a book, and Rex would take pictures. At one point he was just sitting and staring for a while, so I asked what he was doing. He said he was watching a hawk and waiting for it to take off. I asked if he wanted me to go scare it into flight (because I’m a big, scary human), but he said the best shots are when the animals are “acting natural.” So he waited. And waited. He has more patience than I do, but it paid off because LOOK at these pictures he got:

My man, I tell you. He’s got skillzzz.

When not taking pictures or sitting and waiting for nature to “act natural,” we spent time with Nana. Remember those spindles from the beginning of the trip? We bought these super cool shadow boxes that fit the spindles perfectly, and Nana’s going to hang them on her wall. We’d have hung them for her while we were there, but we had to order more once we found out how perfect they are. Once she has the full set, we’ll put them up. GUESS I’LL HAVE TO GO BACK AND HELP HER. *shrug*

On Sunday night, we had a picnic with Rex’s sister and her family. Now, I can’t say that my niece is the cutest kid in the whole world, but that’s only because I have two nieces, and they’re tied for first. Look at this sweetie:

We had a great picnic dinner (thanks Michelle and Paul!) that ended with some “coo-coos” (cookies) and “bub bubs” (bubbles). We also played in the sand. I can’t remember the last time I made a sandcastle. Kids are good for making adults remember how to play, and I think playing is important for some psychological reason that I can’t remember now but is probably totally legit.

Monday dawned with another beautiful sunrise (they really must be beautiful for me to keep getting up so early). We wandered and took pictures some more. Then, on a whim, we went and bought cat food.

“CAT FOOD?” you ask. Because we missed Elsie so much? Um, no. We bought some cat food because Rex’s dad told us that the turtles would like to eat it. There’s a bridge over a pond by Nana’s condo, and some turtles live there. We threw some cat food into the water, feeling a little ridiculous, wondering if it would attract the turtles.

WELL. It attracted turtles like free pizza attracts college students. There was suddenly a complete mob of turtles – probably more than I’ve seen in one place in my entire life. It’s like one turtle found the cat food, sounded some secret alarm, and all the local turtles dropped their turtle activities to rush to the source of the bounty. (Now I’m picturing turtles playing cards at the bottom of the pond and then quickly abandoning their game when they heard there was cat food being flung around).

We ended the trip with a good dose of front-porch sitting. We walked to the lighthouse and sat in the rocking chairs in front of the lighthouse keeper’s house. The keeper hasn’t been there for something like sixty years, so we figured it was okay to use the chairs. I tried my best to soak up the sun and remember the warmth before I had to go back to Michigan.

Now, too soon, it’s back to the real world again. I’m not quite ready to go back, but I’m thankful for the time we had. Thanks for reading, and see you next time!

After the longest travel nightmare ever (see yesterday’s post), we are finally in Florida! YESSS! We got in this morning around 1:15 AM, and not only did Nana stay up to greet us, but also she had a dinner prepared with homemade turkey soup and chicken salad sandwiches.

My Nana, y’all. I’m telling you. She’s the best.

FitBit tells me that I got three hours and fifty four minutes of sleep last night, because after we ate dinner and went to bed, Rex and I also decided to get up and watch the sunrise (the sunrise on Nana’s beach is beautiful). While watching the sunrise, we watched two dolphins swim and hunt fish close to shore. It was amazing, and all the stress of the last two days started to slowly melt away.

After watching the sunrise and the dolphins, we walked the beach down to the bird sanctuary. Rex got some more pictures, including a couple of a crocodile where he was way too close for comfort, even though he has a long lens.

When we went back to Nana’s, she was awake. We all ate breakfast, and then we helped Nana clear out a chest of stuff that she keeps in her guest room. We found all kinds of treasures, including old marionette puppets, a giant bride Victorian doll, and Nana’s collection of 40+ spindles. (“Why do you have all these spindles, Nana?” “Dunno – the colors were pretty.”) In case you haven’t seen Sleeping Beauty lately and forgot what a spindle is, it’s this:

We also found a long white leather skirt that fits me, and Nana insists it’s very “in.” I wasn’t even going to try it on, but now I’m kind of attached to it. We also found a terra cotta colored crop top that has gotta be from the early nineties, and that sort of fit me.

Nana: That looks terrific on you!

Me: Um…my boobs are trying to make a break for freedom.

Nana: For crying out loud, girl. If you’ve got it, flaunt it! Enjoy your boobs now before you’re old and they fall to your knees!

So that’s how, even though I’m thirty three years old, I ended up wearing a crop top today. I’ll post a picture of the crop top, but without me in it. In the event that my middle schoolers ever find this blog, I don’t want pictures with the caption “Mrs. Webb thinks she can wear crop tops HAHAHA” circulating around my school.

After the great Crop Top Debate, we decided to dress up in Nana’s fur coats. Fur coats were made for playing dress up. Nana suggested we try to copy Cara and Drew’s iconic “perfume ad” engagement picture, so we did. Not to brag or anything, but we kinda nailed it.

After a few hours of chilling with Nana, it was back out to the sun! We walked down to the lighthouse (me in my shiny new CROP TOP) and had fresh squeezed mango juice. Then we walked back through town and bought way overpriced gelato in the shape of a cat, but I didn’t even care about the price because I was so happy to finally be in Florida with my man.

Also, now that I’m typing this – why was the gelato in the shape of a cat? I mean, what about a cat seems appetizing? They could have made it in any shape. This is odd. I could write a whole separate post questioning this, but I won’t.

When we got back to Nana’s, it was time to get ready for church/the Yacht Club. We got all dressed up (Rex wearing his suit for the third day in a row now), and we headed to church. We got to church way early, so we sat in the parking lot for a while. To kill time, I asked Nana questions about her life. Here’s a sample for you:

Me: Where were you when you found out JFK was assassinated?

Nana: On my head.

Me: Excuse me?

Nana: I was going through a yoga phase. I liked to stand on my head for twenty minutes per day. On that day, I was standing on my head when I heard on the radio that JFK died. Then the mailman showed up, and we cried on each other’s shoulders. It was very sad.

She’s got all kinds of stories.

We listened to a nice church service, then it was off to the Yacht Club! This is a very fancy restaurant, and we were there with the Fab Four (Nana and her three sisters-in-law) as well as this famous artist guy and his wife from Paris. It was very important to have good manners. Rex, as usual, dazzled everyone and made me very proud. I, on the other hand, made a crucial mistake: I ordered pizza.

Now, on the surface, this doesn’t seem like a terrible mistake. Pizza is delicious, and pizza at a fancy restaurant is probably good. The mistake was this: have you ever tried eating pizza with a knife and fork? Especially with a dull butter knife? It’s not easy, let me tell you. At one point, I was sawing so hard that a piece of pizza shot off my plate like a tiny tomato-sauce covered bullet.

Oops.

I eventually gave up and ate the pizza with my hands, the way you’d eat pizza if you were anywhere besides a fancy restaurant. I felt a little barbaric, like, “Forget you and your oodles of silverware! All I need are my HANDS!!” I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to do that, and I felt so guilty that I eventually gave up and stopped eating the pizza. I just stared at it longingly until the waiter asked me if I wanted a box (Yes, I want a box so I can go home and finish eating this pizza. I’m still hungry, you see, but can’t figure out how to properly transfer this food from my plate to my stomach).

I felt so bad that I apologized to Nana afterwards for eating with my hands, and she said, “Aw, Christine, people aren’t going to judge you. Eat with your toes for all I care.”

(If I ate with my toes, I’m pretty sure she’d care).

Now I’m tucked into bed, wearing some of Nana’s old silky pajamas (we found them in the trunk), and I’m awfully tired but so thankful to be here. Thanks for all the prayers and check ins to see if we made it to Florida. I’m so happy to be here!

When the fire alarms at Boston’s airport started squealing and flashing their bright lights, my first thought was, “Ahh! How do I evacuate out of an airport? Where do I go??” My second thought, closely on its heels, was, “That’s it, I’m writing a blog about this.”

You see, this is my Midwinter Break from school. I’m supposed to be on a beach in sunny Florida, hanging out with my grandma watching documentaries about the British royal family, and generally relaxing. Instead, I’m sitting on the sticky vinyl of an airport chair, I’m watching our flight get delayed for the millionth time, and I’m generally stressed.

Come with me on a journey of travel nightmare. *cue Twilight Zone music*

This nightmare started back on Tuesday (TUESDAY. Today is FRIDAY). That’s when I first heard about the snowstorm that was scheduled to hit Kalamazoo on Thursday. Thursday was the day our flight to Florida was scheduled to leave. I got an e-mail from American Airlines saying that I could reschedule my flight if I wanted to try to avoid the storm. Um, yes please! Rex and I were at fellowship group from church when I got the requested call from the airline, so I excused myself for the “quick” call.

A half an hour later…when everyone in my fellowship group probably worried I had expired down in the basement…I was faced with a choice: take an earlier flight for $600+ dollars, or keep my original flight and hope for the best.

Y’all, $600 is a lot of money. I kept the original flight and hoped for the best.

I did not get the best.

When we got to the airport in Kalamazoo on Thursday, it was baaaarely snowing. I admit that I really thought we were going to make it to our connecting flight in Chicago. Our flight wasn’t even delayed! Cheer! Then, while waiting, I saw on the weather channel that “350+ flights” had been cancelled out of the Chicago airport. The news anchor was standing on Navy Pier dressed in more layers than a 7-layer taco dip, and she was being pummeled with whiteout snow. It didn’t look good. But our flight hadn’t even been delayed! Maybe there was some flight science I didn’t know about that allows pilots to fly in whiteout conditions!

Oh, you poor, naiive little Christine. *shakes head*

Sure enough, our flight got delayed…then got delayed again…and it was delayed enough that we would officially miss our connecting flight in Chicago.

Let’s remember – this part of the story takes place on a Thursday (that gets important in a minute).

I walked up to the desk. The gate agent was busy dealing with a very flustery and rude lady. I mean, delays are never good, but don’t be rude to the gate agent. I assure you that she doesn’t want to deal with delays either. Anyway. Mrs. Flustered finally left, and it was my turn. I explained my situation, and the gate agent plastered on a fake smile and said she’d try to help. While she was clicking away on her computer, a guy came and whispered something in her ear. Her already fake smile faltered, and she looked at me with pity.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“The flight just got cancelled,” she answered.

Okay. I could handle this. No need to be dramatic just because I was stuck in a snowstorm instead of at the beach. (I mean, at least the airport wasn’t burning down in Kalamazoo!). I plastered on my own fake smile and said, “Okay, what are my options?”

Click click click click

Click click click click

Click click click click

After a ridiculous amount of clicking, she said the soonest she could get me out would be Sunday.

SUNDAY.

“All of the other flights that cancelled today have rebooked onto Friday and Saturday,” she said. “Everything’s sold out.”

“Can I fly out of Grand Rapids?” I asked. “Detroit? Chicago?”

As a restless line of people waited behind me, the gate agent checked Detroit, Chicago, Flint, South Bend, Grand Rapids, and a couple others I don’t even remember now. Out of seven surrounding cities, the soonest she could get us to Florida would be Sunday. Rex and I agreed that flying to Florida for one day wasn’t worth it, and I started feeling very, very dejected.

Then I called American Airlines, hoping maybe they’d find something that my gate agent didn’t. To make a very long story short, forty-five minutes later we still had nothing. The guy on the phone was really amazed. “This is so crazy,” he said. “Literally everything is sold out. All around you. For days.”

Greeeeaaat.

Rex, as always, had a good attitude. After a BRIEF (like, less than ten second) pity party about losing four days of perfectly good grouse hunting PTO, he said, “Well, we have the time off, the dogs are taken care of…let’s go somewhere. Where do you want to go? Just get in the car, drive south, and see where we end up?”

If you’ve been following along, you know Kalamazoo was in the middle of a snowstorm, so it’s not like we could leave Thursday night. Rex’s mom VERY KINDLY offered to pick us up from the airport and take us home. The roads were awful by that point, so that was really, really nice of her. Once at home, I literally googled “Map of the United States” and drew a mental circle within a twelve hour radius of Kalamazoo. I started looking at AirBnBs in Tennessee. I started looking at weather reports in a few cities, seeing if we could at least crack sixty degrees somewhere. Then I decided to call American Airlines again, more out of desperation than anything else. I knew there had to be a flight to Florida sooner than Sunday. There just HAD to be.

This lady on the phone did the requisite amount of clicking on her computer before talking about how amazing it was that there were literally no options. I’d heard this before. I asked again if she could check surrounding cities in Florida. Could we even get close?

Finally, she said, “Sorry, I only have one option out on Friday…it goes from Detroit to Boston, then to Fort Lauderdale. But you’d have to hold for at least twenty-five minutes while I try to get authorization.”

DONE. Let’s AUTHORIZE!

Not daring to get my hopes up, I continued to scroll AirBnB for a Plan B while I waited for this mysterious authorization. Did you know that through AirBnB, you can stay in a giant fake cow in the middle of a cow pasture? You can.

Anyway, three hours after our flight cancelled, my hero from American Airlines got the mysterious authorization to send us to Boston and then to Fort Lauderdale on Friday – only one day late! Still totally worth going. We don’t have to stay in the cow after all!

I was ready to cheer, but smart enough not to. I had the sinking feeling our travel woes weren’t over.

I was right.

We spent the night at home, dejected but with a tiny sparkle of hope. Maybe by that time on Friday, we’d be in Florida.

Friday morning, we woke up super early so that we could get to Detroit in plenty of time. We didn’t want our own mistake to be what kept us from our precious flight. After a quick breakfast at Ted and Marie’s cafe (yum), we set off on our Friday adventure.

Once we got to Detroit, our flight was delayed. Not long enough to miss our connection in Boston, but delayed nonetheless. Then I got an e-mail that our flight from Boston was delayed by a few hours. So many delays!! Would more planes get cancelled? WOULD I EVER LEAVE THE STATE OF MICHIGAN EVER AGAIN?!?!

Well. When we F-I-N-A-L-L-Y got on the plane to leave Detroit, and my hopes were high that I would at least get a vacation in Boston, the pilot came over the intercom.

“Erm, this is your captain speaking…we’re going to have to wait a bit because we’re trying to get fuel, but the underground fuel pumps are frozen. We’re doing what we can to get them defrosted.”

What do you do to defrost underground fuel pumps?! I have no idea. It must have worked, though, because after a small delay (most delays seem small at this point), we were finally up in the air. CHEEEEEER!

Our Boston to Florida flight was supposed to leave at 4:50 PM. It’s currently been delayed twice, and it’s supposed to leave at 7:30. That puts us in around 11:30. I’ve already decided that if we get in tonight at all, I’m calling the whole thing a win. I’m waiting for them to cancel this flight too but hoping against hope that it’s just delayed for some weird, insignificant reason. The weather here looks fine…though Boston was under a “Gale Warning” earlier today. I didn’t even know a “Gale Warning” was a thing.

So my poor, handsome Rex has been hopscotching the country for two days in his suit. We hope to go to the Yacht Club with Nana, and he doesn’t want to get his suit wrinkly. He doesn’t look too happy about so much time looking dapper.

I decided to go do some airport exploring while we were stuck here, more to stretch my legs than anything else. As I started to walk away from Rex, the fire alarms started blaring. Like, loud screeching, flashing lights all over the place, the whole thing. It was like in an action movie about an airport disaster. You’d think everyone would be running around in pandemonium, right?

No. Most people barely looked up from their iphones. Did NOTHING in their elementary school experiences prepare them for this? The teacher in me was ready to put us all in an orderly line and jump off a jet bridge and down to safety. Instead, someone came over the loudspeaker and said, “The alarms have alerted us to an emergency situation in the airport. The fire department has been contacted. Please await further instructions.”

I “awaited,” but the further instructions never came. After about ten minutes, the alarms went off, and I sat down to type up this blog post.

As I’ve typed this, I’ve watched the sun set in Boston over the planes taking off and landing. I can’t help hoping that I’ll be on one of those planes soon, and that when the sun comes up again I’ll be watching it from a beach in Florida.

Wish us luck, please! We certainly need it!

Let’s begin today’s post with a photo of Penny from this morning. She’s looking very proud of herself after she climbed some stairs, made it to a landing, and then realized she was finally taller than everyone. It was like a little puggy dream come true.

That’s really all I have to say about that picture. The way I see it, a picture of a pug is a good way to start any blog post. Regarding the rest of this post, I’ve got good news and bad news for you:

Bad news: There are no other pug pictures in this post.

Good news: The scenery pictures are beautiful like whoa.

We spent most of our day today at Rock Island State Park. In my opinion, we unintentionally saved the best for last.

We started out by going to the Rock Island Emporium. To explain why we stopped there, I need to take you back to church last Sunday. We met a couple there, I’ll call them Greg and Shirley, and the following conversation happened:

Greg: Have y’all been to the Rock Island Emporium yet?

Me: No, should we go?

Greg: Oh yeah! It’s a great little store. Lots of cool stuff.

Shirley: We own it.

Greg: SHIRLEY!!! You can’t tell them we own it! Now we sound all biased.

Shirley: *eyeroll* Well we do own it…

So we had to stop into Greg and Shirley’s store. After all, we bonded at the potluck. The Rock Island Emporium is a down-home awesome store with this handmade sign out front:

Shirley was the one behind the counter when we walked in. It was fun to see her again. In the main display case at the front of the store, the bottom shelf was reserved for her little dog Lola. Lola was such a sweetie! When Shirley found out we are dog people, she opened the display case and said, “Get to work, Lola. Do your job.” Then Lola came out and greeted us.

We shopped around for a while and found lots of cool things. When I held up a jar of strawberry jam, Shirley said, “Remember Beth from church? Those are all Beth’s jams!”

So obviously we had to buy Church Beth’s jams. She’s one of our Tennessee besties. I held up Church Beth’s pepper jelly and said, “Pepper jelly? What do you eat with pepper jelly?”

Shirley was shocked. “You’ve never had pepper jelly?? Is this a South thing? Here y’all, let me get you some.” She pulled some pepper jelly out of her fridge and gave us some samples on crackers. Then we had to buy that too.

After the Emporium, it was off to the state park! We spent the next several hours chasing waterfalls. I can’t even tell you how many we found. We stopped at quite a few to let Rex take pictures. He’d set up his camera, click away, and I’d go scout out our next location. It was a good system when so many falls were close together. Check these out!

At the bottom of one set of falls, we had a real picnic (in contrast to a snack picnic. A real picnic includes sandwiches or some other main course). It was one of the most beautiful picnics I’ve ever had. Then, while Rex took more pictures, I took a short snooze on a fallen log that crossed a stream. When I woke up, I almost fell off into the water. Oops.

Here are some ruins of…something. It was across from an abandoned cotton mill.

Toward the end of our hiking adventure, we found an olllllllld cemetery. All of the graves for which we could read the writing were from the mid-1800’s. There was one grave for an infant son where the birth and death dates were the same, and I felt so bad for the mom of that little boy. I wanted to give her a hug and then cross-stitch together or something. Anyway, that’s sad. Let’s not talk about that. Instead, can we talk about this grave that had a HAT on top of it?! And the hat was covered with spiderwebs and dust as if it had been there for a long time. Why does this grave have a hat? I feel like this is a short story waiting to happen.

We bought ice cream after hiking, and then it was time to head back. The horses were by our cabin again, so we brought out some carrots. I don’t think Rex or I ate one carrot out of that entire bag, but I don’t mind that the horses got them all. Those are well-spent carrots if you ask me.

After that, we sat on the porch again (shocker, right?). My editor sent over twelve book covers for me to review (eeeeee! YAAAAY!), so we had fun looking through those and choosing our favorites. Then we read our own books in peaceful quiet as the sun set over the pasture.

I’m sorry to say that this is our last night at our blissful cabin. I am hoping for an uneventful drive back home tomorrow, so for now I’m calling this my last post of the trip. Thanks once again for following along – it’s been great to have you with us. As always, I’m humbled that anyone would take time out of their day to read about our lives. See you next time!

I try hard to be a creative type of person, but I’m running out of ways to say, “and then we sat on the front porch for a while.” I don’t think I want to know the number of minutes we’ve spent on the front porch of this cabin, but it’s enough to prove we love it there. It’s so calm, the dogs love it, and we get to watch horses run around. Today I told Rex that when I’m stressed out and need to think of something calm, I’m going to pretend I’m back on this front porch again.

We did get off the front porch to go for a run. A while back I decided it would be fun to train for a half marathon…it was not my finest hour. Where were you, my friends, to say, “CHRISTINE, DON’T TRAIN FOR A HALF. THERE ARE PLENTY OF OTHER, LESS PAINFUL HOBBIES OUT THERE. YOU CAN PLAY THE CELLO. TAKE UP COMPETITIVE YO-YO. ANYTHING BESIDES RUNNING.” I obviously chose the wrong friend to tell about this endeavor, because now Lauren is training for the same half that I am. We’re supposed to be doing this together, so I can’t bail now. Ack! Any hobby that has me running five miles on an “easy day” is a hobby that should make me take a critical look at my life choices.

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it), I have a very supportive husband. Instead of saying, “No, Christine! Don’t run! Pick another hobby like the hula hoop or learning Swedish,” he said, “Cool, I’ll run too.” That’s how we ended up running over five miles this morning while on vacation. And the worst part? I can’t even complain. It was kinda fun.

There is something wrong with me, I am telling you.

Our run was very hilly, but we passed a lot of beautiful cabins. We even saw a deer, which was SUPER COOL. “YAY! A DEER!! WHOAAAA!” Then we felt dumb because we see deer all the time at home, but somehow it was more exciting here. Here’s a picture of a deer from one of our hikes, not from the run, but you get the idea. You’ve probably seen a deer before.

We got chased by a lot of dogs on our run. Where were the owners? Why don’t people here believe in leashes? I have questions. And while I was not intimidated at needing to outrun a Yorkie, I will admit that I slowed to a walk and said, “Niiiiiiice doggy” when an angry chocolate lab thought I was getting too close to his yard. That was a little freaky.

After the run, guess what we did? You’ll never guess it.

Well, you might guess it.

We sat on the porch again! Here’s a picture of Rex and the dogs. I think it looks like preschool story time.

While in the porch swing, we took a picture called the “Double Dog Selfie.” The Triple Dog Selfie, however, was above and beyond our dog-wrangling skills.

Here’s a picture of how Penny really felt about the Double Dog Selfie:

I took a nap in a sun patch for a while. It was lovely.

For our hike today, we headed on a trail that is dog and cat friendly.

Imma stop us right there for a second – the trail was CAT FRIENDLY?! Who brings their cat hiking?! If you, reader, have brought your cat hiking, I have nothing but mad respect for you. I also want some pictures. If I were to attempt to put a harness on Elsie (our cat) and take her out into the wilderness, I fear only one of us would survive. I don’t think it would be me. She’s more what you call an indoor cat. Indoor diva. Indoor royal highness. All of the above.

So anyway, I was keeping an eagle eye out for these hardcore cats that like to traipse around the Tennessee forests. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any on the trail. We didn’t see any dogs either. Or people. From the number of spider webs Rex broke, I don’t think people had been on that trail all day. It was awesome! We saw a couple people when we finally got to Piney Falls (they came from a different direction), but all in all it was basically deserted. Fall Creek Falls is not a hoppin’ joint on a Monday night.

It was tough to get pictures of Piney Falls because they were so far off, but it was still a beautiful spot. You’ll have to come see the falls for yourself. We stopped on some rocks and enjoyed snacks (we’re all about snacks).

Dinner was a grill out again, and then we rested our tired legs in the hot tub. Running and hiking will really tire you out. Lightning caused us to come inside, so I’m kind of hoping for a storm tonight. Tomorrow we plan to go visit Rock Island State Park as long as the weather cooperates. Wish us luck!

Sunday morning started here the way it starts at home: with Rex pouring himself a cup of coffee and turning on his “Sunday Morning Hymns” playlist. We sat on the front porch for a while and chatted about what we should do for church. I suggested we try the nice-looking Methodist church down the street from us. Rex looked appalled. “But they’re Methodist!” This was somehow totally unacceptable. Google showed a Church of the Nazarene church nearby. That one was also a no-go.

Me: What’s wrong with the Church of the Nazarene?

Rex *alarmed*: WHO KNOWS?!

Rather than try to convince him to broaden his denominational horizons, I agreed to go to a Presbyterian church. The nearest one was forty minutes away, but Rex would say no drive is too long for good theology (he does acknowledge that lots of different denominations will be in Heaven…he just wanted to give us the best shot at good preaching this morning, and to him that means Presbyterian).

Luckily, it was a beautiful drive through the Cumberland Plateau. We arrived at church with a few minutes to spare, and we walked into the tiniest church I have ever attended. There were around fifteen people there, and I got the vibe they don’t get visitors often. They were very friendly, though, and a bunch of people introduced themselves to us. The woman who sat behind us, Pearl, was so old she could have called Moses a personal friend. We really liked her. During the congregational prayer (where, in a congregation of fifteen, people take turns praying their prayer requests out loud), Pearl prayed, “Dear Lord, thank you that we can be here in your house today. Thank you especially for our visitors, and please bless them!”

Yahoo! A shout-out from Pearl! And I feel like her prayers are probably supercharged from her decades of honing her praying skills.

After the service, there was a church potluck. We almost didn’t go since we obviously didn’t bring anything, but two factors convinced us to stay:

1. At least four different people came up and asked us to stay.
2. Presbyterians are, as a rule, good at pot lucks. It’s like, in the confessions of faith or something.

So we enjoyed food, fellowship, and sweet tea with the congregation of Rock Island Cumberland Presbyterian Church. We even got to eat first as the “honored guests.” I didn’t take a picture of the people eating because it felt a little too weird, but I snuck this picture of the inside of the sanctuary (don’t mind the guy up front staring at me like, “What is this weirdo visitor doing??”)

I have to hand it to Rex – I was skeptical, but he did pick a good church. The sermon was stellar, the people were kind, and the food was delicious.

When we got back to the cabin, I took a Sunday afternoon nap (yet another important staple in Presbyterian culture, lol. I’m only mostly kidding). The dogs played outside for a while.

After the nap, it was time for hiking again! Today we did the Paw Paw loop and the Cable Trail. The Paw Paw loop was listed as “easy” in our trail guide, but we had to climb over quite a few rocks and go on a lot of uneven terrain. It made us nervous for the Cable Trail, which was labeled “Difficult.”

Partway through the Paw Paw loop, we came to a gorge that was absolutely stunning. We didn’t want to get too close to the cliff edge because the drop was a few hundred feet. Even lying on our stomachs and looking over the edge was terrifying. What if the rock chose that moment to crumble off the cliff and plummet us to our deaths? Well, I’m here telling you about it, so spoiler alert: we lived.

When we finished the Paw Paw loop, we decided to try the Cable Trail because there was allegedly a beautiful waterfall at the end. When we saw the beginning of the trail, though…we weren’t sure it was worth the danger. I have hiked a lot in my thirty-two years, and I have never been on a trail as steep as the Cable Trail. It was named because of the steel cable that you have to hold onto while lowering yourself over rocks (or, on the way back, pulling yourself up over rocks). We tried to get a picture of it, but as is so often true with pictures, it doesn’t do it justice. This thing was STEEP and SCARY.

When we got to the bottom, the waterfall was absolutely worth the hike. Also, it was almost deserted. That’s probably because the hike was so treacherous that smarter people take other trails. There were two people leaving as we arrived, but then we had the whole place to ourselves. Rex set up his tripod and went to work taking pictures of the glorious waterfall. I sat on a rock and helped by saying, “Ooooooo, what a great picture” every now and then (every artist needs fans!).

After Rex had about a kabillion pictures, we headed back up the Cable Trail. It was a little too overwhelming to look all the way to the top, so I focused on one rock in front of me at a time. But, one rock at a time, I made it to the top! There’s a metaphor for life buried in there, I know it.

We watched the sunset over the horse pasture, and then I made some spaghetti for dinner. Yum! Now I’m blogging, Rex is feeding the dogs, and we’re all a bit exhausted. I may go sit in the hot tub for a while.

I have no good conclusion. Here’s a horse from the pasture. Good night.