ar_wahan | Entries tagged with vacation

This has been an exhausting two weeks, dominated by followup medical visits and endless automobile and insurance paperwork. I think I'm just about over the craziness, though.

Nope! Spoke too soon! Even as I wrote that last sentence, the phone rang with an automated message from the high school -- they received "information" that caused them to evacuate the school at 9 a.m. and call in the police, who searched the building. After 45 minutes, the students were sent back in.

There was a fake bomb scare there March 30. The message didn't say whether it was a bomb threat today or something else.... sigh.

Back to our regular programming...

1. I'm pleased to report that the second CT scan of the head that Samurai had last week was normal.

EDIT: She has the same head this week, too, in case you were wondering if we'd traded it in. :P Weird Sentence Construction R Us! Sale now in progress!

2.(Cut just for length)

( Oh no, you don't! )

3. I gave myself a headache Monday wrestling with a long and difficult project. I wasn't sure I could pull it off. I learned yesterday that the client was very happy with it, which is a huge relief.

4. Yesterday we transferred plates from the totaled vehicle and registered her Rav4. Because she can't legally write checks because of her age, I had to be there to pay the fees and sales tax to the state RMV. I sent the LAST of the insurance paperwork (I hope) back to the company. (Because she was injured, there were more forms than in a simple fender bender.)

5. I spent a chunk of time yesterday digging up our septic tank so it can be pumped tomorrow. My back hurts. One of our two shovels is missing, too. I couldn't find it anywhere.

6. I went to a looong UU board meeting last night. But, projects at church that have been hung up for some time are finally moving forward.

7. I finally got estimates for redoing the kitchen floor, with different figures for tile and Marmoleum. I have a tile I like, but don't know if I want to pay the extra cost (higher than vinyl). I want my friend Becca to come over and advise me on the different colors of the Marmoleum, but she hasn't called me back. *pouts*

8. We are supposed to get 5-6" of SNOW tonight and tomorrow!

That's all, folks.

Current Mood: exhausted

Wednesday:

The weather was better today than predicted in terms of sun, but hotter than Monday. As I begin this entry, it is 10:35 p.m. EDT (7:30 p.m. PDT) and I just stepped out into the back yard here at our vacation place at Cape Cod, looked up at the stars, listened to a bullfrog declaring reign over its portion of the kettle pond. And I raised a glass (with a little of the Jose Cuervo Golden Margarita mixture left by previous renter) to the western stars in a toast to be4u. (In reference to my post on Sunday and her comment.)

Today I rose early after disturbing but forgotten dreams (except one in which a man threw himself into my car, pointed a weapon at me, and told me to give him the keys. I remember wanting to fight him off, but upon waking, telling myself that would have been stupid, to just throw myself out of the car and let him go. What does the car represent, I wonder?)

Edit: Security and financial independence, most likely.

Anyway, after crawling out of the nightmare, I went up to the Subway Shop, which, I had discovered, not only had a hot spot but opened at 7 a.m. with BREAKFAST! I had no idea Subway offered breakfast. So I had coffee and breakfast for $2.99 and tax and had the luxury of uploading seven pix to Photobucket, posting two journal entries, and reading not as much of my backlogged friends list as I would have liked -- for I was needed back at the ranch (house). [Note what I did not do: Check email.]

Before I returned, though, I went to sneak a peak at the tides information for Boston in the Boston Globe – without buying a copy (*bad* former journalist! *bad* girl! LOL) at the supermarket. I did buy a few other things, though, including lunch items to pack for our kayak trip. (Be4u, everyone in Harwich must be reading your journal, because the Lipton Diet Green Tea we both adore was completely sold out. I ended up buying a single, small bottle of Snapple Diet Green Tea, and it is a poor substitute!)

( Would Indiana Jones drink Lipton or Snapple? (Cut to the chase) )

My daughter’s thighs and knees got very sunburned today, despite sunscreen. My knees did too, though less so. Made us both think about getting spray skirts for the kayaks, not so much as to keep our gear dry, as our skin protected. Stopped at a supermarket on the way back to buy some Bactine spray to ease her pain.

Once home, I took a quick dip in the pond (I’d had my bathing suit on under my shirt and shorts all this time; I’d considered getting out and pulling our kayaks under the bridge, but the river was too deep, according to a depth test with a paddle).

Stan wanted to see a movie (a tradition when we meet here on the Cape). We sent the men out for pizza, I made a salad, we ate, then took off to see The Devil Wears Prada.

Now Stan is asleep (I hope) in the living room, spouse and samurai are asleep in the bedrooms, I’m in the kitchen babbling at all of you, my sunburned knees burning still, and that’s all for now.

Except for one last look at the stars over the pond.

The bullfrog is still singing to the world.

Wrtiten Tuesday:

This morning I was up first (as is usually the case during summer vacations). Turned on the radio in the house for the first time since our arrival because I wanted to know the weather forecast. Turns out yesterday, Monday, will be the best day of the week. Today was forecast as clouding up and humid, and ditto Wednesday (with chance of showers p.m.) and Thursday.

My reason for the forecast was sparked by an interest we novice kayakers have in returning to the Herring River, in which we ventured downstream last summer. Samurai is now willing to explore upstream, which (from the description in guide book) will be even more interesting than the further-upstream travel on the Pamet River that I was denied yesterday.

When she and spouse finally emerged from their beds, she and I agreed to try the Herring River tomorrow. Today, it being cloudy and windy and she hankering to fly a kite, we would go to the ocean. Spouse wanted to finish reading a book, and then he would check out a pond that supposedly had trout in it.

We rolled into Orleans to find one of their craft and art fairs going on, which attract not just local artists, as we were to discover, but vendors from as far as Florida. To my surprise, samurai indicated an interest in stopping there. (She normally would not be interested.) She found a vendor selling Cool-Wraps, attractive, narrow scarves that can go around your neck and that have interior beads of something that hold coolness from being soaked in cold water for a long time. She bought one ($6, my moola) for her trip to D.C. The advertising said they were good for

Migraines, asthma and hot flashes

Since I know at least three people on my flist who have migraines aggravated or maybe triggered by heat, here is the web site:

www.cool-wraps.com

By the time we got to the National Seashore, the tide was very high and the beach very crowded. So much for kite flying. But we hunkered down, as the tide was on its way out. By 3 p.m., the families with young children in dire need of naps were departing in droves. Lest I sound unkind, in years past, I have been one of those parents! Hence, I knew the pattern.

The tide began to ebb and there was enough room to fly the kite, which is a “sky shark.” Unfortunately, a drop in wind or a downdraft sent the shark into the back of a chair occupied by a boy of about 10. He took it well. We told him he could tell his friends he was attacked by a sky shark at Cape Cod.

( Sky shark!!!! )

I had told samurai that I thought my haircut from last week was the best ever, and I wouldn’t mind if she took a photo of me so I could have a record for April, who cut it. She took a candid shot, but the hair is windswept, shall we say… Still, it gives you a sense of what I look like.

( Under here )

On our way home, we picked up a copy of the Cape Codder weekly paper to figure out what the local tides will be tomorrow. Looks like to catch the rising tide, we should be at the Herring River launch site around 10:30.

This works out well, because our friend Stan, who cannot drive because of recent heart surgery, is coming down to join us for a few days. A friend driving in to Boston anyway will drop him off at the Wendy’s restaurant in Milford tomorrow around noon. My husband will pick him up and bring him the rest of the way. So he and we will be leaving about the same time, and probably returning to this little house at the same time as well.

I was going to go out in search of a hot spot (Internet) again today, but have decided against it, even though a number of you are much on my mind and in my heart, and I long for news of you. Maybe I’ll try it early tomorrow, before others are up and before we leave for the Herring River. Maybe if I go to the Subway and buy coffee, it will assuage my guilt at using it. Or – here’s an idea! – I can order sandwiches to go to take with us kayaking! Win:Win!! (Except when I just called the number on the take-out menu to find out how early they open, there was no answer. And it’s only 7 p.m. here. I called twice.)

So I won’t do that. If I’m up early enough, I’ll go to the town library, which is further away, but which has 24/7 access, if I can figure out how to log on (there are instructions, but do I need to be logged on to get them? Hmm.).

My husband just came back, sans trout. The water is too warm in the ponds. He did catch a few small, small-mouthed bass but threw them back.

Now I will haul myself from my lawn chair and begin the assemblage of hamburgers.

Current Location: About to leave The Subway

Sunday had been a cloudy, dark day, threatening rain and delivering in spats.

On the Cape, mornings often start out cloudy. When I woke, this is what I seemed to face from the light filtering between the louvered shutters on the lower half of the window (most of the window was also covered by a blind). When I emerged from the bedroom, though, I had to say out loud, “Wow!” The sky was gloriously clear. The kettle pond across the road was a magnificent blue. I made coffee and went outside, in nothing but my light bathrobe, to sit on a lawn chair and just listen and look. The air Sunday had been heavy and thick with something – moisture, maybe? – but this was nice. The scrub oaks and pitch pines rustled overhead. I saw a cardinal fly by, and heard sweet calls by a bird that I didn’t recognize.

I read a bit more from Le Guin’s Changing Planes. Eventually the rest of the household emerged. Samurai didn’t want breakfast, but she did (as I’d hoped) want to go kayaking at a spot I’d read about in a book I’d bought a year ago, the Pamet River in Truro. I told her I needed to eat something, so ate a frozen waffle left courteously by the previous guest in the freezer. (Juice, too, purchased Sunday by me.)

On the way up, I had to buy gas. $3.1495!! Yikes. As we went further up the Outer Cape, the prices got even higher.

The guidebook had said the launch site parking was free, but the book’s copyright is 2000, and guess what? Times change. Now $5 per boat, per harbormaster. Fortunately, I had $10 on me.

We’d argued a bit, samurai and I, on where to put in. I’d wanted to do the part of the river east of Route 6, paddling up to its source through a series of kettle ponds almost to the Atlantic side. I thought it would be more interesting, and I still think I’m right. She wanted to put in at its mouth on Massachusetts Bay. She won.

She wanted to first go out into the harbor. We approached a rock with a flock of cormorants on it. Then we turned back to the river mouth. We were fighting both the current and the retreating tide (another reason I’d wanted to put in upriver, where the tide would have less effect). But it wasn’t bad.

The trip was pleasant and meditative, but after a while, the scenery became much the same: big hummocks of tall grass, a meandering river, an occasional house. With the tide running out, the banks were about three feet high and pocketed with mussels closed tight and scurrying fiddler crabs.

Neither of us had had lunch, and she hadn’t even had breakfast. Eventually we agreed to turn around.

Now I had what I call my Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery Moment.

The main channel had switched back and forth repeatedly. Between the hummocks, we could see the main channel we had traversed on our way upstream many turns ago. Surely we could take a shortcut between them!

I, Captain William Clark, proposed it, and she, Captain Meriwether Lewis, announced she’d go first. She started off through a gap between two hummocks, the main channel in the distance.

I followed.

Only to find the water was too shallow to support either of our craft.

I had already taken off my Tevas when we launched, so I climbed out into the ooze and began to haul my kayak back toward the deeper water from which we had come. With each step, I seemed to sink deeper and deeper, the probably anaerobic mud seeming to pull me down. I began to get a little scared, frankly – especially as I began to experience the symptoms of hypoglycemia (any of you reading this far who don’t know much about me, I have diabetes and use an insulin pump).

Gasping, I finally made it to the deeper water and stumbled into the kayak, black mud almost up to my knees. I downed two glucose tablets. (Later threw in a third.) I drifted in the water, relieved, sticking out a leg one at a time to rinse off the mud, but worried that I wasn’t seeing samurai, who’d said she would follow me.

I turned and headed back upstream.

Fortunately, she emerged soon after – rueful, for she, too, had had to slog through the deep mud, and her capris were muddy up nearly to her knees.

The reason I made reference to Lewis and Clark, FYI, is I seem to recall that they (from their journals, not from past life experience!) ran into similar trouble at least once while following the meanderings of the Missouri River as they neared the Rockies. They, too, were looking for a shortcut.

I told samurai that the way back (assuming we managed to stay in the main channel) would be much faster, because we had both the river current and the outgoing tide in our favor. It was – amazingly so. We were back to the launch in no time. Got the kayaks up on the racks and declared ourselves hungry. I started driving, envisioning a place but not sure quite where it was.

Sub ‘n Cone

Perfect! The perfect kind of cheesy place for a Cape Cod post-kayak fest. She had a foot-long hotdog, I a cup of clam chowder, and we shared a small serving of onion rings.

When we got back to our place, we both swam a bit on our own kettle pond, and showered (separately) in our outdoor shower.

Husband had spent the day reading and napping. Now he is quietly playing his electric guitar, and I’m about to serve dinner.

As my husband’s grandmother often wrote at the end of a diary entry in the 1920s,

“A good day.”

( Photos from the Lewis and Clark exploration of the Pamet River )