Nope. Not a strange, children’s country song. Just some of the stuff we did on our day off.
An easy morning of lounging, good long baths and showers, fresh haircuts (you didn’t think I could leave our hair alone for 45 days in the road, did you?!?!?), 2 cups of coffee, and laundry. Now to step out into the world and see what’s out there. The weather had finally given up being a giant, moody turd . . . rainy, hot, humid, cold, and had decided to mellow out a bit. I even wore soft pants!
Today was Rudy’s choice. So, he decided we’d take the golf cart (Rudy is now fully operating the thing himself and our role is now just supervisory) around the property and eventually head down to the river. It really is something down there and literally has the best skipping stones ever. It was incredible to see it all grown and green. Last time we saw it was in January when we came out with my best friend, Angie, got stuck here for 10 days because the snow was so bad, and spent our vacation in -17° temps, sledding and snowman-building. Quite different. Kevin-With-The-Big-Beard had clearly spent some time making a path for us to walk down there, and it was just perfect. Since the rains have been so much, so often, and so heavy, the path is still patch-worked with sticky mud puddles, that squish up into your toes and sandals and greedily suck your shoes right off your feet to be pulled into their mucky pots. Like a LeBrea Tar Pit dino, we had to unstick Rudy a few times, giggling all the while because it felt “good and gross” at the same time.
Down at the river, we skipped stones, saw the biggest damn wolf spider (I could see it move from over 10 feet away), waved hello to some kayaking people, and talked about beaver dams and how clear the water was. I said, “Rudes, you’re pretty good at this. Would you like to go hiking when we get back to WA?” He thought about it, “No thank you. I’d rather play with my toys when I get home.” He thought I meant right when we pulled in from tour. You gotta be very specific with this one . . . he’ll call you on everything.
After an hour or so of exploring, we headed up to see “Grandma and Grandpa from the computer” (which, even though we are with them in person and not Skyping — hence their nicknames — he still calls them in full title even to their faces every time he address or talks about them), grab some lunch, finish laundry, play some LEGO’s, and watch Men In Black 3. On our way back home, we saw mom and dad walking around the “expressway” chatting with Kevin-With-The-Big-Beard, and decided to go say hi. Kevin was standing next to a huge front-loading tractor and looked to be in the middle of a project (to be honest, he always looks that way!) and Rudy’s eyes about fell out of his head. I said to Kevin-With-The-Big-Beard, “Do you need a partner?” Without hesitation, he replied, “Yes.” and Rudy was up in the seat like a spider monkey. We didn’t see him again for an hour!
Although it was barely late afternoon by the time we started the movie, Rudy slept through the end and we snuck away for bourbon and crosswords to close out the day. It was nice to have had a day to just mentally relax and focus just on Rudes. Even though we’re all on the road together, sometimes we feel like we have to put him off a bit for other things. He’s such a great sport about it, but the days where we get concentrated time are really lovely.
