Amazing Evening / Afternoon

Got a suprise last night. My roomate had a mutual friend from out of town come over for the night. I knew there was a BBQ at the house, and that there was a suprise lined up for me, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it was going to be another survivor! I was SO happy to finally meet in the flesh someone I had been speaking too for almost a year within the confines of our secure group FINALLY in the flesh. So much fun! All of us walked to the pier, rode the Carousel, ate pizza, walked on the beach for a bit. Then, back to the house for a backyard fire, chips / dip, music, beer, drinks and GREAT laughter! 1 am rolled around and my friend and I decided to watch the sun rise at the beach. So at 1 am we very HURRIEDLY went to sleep with our alarms set for 4:30am. Sunrise was due at 5:10, thank goodness I only live 4 blocks from the beach!
It was a cool morning with just a slight breeze. And the sunrise was beautiful. Then back home for a quick nap!

Again to the beach we went in the afternoon, this time with sunblock! It was odd to see so many people there, but then it is tourist season here. My roomate went off to float down the river with his friends, so it was me and my out of town guest. I had the BEST time with her. We laid on the sand and just talked and talked, waded in the water for a bit, talked more, water, laid in sand.....rinse and repeat lol.
After a few hours of that, came back to the house to drop off the beach chairs and stuff so we could go get something to eat. So off we go again a block in the other direction to get some fish and chips (American style). Played some pinball while we waited for our food, talked, laughed and talked some more.

I realized something with all this. That its really ok to spend time with friends and family, and how much I missed that. That I truly am stronger than I had given myself credit for. And that this really IS by far the happiest I have been in a long, long, long time.

In two weeks I get to visit her, and we shall see what new experiences her corner of the world bring.

I still have a lot of places to visit, Boston needs a re-do, theres still so much to see there, Cape Cod is in the next few months, Chicago and New York as well. After the winter I'm shooting for London, Ireland, and Italy..........

Boston

Sure wish I knew how to post the actual slideshow (lol) someday I'll get better at this!

Boston was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. to say the least. The city is just so FULL of History! We walked everywhere it seemed until we couldn't walk anymore. Such craftsmanship in the buildings and homes. I must have walked around looking like an idiot with my mouth hanging open!

I had a fabulous time with my friend, was welcomed warmly into the home and we had "girls night" where we stayed up until 3:30 am talking! I had some more walls removed and I must give credit where credit is due. The tenacity and fortitude that was needed to break thru was NOT an easy task! But the sign of a true friend is that they never give up......and "another rock from my Red Wagon" was taken out and put on the sidewalk for me to say goodbye to.

Then there was this DELICIOUS lunch just off the pier. With a Bloody Mary to boot! LOL. Cold wind or not it was a great day.

Boston was everything I had hoped for an more. I will be going back soon....only got to see half of the city, the other half is calling my name. And besides, I have a friend there who I am missing as well.......

Memorial Weekend 2011

What can I say? It was a WONDERFUL weekend. So GOOD to finally go somewhere for a change. All this time, all these past years, doing nothing but work and sleep......oh, and pay the bills! Geeze, I think back to that time of my life and I just cringe! What the HELL was I thinking for so long? Well, they don't call it "living in a F.O.G." without a good reason right?

So, I worked my butt of that week. I have a new area of the store I'm in, so there's another learning curve I'm going thru. Not to bad tho, I've covered the Electronic's area before when they've needed to take a break or lunch so I'm not totally unfamilier with it. But the "day to day" stuff is still new. I sure am learning a lot more about "gadgets" than I used to know! LOL

So Friday comes, I get off work at 4 and rush home to pack. We wanted to be on the road by 5:15 at the latest to try and miss the traffic. Our friend and "camp mate" went up early because he had all the tents and stuff. So he left to go get the campsite and set up everything. We were to follow later after they got me from work. Now, you have to try and picture this.....a Mercedes Benz 4 door, 4 grown adults and a medium size dog! Inside the car was not so bad....but we needed to try and find a way to stuff the camping gear we wanted to take for all 4 of us in the trunk! Along with food. It was a trick, but we got it done! Most of the food we decided to pick up from the local store close to the campsite and we would carry the food on our laps for the short distance to the site.

So here we are, on the road on our way:

Ok, so we're off! Woo Hoo! I was so excited...well, actually we all were. Even tho the forecast called for a Thunder and Lightening storm with 70 mile an hour winds with 2 inch hale we were gonna CAMP! HA!

We got to the campsite:

Yes, they are a campsite and General Store for the locals. The Blue Moose Campsite and General Store. This picture is right off the road, but the magic happens after you pass around the store (small, SMALL store as it was) and start to go down to where the camping areas are:

This is the road behind the store that takes you down into the trees to the camping area:

Down at the bottom of that small hill is a wide open area full of grass with a fire pit in the center for the BonFires they have at night for the campers. Courtesy of Blue Moose Campground. You can camp all around that area OR you can go right next to the river that runs beside the campground. We chose right by the river:

The first night was most exciting! I can't say I have ever been in (let alone outside) during a storm like that one. The Thunder was so loud and the Lightening.....well, it just didn't seem to stop. Bold after bolt after bolt kept coming. We were outside under the public awning that's set up in the "common area" so we could really get a good experience with this storm and watch the lightening show. The awning has a metal roof (which scared me a bit being a city girl and all) so when the rain started to come down it was so LOUD. We never did get the 70 mile an hour winds, nor did we get the 2 inch hail, but the storm itself was enough of a show. It was Mother Nature at her best that night, showing her awesome power and strength. This is a night that will sit in my memory for many many years to come as exciting and awe inspiring. With the breaks in the rain, we each took our turns going to our tents for the night to finish "riding out" the storm and see what tomorrow would bring. The only hitch for that first night was that the electric pump decided to stop working after we only had gotten one of the air mattresses inflated. So it was on the floor of our tents for the rest of us (including me).

The next morning I awoke to the birds chirping in the trees and the sound of the river right outside my tent. The smell of the air after that rainfall was so sweet. I rubbed my eyes and couldn't wait to get out of the tent to see everything in the early morning sun. As I started to jump up and put my shoes on, I realized I was NOT going to be "jumping" out of the tent in the fashion I had hoped for (or at least felt in my head that I wanted to) because these old bones do NOT like sleeping on the ground in a tent in just a sleeping bag! Ouch!

It was a wonderful day even tho I was sore. Went up to the Blue Moose Grocery, had some coffee and chatted with the people that run the place. They were SO kind. Even let me plug in my phone. Poor thing was dead, dead, dead. After a bit we decided to check out the local area, the guys wanted to get a little fishing in, and I wanted some more pics. So we decided to take a drive around the lake. It's around 80 miles, but with all the stopping and the scenery we saw, it never felt that long.

This was just one of the streams we saw while we were on our drive.....the one below was just AMAZING in person!

And yes, those people are panning for Gold. Real Gold! I was told due to the heavy rains the night before, it stirred up the bottom of the rivers and caused any Gold in the ground to possibly rise to the surface. I ALMOST wanted to try it myself, but we had more exploring to do. lol

That night we got back and we all pulled out our variety of foods and such we brought to eat. And off went the men to do the cooking on the grill thing, We had baked potatoes, fresh caught fish, hot dogs, steak, chips, beer, sauteed mushrooms and onions in wine.....all kinds of stuff. And we were HUNGRY after being out all day on our travels. The smell of the grills going and the sound of the river at our campsite with the birds chirping in the background was so relaxing and just what I needed! After nightfall they started a bonfire in the center of the common area so we all gathered around and chatted and just hung out. Our group of campers, the other campers in the area, and the owners of the site.

All in all, this was one of the best weekends I have had in a looooooong time. And I can't wait to do it again!