Sunday I’m standing in the shower trying to wash the lack of sleep off my face and I’m trying to map out the plans for the day. Gotta get everything super clean, gotta go to Lunds to get roadtrip snacks and windex and hey may as well get coffee while I’m there since Caribou is giving away a free extra shot because of daylight savings…daylight savings…
SHIT
I completely forgot to set my clocks, I’m in the shower shouting to David to get up, it’s not 8:30am it’s 9:30am, I’ve got an open house at noon, I want to get out by 11am so that the realtor has time to set up and anyway I want to get on the road early.
Blegh, so hardcore, quick running around. My peaceful, long shower that I had intentionally gotten up early for was cut short since I wasn’t up early, I was up late. We got dressed, divided tasks, traded tasks, tried so hard to wake up.
I went to the grocery store for road trip snacks and found myself briefly contemplating then shunning the Doritos. WTF? I bought apples, plums and carrots to snack on. Jesus, what’s wrong with me? This get’s rectified later, also, we already had a bag of chips.
Coffee was purchased, I came back, David was slaving away in the kitchen. We collected things together, I got him in the car and we headed out.
Ghengis is very funny in the car. He loves going for rides because going in the car always means going somewhere fun. Even the vet is fun because he gets good treats and he gets to see other dogs. While we’re on the road going fast he settles down and takes in the scenery but the moment I slow down he’s shivering with excitement, he literally starts whining anxiously as we MUST be getting close to the fun place. The instant I put the car in park he bolts from the back seat to the front seat, climbs in my lap and waits to be let out. This is a problem when you are stopped for a train and decide to put the car in park as it makes for easier waiting.
This also makes getting gas at the gas station in Red Wing a problem. I have a number of little nervous tics and habits. One of the bigger ones is that I chew my lip. With all that’s been going on lately I have been chewing my lip a lot. i’ve chewed a bit of a hole on the right side, it’s swollen, cracked and it looks like someone backhanded me (no one back handed me, no one would survive laying a hand on me for if I didn’t finish them off, my dad surely would). The dog, in his excitement, landed on my lap and as I was trying to put his compact 35 pounds of pure muscle and impulse into the back seat he managed to hook his nail right into the chasm in my lip. Like directly into it. Ow.
I got a call from my realtor letting me know she was on her way to my house. I called her back, perplexed as it was already noon. No, it seems the open house was changed to 2-4. Fine fine, easy enough, we’re already on the road but it would have been nice to have not been so panicked.
I couldn’t remember how to get to Barn Bluff, the big, pretty bluff over Red Wing so we went on as we had another destination in mind for hiking and all that.
We stopped at Frontenac State Park where we did some walking on trails and stood high over the river. I have pictures, they’re not very interesting, mostly the dog and David walking in nature. I got to watch a sea plane take off and a giant barge go by. This time I remembered to bring a water dish for Ghengis. We had a snack, played with the dog some more and took off.
We headed south again, with David navigating and me driving. I love love love driving long road trips. if it weren’t for the trashy meth habit and the weird bowlegged walk you seem to develop I might have considered a career as a long haul truck driver. Except not.
We meandered our way down and around until we got to Whitewater State Park. Here’s where I got all healthy and defied my true fat-girl nature. We hiked up to the top of Chimney Rock Bluff and god dammitall I forgot to bring the camera. That thing is high, way high, not ‘oh i’m fat and i had to climb without an escalator’ high, but for real high. I couldn’t find any good photos showing just how high a climb this was, but these are some good photos taken by someone I don’t know who seems to have gone during a very pretty time of year (my photos, had I taken any, would have been more barren and desolate with the lack of foliage and all). None of the photos show just how high I climbed so you’ll just have to trust me that I climbed a very very high bluff (one composed mostly of sandstone and quartz with no fossils to be found) and I hiked a goodly long way to get to and from it as we parked in the wrong parking lot.
The dog LOVES hiking through the woods (as does David), he’s a muscley strong little trooper who never ever runs out of energy. We met some people at the beginning of the hike and a couple hours later, when we were heading back we saw them again and they noted that Ghengis was not worn out at all. I know, as long as there’s some of stimulation that dog will not get tired. Luckily he passes out the minute he gets in the car. In addition to new and exciting things to smell and explore, the woods offers up an exotic buffet of animal turds for Ghengis to sample. He seems fond of deer turds and decidedly uninterested in owl pellets (not technically turds, but I thought he’d be more interested). I can now identify many major turd groups.
David slows me down (driving, not hiking, I slow him down when we hike), he’s not nearly as impatient as I am, he doesn’t really need me to drive fast. There’s soemthing about that lack of impatience that causes me to slow down as well. I don’t have to urge to drive as fast as possible, even though I love driving fast. We meandered over to Rochester to get some dinner and I wasn’t even worried about getting there quickly.
I’d spent the day doing healthy things and eating healthy snacks and the time had come. We hit the Culvers and I got a double cheeseburger deluxe with everything except onions, fries and an ice cream soda. The universe was demanding balance and who was I to deny this. The dog got about half the meat in the burger and more than half the fries, but still it felt dirty and greasy and decadent.
We ate out dinner in a park as the sun was setting, we watched the kids play and the geese land and we relaxed.
We headed home. The dog was passed out in the back, he barely wanted to lift his head until we got home. Once in, we put things away, settled on the couch and watched ‘Clash of the Titans’. What better way to end the evening than with a half naked Harry Hamlin and a claymation medusa battling it out as I dozed.
I got very little rest this weekend. I’m exhausted and I hurt, but this was a good and happy weekend. One of the best I’d had in a long time.