A Vacation Recap

Today is the 22nd day of October. It was on this day five years ago that snow fell upon the still-green leaves of my New Hampshire hometown. The snow that fell on that day remained on the ground until April of the following year. That was a long winter.

Today, I am enjoying 70-degree temperatures under a mostly cloudy sky. It would be ideal vacation weather, except the humidity is too high and the barometric pressure is too low. Not that I am picky.

Shortly after our traditional sicknesses and venture to "the playground with the train", I left with my bride to visit some relatives in Florida, whose names rhyme with Feff and Jritha. We left our children in the capable hands of the "fishing Grandpa." In Florida, we spent a day at 'Booosh' Gardens and the womenfolk spent a day shopping.

I took the kayak out one afternoon and saw many wild animals, many of whom were alive. I saw an alligator, quite a few turtles, several fish, one of whom attempted to leap into my vessel, but I fended it off bravely with my paddle, and a very large bird.

In my book of ornithology, there are only two types of birds: 1) very large birds, such as those capable of carting off your children, and 2) small, brownish-variety birds, such as those that view your car as a target. My father, on the other hand, is one of those persons capable of stepping out of his house on a cloudy, foggy day before the sun has risen, and making the following observation: "See that bird resting on the third branch of that eastern appalachian white pine about 1.4 miles off to the west by north-east? It is a [largicus birdicus], also known as a [very large bird]. You can tell that it is a female because of the two red feathers underneath her left wing. If you look closely, you can tell that she has been recently divorced, has two small children, and lives in a van down by the river."

But enough about birds. I was disappointed that we weren't able to do more visiting, such as on Sunday, but therein lies a perfect excuse to make the trip again. Next year in Tampa!

Upon returning to the land of our foremothers, we recovered our children and removed ourselves to an undisclosed location, except that I will disclose that the owner shares the same prestigous initials as my firstborn son. We shut off the cell phones, turned off the computer, disconnected the portable fax machine (ha!) and spent the week together. This means that after we had spent some time performing such important tasks as eating and Bible-reading, we spent most of our days tromping in the woods searching for lizards, giant beetles, and Jeff, who liked to wander off.

At the conclusion of that valuable week, we attended the Turner campout. The highlights of the campout included such things as food, a large number of people and actual camping. Well, the camping was a highlight for some people. My favorite part of camping is when you roll up the sleeping bags and put the tent away. Also during this campout, it fell upon my shoulders to attend to the campfire. The highlight of the campfire was when my father-in-law said, "I want you to burn as much wood as possible between now and tommorrow."

So I set about to make a fire large enough so that a) the 200 or so children running around would not be able to hold sticks, branches, or their peers into the fire, and b) the adults would not be tempted to sit too close. That would have interrupted my dancing around the fire shouting, "I, I have made fire," a la Tom Hanks in a movie that rhymes with Kastaway. The fire was good until the airport called.

This week, the last week of our vacation, we are attempting to visit a heap of friends and relatives. At the end of this week, we'll drive back home and shortly thereafter, things will return to so-called normal. I'll spend a couple weeks catching back up and we'll be much too busy.

But we've had a great vacation.