a'thousand blue caribou raced across a glassy lake

"He played me a record he said it’s the 7th song you gotta listen to it it’s great
and the needle hit the vinyl as I waited
and the sound that drifted across took me to another place
where a’thousand bright blue caribou raced across a glassy lake
and I heard the words were flowing
and they said the time had come
so I lay back and stared at the sun
and I knew it was good to be there
and I knew you were the one"

"1000 Blue Caribou" by Drugstore

Some days I want to keep walking

My morning commute to work is a 3-mile walk.

Today I didn't want to stop walking. I wanted to keep going and just see where the day would've taken me.

The sky was cloudy, the air was on the verge of drizzly, with just the soft touch of a breeze.

These days pick me up in a whirlwind and throw me back in time, right down on the trail somewhere a couple of years ago on a hiking trail. It could be Southern Illinois on the River to River Trail. Or maybe it was on a stormy mountain top above the treeline in Colorado.

If I could just keep walking...

I wonder how far I would get, or how long I would go... before I needed my family, or my friends. I don't know that anything else could really stop me or get me to turn around.

If I could go home, throw on my backpack and just go...

How far could I get? How far would I go?

I wonder where I'd end up setting up my tent tonight?

I wonder where I'd filter water? Or would I come across a convenience store in the late afternoon and fill my water bladder in their bathroom sink?

Would I wake up tomorrow morning to a brisk November frost? Would I start out hiking on crunchy, frozen leaves? Would my breath softly throw a cloud in front of my face at a gentle pace as I cut through the chilly air?

I wish I could just go. I wish one day I could just keep walking and see where it takes me.

It actually hurts my bones to think that I may never have the right circumstances...

It's still a beautiful dream, and thinking about being there puts me at peace, if only for a short while.

South Padre Island Trip 2008

I’ve gotten busy and fell behind on my blogging again, darn it!
I wanted to write a short entry about my and Adam’s trip to Padre in October before I forget everything! Overall, for driving 6 out of the 10 days, I’m happy to say the trip was mostly uneventful, but still very nice.

We went to South Padre Island last year to drive Adam’s Grandma down there. She’s always wintered down there with Adam’s Grandpa, but he passed away the summer before last, and since a 28-hour trip is a lot for any one person, she was looking for someone to drive her down. She wanted to stay down there all winter, so we drove her down, hung out with her on the island for a few days, then she flew us home. Adam’s sister flew down later and drove her home. It worked out pretty nicely, but this year, she only wanted to go down for a week to check on the condo and make sure everything was okay. So we drove both ways.

We left Friday morning from Phillips in Adam’s Grandma’s van. Adam drove for most of it, but I jumped in a few times when he was tired. Adam brought some books on tape, so those actually kept our minds pretty occupied the entire trip down. We would drive until 8 or 9PM, get a room at a Super 8 or something similar, get up early and hit the road again.

I was trying to eat as healthy as I could, and I started out doing pretty well. It’s never easy travelling like that. My taste buds were really craving greasy burgers and milkshakes, but the 3 days’ drive down to the island, I was able to ignore my tongue and get some light chicken wraps instead of the burgers, and drink lots of water. But the minute I hit the island I went crazy. We ate out a lot, and portions were barely considered. It was kind of fun to let go and get what I wanted for a few days, but I paid for it. The trip back kicked my butt. I think I was just sitting on my rear in a car too long, I didn’t have enough water intake and ate too much crappy food. My body was in shock! When I got home, I knew I was having trouble with water retention. My ankles were puffy, my lower back was swollen, and I was feeling pretty awful and sluggish. When I stepped on the scale, it showed that I’d gained 20 pounds. 20!! I’m not exaggerating, either. That’s what the scale read! But, the good news was that most of it was water. I did a little online research, and most of the advice I read was to drink a lot of water. So I went back to eating normal and healthy, and drinking lots and lots of water… I did end up losing 10 of those 20 pounds in 3 days. That was definitely some water weight! So I’m still currently trying to drop off the rest of what I gained, but I expected that. I wanted to splurge some. I may have gone a little too far, but like I said… I’m paying for it, now! I’ll get back there. I guess it gives me something to work on.

While on the island, we helped Adam’s grandma with a few things. She’s glad she went because there some things that needed to be fixed for the summer season’s renters. The sliding door to the porch didn’t open, so she had that fixed, the air conditioning pooped out one day, so that got a new thermostat. We replaced the old recliner (which was Adam’s grandpa’s… was kind of sad). We went with G’ma to the local consignment shop and picked up two wide, comfy rattan chairs to replace it. One of those was goofed up the way it was put together – it was still sturdy, but she had a couple of workers come in with their drills and fix it up. Adam and I also got a new microwave plugged in behind the refrigerator. So we helped with a few things that we could.

Amazing sponsor sand castle!

We did enjoy some vacation-type stuff, too. Adam and I swam in the ocean a few times, and used the condo’s pool and hottub a few more times than last year. We had a picnic on the south end of the island where they were getting set up for Sand Castle Days. We were fortunate enough to see the pros building the sponsor castle – they are some amazing artists! We ate sandwiches and watched some guys surfing near the jetties. It started to rain, and I really wanted to see how a South Padre Island rain would feel on the shore of the gulf. Warm? Cold? So Adam and his grandma told me to go ahead, and they went and waited in the car. So I walked down the beach towards the jetties and got completely soaked. The rain was chilly and it kind of stung as it flew with the wind. When I got back to the van, I was completely soaked, and I started to head back to the car and Adam got out and started walking out by me. I was so happy. He must’ve gotten some spontaneous bug in him and decided to join me. We jumped into the ocean together and took a swim. At that point we were so wet from the rain we figured we may as well have a quick swim! We dried off as best we could and head back to the condo.

We had frozen pizza one night, and played some Rummy 500 with G’ma. That was a lot of fun. It was nice to just stay in and relax for a night, too. Monday night (I’m obviously not telling this in chronological order, here!) we watched football and had a couple of beers. G’ma’s condo is right on the beach, so it really is nice to hang out there. You step out onto the porch and look over the gulf. The waves are right there. It’s a great location.

Pretty sunsets!

Adam asked me one day if I wanted to go for a midnight swim, too. I was excited. How could I pass that up!? So we did that, too. That was really fun. I was actually a little nervous out there in the dark. The waves were huge, so we were sure to stick together and not go out too far. There was an amazingly strong undercurrent, too. But it was a great swim. The air was chilly, so the water felt really warm.

Out on the jetties.

One night, Adam’s G’ma handed us $40 and told us to go out. I thought it was sweet, or maybe she was getting tired of us -- who knows!! :) Either way, we thought that was really nice. We head down to the jetties and walked way out past all the people fishing. Again, I was surprised by how nervous I was. The waves were crashing up and over the jetty and I just feared falling in. But Adam actually convinced me to go further, so we did, and I’m so glad. It was really fun. We did get wet, which was the fun part about it. The waves would crash up and surprise us. We got some really nice sunset pictures, and Adam’s creativity kicked in – or he was hungry… anyway, we got a picture of him about to eat a ship.

We call this one, "Adam huuuuungry."

After the jetties, we went home and changed, then went out to dinner. After that, we came back to the condo and went next door to a Tiki bar. We’d always wanted to go there, but just never did for some reason. It was fun to drink at a Tiki bar and listen to the waves coming in. The moon was out, so it was just a great night, too. The weather was perfectly comfortable for a tank top. I was a happy girl! We also grabbed a 6-pack of beer earlier, so we sat out on the steps by the beach after the Tiki bar and talked for awhile, too.

My toes at the Tiki Bar.

Me and Adam on the beach at night.

It was just nice to spend so much quality time with Adam. It seems that we are normally so busy with everything week to week that we push the quality time thing back. Padre is a nice kick in the butt to remind us how much fun we have together. The only bad thing is now that we’re back and in the swing of things, we’re right back to our old ways of being too busy. School, church, church choir, work, working out… it gets kind of crazy. We miss each other a lot during the week, and that just seems so strange. So we look forward to Padre. If we don’t go next year, we are going to try to get out to Montana. We’ve both wanted to visit Montana for a long time, so one of these years, we’ll drive out there together and see some mountains.

Ahh, so relaxed again. :)