back to the wilderness

First of all, happy birthday to Mason, who turned 5 last Thursday. I proved myself the worst aunt in the world by not calling him on his birthday. I tried calling the next day, but didn't get to talk to him. I figure I'll call this week and talk to Ella about school, too. Poor Mason, having such a tool for an aunt. At least I got his gift to him on time. Better than nothing, I guess.

We were out of town this weekend with Ilya and Mercedes. We went to Ichetucknee, which is a spring in FL that's sort of like a lazy river ride from a theme park, but in real life. The three of them talk about how fun it is every summer, but I've never been, so finally this year we managed to go. We got to our campground around 8:00 Friday night, set up camp like pros, and cooked some burgers for dinner. We went to bed at a reasonable hour, since we had to be at the park early the next morning. There are multiple entrances to the river, but only 750 people are allowed to start at the northernmost entrance per day. Since it was a holiday weekend, we got to the park at about 7:30 to make sure we were able to do the whole river. Luckily we were able to rent inner tubes from our campground, so we didn't have to make any stops on our way. It was fun, even though it was a little cool at 9am to be in 70 degree water. It warmed up by the end of our first run though. We stopped for lunch, then went back to the midpoint and went down the river from there twice more. We swam for awhile (except for Mercedes, who is far too sensible to do such things). I kicked a branch underwater and hurt my toes. They're all bruised and they hurt to walk on. But still had lots of fun.

After our day on the river, we headed back to the campground and started in on some drinking. We had Kahlua, vodka, white and chocolate milk, and beer. Ilya and I got pretty drunk on various color Russians (and apparently both snored that night after passing out). Alfred cooked us some massive burgers for dinner. Mercedes made friends with a cat. I found a frog. We made smores. I sat in Bisquick and made a giant mess. Ilya played with his new oil lantern. In other words, a fairly straightforward night.

The next morning we packed up and headed back home, stopping for a nice greasy breakfast at a Huddle House. We dropped Ilya and Mercedes off at their house, then went to go see Alfred's family. I haven't visited since we got back from our trip, so it was nice to see everyone. Alfred had to change his oil, too. Eventually we made our way home, unpacked, and pretty much just crashed. Busy weekend.