Another Wet Weekend

Once again, I had another great trip with the Washington Women Outdoors.
This time, we met in Leesylvania State Park for a kayaking trip down the Potomac. Not to be confused with the kayaking trip the SigO and I took down the potomac - - the trip from Hell -- unlike that trip, this trip was the perfect duration and energy level.

The name of the trip is "Paddle to Lunch" and I could already see the lunch restauarant from the put-in and take-out point, so I knew it wasn't going to be a killer day. We headed down-stream, away from the restaurant, but towards some beautiful marsh lands. Before we had even been in the boats five minutes, a heron swooped down out of the sky and snagged a fish out of the middle of the river. A very rare sight as heron's usually fish in the shallows. That was just the beginning of a day of "new sights". Shortly after we were in the marshes, I saw my first-ever osprey. She was one unhappy lady since there were a few fishers camped out too close to her nest. She circled almost continually overhead, squawking at those pesky fishermen and all these strange women in their kayaks.

We rowed past a great deal of this plant - that I've already forgotten the name of - spatter - something or other. It blooms this little yellow ball that never - in its entire life - opens up. Kind of like some of the men I dated prior to meeting the SigO.

We rowed under this tree full of poison ivy - where I reinforced my belief that I'm not sensitive to it, since I never got so much as a single hive. Hopefully, neither did anyone else.

We dead-ended here, where the water got too shallow and so we turned back the way we came, ending at Tims Rivershore Crabshack and Restaurant - a place I've frequented by car, but this was my first time arriving by boat. We got quite a lot of stares as 15 women piled out of kayaks and started placing orders for fried pickles (another first for me - not as weird as I had expected).

It was quite a nice day, which I concluded with a manicure/pedicure and some knitting - that I had to completely rip out since I started it the night before - while drinking - too much! I have to admit, cutting back on my drinking not only helps me in the pocketbook, and with the weight-loss, but it really helps reduce the amount of tinking/frogging I have to do.

You would think that would make for a great weekend, and really - I'm not complaining - much. It would have been a stellar weekend had the SigO and I been able to go for our bike ride as planned - instead of spending the day fighting with an overflowing toilet, only to throw in the towel (a painful metaphor - as you'll see) and pay a plumber $850 to come out and auger the main-line for us - to discover a wad of paper-towels clogging things up. Since we don't use papertowels in the bathroom, I think it's time we had a talk with our cleaning service. *sigh* Seems like you can never get ahead. I'm ready to sell it all and drive away, but that conversation has to wait until Taosday.

Until then...