It's All About Maura

I'm going to rely heavily on the tool of imagery this time to illustrate the past week's adventures. I'm going to start with today and work backward, largely because the most important of all these occurances took place this beautiful afternoon in our backyard.

Maura walked.

I was gardening, Jodi was blowing bubbles...basically soakin' up the good life. I lifted Lil' Peepers to her feet, let her go, and watched her take about 6 steps toward mama. At that point our faces were frozen in amazement as we looked at each other thinking, "That just happened!" Of course I'd love to follow the story with a video capturing the phenomenon, but for whatever reason cameras are usually a repellent for such behavior. I'm sure the official footage will be coming soon.

Earlier, we tethered Maura into her new bike trailer and packed it with picnic fixin's for it's maiden voyage into majestic Irvine Park. Twas a pleasant ride and though I love carting her around, I couldn't help but draw a direct comparison to this.

Things were as they should be at the petting zoo.

As we travel back to yesterday, I'm standing on the rocks beneath the dam in Chippewa testing my angling finesse when I catch a glimpse of something gliding through the boiling water that I was almost sure was Nessie. After accepting the reality that I had just seen a 4-foot sturgeon it was but a moment later when I saw another prehistoric torpedo cruise past about a yard from the shore. I had heard of creatures like this living beneath dams, I just wasn't expecting to see a steady procession while I tried not to snag them with my lure. I can't remember a time while fishing that I was afraid to catch a fish, but this time I was definitely not prepared equipment-wise to do anything but watch my rod snap in the event that one of these guys took the bait.

Behold.

Oh, and I caught a crawfish...but no other fish.


The next stop for the Delorean is last weekend at Governor Dodge State Park. The occasion is a reunion between the Brights and Scanlans that through the use of Cory's exceptional camping gear collection, culminates in the creation of possibly the most heinous fireside treat ever conceived. I give you the hamburger-marshmallow-chocolate chip cookie smore.

Dontcha just want s'more?!

You may get the impression that we had food to spare if this is the kind of crap going on. You're perception would be accurate, as we seemed to have a hobbit-like meal plan happening all weekend. For example, when Jodi and I showed up at camp at about 9 on Friday night, Cory had already used his dutch oven to prepare some kind of hobo stew for he and Mary earlier, and was just putting the finishing touches on his apple cobbler for dessert. The next morning the same dutch oven was used to brew up a "mountain man" breakfast made up of veggies, eggs, sausage, and wads of cheese equalling probably about 1000 calories per serving while coffee perked on the fire. How else are you gonna get your day started?

Glow sticks and beers were frequently cracked as we listened to spooky podcasts and thought of how consistent our camping activities were with other like-minded camping purists.

Then back another week or so, a peacock or some such bird walked though our backyard at around 9 or so and flew up to the branch of one of our trees to have a nice rest for whatever reason. It's almost as if he was thinking, "Here's a bit of delightful randomness to spice up your weeknight, Cullen." Unfortunately that little story didn't spice up this post so much.