Vacation highs and lows

Subtitle: Why is the damn photo feature down each time I want to use it??

Highs:

• We really did turn onto the 400 at 9:51 a.m., exactly as Chad predicted. I'm not kidding.
• We timed both the drive up and the drive down perfectly so that Weber's made a completely logical lunch stop. Best burgers and fries ever. The Key Man was even working a shift on our drive up.
• Liam loved camping. Loved it. Loved sleeping in a tent, loved splashing in every lake and stream he encountered, loved every last stick on the forest floor, loved the wild blueberries and neverending supply of juice boxes he was offered (which he doesn't get at home). Loved it all.
• He picked up three new words last week: duck, bubbles, and hello - said not in conversation, but with my eyeglasses case pressed to his ear as a pretend phone: A-wo? I find it hilarious that he started doing this when we were miles from civilization and phones of any kind.
• We saw moose. We saw beavers. Quintessential Canada. Check.
• We had a great spot on Kearney Lake. You could see the view from our site, with a cool island within swimming distance, if the photo feature were working here. I have an intense dislike of swimming in natural bodies of water (I always think I'm going to be leeched or have fish nibbling on my toes), but once I tried it this was actually a pretty cool place to swim.
• Gramma and Grampa Cook were totally willing to take Liam on for several hours each day so Chad and I could go hiking or swimming. It was wonderful.
• Gramma Cook remembered her peanuts and already had a chipmunk trained to eat out of our hands by the time we got up there.
• My first time trying a pie iron - man, were they good.

Lows:

• On our first night, there were signs posted warning of severe weather. It didn't look bad when we went to bed, but we woke up at midnight as five or six successive thunderstorms rolled through - the kind with pouring, pouring rain and more lightning than I've ever seen. I spent three hours cowering in my sleeping bag, unable to sleep and cursing the lack of Weather Channel (how do you know if a tornado is headed straight for you if you don't have cable TV)? The silver lining: in a miraculous turn of events that I will never understand, Liam slept through the whole thing.
• Liam didn't like the s'mores! Well, I think he enjoyed the taste... he just couldn't stand to get marshmallows all over his fingers. I guess I didn't do a good job of exposing him to enough sensory activities as a young 'un.
• Chad dragged me on these Blair Witch-y twilight hikes through the forest each night, which weren't too bad on their own (spook factor aside), but one night we encountered a fox on the trail, and he stalked us the whole rest of the trail. It was pretty freaky.
• I have more bug bites than I can possibly count.
• On the way home, we passed an upturned tractor trailer, which took a good hour to get around. Arrrgh. Back to reality.
• More laundry than you can shake a stick at, empty cupboards, and back to work tomorrow.