The Last Perfect Weekend

Listening to: Christmas music (yeah, you heard me)
Thinking about: how unexcited I am about work tomorrow
Just remembered: a bottle of wine in the freezer to "chill" (uh-oh)
Hoping: I can sleep tonight
Relieved: that the wine isn't slushy


Right, so this post wasn't supposed to start with a ridiculous list. It was supposed to launch right into pictures. Went and screwed that one up, didn't I? How about if we see how badly inserting pictures messes with the layout instead? (Grumble, grumble, grumble.)

Okay then. Now that I've destroyed the opening, we'll see how the rest goes, eh?

After a week of rain and general dreariness, the forecast for the weekend involved sunshine and September-esque temperatures. So on Wednesday I decided I was going to get out of Dodge for a bit, and on Thursday I got the rather inspired suggestion to go to Devil's Lake State Park.

I'll admit that at 4:30 Saturday morning, I wasn't thrilled with the guy that suggested it, but I dragged my butt out of bed and got everything together, including packing myself a lunch, and hit the road. (Which begs the question: what wire got crossed that lets me get up WAY before dawn on a Saturday but convinces me to sleep in late enough to have to rush to get to work on time? To quote Lesha, "The world is wrong.")

When I left, it was pitch black outside, and for the first time in quite awhile, I could really See The Stars. Amazing.

Anyway, I rolled into Baraboo, WI, shortly after 8AM.

Funny thing about Baraboo: at one point in time, I actually knew a handful of people from Baraboo. The summer after my senior year of high school, I went on a mission trip with my youth group to Minneapolis ... where we met up with a group from Baraboo. While it would have been pretty cool to run into one of them, I doubt very much that we would have recognized each other well enough to actually greet one another. And if we had -- well, it would have been incredibly awkward (only compounded by the fact that I had been talking to myself the full two hour drive down).

I only stopped long enough to get gas (fourteen cents cheaper than Wausau -- holy crap) before the last ten minutes to Devil's Lake.

In retrospect, I'm glad I got there when I did. It was, after all, the last perfect weekend of the season, and Devil's Lake happens to be one of the more gorgeous places I've seen.

After a couple of accidental forays into uncharted territory, I took the West Bluff trail to the top of a, um, bluff that overlooks the lake.

For a solid hour, I relaxed ... Reading, journaling, inadvertantly frightening other hikers, birdwatching, taking not-very-good pictures, and geocaching.

First successful cache in quite awhile, too! My first attempt was slightly less than satisfactory thanks to some poor reception off in the trees ... Eventually I got a stronger signal and a more consistent reading, and after waiting for another family of cachers to clear out (nothing more dissatisfying than tailgating other cachers), I found it! Traded playing cards for an old Wisconsin map. Way excited about that one.

Lunch, some more hiking, a trip down to Madison (which I may or may not blog about later), and then I headed back to Wausau, eventually ending up bowling with some coworkers. All in all a fantastic, exhausting day.

Sunday was considerably less great. For whatever reason I didn't sleep well, and by the time I got home from church I was beyond functioning. I crashed for a few hours and still didn't feel too great by the time I was awake again. Took it easy for the evening and got a much better night of sleep ... I still wasn't excited to go to work this morning -- but at least I managed to stay conscious all day. (Some Mondays that's a genuine accomplishment.)

Now we'll see how the week goes. It isn't really off to a great start (I've been pretty low, although I'm feeling better tonight than I did at any point in time during the day), but that doesn't mean tomorrow won't totally rock.

Okay. Maybe it won't. It's entirely possible that I'll be at work until long after dark tomorrow. Leave me with my blind optimism, will you? And my Christmas music.