Red Sky In The Morning

6:03

6:04

I woke at 6:00 and came downstairs to a bright red sky over Long Point.  Unfortunately, my photo does not do much justice to the red which gradually faded away as it got close to the sunrise, and has now disappeared as has the sun, hidden behind clouds.  It's 42º, windy, and rain is expected later in the day.  I will have to see it to believe it.

We began yesterday with great kayak paddle across to Long Point on a lake like glass, no wind, no other boats, just our two kayak and a lake that seemed like it was ours.  This morning, it's windy, the lake rough, the sky gray and I have breakfast with the guys at 8:00, so it's no loss.  Yoga on Wednesdays is always good and I even received some positive feedback from Jen, our teacher.  It's always nice to be complimented even if it may be gratuitous.  I will take it.  I stopped at Ryder's Cup for a coffee and it was empty, perhaps because there was another barista at the counter.

When I got home, all was right in the world.  I heated up the previous days Indian chicken dinner, with rice and watched another episode of Game of Thrones, waiting for someone else to die.  I read somewhere that over the past six seasons, six to seven hundred people have been killed.  No wonder it's a popular series along with its obligatory 'skin.'  Sex and violence most certainly sells.  I then read some more of John O'Hara, set in the States during three days in 1930 and it's so strange to be back in this world of country clubs, booze, parties, infidelity, and the mob.  Things are soon going to fall apart I assume.

Evie spent most of the afternoon puttering around the yard, weeding and trimming, and made good progress.  As for me, I finally rose from my couch and did my good deed of the day.  I stood around in the front yard for at least a half an hour or more, watering our new grass areas.  I am getting pretty good at it, a result of lots practice

Hiking Above French Creek

We wanted to do something different on Wednesday, get out of the house, shake up our routine, so we drove off to the Clymer area, the French Creek Preserve, about a twenty five minute drive through rapidly greening farm lands.  We had walked it back in January when there was a dusting of snow. This time we took the right path, through open fields, then woods, set up above French Creek.  It was perfect hiking weather, in the high forties, so we really enjoyed this walk.  It's not strenuous, in fact, it was shorter than I remembered because we were out only forty five minutes.  That was enough, however, as we were happy to be on our way to one of our favorites, Pine Junction.  It's been renovated, with an amazing atrium, with a huge tree-like structure in the middle, acting as a column to hold up the roof.

Pine Junction's Atrium

We sat down at an empty bar and ordered our first beer of the day.  It was exceedingly quiet for the first 15 minutes before four guys from Buffalo, loud and boisterous, sat down, after a round of golf at Peak and Peek. They were in their 40's, all high school classmates, together for a day out.  They were fun to talk with and, of course, we had a connection.  When we started talking about where we were from, the most talkative asked if we knew David Dorson.  We did of course because he was teaching at Reserve at the same time as me.  Well, he dated David's daughter, Meredith, for four or five years. And of course, I taught her in AP English, knew that she was a pharmaceutical rep for my brother-in-law, and she was my son, Tom's, prom date senior year.  We had a good laugh about this connection. He seemed to like Meredith quite a bit and his buddies were on his case about losing her.  He, however, did well and married Cleveland Browns old coach, Sam Rutigliano's daughter, a coup I suppose.  They sent a picture of themselves to one of their high school teachers, and argued about the greatness of Paula's Donuts.

So they were amusing us as another guy sat down next to Evie.  He was also fun to talk with.  He lives in Edinboro, works for PNC bank, managing accounts for businesses, and also has a house on Findley Lake.  We are sure we have walked by his house on our around the lake walks.  I wish we had had more time to talk with him because he was easy to talk with and interesting.  Unfortunately, we did not get his name.  We both got burgers, Evie the Down Under, with mushrooms and cheese, me the Bourbon Burger, with cheese, bacon and a bourbon sauce.  We left about the same time as the guys from Buffalo.  A couple of them could hardly walk they were so sore from walking the hilly, some might say mountainous Peak and Peek Golf Course.

We had an easy ride home as it was starting to get dark.  We watched two more episodes of DICTE, the Danish series, then listened to some of Bobby Knight introduce Donald Trump, one dictator introducing another.  And we got a brief dose of Carly Fiorina, a perfect match for Ted Cruz.  Both are hard to look at,  and difficult to listen to, with their nasal, know it all voices.  They make Donald Trump look Trumpion.