RS left this morning in the pouring rain, which made me quite sad. It was so much fun to have her here. We spent yesterday morning at the pool swimming laps and stopping occasionally for complaining about it. After last week�s frigid water temperatures, someone finally figured out the pool heater had inadvertently been turned off and remedied the situation. By the time we arrived on a cool and overcast Sunday morning, the water was 87 degrees. Ahhh.

After an hour or so of propelling ourselves through the water and playing dodge-the-pool-vacuum, my husband brought AJ up to meet us and we played endless games of catch and splash and engaged in general silliness in order to make him giggle before going home to eat an enormous lunch. RS and I gazed at the maddeningly indeterminate sky, trying to determine whether or not the forecast thunderstorms were arriving sooner or later.

In the end, we decided to give our kayak trip a go. Our meeting with the rental person went much more smoothly than last year and we were on the water by shortly after two.

We kayaked the same stretch of river that my husband and I had canoed last fall, but it looked remarkably different. The elaborate duck blinds with their hundreds upon hundreds of decoys that had overwhelmed us in the fall were decaying and crooked, the decoys stowed until the start of hunting season. Instead, hundreds upon hundreds of real live birds lined the shores. For the first 20 minutes of the trip, I�d guess there was a blue heron about every 6 feet. There were many other kinds of waterfowl as well, including a clutch of cormorants drying their wings in a dead tree branch � I didn�t know cormorants ever ventured so far from the ocean, but there they were, their black iridescent feathers drying in the breeze.

About halfway down the route is a portage around a small dam. We pulled in to the boat launch through a grove of blooming water lilies and heaved our boats out of the water and around the dam, lying them on the flat rocky edge of the next part of the river. And then we heard the first rumble of thunder. We decided to wait at the dam for a while. We watched all the families fishing. We marveled at a biker with a black bandana tied over his shiny shaved head. He was wearing waders that looked like leather fetishwear. I�ve never seen waders look anything but totally dorky before. This was a first.

The thunder got closer, so we called in for a ride and ended our trip. We went only 4.5 miles instead of the 8 we�d hoped, but we still had a great ride. We went home for a cozy dinner and some games with AJ. We stayed up late talking and burning CDs.

It was so nice to have her here. I hope she�ll come back soon. In the mean time, however, AJ is planning a trip to visit RS and also the Statue of Liberty� in New York. Soon, I hope.

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