The accomodations here at Aspen Grove are a long, long step removed from the tents, hammocks, and tarpaulins I associate with actual CAMPING. I knew this going in — you could argue quite successfully that it was this foreknowledge that got me here. A week of tents would be unpleasant. This is more like a week in a very clean, but very low-budget hotel.

Oh, and you have to walk through the woods a bit to get to the bathroom.

It’s really quite nice. It’s just a little too civilized, what with the trails everywhere, groomed paths, and cabins all over, for the mature adult in me to feel good about peeing behind a tree. That said, I really had to go last night, and really didn’t want to put on my shoes. There is now a very happy patch of scrub just to the left of the porch of Cabin 13.

Gleek got sick. It’s just a 24-hour flu, but she was wiped out last night and this morning, and is only now coming around. She really wanted to go with her group this morning, but hadn’t the energy to put up a fight when we told her she couldn’t. As she curled up on the couch in Aspen Lodge, one of her final bits of protest before nodding off was “it’s okay to throw up on dirt.”

“Yes, honey, it is. But you’re still not running around outside this morning.”

Last night Link and I played Star Munchkin, and he won before we got far enough into the deck to see the card I did artwork for. Oh well. At least he WON. The Munchkin series is good for playing with kids, because players are allowed to bargain one with another to help each other out of tight spots. So I’d help him kill monsters without claiming more than a token share of the loot, and sure enough, he hit level 10 while I was still at level 2. For a six-year-old with limited reading skills, he’s sharp as a tack. He got attacked by “The Cheese of Evil,” and without reading the card said “My not care. My not have any sidekicks for him to kill.” I had to check the card to make sure that the “bad stuff” TCoE did was limited to sidekicks… sure enough, Link had it right.

Every so often my hackles go up as I realize that this vacation is going to end at some point, and I’m going to have to hit the ground back in the Real World not just running, but running FAST, and in two different races. Then I relax, because it hasn’t happened YET, and there’s not much I can do right now to prepare, other than get plenty of sleep. It’s a mind-game I play on myself. I have to trick me out of being “busy.”

Sandra scheduled us for a pottery class. I rebelled, realizing that she had SCHEDULED something. I don’t want a schedule here. I want uninterrupted unscheduled time for wandering. If I happen to go to the pottery class it’ll be because I wandered in at the right time. NOT because I looked at the schedule. Not not not.

Like I said, it’s a mind game.

–Howard