Rainy Day

We take the days as they come.

I knew when I drove up here to Laura Lake that rain was forecast through Wednesday. Yesterday's sun was a bonus I didn't expect but today it has been raining on and off since midnight. Other than one quick walk to the boat landing, we've stayed inside the camper. The sky would clear, we'd get ready to go out and do something and just that fast, it rained again, never a hard rain, just sprinkles.

When it stopped there were brief amusements. During the winter, whenever we came to the bottom of a peanut butter jar, we closed it and put it aside, never scrubbing it out for recycling. Now the jars are being expertly cleaned, one at a time, by the Chipmunk Waste Not Want Not Society. In two days they've cleaned out one jar, which has been replaced by the next. These aren't the chubby little chippies of last fall. They've been in their dens all winter and now are sleek and ready to spend their summer begging from the tourists. They are still wary, and don't come near us, but by summer's end, they will be sitting on people's knees begging.

Gary put out bird feeders as soon as he arrived and this afternoon we were rewarded with rose-breasted grosbeaks, two males who fought some over the territory, and one female who let them duke it out for her favors. He put some corn down by the lake where our two mallards hang out. There are three loons on the lake this year. We think one must be one of the babies from last year.

We read, we talk, we eat, we play with our computers and listen to the rain. Gary did some research and decided that the yellow flower I saw yesterday was bellwort. I finished the Life of Pi and started on a Nevada Barr mystery, one of the Anna Pigeon series.

This evening, to avoid the damp and cold cook tent, we went to one of our favorite spots, Stony Ridge, for supper. Though these days, we seldom eat red meat, we pigged out on cheeseburgers and I finished up with ice cream. I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday morning and expect to be told to lose weight, so this was a last hurrah for a while.

We rejoice that we have been away from phone calls from politicians. Today the primary election will be over, but we still have another month of Walker recall madness, followed by months of Presidential politics. Wisconsin will be one of the battleground states, so we expect to be deluged. Our only hope is to camp in places with no cell phone coverage as late in the year as we can.

We keep wondering about the neighboring campers. There are thirty-seven campsites at Laura Lake. Gary was the first to arrive and take site 22, which has a good canoeing bay, the right amount of sun for his solar panels, and sufficient foliage, once the trees finish filling in, to give us privacy.

There were plenty of sites, all but one empty, so why did they take site 23?

Wade told me last winter that when he finally found a quiet spot to read in an unopened restaurant on a cruise ship, suddenly people showed up and sat in the tables all around him until he gave up and left. Do people look for other people with the idea of safety in numbers?

We don't mind the neighbors, but isolation is what we really craved.

But we take the days … and the situations … as they come.