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Okay; I'm getting seriously aggravated with the pictures attached to my posts disappearing. I'm going to have to start using more of my own pictures, I guess. This is a pain because I have little time to upload photographs, but the good news is that I have tons of pictures because I'm a freak with my camera.

On another note, the camping trip was good. I love camp coffee on a cool morning, the stars were amazing. We camped next to a creek; at night the mist rolled across the water and the stars twinkled against a deep velvety backdrop of night sky. I'd forgotten how many stars there are in the night sky, which is a sad statement about how much light pollution has robbed those of us living in cities from the glorious hobby of lying on the ground and just dreaming at the sky with a friend or loved one (or both). N and I took a boat ride down Fisheating Creek on Sunday and it was serenely beautiful. We did meet up with an alligator, which set my heart to racing as I am not fond of alligators when they are in close proximity. While my rational mind tells me that, as a general rule, alligators are not any more fond of being close to humans as I am to them, the other part of my mind races to those stories about people getting snatched into the water while standing by the side of Florida lakes and ponds. Nasty buggers, those alligators.

We camped with another couple. The husband is someone we already knew and he was cool. He's very into the outdoors, the sort of fellow who can name a bird just by hearing the call. In the middle of the night on Saturday we heard the hoot of an owl (so cool). In the morning when I described the hoot to him he was able to discern that the owl was a Great Horned Owl. I checked his bird field guide, and, sure enough, Great Horned Owl it was! I'm not sure his wife liked us, and that was a bit uncomfortable. My husband and I both have a rather layed back demeanor and tend to get along with most people. His wife, well, I'm not sure about her. She didn't seem to want to engage with us, barely even talking to our daughter. Our daughter is three and extremely cute (other people tell me this, so forgive my apparent gloating) and hardly anyone can resist interacting with her. I suppose if she didn't enjoy our company that was her problem, not ours. We had fun in spite of the unpleasantness of the situation between our camping companions. (There is much more to this situation than I will post here due to the sensitive nature of the subject.) Our neighbor was a rather nice older man, a veteran who visits this campground often. He was camping alone, knew our campmates, and spent lots of time hanging out by the fire with us, beer in hand, lending a happy air to our temporary residence grounds.

Now we're home again. Little One has gymnastics today, so I'm off.