I really enjoy getting lost in the woods. Not completely lost, just mostly lost; somewhat lost.
After we woke up today and started moving again (coffee!!!) we went in search of a couple of geocaches. It's nice to have a somewhat large park full of windy paths and trees and stuff in your parent's back yard. Once, about 15 years ago (I haven't spent much time there in the last decade or so), I was there during that summer for a week (or something) and had gone for a walk in these woods. I kept hearing a baying sound and eventually found a woman walking two dogs who were making all the racket. She was chasing a fox. Yeah, right. I walked back to the house and when back to the streets and sidewalks, something caught my eye from between two houses. Yep, it was a fox, red as can be.
(Fast-forward to the present . . .) So after the woods, we went to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (cheap/free admission, expensive parking, great museum) and met quite a gaggle of cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, assorted spouses and two sisters. One of my more delightful times was taking my 6mo nephew for an extended walk (carry!) from the entrance to the southern extreme, up the spiral staircase (to see the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, Steve Fossett's Burt Rutan-designed plane), down the incline to the northern extreme, back to the center, down the stairs, then back to the southern extreme (to see the Rutan VariEze) and then back to the entrance where Mom (my sister) was waiting in line for the observation tower. I'm a big fan of Burt Rutan. Fossett, while likely dead (missing anyway) is/was a Boy Scout.
Anyway, somehow we survived the trip, made it back to my parents' house where most of the gaggle met us. And we ate some more, drank some more (La Crema Pinot Noir, a Beaujolais Nouveau and a Spanish Cava) and had a really good time of it.
