adventure - party - carnage

Some catching up to do, it seems.

Been out having little adventures, this morning's featured road side blood and gore, but more on that later.

• On Friday, Magnum and I headed out for a commune with nature and hiked up to the summit of Arthur's Rock, a popular local hike.  I'd been up there once before with work friends, and Magnum wanted to give it a go with the aid of his new trekking poles. So off on our Arthurian quest we went. 

Magnum and the trekking poles, along with myself, made it to the summit and back. 

I highly recommend this invigorating hike. The summit rewards us with captivating eastward facing views where one (with super dooper vision) can nearly make out the cornfields of Nebraska.

Acrophobe me, hanging on for dear life

• Yesterday, we attended a large-ish family gathering to help Magnum's 90-year-old stepfather celebrate being 90 years old.

I grabbed a portion of one of the "Grandpa-D-with-all-the-grandkids" photos as it happened that our three contributions to the grandkid brood were right next to the man of honor. The landscape versions of the mass of grandkid humanity photos are much larger.

That's my MIL between Meego and Chaco, Grandpa D next to Wolfgang.

We each were supplied nametags with our "titles", i.e. "Abby - daughter-in-law" which made life easier at such a large gathering.

• This morning, Magnum and I headed out for a pleasant bike ride. Nothing strenuous, just meandering around our friendly town. We were rolling down a particularly picturesque street, me slightly in front, when I hear much scuffling from behind. 

I eventually looked around to see the end of Magnum's lengthy crash, he and his bicycle laying on their left sides.

The thing what happened: he was drinking from his water bottle, held in his right hand, as we approached an intersection. Upon noticing a truck approaching from our right, he instinctively grabbed his left-hand brake lever, which so happens to be the front brake. This caused his front tire to do a little hurky-doo, and the rest is self explanatory.

We assessed and briefly convalesced under the delightful shade of happy trees lining this particularly amiable street. It would've been a perfectly excellent little place of recess if not for all the blood and gore.

I whipped out my handy first-aid kit I always have with me while bike riding, almost happy for the justification to use it. It was reminiscent of that incident during my lunch lady days when young Mitch splashed nasty cleanser into his eyes, and I got to use the eye wash station for reals.

"I can fix this!", I told Magnum as I rifled through my little IFAK 

"Mammals are pretty much all the same except for the number of tits!", a line from a show we recently watched - quoting a veterinarian coming to the aid of her freshly stabbed wife.

For the record, I cannot fix a fresh stabbing, but a little bike crash road hash, oh yes.