Happy 4th!

First off, a big thank you to those who are serving or who have served our country. Your sacrifice is truly appreciated.

In true Baldwin fashion, we spent our 4th Up North, as we have for many years. This year we stayed at the Huntin' Shack. My father-in-law worked hard to have a flush toilet functioning in the outhouse for us, which was great!

Our friends, the Olivers, camped there with us for the weekend. We had a nice time hanging out on the property and watching fireworks over the lake.

You will notice that this post is devoid of photos...silly me. I brought my camera, but forgot to get it out, which means a little bit more reading for you!

We spent a lot of time eating, relaxing, tromping through the woods and playing Canasta. I also encountered something of the creepy, slimy kind while tromping through the creek.

The manly men were down by the creek cutting up some branches and beautifying the place a little bit. While Lisa was over at the cabin with the girls getting showers, I decided to go down river with the guys just a little bit to the little swimming hole they created last summer. Me, being like the big clumsy bull I am, went too far over to the side where the mucky stuff settled. The further I walked, the more I sank. I was up to my knees in black muck and before I knew it had lost my precious croc in the muck. The muck literally sucked the croc off my foot. Not knowing what else to do, I ended up having to step out of my shoe in order to keep myself from falling over.

Dave and I poked around in the muck looking for the shoe. He used a stick, I used my feet. There I was with one barefoot in pretty much knee deep black muck digging around when I saw something creepy, slimy and scary slither up onto the shore. I let out a scream that would curdle milk and vacated the water very quickly. My squeal was Dave's signal to vacate as well. He hopped out of that water faster than me! I think everyone around there received a complimentary heart attack following that scream. I'm still not sure what it was that came up out of that muck, whether it was a little snake or a ginormous leech. I decided that finding my shoe was not that important. The nasty crawly thing could have it.

The manly men didn't quite see it that way. It was their open invitation to get the heavy equipment and dig out the shoe with the excavator. I found my shoe, all is well, and creepy slimy things can rest assured that I will not be violating their space again.