siercia | What a lovely weekend Pt. 1

First off, thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. I had a lovely birthday, hell, a lovely birthday weekend.

The weekend started for us on Friday, and we spent most of it, appropriately enough for a divisible-by-ten birthday, visiting places from the past.

We drove down to CT to leave Miss Widget off with my parents. When we got there, we went out geocaching with my Dad. First we hit a virtual one that was right up the street from their house, then we went out to Case Mountain, where we used to hike when I was a kid. It was really different - somehow everything seems smaller than you remember, you know? The paths were more well defined, and there were more houses buily right up next to the hiking areas. The view from the top was rather the same, and we found the cache without too much trouble (actually, my Dad gets credit for spotting it). We left off our travel bug there, and found Widget another Blue's Clues toy. When we came back down, we were looking at the stream from the pond and saw three Northern Water Snakes sunning themselves on a rock in the middle of the stream. We watched them for a while, and then headed back to the house. Fixed Widget some lunch, then eft her in the able hands of my Dad.

We went off and found three more caches - one of them was practically right behind my high school, and so we cut across the grounds for a short cut back to our car. Now, there's a place where it looks like nothing much has changed. Talk about a place to bring back the memories. Bleah. I'm so glad I will never have to live through high school again. We found another travel bug in one of those caches, which just happens to be trying to get to Maryland, where I just happen to be stuck going this week. I hope I can find a cache I can get to for leaving him there. (Hell, maybe I'll place a cache of my own, just to give him a home. Hee.) The last cache was at Valley Falls, which is one of the plaes we used to go swimming in the summer - it's a leftover mill pond, and they've enhanced a number of hiking trails around it since I was a kid. It seemed much smaller than it used to - I guess everything you remember from being a child seems that way. This was, I think my favorite cache spot of the day. The entire walk was alongside a babbling stream that runs into the pond. The sun had come out, the walk was easy, and the sound of the rushing water was wonderfully relaxing.

After that we figured we'd stop in Worcester and wander around Clark for a while. We missed all the free activities, and didn't want to pay $35 each for the clambake, when we didn't know if we'd know anyone inside, so we just walked around campus. It didn't seem like all that much had changed, and Worcester seemed to have barely changed at all. While we were wandering around, I was struck by just how much the 5 years I spent in college (that's with a year of grad school, smart-ass) was the last time I really felt like I owned my life; the last time I was really happy with what I was doing. Sure, there were classes I didn't like, and assignments that were hard or stupid, but for the most part I loved what I was doing - taking classes that interested me, learning, interacting with other smart people on a daily basis.

It isn't so much the "good times" or the fun that I miss, butthat overall sense of being where I belong, doing what I should be doing. Thinking about it, I notice too that my college time was the kind of physical environment I want for myself as well - car independant, most of what I needed within walking distance, which makes a big difference too. Since then, I've just been doing what I felt I had to - working a jobs that leave me flat, living places that didn't feel right, livin up to someone else's standards about what my life should be. And maybe I won't get back that freedom; I mean, then I wasn't supporting myself, I could do what I wanted and be fine. I'm really hoping that with the upcoming change in life plans that I'll be able to get back to there or at least a little closer.

After wandering around Clark, we returned to Boston to get Margaritas and enchiladas at La Ploma, which I'd started craving earlier in the day. Waited a bit for a table, which just gave me time for extra margaritas. Woo. Then came home, logged our caching finds and crashed in bed.

All in all, a lovely way to spend my birthday.