We decided to take advantage of the decent weather yesterday (and less things to do so that we could both afford a day trip) and drive about 90 minutes to hike Buford Mountain. Initially we just planned to hike about 6 miles to Bald Knob and back, but when we got there I was feeling great and so we decided to add on the extra 4 miles of the loop…I did regret that from about miles 7.5 to 10 and especially when I ran out of water (never forget: fill up ALL 3 liters in your water bladder) but it was a great diversion and a tough hike that took us away from St Louis and COVID for awhile. Buford Mountain is often found on lists of “the hardest hikes in Missouri” but don’t let that scare you if you are in decent shape: just pack lots of water and snacks and print out a map before you leave. It gets buggy in the summer though, and we beat that time of year, luckily. The hardest hike in Missouri is tough, but not like, say, the hardest hike in Colorado.

Along the way we had to make one pit stop-we had hoped to not have to but my bladder didn’t cooperate. We stopped at a Casey’s General Store and the only other people wearing masks were the workers. It was concerning, but I got in and out quickly and then sanitized my hands before reentering the car.

We got back and made a frozen pasta dish from Katie’s Pizza. We’ve ordered from them a couple times for frozen pizza and pasta. The pasta isn’t my favorite but it’s good. The pizzas are GREAT. We’ve become sort of addicted to the Morel Mushroom ones even though they are pricey.

Today is a relaxing day: it’s hot but I am trying to postpone the airconditioning until it’s more humid, so we’ve got windows open and fans going. We’ll see how this goes. (Note, it went about for thirty more minutes and we caved.)

I found this picture somewhere and laugh every time I think about it.

It’s my nephew Luca’s first birthday, so we have a family zoom meeting later. I made a small batch of lemon cupcakes in his honor—the batch made only 4 cupcakes, which is just about perfect for the two of us. I even froze the other two, but likely we will eat them in honor of my Dad’s birthday on Wednesday. I think they’ll stay fresher in the freezer however. They are lemon, with a strawberry jam filling with lemon cream cheese icing and should be pretty good. I don’t think I’d made cupcakes since I was a little kid, but I think I did an okay job.

This week looks to be pretty much the same as always. We are mostly still staying-at-home so that’s what we are doing. I suppose we’ve done a bit more going out and about, but we’ve been definitely continuing to practice social distancing, and plan to continue to do so for the future, until we see proof that relaxing standards isn’t causing a rise in deaths.

How are you?