I ask myself, why am I procrastinating on writing up trip recaps on the amazing trip that was our Alaskan cruise? Partly because it is both annoying to get the photos into the blog and because it is hard to decide which ones to choose! And partly because I would rather sit around reading, drinking coffee and planning the next trip, hahah. Who wants to live in the past, am I right? Plus, the world is burning around us, and I just want to hide and, well, I suppose that is a good reason to write a trip report.

So instead, I shall give you some highlights of the most recent life updates. Somehow I have acquire newer friends, and I ended up taking a short trip to Wisconsin with them, leaving Louie behind to hold down the fort, and by that I mean, the cats. My friends Marie and Fiona and myself drove about 5 1/2 hours north to Lake Geneva to escape the heat last week. At this we failed miserably. We got to our hotel, got out of the car swearing and lugging our suitcases complaining bitterly about how we thought that Wisconsin was NORTH and that the LAKE was supposed to be cooler and all of these things that were promised us and muttering things about GLOBAL WARMING and such.

It had been a long time since I’d been on a girls’ trip, and I am so glad Marie made this happen! Marie is a friend from when I worked at my before school job and though really she is young enough to be my youngest sister (ha!) we still have enough in common, and enjoy brunch, ice cream, shopping, and chatting enough to make Fiona put her headphones on to get away from it.

This was the hotel. Unfortunately our room overlooked the parking lot rather than the lake.

There was a shop named after me! Unfortunately it wasn’t one of my favorite shops and I didn’t even get anything in it.

We took a boat tour of the Lake. It was very interesting to hear stories of the houses and the people who lived there, with names you would recognized, like Wrigley and Morton.

It was only a 1 hour tour and went by quickly. There were longer tours, but Fiona wasn’t a huge boat person. If I ever go back, I want to do the mail tour, where you can watch the mail being delivered by people who literally jump off the boat to deliver mail, and jump back on the boat after delivering it–the boat doesn’t stop!

Our hotel from the boat tour. We stayed at the Lake Geneva Inn and I would recommend it. Very nice, very good location. The restaurant was also pretty good, with a great view.

We walked a bit of the shorepath one day. The shorepath is about 20 miles long and goes all the way around Lake Geneva, but we just walked a bit from our hotel and back. It goes through private property–all property owners are required to allow the path through their property along the edge and it’s really neat. Very European.

Not all parts of the path are landscaped like this, but this was a beautiful part.

We did tons of shopping and I brought home some cheese curds, rhubarb jam, and a few other things to share with Louie. We had some good food and fun conversations, and it was a relaxing few days. It was hot and humid most of the time but we managed: it was hot and humid across most of the country due to the heat wave so what can you do?

I got back to St Louis and had a bunch of wedding gigs, and then a day off. I did get a weird bug bite on my arm that I think was a spider bite that had quite a reaction–I was trying to decide, do I go to Urgent Care, do I not, and I was busy with work, and the hours weren’t good, and now it is improving. It’s still itchy but definitely improving, so I guess I’m glad I saved the money (how American of me, right?).

Louie and I went for a bike ride yesterday, 18 miles on the Katy Trail–the forecast said overcast with possible rain so of course it was hot and sunny. We wanted to stop and take a break halfway, but I got 4 mosquito bites right away so we didn’t, which I was bitter at, but we managed to finish…I won’t say strong, but finish. We stopped at the QT for a “treat” of Gatorade. When did they get rid of G2? I tried a Gatorade zero which was fine, I guess this is the G2 replacement? Is this like Coke zero rather than diet coke?

Embarrassing moments so far today: trying to make an online reservation for a hotel on August 1 and realizing you inadvertently made it for July 1 when they call you to ask about it. Luckily it was easily solved, but oops, that’s a big difference between tomorrow night and a month from now. Sigh. Just when you think you are getting better at planning, you remember that you recently heard that your brain peaked at 25 and was downhill from there. And then you remember that time you forgot that you turned 26 and your sister corrected you when you were telling people that you were 25, and yes, your brain was already going downhill. On that note! Have a great week.