Day Twelve: On the Water

I could really tell that I was 300 miles further north and that Summer Solstice wasn't that long ago. This is a long winded way to say that the dawn and the light that wakes me up came earlier. Even being on the north side of the house didn't help.

In my college days I had gotten used to sleeping in a near sensory deprivation chamber with my interior dorm room in the Ohio State Stadium Scholarship dorm. But I have always found it difficult to sleep in the light. Of course, the sounds of roosters coming through the screened but open door may also have had something to do with it. They did not belong to my hosts.

While at the time I did not have access to the Internet and this blog, I did use the time to prepare some notes so I could make this entry later, as I am now doing.

The big activity of the day was rowing (for me) and paddling (for others) in a rowboat and canoe that my son-in-law's father had made. They were excellent crafts. It was a lot of fun. While I wasn't used to rowing and got a couple blisters for my presumption, they didn't break; I didn't get sore; and in no way was there any discomfort to diminish the fun.

After dinner, we appropriately played the card game "Up and Down the River." I had played it before but never so well. Well, never so lucky. I even had a good chance to win the first game but had to bid zero and only got ten points each in the final two hands while my host bid and made two and one; beating me by three points. But my luck wasn't universal. Earlier in the day I was skunked by daughter in cribbage. I guess to truly enjoy the good luck of this Life after Layoff, I'll have to accept a little bad luck in cards. It is well worth it.