Well, I had big plans for this past weekend. I had a friend coming in from the city, we were going to go to Van Buren and stay at a cabin that some friends of my family own, and we were just going to relax for the weekend…doing NOTHING. It’s amazing how quickly things change.
To start off, she ended up getting caught in traffic and didn’t make it to Doniphan until around 7:30-ish or so, therefore we didn’t head out until around 8:00 for a forty-five minute drive to Van Buren. Which put us arriving and unloading the car in the dark. We did have some nice gentlement stop to help open the gate. It has a sag going on and I couldn’t lift it and pull the lever back by myself. They smelled a little of alcohol…but who can turn away help.
Then we arrive at the cabin. In the past I’ve always went up after my mom and dad had been there, or our friends, and they give the cabin the first official ‘spring cleaning’. Being a cabin in the woods, there’s varmits around not to mention the rodents. So after getting in and putting the parishables in the fridge, we cleaned up as much as we could (note to self, need to donate a vacum cleaner to the cabin); my friend cleaned the bathroom and I started sweeping the mouse poo up out of the floor. My friend is not an outdoors person, her idea of camping is renting a room at a hotel. Though she says she enjoys the outdoors, it’s just not a past time that she partakes in…so this experience was a little beyond her. But we finally setteled down to watch some movies.
It was all going well, I was tired and ready to hit the hay, so I went back to my room for the night to crawl into what I thought was going to be a nice comfortable bed and kick back and sleep until morning…what a surprise I got. Luckily I went ahead and pulled the blankets further back than normal on the bed…because….there was…a…dead mouse…in the…bed. AHHH!! I kinda screamed and ran from the room heaving (it was in the theroes of decay). I went back into the room to get my bag and pillows off the dresser, and I ended up in the kitchen over the trashcan, because my disturbance of the blankets caused the smell to permeate the room. I felt TERRIBLE that I could not be woman enough to buck up and go in the room and clean up the mess (but then memories of me having to use bounce dryer sheets to change my nieces diaper came floating through my head)…I have a very weak gag reflex. So needless to say, I ended up on the love seat that night and my friend slept in the bedroom with the lights on.
The next morning I was up at 5:30. It was a nice crisp morning (40 degrees); so I built a fire. At first I thought the whole thing was going to burn the house down, there was no back damper on the stove, and I forgot about the front damper, and I had a ROARING fire going on. But once I got everything ‘set’ and turned the damper down, it was a nice cozy fire and warmed the house up. The river was BEAUTIFUL. The morning fog was rolling up off of it. I also got to see a turkey, he flew into the front yard and walked around for a bit. It was a very peaful time…what time I got to spend there.
We packed up around 1:00, and went to Big Springs then headed into Doniphan. With all the excitment, we didn’t stay another night. So we relaxed at my place the rest of the evening, not doing much of anything. Not really what I had planned, and the weekend turned out a lot different than I anticipated…but it was good. I loved the time on the river (minus the mouse). I did call our friends and tell them about the little surprise…hopefully they have a stronger gag reflex than I.