On this September 11th I hope that you take a moment and reflect on the horrific tragedy of 9/11. I will never forget that day, such a sad day.
My summer went out with a bang! I kicked off last week with a golf tournament with my fellow Marine Dave at Stonehouse golf course in Toano. I really love this course and I played the best golf I have in a very long time.
The golf tournament was immediately followed by another pool party at a friend’s house. Once again, we had such a blast just hanging out and visiting.
I spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday helping Jonathan build a garage for his sister. It was hot and I struggled with being on the ladder at the peaks of the gables but I’m pretty proud of what we were able to accomplish in less than two weeks and excited that the next time I see it it will have a finished roof on it.
Working in that heat and on that ladder was a struggle but I’m glad I did it. At the same time, my truck got hit pretty good while I was inside Home Depot and I had some issues with my cell phone and couldn’t get any help online or over the phone and had to physically go to the cell phone store. I remember years ago how much this would have stressed me out, how I used to let things like this bring me down and I am so thankful that I now know how to focus on what’s really important and still have a good time.
I loaded up my wrecked truck on Friday morning and headed back down to North Carolina for a little fun in the mountains. I met my Marine brother Steven and my North Carolina crew of friends at the campground on Friday afternoon and we kicked things off with some adult beverages :), campsite cooking and visiting and joking until, well, let’s just say, way past our bedtime.
Saturday morning I got up early, did a little fishing and then I tried out my new little grill and iron skillets and made some biscuits, sausage gravy and eggs. I need more practice but it was all still pretty good. From there we were supposed to go tubing down the river but it was raining and the forecast was questionable so we canceled the service that was supposed to take us up river and we just continued to hang out. Well, sometime after the lunch the weather broke, the sun came out and my friend James said he wasn’t feeling up to tubing himself and that we could load up the truck and he would give us a ride up river. It was perfect and we were having a fantastic time. We stopped to see the waterfalls and were heading down river when out of nowhere one of those afternoon summer thunderstorms got us! Those raindrops were little pellets, they were cold and I don’t think being in the river is the best place to be during a storm. We were looking for a place to bail but of course we were in a section where the banks on both sides were tall and overgrown and then to top it off we got stuck on some rocks on a section of little rapids and Tyler and I had to get in the water and get us free. There we are stranded in the river, shivering cold, being pelted by rain, scared that we are going to be struck by lightning and what are we doing? Laughing, drinking and having the time of our lives! Brian was able to get enough signal to call James and let him know we were going to get out of the river early, we found a spot to get up the bank and on our way back to the campground were picking up other people who had gotten stranded. At one point I think we had six people in the truck and ten of us in the bed of the truck. Of course it stopped raining then so we all showered and then cooked some more and when the rain returned we got under the canopy and played some spades. When it cleared up again we broke out the cornhole boards and played a few games of that. All of that was followed by more adult beverages, more stories, more jokes and another late night. I didn’t get up until 8:30am on Sunday morning, enjoyed a little more fishing, got the grills going and we made another huge breakfast before the rain came in again! This time we just hung out, all packed in together under one ten by ten canopy until it finally stopped. We ended the weekend cutting up what turned out to be a perfect watermelon which we shared with some of the other campers and then we packed up and headed home. What may have looked like a ruined weekend to others turned out be an awesome time full of great memories for me.
My takeaways from this weekend;
Schedule and commit those events like this. If you don’t schedule them they might just never happen. Commit and even when you have a whole list of reasons not to do it, it’s on your calendar and you have to follow through and then boom! You have a great time, are rejuvenated and made some more awesome memories.
People are awesome. Yep, there are a lot of assholes out there but if you focus instead on the good people I believe you will find that the majority are just great. At this campground this weekend we had a mix of different personalities, upbringings, lifestyles, etc. and we all bonded together and genuinely just loved it.
Laugh more, hug more, share more stories, tell more jokes and enjoy the rain 🙂
Schedule your next adventure now and then write to me and tell me about it.
Have a fantastic week.