today is autumn’s birthday 
time for the forced march weekend
9/20/2002
9/18/2002
Night 2 of being alone in the house, no wife, no baby, just me and the pets. And a lot of tequila.
Ok, not that much tequila… It’ll be good to see them again tomorrow, i really miss them.
Night 1, i was so wiped out that i didn’t do much besides a little ibook jag. Got some good sleep though, that was key.
Today i got some house cleaning done, mowed the lawn and fixed 2 windows (part of my ongoing campaign to tighten up the house). It’s pretty cool how a crapped-out old window can work really well, once the pulleys are oiled, some weather stripping installed, and the trim reinstalled so they aren’t flopping in the track. A little shellac, and they practically look good too.
9/9/2002
i’ve been sneezing and blowing my nose with the pollen and a head cold for the past 2 weeks, and ella now has a really good imitation of me blowing my nose.
she’ll run over to where i am (next to the kleenex), put her hands on her face and blow raspberries while bending over double. it’s so funny, i forget to sneeze again 
9/1/2002
In a preview of our forced march weekend coming up for Autumn’s birthday, this weekend we hit five parks in two days.
It was going to be 1 park (Minnesota Valley) but we didn’t even get out of the car because of the mosquito swarm. We drove down to Minneopa, and stayed the night there. Next morning, hiked the park, then drove to Sakatah Lake, hiked and had lunch.
We then debated whether to head down to the Forestville Mystery Cave, or to stay closer north. My head cold and the lack of camping at Forestville (all full-up) led us to Rice Lake. Seemed like a nice park, but very few sites available, and those few were pretty crappy. We took notes though, and hope to head back some time.
A couple more calls (oh, those roaming charges are probably going to hurt…), and headed to Nerstrand Big Woods, a park we’ve camped at before, but not for abour 3 years. The walk-in sites were no great, but quiet, and Ella had a great time collecting acorns (4 in each hand) and trading them back and forth.
Grand total, about 10 miles of trails and ~200 miles of roads. Fun trip, despite the head cold, and the dog throwing up in the tent, and Autumn getting no sleep Saturday.
