I’m way behind posting every little detail of my life. How do I know? Matthew told me so.

Our trip to Kansas to meet family and friends and tell stories and see my father’s headstone exceeded even what I could have imagined. And the guy’s camping trip to Maine, though intentionally shortened, was liberating.

I think I’ll start with the present and move backwards, which means the camping trip comes first. I’ll cheat and use Adam’s email to the missing member, Mark Schreiber, whose workload forced him to remain in Boston.

“Lewis got a little too intimate for the big fella {a meandering moose}, who decided to keep things strictly intra-species, but he did give ’em a nice dance before departing, we’re told … (Dan and I stayed back at camp and readied the poles and ropes for the firepit tarp the boys were fetching).

Weather was a Cliff Notes of all camping trips — brilliant, lazy sun, endless drizzle, howling gale with a whiff of the Arctic, in that order (with 5:00 a.m. the nominal average changeover bell). And the trip might’ve felt too short but for the last condition, which made “we’re outta here!“ more than acceptable. A good time, though, with a smattering of most of everything from moose to midnight swim, potato launchers, slingshots and LED Frisbees — except for food and alcohol, of which there was rather more than a smattering … We toasted you at first lunch with a tipple of Seksti!

More when Mike has edited up our movie — circa 2008 …”

Adam

Adam is wrong about the date. 2009 is more like it. I brought both my movie camera and my DSLR, but shot more film than stills which is okay, but it does require far more effort to assemble something viewable.

I’ve plenty more of that moose but here he is ambling into the woods (yes, we are way too close)

and here he is before his dance,

and one last photo after his dance, still looking back at us, wondering whether we’ll take the hint and leave.

Believe me, his dance, though majestic and seen mostly through my lens, made my heart stop.