Nature Calls

Sure, when you’re out on a boat, you’re typically surrounded by nature. But sometimes the mountains call. Isolating due to COVID-19 is hitting people hard. So we took our grandson to the mountains to escape the scene. We spent a week hiking, swimming, playing games outside during the day and working puzzles and reading stories at night. We even brought some carrots and apples to the neighbor’s donkey. Greyson crossed his first swinging bridge, fell into his first river (he’s fine), and hiked up his first “really tall hill” as he put it.

We are fortunate that we were able to do this and hope that everyone out there is finding healthy and productive ways get through this virus thing.

By now everyone is good and crazy, tired of wearing masks, sanitizing your groceries, not being able to hug your parents, you get the picture. We are lucky, and we know it. We’re healthy, we’re retired, our families live close by, and we’re able to at least see our parents from across the porch. We also have puzzles, lots and lots of puzzles.

I’ve always been a puzzle person. Jigsaw puzzles, brain teasers, you name it. I’ve done 10-piece puzzles with my grandson, and 2000-piece puzzles that I “borrowed” from my daughter. But this one takes the cake.

Jeff is a HUGE Lord of the Rings fan. So I bought us a 2500-piece LotR jigsaw puzzle. It’s actually 3 puzzles that fit on top of each other to make a huge 3-D puzzle. I thought, “No big deal. I can handle 2500 pieces.” Wrong! This puzzle is kicking my butt. Jeff was never much of a puzzle person, but he couldn’t resist. Now he’s hooked. We’ve kept it at the cabin and work on it whenever we go there. We’re going again next week, and it’s our last opportunity to finish it there. Otherwise, we have to somehow salvage what we’ve done and get it home. I see lots and lots of wine and late nights in our future next week.

Happy puzzling and stay healthy!

May 2020