yeah, it is kind of fun to be cold and wet, and get really smelly

Hugo fishing at the mouth of the creek. Yes, it's raining.

What? Like you don't put sunglasses on your dog.

Gold Creek. Roo said the water temperature was "testicles retreating to the throat". That apparently is a genuine temperature scale used by males.

Notice the very unsafe fire they've built: a hollow log made a sort of fire chimney. Hugo is burning his way through a collossal bag of marshmallows.

Yeah, that's me there. Not sure if I'm slipping into something more comfortable or what exactly I'm doing; but apart from me, the scenery is gorgeous, right?

We went camping last week. It was our first time to take Daisy, the malamutt. She was fine. We had a small disagreement about who should sleep in my sleeping bag and who should sleep on the blanket but it only took a few minutes of discussion to resolve. She did insist on putting her head on my pillow (yes, I'm a wuss; I camp with a pillow. Gone are the days when a rolled up sweatshirt was enough for my weary head.) several times a night but on the whole, I minded that less than when she tried to squeeze her butt on the pillow. She seemed to really appreciate the Chipmunk Channel which played all around the campsite all day - endless hours of amusement.

It rained on and off but luckily mostly in the evenings. One night, it rained so hard that it was like sleeping in a waterfall but we rather liked it as it blocked out the noise of the guys next door, who like to get back to nature with a brazillian gigawatt stereo pumping out Soggy Cracker & Geezer.

During the day, the sun came out enough times for us to enjoy a bask on the rocks by the river and by the lake. Daisy made a big production of shaking herself off thoroughly after so much as a toenail got wet; she's definitely not a water dog, though at one point she swam a bit when she slipped off a rock into deep water. After that adventure however, she stayed on the beach.

We came back for the long weekend because we didn't have reservations, ran out of food, and mostly because we don't really like people that much. Oh yeah, and I had marking to do.

The students' last assignment was due on August 31 and when I returned it was to a pile of envelopes, and an over-heated answering machine filled with pleas for extensions and queries about whether it's OK to have the assignment postmarked on the 31st or whether it actually had to arrive by that date....

I spent all of yesterday marking the suckers but as each one takes about an hour to mark, and there are 26 students, well, let's say I'm not quite done. And today, instead of starting to mark first thing in the morning, I quickly scrolled through some blogs and discovered Rabbitch had posted an apropos quote:

"I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. "
- An English Professor, Ohio University

Ahem.

I'm not renewing my contract with the college this term so this is the last batch of students I'll have to deal with for a while. Yippeee!!! I quit! I quit! I quit!

(So why is there still a box of paper for me to wade through?)

Tomorrow, because camping in the rain wasn't enough excitement for us, we're going camping again. This time, we're driving out to Osoyoos, which is currently covered by smoke from a forest fire. And not just any fire; it's the largest forest fire burning in the US & they're just kindly wafting the smoke north for us. Who could resist the appeal of that? Get away from the city and inhale smoke for several days! Osoyoos is famous for having the warmest Canadian lake, even when there are no forest fires around it to heat it up and we're hoping to camp out at Haynes Point, which is a tiny campground on a tiny peninsula (which be definition is sticking out into the lake but I really want to put that clause in) and is surrounded by Canada's only true desert.

Happy Labour Day everyone! (and am I the only one who thinks of midwives when I hear that?)

Tags: camping Hornblower