reason for not posting last weekend

i assure you, it's a good one:





i was busy playing in a photo booth during SO's cousin's wedding reception.

i'd never been in one before, and had to make up for 32 years of deprivation. (i have almost enough strips at home to give out with my holiday cards this year.)

wait a minute- logs don't have eyes....do they?

after wasting three saturdays in a row (only three?), i dragged (well, technically he drove) SO out on a long-overdue hike. santee state park is about an hour and a half from home, which allowed me enough time to wipe out a book (i was almost done) and grab a five minute snooze....which ended about the time we realized we'd somehow overshot the park.

why santee? well, since i work at the radio station until noon on saturdays and SO was barely in the shower when i got home, there was pretty much a zero chance of being able to get up to the waterfall-laden upstate region of south carolina and have enough time to tackle a decent hike and be off the trail by dark. plus, gas in columbia is still a pricey $3.99 a gallon and no, you do not get kissed first. not even a hug, in fact. (i got funny looks when i asked at the local gas station on friday.)

so, we were left with mostly local options....most of which have already been checked off in my handy dandy hiking book.

it should be noted that the handy dandy hiking book might be in need of a little update as, assuming i was reading the map properly, the "swimming pond" looks like this:


(it's probably worth noting that about 100 feet further down the shoreline, if that, there were not one, not two, but three signs advising against swimming and warning of the presence of alligators.)

there was an incident last september where a guy actually disregarded the "no swimming" signs, went snorkeling with a gator, and would up losing an arm, which was retrieved (intact, no less!) from the alligator's stomach. i thought this may have been the "swimming hole" in question, but a little googling proved me wrong.

mr. "snorkels with gators" survived, but i'm thinking he still should get an honorable mention in the next darwin awards book.

SO, was a little uneasy about my trekking down near the water's edge to have a look at the "no swimming" signs. (no worries- they were out in the open, and i would've spotted the gator before he spotted me.)

after leaving the shoreline, we drove to the sinkhole trail for one last mini hike. (with the exception of the bicycle trail, the trails at the park are under a mile long, and at .4 mile, this one's the shortest.) i'm pleased to report there weren't any gators in sight on this trail, which was a good thing, though SO said he had my back in the event of a possible attack: