TheBanyanTree: dawn?

[Sachet]

Hear me sigh long and loud. Although I have always been a night owl, 
alas, life's demands have not always recognized nor made allowances for 
my predilection. Jobs, babies, care-giving of relatives, etc. have 
required that I see dawn on a regular basis over the many years. I dinna 
necessarily always like it, but I did it, 'cause I had to, and that's life.

And surprisingly, being a natural night owl, it still took a few months 
to adjust to my husband working 2nd shift. I have not a clue as to why people 
think that sleeping to 11am, getting 8 hours of sleep (if VERY 
fortunate) is any different (or somehow equates to lazy) than going to 
bed at 10pm and getting up at 6am. Same, same. You'd THINK. But nope, 
there is a definite attitude sometimes encountered when an early-bird 
hears of our schedule. It used to annoy me a LOT. Now I merely shrug at 
their ignorance. And sometimes think of clever replies. Sometimes.

So. Zach is due to take Driver's Ed this month. The instructor had three 
options. 7am - 10:30am, noon - 3pm or 3:30pm - 5pm for two weeks. He, 
for some unknown and obviously NON-nightowl reason, decided to drop the 
3:30pm - 5pm class. Leaving us the other two to choose from, with me 
earnestly explaining that we live according to 2nd shift roolz and that 
going to bed at 3am and getting up at 6am is not feasible. Did he 
listen???????????!!!!!!!!?????????

No. Nope. No way. Not a chance.

He assigned us 7am. The early-bird sadist.

It took months to adjust to this lifestyle and 99% of the people I 
encounter for medical appointments, repair work, etc., understand and 
work with me. But not this guy!

Nope, we got to wake up at 6am (I was wondering last night if it is EVEN 
LIGHT OUTSIDE then?!?!) and drove to the local high school for Zach to 
take his Driver's Ed class. <SIGH x's 10>

I am TRYING to find a great attitude about this. I decided that 
since it's going to be so HOT this week (in the mid to high 80's! 
Aaaaggg!) I would drive over to Hanging Rock State Park, since the high 
school is on the way there, and hike in the early morning hours when it 
should be relatively cool.

I dunno. I pondered...would my body even function THAT early?

<g>

It started out cool this morning....didya know the sun isn't even up at 6am?  :-) 
But it's very cool out. Hanging Rock dinna open until 8am so I drove into Danbury 
and explored. (OK, after I actually FOUND Danbury. These curvy roads are so dang 
confusing! Nothing is where I think it should be. <g>) Post office 
doesn't open till 8 either. What to do until 8am? Danbury General Store. 
Interesting place. Has a grill and I was hungry and the older lady 
behind the counter was making the biscuit dough by hand. Too cool to 
pass up! One egg biscuit later I was on the way to HR again and happy to 
see that they opened the gates 10 minutes early.

So I ate breakfast and drank my coffee, on a log by the lake, fed some crumbs 
to the fish and thought of Cecil when a big fish jumped up to snatch the crumbs 
off the surface of the water and then I hiked a couple of different trails. 
I was VERY glad I had taken shorts, because it was SO humid, which 
made it feel a lot hotter than the 75 degrees it was by 9am. And the 
lake beach doesn't open until 11am, so there was no way to cool off, 
but it was nice & shady, because of course the sun ISN'T fully UP high 
in the sky that early in the morning. <g>


I went to Tory Falls, which were beautiful - the water drops 240 feet over
a series of rock terraces before becoming a brook in the valley below.
I _wanted_ to go to Tory's Den - the big cave. I stood there at a fork 
on the not-very-well-marked trail and pondered how I consistently get lost 
on a road with a big road map, so what were my chances of getting lost on an 
iffy trail when I couldn't quite figure out what trail was which and where 
they went on the little trail map? <g> Common sense prevailed. I learned that 
the first person on a trail finds out first hand just how healthy a spider population 
inhabits the trails. I must have walked through a gazillion spider webs. 
And bees are verrrrrrrry curious creatures. Friendly and non-threatening, but
buzzily curious. And I obviously didn't inherit the skill to walk quietly on a 
trail from my Cherokee ancestors, because I scared a deer even when I tried to 
be extra quiet.

It was different to be hiking by myself. Quiet. Very uniquely, 
wonderfully quiet. A novel experience. <g>

So dawn ended up being a good thang after all. And I imagine early 
bedtime is going to feel very good this evening.

Nine more days of dawn. I think exploring places to have breakfast is a 
right fine idea. <g>


...Sachet