72° and clear skies this morning, going up to 91°. Looks like we'll be pushing close to triple digits by Wednesday and Thursday.
Got all of the grass mowed Saturday. The areas I didn't get to last week were slow going, especially the pasture. Some of the grass out there was 2' to 2-1/2' tall. Probably should have used the tractor out there. Spent four hours just in the pasture. Mowed through a small downpour in the front yard, which didn't last too long. Seven hours overall. Long, hot day of mowing.
Sunday morning we packed up to go kayaking. The boy was initially going to go with us, but backed out at the last minute. Waiting for him set us back later than we would have liked. We decided to go back up to Springfield Lake and venture south up Sugar Creek. We took the scenic route up IL-4 instead of I-55. Took us a bit longer to get there, but was a better drive through a bunch of small towns than the interstate. We launched from the nice double kayak launch dock at Glasser Bridge Park in Chatham and headed south under the bridge. We encountered several other groups through the day in kayaks and on standup paddle boards (SUPs). There's not much lake left there before we got into Sugar Creek. We were paddling upstream, but the current wasn't bad at all. If we stopped, we'd find ourselves gently floating backwards with the leaves. We had intended to go to the covered bridge and back, but after getting about halfway there we realized we had gotten too late of a start to make it all the way to the bridge, so we turned around and headed back. We'll have to get to the covered bridge next time. The float back was pleasant, mostly riding the current with only a little paddling to steer until we got back to the lake proper. We got back to the car about 5pm-ish, loaded everything up and headed home. We went back down IL-4 again, having decided on the way up there that we would stop in one of the small towns and eat dinner somewhere. We decided on a little Mexican restaurant in Carlinville IL called Sol de Mexico. Excellent food, great service, and super friendly people. We'll definitely eat there again on the next trip up there. We got back home around 8:30pm. All in all, even with the late start, it was an excellent day with The Wife.
My first concert was Styx Paradise Theater Tour in 1981, BEF. I've always been a fan of that band ... at least until that Mr. Roboto travesty.
REO always got a lot of radio play here in the STL area, too. The first album I bought with my own money was their debut album. I like their earlier stuff better, as I'm not a huge fan of Kevin Cronin's style.
