4th of July

It has long been a tradition in our circle of friends to spend the 4th of July weekend at Silent Bob's parents' lakehouse, near Scranton. This year was easy, with the 4th on a Friday. I took Thursday off and left after work on Wednesday with Josh and his dog, Zehe. We left Pittsburgh at 8pm, and drove the 6 1/2 hours to the lake. I think I am getting too old to do that. It was exhausting and never-ending, especially since 80 has no lights toward the eastern part of the state. We arrived at 2:30am, and JP, Silent Bob, Brian, and Keiser were already there. The next night we were expecting 9 more people, and then 1 more on Friday, to make us 16 in total.

In the past, we have had to leave the house at least once a day to go pick up beer and food. No one likes to leave the lake, so we decided to get everything ready ahead of time. This meant ordering 2 kegs and making a grocery list for 6 meals for 16 people. I was asked to put together the food list, and Josh and I volunteered to go get food on Thursday before everyone was there. The list included things like 7 loaves bread, 144 hot dogs, 12lbs of pork roast, 8 bottles BBQ sauce, etc., etc. We filled 3 carts with groceries, and the total was around $400. Not a bad deal at all. I kept the receipt to take a picture of, but it's actually too big if it's on the floor, and I didn't feel like hanging it on the wall, so I measured it. 75 inches. That's 6'3" long. It's a good thing I thought to sign up for their discount card - it saved us $50.
So we had pancakes, bacon, and fruit for breakfast on Friday, BBQ chicken, corn, and roasted potatoes for dinner; eggs, bacon, toast, and baked beans for breakfast on Saturday, and pulled pork and coleslaw for dinner. Planning, cooking, and cleaning for 16 is exhausting even with tons of help. I'm glad that JP and I do not have 14 children.

There is so much that I love about the lake that it's hard to pick my favorite thing. Afternoons of reading while there is hacky sack in the background?

Naps on the lawn?


Fireworks set off from our dock and the dock next door? (Which, by the way, rival any that I have seen, especially as you are close enough to have flaming ash rain down on you)


The fires and marshmallows and s'mores?

It might be the stars seen laying on the dock late at night. How many constellations do you know? We could pick out 4 - Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Casseopoeia, and Orion (who can only be seen early since he is low on the horizon in summer).

When JP and I travel, we like to explore. Neither of us wants to spend days laying on a beach. We would much rather wander around an unknown city and eat at hole-in-the-wall restaurants. The lake is the only place that I go to just escape it all. As soon as I see it, there's just this feeling of peace and leaving everything else behind. We call it recess for adults - pure fun that lasts for days and you get to drink.