palace of winds

I had a really, really great Fourth of July weekend, and this picture pretty much sums it up. (There were a few other pictures that I thought said it a little better, but I didn’t want to post pics of other people pretending to lactate wine from a wine-in-a-box pouch without said other people’s permission.)

What you can see is that I’m on the Meramec River, and that my floatin’ hat is made of awesomeness and win. What you can’t see is that we had two rafts and a canoe lashed together with bungies, and at the moment pictured I was balancing with one foot on either raft. I found it much easier than trying to stand on my tube on the Apple River. (I also drank beer instead of vodka on this trip and actually remember the whole thing.)

The drive through Iowa was surprisingly less excruciating than I remember — though I wasn’t the one driving, so that probably helped, and M and I got along like gangbusters and spent most of the time talking talking talking and the rest listening to Avenue Q and Ricky Gervais and Harry Potter. The drive through Missouri was downright gorgeous. The weather was perfect, totally perfect. I did not get sunburned, and I resisted the temptation of s’mores (oh sweet gooey grahamy delicious emblem of summer, how I miss your forbidden marshmallowness). Everyone was really lovely — it was one of those instafriends weekends, and oh Iowa of far farmfields how I hate you for being between me and more of that.