I met Kevin, Marla, and Meredith at Finch’s for breakfast.
Kevin was his usual fun, personable self.
I was so glad to have finally met Marla. I found her funny, pretty (I’m gay, not blind!), intelligent, and very engaging.
Meredith had my heart at hello, as the first thing she did was tongue the butter out of two of those little plastic butter containers on the table for the toast. I’ve always thought that things like bread were merely vehicles for butter. She showed me that you really can eliminate the middle man.
While still at Finch’s I was unable to complete a call to Joe on my cell phone to see what kind of sandwich he wanted for lunch, so I just made an executive decision to buy one chicken salad sandwich and one tuna salad sandwich.
I got to Joe’s right at 9:15, and we headed to the Eno River State Park to meet the others for our hike and lunch today.
We met the group at the end of Cole Mill Road, where Jay, Howard, Matt, Stan, and Rich were.
Since we didn’t see the name of the trail we were interested in doing, the Buckquarter Creek Trail, we checked out the map.
While we were doing that, Jim (the psychologist of Jim and Brian) called to say that he was at another parking lot, which turned out to be the one from which we’d start on the trail we wanted to do.
He came to the parking lot at which we all were, along with another guy named Brent, and just as we all assembled, and discussed where we needed to be, a big group of kids, maybe cub scouts or boy scouts arrived.
We knew we definitely didn’t want to do the trail they were doing, and we all carpooled over to where Jim had originally been, where we set out on the Buckquarter Trail.
About, I’d guess, two-thirds of the way into the Buckquarter Creek Trail, we saw a sign for a 2.6-mile Holden’s Loop trail, which we took.
The Eno River was incredibly low, and we walked a lot along it on this trail, including some fun spots that were very rocky.
In general, I guess, we had three “groups.” Joe and I were usually out front, with Stan, Brent, and Matt bringing up the rear. The rest stayed somewhere in between.
At one point during the hike, Jay asked me about my iPod, and when I told him the story, he told me that he’d heard The Apple Store at Southpoint was offering some kind of “no questions asked” replacement of iPods due to the introduction of the Nano.
I told him that I’d been pointed to that store, and he agreed that it’s worth a try. Encouraging, but I don’t want to get overly optimistic.
After the hike, we had a nice lunch at the picnic area at the end of Cole Mill Road, where we’d started.
After we parked, on the way over to the picnic shelter, we saw some “sky advertising,” where these planes were expelling puffs of smoke into the sky, spelling out an ad. It was very cool, though I have no recall at all of what they were advertising.
It turned out that the chicken salad sandwich from Finch’s was much better than the tuna salad.
Back at the house, I took a two-hour nap. I’d set my alarm for 3-hours, just in case, but woke up with a phone call from Joe after two, and was well-rested.
We met at Los Tres Magueyes in Cary, where we had some con queso cheese dip with the complimentary chips, followed by dinner.
I had the:
| Tacos de Chorizo Four tacos filled with chorizo, a delicious Mexican sausage we make ourselves. Served with pico de gallo and green sauce. |
Joe got one of the combos.
It was all very delicious.
I got to dancing at about 8:30. Robert arrived shortly before nine.
It got crowded fast there tonight with it being Bear Beer Bust night.
Somewhere just after “the middle of the night,” (I’d say), this drag queen came out to sing a country song. It was pretty much a fiasco. She ended up fading off the stage before the song was even about two-thirds done.
It was a fun night, though the dancing got “sparse” toward the end, usually with Carl and I dancing with either Rob or Steven with us, depending on the song.
Robert left before the last three songs were played, but they were all songs he didn’t know the dances to, so he didn’t miss anything.
None of the dancers helped move the tables back onto the dance floor area, or moved the fan for them like we usually do.
At about 12:30, I guess, Joe and I walked over to CCs.
It was “the usual” there, with the most interesting thing (to me) being seeing Les on the dance floor with his shirt off, and a few minutes later finding him up on the speakers like a “show dancer.” It always surprises me when introverts do stuff like that.
Joe had a lot to drink, and after spending a little bit of time with a guy named Jonathan, he and I visited Shanghai Express. It was more crowded there, being a Saturday night, than it is on our usual Sunday night visits.
Joe had the Sesame Chicken, and I had the dumpling appetizer that Robert introduced me to last week. Yum.