It's hot!

On our single precious day off last week we went to Sugar Loaf, an artist's colony in the little town of Sugar Loaf, NY.

Artsy! But in a commercial sort of a way!

Tucked into the green hills, the main street is lined with little shops selling anything from watercolors to candles to little sculptures of skeleton pirates. We spent a few hours wandering from store to store, happily content in the cool, moist air under an overcast sky.

Not pictured: my new kitty friend. Don't pet the tummy! It's a trap!

We stopped at the Barnsider Tavern for a beer, then went on to the nearby French cafe La Petite Cuisine for lunch.

Mmmmm. Nice to be back in civilization. Every morning I see on the weather channel that it's raining in Bismarck, ND, and I laugh a little bit.

It has been ferociously hot and humid this week. In fact, I believe that today we broke the all time record high - shattered it, in fact, by 4 degrees. When it's already 85 at 9:00am, you should just give up and go spend the day in a dark, air conditioned room. The weather channel recommended that us here in the 94-degree high, 90% humidity Northeast should stay inside and limit exercise.

So we went out to dig holes in the sun.

It actually wasn't so bad. I mean, it was bad, but it wasn't soooo bad. It could have been worse - we could have spent the day without any shade, like some people on the crew. Our unit was strategically placed to get shade by 3:00. Ha!

Leland found another way to keep cool during the lunch break...

Worth the wet boxer shorts?

The water was cold and wonderful (even though I only went in up to my knees).

We also had some wildlife companions to get us through the day.


Yesterday night we had a wonderful surprise when Leland's parents came to visit! They had just been in North Carolina... and they found a gorgeous house down there for us to rent!! More on that later...