Memorial Day Weekend: Friendships, Fremont Lakes & Fireflies

It was another one of "those" weekends, a weekend spent alone. And not only a weekend spent alone, but an extended weekend. It seemed like people were so excited about their plans this weekend, that no one even said good-bye to me when they left on Friday. Jon, being the last one to leave, was the only one to stop and check in with me before leaving, saying that I was welcome to drive this weekend.

Friday night and much of Saturday was spent trying to decide what to do with my weekend. I had asked about five people to hang out with me, but all of them were busy this weekend. I didn't really want to go to Omaha because of the extra gas and that driving in the city still is kind of nerve-wracking to me, but I was willing to go there if I could find something cool enough to do there. But as I was looking up things to do, I realized that there would be a bunch of people coming here next week and staying for two months, and that many of these things would be more fun to do with other people. Museum? More fun with other people. Zoo? More fun with other people. Skydiving? OH MY GOODNESS THAT WOULD BE AWESOME TO DO WITH OTHER PEOPLE! I got on the summer staff's Facebook group and asked if anyone would be interested in skydiving. I expected Jeremiah and Shawn to go for it, being that they're such adventurists. Not only did they commit, but it was nice to find that a couple other people want to go as well. So right now, we have five people committed to going, and I'm hoping we can find a sixth person so that we can get a group discount!

One of the people that wants to go skydiving is Chris Dady, whom I've never met before. But after I posted about skydiving, he and I ended up instant messaging each other for a couple of hours. It turns out that he wants to go to the zoo too, so we're making plans to go there one weekend. Most of our conversation was about the craziness of the summer staff, what camp is like, and things along those lines. I think this we'll  have a great summer staff; I'm really looking forward to them!

Sunday morning I went to church, chatted with a couple of friends, and then treated myself to a Jimmy John's sandwich and a haircut. It was my first Jimmy John's in months, as well as my first professional haircut in months. After that, I decided to check out Fremont Lakes, which I heard was awesome but I hadn't even gone that direction before. After I bought a day pass and started driving around the park, I realized that a lot of other people thought the lakes were awesome too, especially for Memorial Day Weekend camping. I was still in my church attire: a knee-length dress and flip-flops. There were lots of people swimming, but I figured there were plenty of other things to do. I parked next to a little trail, and started walking. It was sandy, so I decided to walk barefoot. Then after a little bit of walking, I was getting burrs and other pokey plants stuck to my feet, so I put my sandals back on, but that didn't completely stop my feet from getting attacked. So after a little bit more walking, I decided to turn around. I knew I should go home and grab some swimwear, water shoes, and snacks. So that's what I did. While I was walking back to the van, I noticed this little guy on the ground:

And then as I kept on walking back, I realized that there was a ton of cacti! This isn't the desert!

After I went home and was driving back to the lakes, I realized that I had had my towel ready to go, but forgot to grab it on my way out. Oh well, it was too far to turn back now! And even though I had to air dry after getting wet, I had a lot of fun.

I swam... 

Enjoyed nature AND the fact that I didn't have to mow this lawn...

Watched the jet-skis, boats, wake-boards, and tubes out on the lake and kind of wished I could do those activities...

Walked around a good portion of the park...

Watched as the sun began to set...

Took some pictures...

And read on this peaceful little dock.

I spent several hours at the lake, and the only thing that encouraged me to go home was the combination of me getting hungry and the fact that there was a light sprinkling. I'm glad I left when I did, because it started to rain harder on my drive home, and right when I got back to camp, I heard the first thunder of the evening. However, on the way home, I had to stop and take a picture of this beautiful rainbow! (It's actually a double rainbow, but the second one is hard to see.)

I had predetermined that Monday would be a hardcore cleaning day. I had laundry to do, my room was still in transition mode, and there was a weird smell coming from an unknown place. Now my bedroom is nice and clean (although I can't say the same thing about the rest of the basement, but I'm going to need some help moving the furniture and everything around). After dinner, I set up my slackline. I haven't done it in weeks, so the best I could do tonight was four steps unassisted! (I used the crutches for balance a lot!)

As it started to get dark, I was still slacklining, and I heard owls hooting. That was pretty cool. And it was better than earlier, when all the birds were laughing at me for being so bad at slacklining!

Around dusk, I was still focused on the line, when out of the corner of my eye I could see a flickering light in the woods. When I looked up at it, it turned off. I knew I had seen this light, but I was supposedly the only person at camp! I stood frozen in fear for a moment, and then I saw the light flicker again, a few feet away from where I had originally seen it. After I saw the flicker once more, I wondered about the possibility of it being a firefly. I've only seen a firefly once before, when I was in Virginia. I had never seen them in Nebraska before, so I went inside and Googled "are fireflies native to Nebraska?" It appeared that they were (I don't know what I would have done if they weren't!), so I went back outside to continue slacklining, and as soon as I walked out the door there was another firefly by the porch! In fact, as it got darker, there were several fireflies, so I decided to quit slacklining and grab a jar and a camera to try to catch these things. 

Television always made catching fireflies seem so easy. Maybe there just weren't enough fireflies out tonight to catch them decently, but they were pretty good at escaping from me! I eventually came across one bug that seemed to have a broken lightbulb. Instead of turning on for a few seconds and then turning off, he acted more like a turn signal. There must have been something wrong with him, because he was the first and only firefly I could catch. I took him inside to get a good picture of him. Now I know what fireflies actually look like! 

I tried to catch more, but no such luck. It was  really beautiful evening, though. It wasn't stormy, it wasn't even really humid, and there was plenty to enjoy about the wildlife. Besides the glowing fireflies and hooting owls (a combination which caused me to sing Owl City's "Fireflies"), there were toads, birds, and some animal I saw come out of the woods. It was dark so I couldn't exactly see what is was, but it was about the size of maybe a fox or a cat or a skunk. I tried taking pictures of it, but it didn't show up in the picture and the flash didn't scare it away. However, when I turned around and walked in the opposite direction, THAT scared it enough for it to run back into the woods. 

So that was my weekend. What I thought would be a horrible, dreadful, boring weekend turned out to be one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. How was your weekend?