This morning when we arrived at church, I thought I might take a peek in the canopy garage to see how much stuff had been donated for our annual Memorial Day yard sale. My intent was to take a photo so I could share that here. But my camera would not turn on. Thus the title of this post. :-/

Perhaps it was a bad idea to put the threaded insert into the tripod mount, or perhaps 40,000 pictures was all it could handle (that’s not an exaggeration). So now I find myself without a camera, unless I count my cell phone. But that has a pretty crappy camera in it, so I don’t really count it at all! I don’t know if I can fix it this time, if I’ll have to go without a camera for a while, or if I will get a new one soon. With the prospect of sending Jonathan to UNH this fall, this is not the best time for me to get a new camera.

When we got home I had some lunch and then figured I might take a nice nap. I figured I could slip under the covers for an hour or so between shedding my church clothes and donning my hiking clothes. But before I could manage that, my phone rang. Joy, one of my Pathfinders (who lives pretty close to my house) wanted to know if she and Beth could go bike riding. Well, I knew Beth would want to do that, and I was planning on doing something after the nap anyhow. So I swapped the order of the nap and the activity. Also, I thought it would be better to have an adult around – after all, the roads between my house and Joy’s has some dangerous traffic on it.

So I put on my hiking clothes, got the bike down, filled some water bottles, and Beth and I set out. It’s only 2.8 miles to Joy’s house. Then the three of us biked down to Sandogardy Pond. It was 81 degrees, and there were a lot of people there. I definitely understand why people like going to the pond, but I also like it a lot better when I’m the only one there. With the crowds comes the cigarette smoke and the country music. I let the girls wade for 15-20 minutes, and then we hopped on the bikes again and hit the trails in the town forest.

While we were near, we parked the bikes and then went and visited my Little Cohas Brook geocache. I had placed a travel bug in it back in March, but since no one has been there since, it has just sat there patiently waiting. I picked it up and will move it along as soon as I can.

We made our way back to the bikes, rode around the park for a little while, and then went back to Joy’s house. She gave us Klondike Bars (which were very much appreciated). Then Beth and I headed back home. I plotted our route on Google Maps, and figured that Beth and I put in about 8 miles all together.

Then I came home and had an abbreviated nap (it was nearly supper time). After supper, Penny was begging everyone to play with her, and I was feeling guilty for not taking her on the bike trip – but that’s such a hard thing to manage, especially when there is a road with dangerous traffic involved in the route. So David and I walked her down to Sandogardy.

There were fewer people there the second time around, which is fine by me. Penny had a great time chasing sticks, but I almost felt lost without my camera. I could see that the sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia) was almost ready to bloom, and the cucumber root (Medeola virginiana) already had. But no photos. The bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) is fully in bloom now too, but again… no photos.

How will I survive!