Finally summer (for a few days, at least!)

When I get home from a trip, I have two simultaneous desires - never to go anywhere again, and immediately to begin planning the next trip.

So far it has been easy to plan the next trip, because until today, our so-called summer weather has been so gray, cold and dreary. Today, just as predicted by the local weather guru, the sun came out and the temperature went up.

What he didn't predict was the brisk breeze, that is keeping the afternoon pleasantly warm for sensitive northwesterners who have spent all these months living under rocks.

July 4 came and went, in the rain, but with magnificent fireworks over the lake, courtesy of an intensive fund-raising campaign last spring.

And now it's the 6th, and on the 18th I leave for the next trip - this time to Transylvania and points east.