the weekend of small towns and cows

This weekend was awesome.. and it's not even over yet.

Andrew and Cam and I drove town to Columbia on Friday and grilled out at Cam's house, which was perfect... steaks and salads and beer and Cory Smith and football in the park. It was just one of those relaxing Friday evenings where everything is juuust right. That's kind of how this weekend has been... juuuuust right. If I'm not careful, I'm going to turn into a Gamecocks fan this summer. I'm around them constantly, and it's just their way of life.

OOH funny camp moment I forgot to share. It was "college football week" at camp, and they surprised the campers and got the real Clemson tiger mascot to come hang out for a few hours.. and seeing as many of the staff go/went to USC, it caused a big uproar... so we managed to take a picture of the tiger doing the #1 sign in a cocks visor. Amazing.

Another thing.. my dreams lately have been really bizarre. The other night I had a dream that I was an astronaut and I got to space and I realized I forgot my toothbrush.. which sucked. I mean, what would you do? You're stuck, and it's not like you can have one shipped. No pun intended. Then last night I had a dream that I was on a beach at night fishing for polar bears with chocolate chip cookies. And I got a new flashlight.

I feel like I'm six again.

Back to Columbia, though... Saturday we went to the Salty Nut for lunch, then took the back roads up to Andrew's aunt and uncle's restaurant in the middle of nowhere, SC. Grits and Groceries, its called... the food was amazing, and they had this great acoustic guitarist playing and everyone was outside... breeze, checkered tablecloths, horses and goats, oysters, cornbread, the best sweet tea ever... it was amazing. Again, it was so good just to relax and enjoy everything. The food deserves some praise, though -- they did cornbread and ham stuffed oysters, watermelon and onion salads, peach chutney and pork, peach cobbler and cherry ice cream... everything was gourmet and perfect.

It was cool to experience small town life... we passed a lot of goats and cows and horses (namely becuase we took a wrong turn in Lexington.. so we saw far more goats and cows and horses than anticipated). We just kind of weaved along the little highways with the sunroof open and Cory Smith playing.. no real agenda, no stress. Good company, too.. those boys are amazing.

We met some camp friends at the restaurant, then headed back up to Greenville and went to Blueridge and to play on the rocks in the park... again, just fun. Afterwards I went and spent the night with some of my guy friends at Furman.. another great late-night talk.

I love this nomadic weekend life.

I've spent most of today running errands and drinking coffee and blogging and getting pictures printed and catching up with family... I might go to Bob Jones art museum later, and I have Misa tonight. Just a nice, relaxed Sunday. They opened a new vintage shop downtown, too, that I might hit up. No agenda, no stress... just a tank of gas and my life in my trunk and my keys and my ipod and my camera. It's lovely.

So toss up some prayers for this week... we have a really fun, young cabin.. and Ragamuffin is in it again!!! I can't wait to see what this week has in store...