Nature: 1, Team WestEnders: 0

I'm sure everyone has a list of Things They Want To Do during the Summer. (Other people make vacation-time agendas...it's totally common behavior...right?) Our Master Plan includes various places we want to sightsee...but first, Riley determined that he needed his Summertime Haircut. (Why mention a routine trip to the Barber Shop? Stick with me, you'll see.) He decided to get a Mohawk, and later that night, as he was preparing to be tucked in, he declared, "Tomorrow, I want some gel in it!" Um, why? He pondered for a moment, then decisively replied, "So I can look COOL!" He proceeded to flop into bed quietly singing "Baby, you were born this way" by (the ever so normal and well-adjusted) Lady GaGa. Oh. Good. Grief. He's a rebel, that one (should I be pleased by his...uniqueness? or just go ahead and sign him up for therapy?)

And speaking of rebels: how fitting that immediately after Independence Day--when we celebrate the proud American traditions of all-you-can-eat picnics and blowing stuff up...I mean winning our freedom from Mother England, of course--Derek staged a mini-uprising of his own. Okay, not really. What happened was, he politely requested, "since we just visited a Civil War location last week, can we do something else on Friday?" What? My little historian has Battlefield Fatigue already? So, being the Benevolent Dictator that I am (it's just another synonym for Mom, you can look it up), I scrambled to appease the troops and come up with an alternate Field Trip...which is how we ended up 70 miles away from home, at the Jefferson Patterson Park in Calvert County. This place, situated on the Chesapeake Bay and Patuxent River, boasts nature trails, Native American exhibits, active archaeological fieldwork, and the site of the largest naval engagement ever to occur in Maryland (during the War of 1812...see, I managed to sneak in a historical component, too...I'm just good like that!).

After we made a brief stop at the Visitor's Center for the all-important map, we chose to tackle the Woodland Trail as our first order of business. Bravely we marched into the trees, following a weedy, narrow walkway. We experienced instant success, as within the first 5 minutes, we had met our Creature Quota: a black snake hurriedly slithering off into the brush; a box turtle crouched in the center of the trail (who seemed quite alarmed by us and hightailed it into the leaves, much faster than I thought turtles could move, attempting to bury himself and become invisible to the big, scary humans); and an even more nervous salamander, skittering over the mossy ground. Perhaps we should have just turned back at that point, especially since, upon spotting the turtle, Riley exclaimed in a hushed, reverential tone, "This is the best day of my life!" (He has a current, unexplained fascination with reptiles.) What happened next was NOT so pleasant--I barreled straight into a spiderweb (the perils of being the tallest...and in front of the pack). I took it pretty well, brushing it off and even chuckling a little...until it happened again, and again, and again. With each Arachnid Attack, all three of us flinched a little harder and screamed a little louder, until ultimately we just gave up and hopped around like demented monkeys, waving our arms about to remove the offending strings. (And let me just admit right here that YES, we have been completely spoiled by the wide, well-groomed paths we are accustomed to hiking at State and National Parks. Anyone in the vicinity who happened to see and/or hear our ridiculous rantings would probably have laughed hard enough to pee themselves. Oh, and for the record, none of us would last even 5 MINUTES as Boy Scouts. I'm just sayin'...) Finally I had the bright idea of picking up a long stick, and we spent the remainder of the hike with me in the lead, thrashing our way through the woods, whacking the webs down Indiana Jones-style (or so I imagined--made me feel less dorky. However, detracting from this heroic picture was the fact that we were so unnerved by this point that every time a bug of any kind so much as got near us, we all squealed like a pack of tweens at a Justin Bieber concert. Yeah, not our finest Nature Warrior hour...)

Finally we fled from the forest and went in search of...tamer interests. We examined the archaeology exhibits, stopped by the Indian Village, admired the picturesque view of the Patuxent, and patronized the Gift Shop (my children are huge fans of the Souvenir). Then, having satisfied all of our excursion needs, wilting from the hours spent in the hot, sticky weather, and let's not forget, covered in the remains of spiderwebs, we opted to head for home. Our northbound drive proved fairly uneventful, and upon arriving I eagerly anticipated a nice warm shower. I wouldn't bother mentioning the, um, personal hygiene moment, unless I had one last brush with Nature to report. As I was soaping off the day's sweat and sunscreen, I discovered an unwelcome little guest that had hitchhiked home with me: yes, a tick (the first one I've had to pull off of myself in...I can't even TELL you how long!) I think it's safe to say that's entirely enough Nature for a while, thank you very much! That's it, I'm planning our next Field Trip to the good old (indoor, air-conditioned) Movie Theatre!