How to spend the last days of summer

It was a beautiful day yesterday. The sun was shining, no birds, but summer's about over. I started the day by taking a drive to downtown Naperville to visit the Riverwalk Art Festival. This coincided with the annual wine tasting event, but I hadn't the foresight to purchase tickets for that, and frankly, I wouldn't be interested in it by myself. I'm not a huge wine drinker either. There were some interesting works of art. Mostly local artists, but I noticed some from the east coast.




I returned home after strolling through the exhibits to play with the dogs outside, taking pix of butterflies and flowers, and laughing hillariously at watching Dakota leap into the air after the butterflies. Apparently they do not get to play in our yard.





My wife was attending the 3rd and final day of a Parelli seminar, so I made sure to swing back by the house, play with the dogs, let them out, check on the kids, ask if they wanted to come with me.... I did this every couple of hours.

My next trip was to the Lisle Depot Days/Smile Days... I'd heard that Ides of March were playing but I couldn't find a time. When I got there they were holding a charity auction and the final items were oversized benches... no thanks.

I found out what time they were playing, had a couple of beers. It was another Jaycees event, so guilt free enjoyment ;-)

I called home to see if my wife were home yet, and she wasn't, so I decided to pick up some groceries and supper on the way back home. By the time I got there, my wife was home, but she was sick as a dog and had thrown out her back. I fed the kids, dogs, pups, applied Vics to the sickly one's back (edit: doh! the vix was the night before) and went back to take in the concert.

I'm glad I did. I didn't know that the lead singer of the Ides of March, Jim somthing or other, had co-written many of the hits for 38 Special and Survivor. They were awesome and I had a blast.



After this, I meandered to a local bar that had American English playing... Awesome!

The bad news is that my camera quit working last night too... I think I've worn it out. 60,000+ pix in 13 months. So, I'm setting off to take some muscle relaxers and soda to my wife, then take the camera to Best Buy to see if I can get it repaired before my "driving/photography" vacation starting next weekend. Nice timing.... grrrr. I guess it could be worse. It could have broke down during the vacation. (Update: It will be at least two weeks without my camera.... now what?)