First off, my birthday came and went on Saturday. Thank you so much to those of you who wished me a happy birthday – it’s a bit overwhelming how my name kept popping up! I’m very fortunate to have such wonderful people around who care for me.

For my birthday, I knew that we were going away for the weekend, but takaza was being cagey about where we were headed. The story gets kind of convoluted from here…

I had some ideas of where we might go; we’d talked about a couple of B&B’s, and I sort of hoped that would be where we wound up. Then, on Friday morning, I saw this entry from ramalion:

I guess the beans were spilled about Duncan's surprise trip here by 
his loving mate. Good work Takaza. ;)

I was hoping for better weather this weekend for it, because I was 
going to try to yank Duncan back into Geocaching. Got a specific 
cache with a travel bug going to Florida that I figure I'll yank 
and bring with me to FWA. I'm sure I can manage to grab them for 
at least one search, even if it's going to be a bit cold...he's 
a husky...he should be use to it. ;)

Either way, last month's trip was enjoyable and all we did was 
sit around the house. I'm sure Sammy will love the company, 
although we'll have to wrap Takaza in a isolation suit so he 
doesn't blow up like he did last time. :)

It turns out that Dan had made mention of going to St. Louis the night before, but I completely missed it. This means that Rama’s entry made no sense to me, so I assumed that Dan had made a filtered post that I couldn’t see, Rama assumed that I had read it, and then made his post. I actually refreshed the page several times to see if the post would disappear as Dan frantically told Rama that I didn’t know what was up. But still it remained. I had mixed feelings about this; it would be fun to wander around geocaching and hanging out down in St. Louis but at the same time, Dan had mentioned that we wouldn’t be leaving until 7 PM, and I wasn’t looking forward to a five and a half hour drive after that, plus we were just in St. Louis two weeks ago. I didn’t mention anything to Dan during the day, though, because I didn’t want him to think that his surprise had been spoiled.

Once Dan and I got home, we packed for a weekend getaway – all the usual stuff, plus my GPS (which hasn’t been used in over a year), and an extra blanket so I could catch a nap in the car on the trip down. We set out at 6:45 or so and took Lakeshore Drive down to I-55. Traffic was surprisingly light and the drive wasn’t bad – I have a bit of a lead foot, so we were out past I-294 by 7:30. Dan had said before we left that he had an upset stomach, and as we neared the exit for IL 53 in Bolingbrook, he asked if we could stop so he could make a pit stop. He suggested Cheddar’s, a tasty restaurant that we had eaten at before, because he knew the restrooms were clean.

As we pulled off the interstate, I was reminded that feren, our friend who lives in Bolingbrook, has a wonderfully comfy guest bed, and I mentioned how nice it would be to spend a weekend at his place sometime soon. I jokingly said we should call Feren, but Dan said we were in a bit of a rush so we should just make a brief stop at the restaurant then we’d get back on the road. I pulled into the restaurant and waited in the car while Dan went in. I passed the time looking at the directions to Rama’s place that Dan had printed out, plotting out our route in the atlas, and dreading the four and a half hours of driving we still had ahead of us. After a few minutes, Dan came out and got back in the car. I got ready to put the car into gear and head out again when he reached over and turned the engine off and pulled my car keys out.

“GOTCHA.”

It turns out that he had gone into the restaurant to call Feren, who was waiting at his house with roho and genet to come meet us for dinner. We weren’t actually going to St. Louis, we were going to spend the weekend at Feren’s place. And, it turns out, Rama knew exactly how to use his friends filters – that entry was visible to only to me and Dan. Dan had me completely and thoroughly fooled, and did an excellent job of it!

We had a delicious dinner at Cheddar’s, and retired back to Feren’s for a lovely evening of chatting and beverage consumption. Saturday we ran a few errands around town, and then were joined by linnaeus. Dan cooked up a wonderful steak dinner, and we passed the rest of the evening enjoying the company. This morning was delightfully lazy, and I made up pancakes for everyone for brunch. After that we took our leave, did some quick shopping at Sam’s Club, then came home, where we will spend the rest of the evening relaxing and laptop-geeking.

I must also mention that Dan gave me my birthday present a little early on Friday, just before we left. It was a wonderful present and quite unexpected: an iPod! My MP3 player (an old Archos) has served me well for almost six years, but its hard drive is dying and it’s a huge brick, not well-suited for carrying when working out. This will be perfect for working out, and I hope to experiment a bit with podcast subscriptions as well. It’s a fantastic present, and Dan’s a real sweetheart for getting it for me!

And now, we’re going to snuggle up on the sofa and watch some TiVo. I hope everyone’s weekend was a great as mine!