My mom, who, despite how much I loved her, I would have to describe as a glass-half-empty kind of gal, used to use the Fourth of July as her opportunity to remind us, “Well kids, it’s the July 4th; the summer is half over.”

Thanks Mom.

So, though Mom’s words are weighing in the back of my mind, I enjoyed my July 4th holiday, and even the week leading up to it.

For example, last week, I invited my grandson Alastair to go geocaching with me, and he accepted with enthusiasm. Geocaching, remember, is the sort of treasure hunt where you find hidden containers using a GPS device. He had first learned about it in Cub Scounts. He is a good geocaching companion.

We were at a nearby park looking for a geocache in which the description includes a warning that “you really need to be a spider monkey to retrieve this one.” Well, our spider monkey Dagny was in Montana, but nevertheless, we forded on in our effort to spot this geocache.

And we did. Our GPS took us to the base of a very tall tree. I looked up. And up. And up. At the very tippy top of the tree I spotted something blue hanging there.

“There is is, Alastair,” I shouted. “Darn, I wish Dagny was here. She could climb up and retrieve it.”

“I can do it, Nana,’ Alastair assured me. And he started up. In his flip flops. Soon he was pretty much a speck in the tree, but he indeed did retrieve the cache. Since I didn’t want him trying to open it up while dangling from high in a tree, I told him, “Just touch it, and that’ll be good enough for us.” He did.

We celebrated the Fourth of July in pretty good fashion. Bill and Bec and I got a good, early start to Jen’s house in Fort Collins where she was hosting a burger cook-off later in the day. We stopped at Johnson’s Corner, a locally-famous truck stop whose owners purportedly threw the key into the cement when they began building the place early last century, and the doors have not been locked since. We enjoyed a big breakfast, which included one of their “world-famous” cinnamon rolls. Yesterday’s roll was a feast for the senses….

I hope you all had a good holiday, and have a great weekend.