blueberries for sal

today we went back to sauvie's island, which i nostalgically find very reminiscent of ohio, to pick our second round of berries, and this time they were blue. adah immediately had a blueberries for sal moment when, right after we arrived, she just sat right down underneath a bush and began to eat them by the fistful. there was the perpetual "kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk" in our box, because no matter how many i picked, she'd eat them immediately. the "we have to save some for jam and pie" strategy didn't work, so i actually had to play a little hide and seek game with her so that i could go a few rows away to pick and actually accumulate some berries. that seemed to work well. when i came back she was just one bush over, picking those particular limbs to death. basically she has enough antioxidants in her system to light up the moon.

we spent the rest of the afternoon visiting with friends, baking 2 pies, and dealing with the flour factory on the floor. the pies turned out damn good, even though i was making the process more difficult for myself by analyzing various recipes from several of my favorite food blogs, and having a debate in my head about the use of shortening. we ate a whole pie after dinner and were joined by one of my former students and her dad, our exchange student dan, and his 2 taiwanese friends. i spent the rest of the night on the phone with an amtrak agent trying to order dan & co. a 15- day- unlimited stops- nationwide railway pass. the next time you are wanting to buy a 15- day- unlimited stops- nationwide railway pass, by the way, there will be lots of hidden fees, especially in the months of july and august, and it will basically cost you $700 to get to new york city and back in 2 full weeks. after the hidden fee shenanigans, we started looking into flights, and let's just say that it got rather complicated, due to washington dc having 3 airports (how far is each one?) and the fact that they wanted to do a multiple destinations trip without spending a lot of money. they're coming back tomorrow to finish up the process, but by that point, i think we'll have eaten all the pie.