Last night we sat out by a fire and looked at the stars. It was a really nice night and the first time I’ve sat around a fire in a while.

The stars were incredible and we saw a lot of really cool stuff. I use an AR app called Star Walk 2 to check out the night sky and we identified several constellations, but one of the coolest things was we saw four planets!

In the west sky was Venus.

In the SE sky was Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto all in a diagonal line. It was the first time I have seen Pluto that I was aware of.

If we had waited another 15 minutes to go in the house we would have seen Neptune join the parade a bit east and below Jupiter. How awesome that would have been but it was really cool seeing the four we saw! I tried to go back out tonight and catch Neptune after it came above the horizon but there were too many clouds blocking the view.

We had no idea the planets were all out and that it would be such a great evening to watch the skies. All while sitting around a nice fire with a wide-open view.

Life is pretty awesome.

Today Loran got a new pellet grill and I have to say it is a pretty nice grill. I don’t know much about them but it got dialed in pretty damn well tonight! Smoked chicken marinated in Italian dressing for several hours on a toasted ciabatta, Aidell’s smoked poblano and cojita cheese beef sausage sliders also on a fire-grilled ciabatta, and corn on the cob roasted in the husk (no other way to cook corn) and happily bathing in Kerrygold butter. That and a few beers and were were fat & happy. I

I did not eat much today in anticipation of this meal so I still stayed under my sodium/fat limits and still had hundreds of calories to spare! This is how I have not gained any weight while I have been here. I am really proud I have been able to do that.

I got out for a walk this morning, albeit not as far as I wanted but the humidity was oppressive. It’s a quarter mile to the mailbox and I had to mail some postcards so it seemed like a good excuse for some exercise. I got in well over a mile yesterday finally but am out of practice. I’ll get back after it when I get home.

That’s it for tonight. I am headed to bed.