Yesterday (Wednesday) was our fourteenth wedding anniversary. We usually save the “real” celebration for a weekend so that we can be relaxed about whatever we try to do, rather than trying to cram it all in a few hours after work. Still, I decided to take a half-day off from work so Mer and I could spend the afternoon together.

I thought it would be nice to go for a walk, and on a recent drive in the Valley, I had seen a sign for a trail I had not taken before. So, in the mid-afternoon, we drove down to the Valley; Mer saw the sign and exclaimed, jokingly, “Oh, no! Not Wetmore!” It turns out I had forgotten that the Wetmore Trail was a trail we hiked over a year ago, in the spring, and the trail had been incredibly muddy and difficult to walk. I tried to reassure Mer that it would not be muddy this time, as we had had almost no rain for two months. I also told her that the lack of mud would make the hike easy. One out of two ain’t bad.

Because of the mud that had been everywhere on our first walk, I had completely forgotten that the Wetmore Trail is very hilly. Really, really hilly. And the temperature was in the mid-eighties. We got a little sweaty in places, and the trail is four miles long, which turned out to be about a mile longer than I had wanted to go (I was pretty hot and tired by the last mile). The scenery was pretty, and there was no mud. And I was with my love, so that made for a good, albeit hot, afternoon. Mer was a good sport.

I wanted to take Mer out for supper, and figuring that we would be going out to eat “for real” later, I thought it would be fun to take Mer to Cici’s, a pizza buffet. Mer had never been before, and had expressed an interest in going. So, we drove over to Streetsboro only to find that the restaurant was out of business. Rats. So, I punted to a back-up plan: going to Steak ‘n Shake. Mer was very game for that choice as well. She had forgotten that Steak ‘n Shake was a “real” restaurant (not a fast-food restaurant). So, while it was in no way a romantic spot, we both enjoyed the food and the company; we’ll find a romantic restaurant sometime soon.

On the way home, we stopped in Hudson to get separate bags of chocolates. One of the secrets to fourteen years of marriage is to get your own dessert. We took those home, and wrapped the evening up eating chocolates and watching The Big Bang Theory, followed by the Olympics.