Bill and Cathy McArthur Spring/Summer/Fall 2008: 16
Monday, July 14 was an overcast day. Bill started with 3 crossword puzzles: Atlantic City Press, Philadelphia Inquirer, and NY Times. We expected rain and thunder from a cold front, but it ultimately fizzled out and we got some wind and that's all. Bill worked on a few kayaking trips and emailed Joe Link about them. Cathy went to aerobics. After lunch, we went on a walk/run. Bill had received his heart rate monitor strap and paired it with his Forerunner 405, so he was able to view his heart rate during the exercise. He had done some research on the Internet and obtained a target heart rate of 131 bpm. He worked on staying around that range for the jogging part of the trip. At one point, his heart rate spiked to 158 bpm, so he walked for a few seconds until it dropped back. Analysis afterward seemed to indicate that the spike was a monitoring glitch because his pace spiked at the same time and that didn't really happen. We ate an early dinner and attended a special dramatic reading of "Hamlet" at Cape May Stage. The cast of 8 did a great job.
Tuesday, after Bill did his 3 puzzles, he dropped Cathy at the gym. Bill spent the next hour or so getting his gear organized and putting the kayak on top of the XTerra. He met Jim and Linda at 6th and New York in North Wildwood. The three launched from the boat ramp and paddled 1.5 miles to Champagne Island in Hereford Inlet. There were only a few people there when they arrived, but the crowd increased as the afternoon unfurled. Jim and Bill paddled toward the ocean to get an idea how to navigate through the inlet. The big swells from tropical storm Bertha, a thousand miles offshore, were causing breakers along most of the horizon. It looked as though heading for the bell buoy would be the best course. They landed on the beach and talked with a kayaker who talked about conditions in the choppy waters around the inlet. Evidently no boats use this inlet any more. Jim and Bill landed back on the island and the three stayed there until about 4:15 PM. They paddled back to the boat ramp and repacked their vehicles. Bill went to Algie's to pick up his bike and then stopped at ACME on the way home. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset after dinner.
Wednesday, Bill ran 3.5 miles to Becky's class and was joined there by Cathy. He used his heart rate monitor again and is trying to come up with a measure of fitness such as (average speed)/(average heart rate) * 10,000. This value for this day's run was 421. We shopped at ACME after the gym. We lingered over lunch on the deck. Later, we went for a 10 mile bike ride. We enjoyed a good meal at Copper Fish thanks to a generous gift certificate from Jack and Sue Beatty. We saw a gorgeous sunset as we were driving home and saw it go down from our deck.
Thursday, Cathy did two aerobics classes in the morning. Bill went out fishing with neighbor Tom. They were out from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM and traveled to Brandywine Lighthouse and drifted alongside of the shipping channel almost to Brown Shoal. They caught a bunch of big sharks (4 footers) and skates and two flounders, one a keeper. The sun was brutally hot and the air was still in the morning. Bill wanted to stay out of the sun and wore zip-on legs on his shorts, a long sleeve T-shirt, and socks with his sandals. Around noon, he was sweating uncontrollably and zipped off the legs, took off the socks, and made the shirt short sleeved with his buck knife. Cathy went over to Avalon to meet with some of the women in her graduating class at Notre Dame de Namur in Villanova, PA. They discussed their upcoming 50th reunion.
Friday was hot and humid again. We went for a 6 mile walk in the late morning and were really uncomfortable, especially on the way back. We lingered over lunch on the deck. Bill spent a good part of the afternoon at Steve and June Sheftz's house, helping to sign them up for Verizon DSL Internet service. When Bill came home, he ordered a wireless adaptor board for Steve's computer so that they can setup a LAN for Internet access from both of their computers. In the evening, we went to a party at Don and Nancy Emb's house. We caught up with the lives of many of our friends who were there.
Saturday, we left at 7:30 AM to drive to Glen Mills for our granddaughter Erin's 9th birthday party. The day started hot and got hotter. We bought Erin a gift certificate at Limited Too at a store near their house. Cathy took over the care of little Garrett to free Alex for party chores. Bill and Phil went out for beer and ice. Bill was one of the lifeguards at the pool when the 12 girl guests arrived. When granddaughter Rachel got in the pool, so did Bill and the cool water was very welcome. It was a good party and we headed for home at about 4:30 PM. Traffic was light and we stopped at WaWa for hoagies on the way. We ate on the deck in a very refreshing south wind. Bill rewatched "Mallrats" after dinner.
Sunday, Bill got an early start to beat the heat and ran a 5K. After lunch we both walked 6 miles in the heat of the day. Later, Bill rode his bike to a produce market to get some lemons for dinner. We had our friend Beth over for some kayaking, but the heavy SE wind discouraged the women. We hung out at our beach for a while. Cathy cooked her special oven-fried Haddock for dinner. Bill grilled eggplant to accompany the meal. We three ate on the deck in a very comfortable breeze with a good sunset. We spent a couple of hours watching an approaching front with lots of lightning. The part of the front heading toward us fizzled completely as it crossed the Chesapeake Bay. We enjoyed nature's fireworks show.
Bill and Cathy