Some time during the night the thunder woke me up. It was house shaking, but I didn’t care. I just rolled over and went back to sleep. When I woke up just before 9, it was to a dark, damp morning. It had rained, and I missed it. Outside looks a bit lighter than it had so maybe a bit of sun is on the way though the prediction is for showers.

The countdown to my trip has officially begun. I will be winging my way to Ghana one week from today. The pre-flight list has been activated. Today I will get to cross off two of the items. I know Zoey likes to follow my progress across the world so here are my flight numbers:

Boston to New York, August 25th: Delta Flight 1091 leaving at 5:55pm and arriving at Kennedy at 7:35.   New York to Accra: Delta Flight 26 leaving at 8:30 and arriving at Kotoka at 11:30 am on Sunday, August 26th. There is a four-hour difference between here and Ghana so the flight is close to 11 hours long. My return trip begins on September 17th: Delta 27 leaving Accra at 10:10pm and arriving at Kennedy at 5:05 am. A few cups of coffee and a newspaper later, Delta flight 867 leaves at 8:20am and will wing its way to Logan Airport where I’ll land at 9:44. I’ll grab my bags and then wait for the bus to take me to the Cape, arrival time unknown as I have yet to buy my bus ticket or check the schedule.

My birthday was a wonder. First, my friends and I waited for nearly an hour for the trip that wasn’t. The lobster cruise had been cancelled, and the call announcing that had been made after we’d left so we didn’t know. Neither did the other people waiting. My friend called and was told the news while someone else checked her home phone and found the call had been made at 3:10: boarding was at 3:30 so we all missed the call. We left the marina and tried to figure an alternative. On our summer to do list is the Lighthouse Inn for drinks so we headed to West Dennis. My friends had never been there, but right away they loved the outside tables right on the water. It was so breezy all of the table umbrellas were spinning, and the beach grass was swaying almost to the ground. We ordered drinks and appetizers and watched some people learn to drive their jet skis. Most got the hang of it but one woman was going in circles. The ocean was rough with small white caps, and they were moving her and she let them. She looked afraid to give the jet ski gas. She finally did and went forward a bit then must have panicked as she stopped and went in circles again. She amused us by doing that several times. Finally we lost interest and ordered another round then ordered dinner which was delicious. Our alternative to the boat had been wonderful, and we decided that the boat ride would have been quite choppy given the wind and the size of the waves so we were content on land watching the ocean, the gulls and the woman go in circles.

After dinner we left and went to my friends’ house. They brought out a cake and sang Happy Birthday. I blew out the candles and opened my gift, a calendar filled with pictures of our visit to Fenway Park. To end the evening we played Phase 10, our favorite card game, and I lost. It was the only loss of the night!