I should have warned you there’d be photos of us in bathing suits, huh?

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Our seaplane had just landed in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. Remembering how often lofty expectations led to disappointment, I did my best to calm my brain, which was racing with thoughts of everything we were going to see.

“THERE WILL THOUSANDS OF FISH,” it screamed. “AND SEA TURTLES! AND ALSO KITTENS.”

I shook my head, trying to clear it. While it was almost certainly guaranteed that we’d see fish, I had no evidence (aside from Finding Nemo) that there would be any sea turtles swimming around. And numerous online searches have confirmed the fact that kittens are not indigenous to the Great Barrier Reef.

“Whatever happens, happens,” I told myself. “Even if the water is murky, and I don’t see too many fish, I won’t mind. This has already been an awesome experience.”

And that was true. The flight out to the reef was wonderful. If the high point of the day – or even the trip – had already passed, I was okay with that.

But the day kept getting better.

The seaplane gently coasted on the water, and pulled up to the glass-bottomed boat. The water and the sky seemed to blend together. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

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Already aboard was a group of tourists who were lounging around in the sun, drinking cocktails and chatting with one another in French.

There were part of an all-day tour, and it was hard not to envy them.

“You are stupidly lucky to be out here in the first place,” I reminded myself. “Also, cocktails and lying in the sun gives you a headache.”

The ship’s captain gave us a rundown of how things would go. We’d have an hour to snorkel the reef. He outlined the areas that were safe – where the water was deep enough that we could safely swim, and asked that we keep a minimum of 1-2 meters from the coral. He noted that this was more for our safety that anything else: odds are the coral would be fine if we bumped into it, but we’d get torn up.

After a few minutes spent putting on our dry suits, our snorkels, and our fins, we were in the water.

I know what you are thinking: her expensive, fancy pants camera isn’t waterproof. And you’d be exactly right. Fortunately, the camera I rented from the resort was:

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Above the water, you only get a hint of what’s underneath. You peer down, and try to make sense of the shapes and colors, but the slightest wind ripples the surface, and it’s all lost. But the second you plunge in, you can see all of it clearly – a bustling world that shimmers and floats and changes direction in a second. It’s soundless and infinite.

And it is ridiculously, absurdly beautiful.

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The coral looms out in front of you like giant mutant cauliflower. It stops just abruptly just below the water.

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The water was warm, but not overly so. It was cool enough to be refreshing, and to ensure that we wouldn’t overheat after an hour of swimming. There were floating pontoons every now and then, so if we got tired, we could rest on one. I stopped on one only once, to readjust my mask. Curiosity and wonder trump exhaustion every time.

I tried to take a video of it all, but, forgive me, it’s jittery as heck. That’s the problem when you are trying to use your hand to swim and hold a camera.

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The fish were wary of us at first, but after a few minutes in the water, they seemed to accept us. We weren’t one of their own, obviously, but we weren’t going to eat them, either.

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My beloved was there, too:

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It was everything I could have asked for and more. But that didn’t stop my brain from being demanding.

“WHERE THE HELL ARE THE SEA TURTLES?!” it screamed.

“Shut up,” I snapped back. “This is incredible, even if you don’t see a – OH MY GOD THERE’S A SEA TURTLE!”

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Wanna see a video of it swimming? Of course you do:

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The hour flew by. It was one of the shortest of my life. We saw the captain waving to us that our time was up, and we reluctantly swam back.

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As we climbed back into the plane, Lee explained that he’d need to make a quick stop on one of the islands. Would Rand and I mind if we were dropped off last? No, no we most certainly would not mind an extended seaplane tour of the islands.

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We stopped for a moment at Whitsunday Airport so that Lee could refuel and drop off the other passengers. He treated us to drinks at the airport cafe while we waited.

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We sat in the shade, sipping fizzy water.

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“This place,” Rand said, and didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to. I merely nodded in reply. We sat in silence, trying to process it all. Rand had wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef since he was little. He’d had ridiculously high expectations. I’d had very few. And we both were equally blown away.

Reasonably, what more could I have expected?

A few minutes later, the manager of the cafe walked out, carrying a large box.

“Lunch time!” she said, brightly, though it didn’t seem as though she was talking to us. She placed the box on the floor. Guess what was inside.

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Yup. Kittens.

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The view from our seaplane as we flew over the Great Barrier Reef.

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The other day, I botched a batch of homemade cookies that I had been making for get-together with friends (or maybe my intent was just to sit in front of the TV and eat all of them by myself. Whatever.)

This shook me to my core. A large portion of my life is devoted to the creation and consumption of baked goods. It is, as a friend of mine noted, “one of my core competencies.”

I won’t lie: I’ve had baking mishaps before (if you have a copy of The Geraldine Handbook, please see pie, peach for more examples. Also, smoke alarms and tearful fits). But this failed batch was particularly upsetting because I had such high hopes. These cookies were going to be PERFECT. I’d made the recipe before, and had finally figured out the right tweaks I’d wanted to make. I halved the recipe (because even I have my limits, which are heeded only due to the threat of diabetes), but forgot to halve the quantity of butter I was using.

The result: flat, greasy, somewhat bland cookies.

Rand found me in the kitchen, having a sort of sputtering tantrum over a dozen oily disks of baked failure and what was left of the dough. I’d realized my mistake too late – there was no way of fixing it.

In what was not my proudest moment, I crammed two cookies in my mouth, chewing ruefully.

“What are you doing?” Rand asked.

“Eating my shame. Wanna taste?” I handed him a cookie. He took a tentative bite.

“Babe, I know all the guys probably tell you this, but your shame tastes great.”

I managed to smile and pout all at once, with my mouth full of cookies. In Hollywood, this is known as being a “triple threat.”

“Seriously, honey,” he continued, “if this is failure, I’d say things are looking pretty good for you.”

We ended up bringing the cookies to our friends’ house, imploring them all to “taste my shame.”

In the end, I guess, they weren’t all that bad. But it was a good reminder that high expectations will inevitably lead you to disappointment.

Which is why the day we went snorkeling on the outer reef was so damn perfect – because I had no expectations whatsoever.

Hell, up until a few days prior, I didn’t even know we were going. Rand had booked the tour as a surprise, but had then forgotten what day it was, so he had to ask the tour organizer (honestly, it’s amazing that he’s able to pull off any surprises whatsoever, given his memory). That was when I found out: we were going to take a seaplane to the outer reef. We’d land on the water, dock on a small, glass-bottomed boat, and spend the late morning snorkeling.

I tried to accept all of these things as mere facts. I tried to keep my thoughts rational, my expectations low. I willed my brain not to editorialize. But, like always, my brain fought with me.

Me: We are going to go snorkeling in the outer reef.

My Brain: Are you effing kidding me? HOLY CRAP WE ARE GOING SNORKELING IN THE OUTER REEF. THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BEST THING EVER.

Me: No. No, no, no. We are not going to go into this with high hopes. Remember what happened with Iron Man 2? I cannot handle that kind of letdown again. Nope. We are going to expect nothing, and if something good happens, we will be pleasantly surprised.

Brain: I AM GOING TO EXPECT EVERYTHING. THE DAY WILL BE AWESOME AND PERFECT AND FULL OF SEA TURTLES AND KITTENS.

Me: Seriously, please be reasonable about this. We are going snorkeling. There will be no kittens.

Brain: YES THERE WILL BE. Now, do the cha-cha dance or I’ll give you a migraine.

Me: (does a half-hearted cha-cha) Is this sufficient?

Brain: You don’t look like you mean it.

And so I tried to reconcile excitement and caution, tried to keep my high hopes within the realm of reasonable. I do this often, and it’s made my life and travels so much easier. If you have no expectation for a day to be perfect, you aren’t nearly so distraught when something inevitably goes wrong.

It’s become for my rule for having a great time on any trip: set your expectations low. Don’t hope for perfection. Just hope for not a disaster.

That way, when perfection (or the nearest thing that you can get to it on this earthly plane) does come along, you will have, as Rand later described it, one of the single greatest experiences of your life.

That’s what happened to me.

We started the day with a lovely breakfast which we managed to eat while simultaneously swatting away cockatoos. We then walked to a large boat ramp at one end of the island, and waited for our seaplane to arrive.

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I suppose it should have been romantic, staring at the water like that, but somebody was jumping around, giddy with excitement. Like a five-year-old on his birthday. Who’d eaten waaay too much cake. And also, the cake was laced with methamphetamines. (It was not me.)

Finally, the plane arrived.

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THE PROPHESY HAS BEEN FULFILLED.

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It was a seven-seater. The pilot and one person sat in front, and there were two rows of seats behind them, with one seat in the very back. The plane was already full of passengers, except for the bench seat directly behind the pilot. Rand and I squeezed in. I’m generally a claustrophobe, and I wondered if the close quarters would bother me. Miraculously, they didn’t.

As for Rand … well …

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Let’s just say he was pretty excited about the whole thing.

Because the small plane was so loud, we had to wear giant headphones. They blocked out the noise, and were connected to the PA system that our pilot spoke into, so we could hear his narration of the landscape below us. The best part of the headphones is that everyone who puts them on is suddenly a total badass, thus finally breaking your lifelong streak of looking like a dorkus.

See? Told ya.

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We drove out onto the water …

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and began to pick up speed.

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It was like being in a incredibly smooth-riding speedboat. And then, suddenly, seamlessly, we were airborne.

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Rand accepted this reality with the same level of restraint that he had had all morning. Which is to say, none at all.

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And though I could not hear him, I knew – I just knew – that he had the theme to Indiana Jones in his head. And sure enough, later, as we landed, I could hear him humming the score quietly to himself.

If there was some way that I wasn’t already head over heels for him, that moment alone would have done it.

The trip to the outer reef was forty minutes or so. I suspect it will forever remain one of the best plane flights of my life. (Even better than the Virgin America flight where I ate two bags of salted caramel popcorn and watched a movie with Martin Sheen in it, and then found out that Martin Sheen was sitting one row ahead of me in first class.)

Our pilot was a rakish blonde Australian named Lee. He, like so many other people working in the Whitsundays, decided to leave his nine-to-five job in the city, and now spent his days flying people around the reef. The view from his office was pretty great.

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As we flew, the ocean beneath us slowly became clearer and bluer. We saw a murky white substance sitting on the top of the water. We initially thought it was pollution, but Lee explained that it was entirely natural: these were coral spores, and were how the reef regenerated.

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I have had the privilege (one which I don’t deserve) to see many wonderful things in my travels and in my life. Some things, understandably, prove so amazing or significant that they stick out in my memory. There’s the first time that I saw Rand, wearing designer jeans and an air of confidence, both which were a bit big on his small frame. There was the first time I saw the Manhattan skyline when I was 14, looming out in front of me as I rode the ferry from Governor’s Island.

And there’s the first time I saw the Great Barrier Reef.

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There was even a heart-shaped reef.

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My husband, who has wanted to see the Reef since he was 10 years old, seemed pretty happy about the whole thing, too:

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Slowly, Lee began to circle the reef, and bring the plane lower and lower for a landing …

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We were all transfixed, watching as the turquoise water below us grew closer and closer.

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Just as seamlessly as we’d taken off, we’d landed. We were in the middle of the reef. In a few minutes, we’d be swimming in it.

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And I hope you’ll forgive me, but that’s where I’m going to stop today. I have loads more to tell you about our time in and on the reef. About the sea turtles and the schools of fish, and how sometimes you can have a marvelous day, even as you struggle with high expectations and a brain that demands to see kittens on a snorkeling trip.

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When I first starting dating Rand, during my junior year of college (for those of you keeping track at home, it was approximately a lifetime ago), I lived in a windowless apartment.

I may be exaggerating slightly. It wasn’t exactly windowless – it had three, to be precise. But each and every one of them looked out on to an air vent, and beyond that, into my neighbors’ apartments. Never mind having a view; to even see sky, I had to stick my head out the window and crane it upward.

I loved that little studio, but it depressed the hell out of me. I would constantly have nightmares that my ancient apartment building would catch on fire (entirely likely, given the hundred-year-old wiring in that place), and I’d be stuck in there, unable to get out. It felt like a coffin.

But it was $525 a month, and within walking distance to the university, so I lived there for two long years. I eventually moved out and into a small 1-bedroom that had all the trappings of luxury I’d dreamed about: a garbage disposal and dishwasher, a washer/dryer in the unit, and best of all, windows.

Sure, they looked out onto a parking lot, but beyond that, I could see the mountains. I was only a few months into my lease when Rand moved in.

We were broke and in love, and perpetually stressing over how we’d make rent or buy groceries. It was so much damn fun.

I remember a lot about that first home we had together, but mostly, I think of how the afternoon light would come in through the windows, and that one summer (2006, I think) that seemed almost endless. We’d eat fancy snacks that we couldn’t afford (which was a bad idea) and drink wine that we could afford (which was an even worse idea), and think that maybe, just maybe, we’d discovered the meaning of life.

And I’d realize that I was happier than I’d ever been.

The evening nature drives at Bushman’s Kloof reminded me of those times.

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In the late afternoon, after high tea but before dinner (because I track time in relation to when I’ve eaten, and when I’ll eat again, apparently), we’d head out. Our two vehicles would part ways, rendezvousing later.

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We’d drive in search of animals. There are no predators in Bushman’s Kloof – no Big Five to see. Some may regard this as a downside, but it meant that we could explore as we wished, and see herd after herd of grass-feeding animals that were as relaxed as we.

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The Kloof is home to one of the largest private herds of Cape Mountain Zebra. Unlike the more common Burchell’s Zebra (whose stripes go all the way around its midsection) the mountain zebra has a white belly, and its stripes -which seem more defined – extend all the way down the leg. Rand described the mountain zebra as looking more stylized that its plain-dwelling counterparts – like a group of Italian designers had revamped the animal and gone with a bolder look.

Buongiorno!

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There were many more – animals that we hadn’t even heard of before visiting Africa: Bontebok. Springbok. Elans. Orex. Red Hartebeest.

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And a few that we knew, but hadn’t seen in the wild – a pair of gangly, ill-tempered ostriches; a dust-colored coyote munching on the remains of something; a herd of wildebeest that looked as though they’d just stepped off the pages of Where The Wild Things Are. We’d point out the animals, oohing and aahing at one another as we passed binoculars back and forth.

Though here, it appears that Rand and I are TOTALLY bogarting said binoculars.

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Or sometimes we’d just sit and enjoy the view.

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Then we drive on until we arrived at some destination – a lake …

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or the top of a cliffside …

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or a nice little shaded area …

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There, our guides would make us drinks and serve us a pre-dinner snack.

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The boys enjoy a drink with Roman, our guide.

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That is the South African equivalent of a Slim Jim and not, in fact, a cigar.

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During the drive back, we’d watch the sun dip below the horizon, and see all the dusk-loving animals emerge.

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We’d meet back up at the Koro Lodge, where our incredibly talented 5-star chef and her accomplished staff would be preparing dinner for us. (Yes, I know. Life is grand and I am spoiled. I say this so often, it has become my mantra.)

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And we’d talk and look at each other’s photos, our voices loud and excited and reverent, all at once.

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Then dinner would arrive. Course after meticulous course. Grilled lamb, ostrich carpaccio, curried prawns. Delicate grilled vegetables and roasted potatoes and crisp light salads.

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And then dessert …

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It was so wonderful that it almost exceeded my understanding. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the loveliness of it.

But perhaps more miraculous than all of this was that I experienced it with someone I hadn’t seen in a while. Someone who I thought might have vanished.

It was, as you can guess, Rand. At least, I think it was him. While I know him better than almost anything else in the world, and could, from memory, chart the constellation of his freckles with painstaking accuracy, this iteration of my husband was a stranger to me.

It was him, sure. But it was him relaxed.

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Sightings of this elusive creature, once thought extinct, are about as rare as Halley’s comet.

Even on the sunlit couch of our first apartment, I didn’t see him all that often. But in the Kloof, he could be found nearly every hour of every day. As unfamiliar as he was, I instantly took to him.

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And decided I loved him as much as his stressed, overworked alter ego.

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(He seemed okay with me, too.)

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Later, that handsome and carefree stranger who had briefly inhabited my husband’s clothes would vanish. We returned home, and obligations resumed their headlining role in the play of his life, the crease would return to his brow and the worry would seep back into his bones.

He loves what he does. There is no question about that. But there are days when it wears on him, when he can’t sleep, no matter how exhausted he is. He fully admits he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

And I wouldn’t trade him.

But I wondered about that strange creature, that odd variation of my husband, that I had seen. Does he only exist in the Kloof?

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Sometimes, when Rand is particularly stressed, I’ll mention going back, and I’ll see something flicker across his face. An expression that he gets only when sitting on sunlit couches in our first apartment together, or on hot and dusty drives at the edge of the world. A look that says, “There is no place on the entire planet that I would rather be than here.”

I can’t take him back to that first place. But I can take him back to the Kloof. It’s a long way to go …

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But it might be worth it, just to see that look again.

Cave paintings at the Kloof.

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In high school, I had to be at school by 7:25. IN THE MORNING.

I know, I know. It sounds positively inhuman, doesn’t it? I’m fairly sure that in most parts of Europe, it would constitute child abuse (like Spain. Seriously, next time you have to get up early, think WWTS -What Would The Spanish Do? I’m pretty sure that after eating dinner at midnight and going to bed at 2am, they would NOT be getting up at 6).

At the time, though, I didn’t think too much of it. I got up at 6:00am and by 7:10 at the latest, I was out the door (and though this process never seemed that difficult, to this very day I have nightmares about it.)

I did this every single weekday for four years, as well as most Saturdays. I was on the debate team, and weekend tournaments meant that we had to meet at the school at ungodly hours, like 5:00am. I don’t know why I couldn’t just take up binge drinking like all the other kids.

In the years since, whenever circumstances have allowed, I have slept in. Sometimes until an unreasonable hour when most decent folk are contemplating lunch.

So you’d imagine that, while vacationing in Bushman’s Kloof, I could have very easily whiled away several days in bed, getting up only for high tea. Instead, we often found ourselves out and about by 7am.

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I know. I know. It sounds positively barbaric. But the thing about the Kloof was this: it was easy to get out of bed so early. There was so much to see.

Plus, we were wickedly jetlagged, so while the clock might have said 6:30am, our brains thought it was 2pm the following Tuesday (or something. I’ve never been good at time zones).

The sun was up and blazing by the time we got out of our rooms, but the earth wasn’t quite scorching yet. There was still a faint crispness in the air, a tiny bit of dew still clinging to the grass as a result of the overnight watering.

We had a few hours of perfect hiking and exploring weather ahead of us.

Not only did I get up early, but here I am smiling and wearing a skirt. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

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By now, several you are probably declaring that I have lost it. Not only did I get up freakishly early OF MY OWN FREE WILL, but I went hiking, to boot. Before you give up on me entirely, screaming “YOU’VE CHANGED”, let me explain:

There were cave paintings. And snacks.

Served out of the back of a Jeep, no less.

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Seriously – a little archaeology, plus biscuits and a warm cup of rooibos every single morning? I could do that, you guys. Throw in Indiana Jones, and I will promptly start drooling and forget what I was talking about.

“Maybe I should tell Rand to get a leather jacket … and a whip.”

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Wait. What was I talking about?

Right. The cave paintings.

There are more than 100 of them at the Kloof, some are estimated to be 10,000 years old (since there is no organic matter on the drawings, it is impossible to do carbon dating and determine an exact date). They had an expert spend several years at the Kloof, exploring and cataloging the paintings. He noted that there are likely many more in the area that he missed.

I positively LOVE that notion: that while visiting the Kloof, you might discover a new cave painting.

Though I imagine that would be a difficult task. The paintings are, to the untrained eye, hard to see. Over the years, much of the color has washed away, often leaving only faint red marking which are hard to distinguish from the natural pigment of the rocks or the stains of hyrax urine.

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Which, by the way, was everywhere. We’d excitedly point to something and our ever-patient guides, Simone and Roman, would quietly shake their heads and inform us that no, that wasn’t a relic of an ancient culture. It was merely the runoff from a communal rodent bathroom.

A hyrax pooptastrophy.

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In the interest of being honest, I’ll tell you this, too: I might refer to them as morning hikes, but they were really more like “morning gentle walks.” Some “hikes” required us to trek over 100 feet of relatively smooth terrain. But they happened before 9am, so they ARE HIKES.

I should make it clear that none of this was foisted upon us. At the Kloof, it’s entirely up to you how you spend your time: if you tell your guides that you don’t want to do anything before noon, so be it. And if you tell them that you wish to totally rock your quads while traipsing over uneven rocks, they will make that happen.

Be warned, though: they are younger and more attractive and in better shape than you are. They made it look easy. On one morning, Roman cut across rocky terrain in a few quick steps, and we all stared blankly, as he bid us to follow.

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“How did you do that?” we asked.

“Just think with your feet!” he said, as though it were the simplest task in the world.

We attempt to follow in Roman’s footsteps.

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For those of you for whom foot thinking is an impossibility, fear not: the most amazing paintings at the Kloof aren’t necessarily the least accessible ones. On one occasion, we barely walked more than 20 feet or so, and saw one of my favorites. It was a small buffalo drawing, and it was incredibly well-preserved.

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An image like this one, so clear and dark, is very rare. It likely wasn’t black to begin with; the dark hue is probably the result of a lichen that grew directly where the paint was. Kind of like a fossilized cave painting.

Naturally, I regarded it with the reverence it deserved:

“You are why we can’t have nice things.” – everyone I’ve ever met, ever.

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This was another one that I absolutely adored. See the natural striations in the rock? This painting follows those same lines …

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And at the end is perched a little bird.

Take that, Portland!

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Our guides explained that the paintings were once quite detailed, using a variety of colors. They were painted with ocher and other minerals that had been mixed with animal fat or blood. Today, only traces of the original creations remain – light stains of the minerals left on the rock.

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These figures once had heads, clothing, and jewelry, but centuries of rain and erosion have left them naked and decapitated.

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This was a group of female figures. You can tell by their butts which, as you see here, would not quit.

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The images painted on the rocks are often not documentary. There are numerous depictions of hunting scenes, but wild game only accounted for about 30% of the Bushmen diet (much of it was seeds and plants). Others show animals being hunted that (according to fossil evidence) never lived in this part of the world.

Look carefully, and you can still see traces of the yellow elephants to the left of, and  in the background of, the small red hunters.

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And then there’s the occasional drawing of an entirely fictionalized creature being hunted. Something that’s a cross between a rhino and an elk. A reminder to not believe everything you see painted on the side of rocks, or you’ll start thinking that unicorn hunting was big in South Africa several thousand years ago.

See this creature? IT IS NOT A THING.

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Every morning, we’d listen intently to stories about the indigenous tribes that lived here, and scrutinize their ancient creations.

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And then we’d return back to the lodge, where breakfast was waiting for us:

Every morning we’d have this, along with eggs, veggies, and bacon, cooked to order.

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Between mouthfuls, we’d talk about what we’d seen, flip through one another’s photos on our cameras, and try to make sense of it all. It was humbling; these paintings had that has existed long before us, and will survive long after. And yet, despite this seeming permanence, they too, will eventually fade into nothing.

Seeing those paintings firsthand, wondering about who had created them, and about all the eyes that had gazed on the images over the centuries. was a profound and powerful experience. It was enough to get us out of bed at 7 in the morning.

Well, that and biscuits.

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And a nice cup of rooibos tea.

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I don’t really know how to begin telling you about Bushman’s Kloof.

Words don’t usually fail me. In fact, I often have them in excess. They dribble out of my mouth at particularly inopportune times. Like when I’m telling a story at noisy party, and I find myself shouting the gory details in order to be heard (my stories always have gory details, you see), and at that precise moment because of what I can only assume is a decades-old-curse that was placed on my head, the entire room sort of goes silent.

I, of course, am still yelling.

“AND THERE WAS POOP EVERYWHERE, YOU KNOW? LIKE THE PLACE HAD BEEN HIT BY A CRAP TSUNA- … mi. Yeah … It just got quiet in here all of a sudden, huh? ”

Many a time has my husband grabbed me in a tender embrace and whispered into my ear, “Please, please, PLEASE stop talking. Just stop.”

And yet, despite the deluge that spills from my mouth on a regular basis, when I try to describe the kloof and the days we stayed there, my brain struggles to offer up some words. None of them quite seem to fit, though.

Just one of the three infinity pools at the main lodge at Bushman’s. Whatever. No biggie.

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“Stunning” comes to mind. And “incredible”. “Life-changing” and “opulent” and “paradise” are all pretty good, too. Still, they seem to fall short of the mark.

Mostly, when I think of Bushman’s Kloof, I just start laughing, somewhat maniacally.

Courtney, Kurtis, and Justin during one of our evening nature drives. Notice that Court is holding a champagne flute. Because that’s just how you roll in the kloof.

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Have you seen the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightly? Normally, I’m not a fan of Ms. Knightly. She’s thin and lovely and wounded looking, and I try to steer clear of people like that (I mean, they obviously don’t have any tips for where a gal can get a decent dessert, you know?) But I positively adore that movie.

There’s one scene in particular that slays me. It’s when Lizzie Bennett (Knightly) has just turned down Darcy’s offer of marriage, which is kind of a brave move, considering that her family is flat broke.

Anyway, Lizzie and her aunt and uncle happen upon Mr. Darcy’s estate. And there’s a scene where Lizzie is stepping out of the carriage, and she sees Darcy’s palatial home – which she, obviously, turned down along with him. Her response is to just sputter out a somewhat hysterical laugh. It’s the perfect reaction.

It’s how I felt when we got to the kloof. I had trouble containing my giggles. At one point, the gentleman who managed one of the lodges was giving us a brief tour of the place, but I kept interrupting him with my snickering. A few folks turned to look at me.

“Are you okay?”

“What me?” I said, wiping tears from my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna be fine. I’m just gonna stand over in the corner for a bit. Ignore me.”

I put my feet up and relax in the back of the jeep. In the distance, you can see a dazzle of zebra.

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We ended up at Bushman’s Kloof because of Rand. I tend to run screaming from anything too opulent, too lavish. I’ll take a Nestle Tollhouse cookie over one of those undercooked chocolate lava cakes that are all the rage. In fact, I’ll take a dozen of them. Right now, please.

But Rand loves to take a peek at those things which I’ve deemed too fancy for the likes of me. He does so fearlessly, with a mix of curiosity and cynicism, because things can’t be as great as everyone claims they are, right?

So when he heard that Bushman’s Kloof was – I kid you not – listed as one of the world’s best hotels (by Travel and Leisure, in 2009, among others), Rand’s initial reaction was to check it out and see if the hubbub was warranted, while mine was to laugh crazily and see if there was a nearby hostel where I could crash. But Rand has a phobia about leaving his wife around young bearded Australian backpackers (and rightly so), which means NO HOSTELS, EVER. So I went with him to the kloof.

For the next few days, I’ll be writing about our time there, in one of the world’s best hotels. I’m hoping that I’ll find words to do the place justice.

And if I don’t find the right words? Well, this photo of Rand pretty much sums the place up.

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But as I wax on about how incredible it was, I want to be clear: lavish things still make me squirm. I was out of my element and often uncomfortable, and there were days that I would wander around with my mouth half open wondering precisely what the hell I was doing there.

Then I’d remember. I was following him:

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And just like that, I’d start having a ball.

I wonder if that’s how Lizzie felt. If she realized that all that fanciness wasn’t necessarily her thing. But she wandered into that world because of Darcy, and when she found herself there?

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All she could do was laugh.

The Ignite Conference series is built around the following premise: “Enlighten us, but make it quick.” Speakers have 5 minutes and 20 slides (which auto-advance every 15 seconds) to tell a story. They can talk about virtually anything.

Last week’s presenters tackled a variety of topics. One man told the story of how he lost half his body weight. Another woman, who’d been on dates with more than 100 men, gave some tips on what you should and shouldn’t do when looking for love online (she was brilliant, and described some of her experiences as “as shit show”, a phrase which Rand and I have cheerfully adopted).

I was up last. I talked about Steve, and how I decided to share the news of him online. It was my first public speaking engagement (unless you count the time we were on Oprah.) It was the first time ever that I was on stage while Rand was in the audience.

After it was over, he tackled me with a hug, and told me how proud he was of me.

The whole experience was wonderful and nerve-wracking and worthwhile. I’ve solemnly sworn to never, ever do it again. We’ll see how long my resolve lasts.

You can watch the video of my presentation online, if you want. I’ve been told by several readers that my voice is higher pitched than they thought it would be (a by-product of my nerves, I assure you. I am normally not so squeaky).

It’s not the best presentation in the world, but I did my best. And Rand liked it. Really, I don’t think I could ask for more than that.

No, I’m not referring to that one time in Barcelona (though I must say, the sheer amount of hate mail I got over that post was both unexpected and delightful).

My sticky-fingeredness occurs far more often than that. I steal from friends, from loved ones, from both those closest to me and those I’ve never met. Sometimes, it happens without me realizing it. Most of the time, though, it’s completely intentional.

I’m not guilty of taking anything tangible, or anything that would be missed. Instead, I swipe expressions and mannerisms. I’ll lift the occasional quirk or habit. Sometimes I even pick-pocket family traditions and practices.

And I weave all of this loot – the quotes and quirks and habits and expressions – into the patchwork of my life. They make up who I am, though I can take credit for originating very few of them.

I’ve ripped off nearly everyone I know.

• From my father: the tendency to wander around the house, crankily, looking for something. If it can’t be found, grumpily throwing up my hands and yelling “Kvatch!”
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• From my dear friend Chrissy: the habit of calling people, regardless of age or status, by hyper-affectionate nicknames. Chrissy tends to use “peanut.” I’m a big fan of “schmoopy” (stolen from Seinfeld) and kitten (borrowed from Rand).
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• From my mother: the curse of laughing so hard, it becomes a sort of shaking, silent laugh that is punctuated with snorting. (This might be genetic. Either way, she’s to blame).
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• From my childhood friend Katie: liberal usage of the words “outstanding” and “realistically.” Also, the meticulous picking out of candy from a bag with my fingertips.
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• From my college roommate’s best friend who I met ONCE a decade ago: the expression “I can’t say no in enough languages.”
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• From my pal Philip: Use of the phrase “Zuh?” in response to any befuddling situation.

I’m pretty up front about my thievery.

“I’m so stealing that,” I will say.

Most people don’t seem to mind. I think it’s because they’re guilty of the same thing. We’re all a pastiche of a thousand little actions and words borrowed from those around us. I’m convinced that,  if we’re responsible in choosing what we appropriate from others (because we can just as quickly assume bad habits as good ones), we can become better people. And some folks have habits and mannerisms so rich and delightful, you can help but want to take them for everything they’ve got.

That’s what happened when Rand and I went to Colorado to see our friends Brad and Amy for a weekend. We basically robbed them blind.

Metaphorically, I mean. Although I left with a suitcase far more full than when we arrived. Let me explain.

The first time we visited Brad and Amy was just before my surgery. When we walked into the guest bedroom, we found the bed decorated thusly:

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It was a seemingly random collection of toys and treats, but nearly every one was a reference to some inside joke. There were Icelandic lip balms (because Colorado gets dry) and Reese’s Puffs cereal (which Brad declared the most delicious breakfast cereal, ever) and no less than two dozen cupcakes.

“You got us ramen?” / “Chicken soup is curative.”

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There were lots of knives, too, and some pajamas, in the event of a drug-induced jammie-wearing knife fight later.

I know, I know, I know – this all sounds positively insane, right? I thought so, too, followed almost immediately by, “Holy crap, I need this kind of crazy in my life.”

This visit, we’d figured the two of them would sane up, and not decorate their guest bed with all sorts of presents and treats and cupcakes. This is what we found when we walked into the guest bedroom:

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To be fair, there were no cupcakes this time (we’d all deemed the previous ones to be not quite up to snuff. This didn’t stop me from eating three of them. Whatever). But there was an entire red velvet sheet cake. With cups on top on it (get it? Cups and a cake? Cupcakes? It’s clever, damn it). And holy cats, was it good. I ate it on the kitchen counter, digging a fork directly into the whole cake, as everyone looked on, somewhat horrified. I offered them bites, and they declined. It was delightful.

“Notice the huge blank spot on the cake where we should have written ‘Congrats on getting rid of Steve’, but did not.”

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Rand captured my reaction on his cell phone.

“I’m not gonna have to share this stuff, am I?”

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The first time we found a bed blanketed in gifts and sweets – an extreme version of getting a chocolate on your pillow – Rand and I figured it was because of my impending surgery. The second time, though, we realized a sort of beautiful madness was afoot, and it was something we needed to steal emulate.

So we’re taking Brad and Amy’s absurdly crazy and beautifully generous idea.

The next time someone stays with us, we’ve vowed to covered their bed in all sorts of random and strange presents, indicative of our friendship and the weird jokes and exchanges that we’ve had over the years. Stuff we insist that they take home with them, so that their suitcases are full of candies and novelty toothbrushes and trashy magazines.

(We hope that we get to pay back Brad and Amy for their hospitality, but we might have trouble convincing them to snub the wonderful hotels of Seattle in order to sleep on our guest futon.)

It’s a great idea, isn’t it? And I promise, I won’t mind at all if you steal it from me. Hell, it wasn’t even mine to begin with.

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Have you ever fallen in love with a place that you’ve visited, but you can’t really figure out why? There’s just something inexplicable about it that makes you happy to be there?

And the more you try to describe your rationale for loving it, the crazier you sound? To the point where you might be clutching someone’s hand, trying to convince them of the magic of this place? And because you’re so damn passionate about it, you fail to realize that the person you’re talking to is somewhat scared for their life? And that you’re now frothing at the mouth and screaming about homemade fudge and free parking on weekends and you look positively mental? This doesn’t just happen to me, right? RIGHT?

Well, that’s kind of how I feel about Jacksonville, Oregon.

It’s a small, dusty little town not far from Ashland. It was founded during the Gold Rush, and despite falling on hard times in the early 1900s, it still managed to survive. Sometime in the 1960s, it was declared a National Historic Landmark.

That’s right: the whole town is a historic landmark. I kind of love that. I want to run around the town trying to enforce its historical landmarky-ness on people there.

“Don’t cut that grass! It’s historical!”

“Don’t sit on that bench – President Taft once stuck a piece of gum on the underside!”

“Buy me a pound of homemade fudge, in the name of HISTORY!” (What? It might work.)

Rand and I make a point of stopping in Jacksonville every time we’re in Southern Oregon. And on each visit, I tried dissecting why I like the town so much. This trip was no exception. But I wasn’t quite successful. Even as I came up with reasons, they didn’t really capture Jacksonville’s awesomeness.

Here are some of them. But believe me when I say: they don’t do the town justice.

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Reason #1: Nightcrawlers!

We saw this sign for nightcrawlers, and Rand, excitedly, asked me if we could get some.

“Um, you realize nightcrawlers are huge worms that are used for fishing, right?”

“No. No, I did not. Nevermind.”

To this day, I still have no idea what he thought nightcrawlers were, but he was rather disappointed. It was adorable.

And this homemade sign is nothing short of fantastic:

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Reason #2: Empty Phonebooths!

We encountered this empty phone booth downtown. For some reason, it reminds me of Woodsy the Owl, but is far more adorable (to be honest, Woodsy kind of scared me, with his self-righteousness and his giant, dead eyes).

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Reason #3: Metal Deer!

I found this piece of outdoor art particularly funny, because Jacksonville is chock-full of real deer.

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I can just imagine the city planning meeting that led to this being put up:

“Jacksonville needs more deer!”

“But … but we have lots of deer.”

“Yes, but they’re alive!”

“So … Jacksonville needs more dead deer?”

“Not dead … FAKE. We need more fake deer.”

OF COURSE THEY DO. And frankly, doesn’t everyone?

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Reason #4: Real Deer!

Which really, are almost as cool as fake deer.

Please excuse me while I momentarily freak out over the cuteness: LOOK AT ITS ITTY BITTY LITTLE WHITE SPOTS.

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(By now you are probably thinking, “Nightcrawlers, empty phone booths, and deer (both real and fake)? I should move here immediately. Hell, I should run for mayor.” And I would agree with you wholeheartedly, except that I WANT THAT JOB and I will run a smear campaign that will destroy you. You hear me? Now on to more reasons why Jacksonville is adorable.)

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Reason #5: Old-timey buildings

Over 100 buildings in Jacksonville are on the National Historic Register. It actually makes you feel kind of bad for the buildings that aren’t on it. I bet they get teased on the building playground for being new and lame.

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(Edit: apparently there is no such thing as a “building playground” … YET.)

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Reason #6: The Touvelle House Bed and Breakfast. The rooms are nice, the food is excellent, and the whole place smells like cinnamon.

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Reason #7: Shockingly good restaurants

We usually head to MacLevin’s whenever we’re in town. They describe themselves as an “unconventional Jewish deli.” Yeah. A Jewish deli IN SOUTHERN OREGON. A place that I kind of thought was devoid of Jews (except for, you know, the one that I bring with me whenever I’m down there). The food is excellent (their chopped chicken livers in particular are quite tasty).

This time we decided to try some new restaurants, and were equally pleased with the results.

We went to the Mustard Seed Cafe for lunch. No pictures of that, because I scarfed down my meal too quickly. They brought us free homemade cookies along with our bill, and Rand had to tackle me before I offered to pick up everyone else’s check in a desperate plea to get more cookies (they were toffee chocolate chip, people. TOFFEE CHOCOLATE CHIP).

And then we went to the Deja Vu Bistro for dinner. We ate outside. It was downright splendid.

I got scallops …

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Rand got the duck breast …

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And we “split” this trio of desserts (by “split”, I mean that Rand let me eat 15/16th of it, and he snuck in a nibble of ice cream when I was looking the other way):

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Reason #8: The amazingly creepy and wonderful Jacksonville Cemetery

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Zombie-free since … wait, what day is it?

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Reason #9: The sky in summertime is so blue, it looks fake.

This is NOT ‘shopped. Oh, shut up. You CANNOT see the pixels, so don’t even start.

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Reason #10: The Britt Festival, Jacksonville Mercantile, the shopping, all the friendly locals, that little shop that sells homemade fudge, the trolley tour that circles around town, the Jacksonville Garage Sale …

I know, I KNOW. That’s more than 10 reasons. But I’ve never been particularly good at math. Besides, if I sit here trying to enumerate everything that I like about Jacksonville, I will see my youth slip away from me even faster than it already is.

Let’s just say that I really love the place. And I can’t exactly tell you why. There’s just something about Jacksonville’s adorable weirdness that makes me smile. It seems to be a common theme in my life, actually:

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And I don’t really need to analyze it more than that.

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Every time that Rand and I stay in an old hotel, we have a similar exchange:

Me: This place is nice. Too bad it’s haunted.

Rand: Baby, this place isn’t haunted.

Me: You’d like for me to think that, wouldn’t you?

Rand: Yes. Yes, I would. I would very much like for you to believe that this place isn’t haunted, because it isn’t.

Me: Whose side are you on, anyway?

Rand: Um … logic’s?

Me: SO NOT MY SIDE, THEN.

Or something like that. The point is, I’m rather steadily convinced that every time we stay at an old, remodeled hotel, we’re going to be haunted right out of there, and Rand’s convinced we aren’t.

We’re like a couple at the beginning of a horror movie. Or, at least, I assume we’re like a couple in a horror movie. I actually can’t bring myself to watch any, so I wouldn’t know. But my understanding is that they all begin sort of peacefully and idyllically. There’s a couple, and one of them is a pure skeptic, and the other is more concerned about ghosts and the supernatural (because she is clearly the more intelligent of the two).

They enter an old, creepy house/hotel/ski lodge and … well, it usually goes downhill from there. But there are a few blissful minutes where everything is wonderful, and the couple is running around their spooky old lodgings and having the time of their lives, before walls start bleeding and someone’s head starts spinning around on their neck.

So when I say that the Peerless Hotel in Ashland, Oregon, is like something out of a horror movie, I’m referring to those first few wonderful minutes. Because the Peerless is lovely and idyllic and old and we had a wonderful time there. Even if it was kind of creepy, and even though we might have had four or five fights about whether or not it was haunted.

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The history of the hotel is fairly innocuous. Back in the early 1900s, the railroad brought a lot of business through Ashland. The Peerless Boarding House was built so that workers on the Southern Pacific line would have an economical place to stay while they were in town. There were 14 rooms, and one shared bathroom (we will discuss the sheer terror of this momentarily). A few years later, the railroad line was rerouted to go through Klamath Falls instead, and the number of workers (and need for lodgings) in Ashland decreased dramatically. Over the better part of the next century, the Peerless felt into neglect and disrepair. When it was purchased by its current owner in the 90s, it had a few interior walls standing, and that was pretty much it.

The current owners re-configured and remodeled the 14 original rooms to include four guest rooms and two suites – the Peerless Hotel. Oh, and all the rooms now have their own bathroom. That’s a pretty nice upgrade from having to share with 13 other grizzled railroad workers. Dear god. Just imagine the cleanliness of that toilet. It could not have been good.

But here’s the thing I’ve found with old buildings: no matter how much you remodel them, they still hang on to a creepy aura. The lobby and the hallways of the Peerless were lovely and decorated in a Victorian-style fashion. But there was no way in hell I was going to get caught in either of them alone. And certainly not with a Ouija board.

The lovely lobby, complete with creepy rocking horse.

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I told Rand that if we rounded a corner and saw twin little girls, a la The Shining, we were going home immediately.

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Since it was our anniversary, and my husband is a wreckless and impulsive romantic, he booked us one of the suites. It was huge. Apparently three of the original rooms from the boarding house had been combined to create it. The crazy thing was that we could still see the footprints of the original rooms, including the boarded-up doorways.

Guess what? Boarded up doorways are kind of creepy. Especially when you are staring at one from your bed.

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Or from the toilet.

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I kept expecting one of the not-doors to slowly start creaking open in the middle of the night and I’m-not-even-going-to-imagine-what was going to step through the threshold and devour us whole.

Ahem. Sorry.

Our suite had a bedroom …

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That’s me, obviously. I’m glad when I later looked at this photo I didn’t see the specter of some old guest of the hotel in the reflection, too.

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A sitting room …

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And a bathroom which rivaled my first apartment in size. It even had two – TWO – bathtubs.

Despite my declaration of “OH HELL YES WE ARE USING THESE,” we did not.

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Now, some of you may be looking at these photos and thinking, “Holy shit-crackers, that’s a lot of flowers.” And to those folks, I will say the following:

1.) Watch your mouth, buddy.

2.) You have no idea. I mean, you really have no idea.

Our suite was covered in flowers. They were absolutely everywhere. It was like Mother’s Day had exploded inside of there. I found three different types of floral wallpaper in our room (two types in the bedroom alone).

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After a while, I started seeing flowers everywhere. On my clothes, on the surface of my skin. In my food.

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And let’s not forget the floral runner along the ceiling …

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And some floral curtains, too.

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At some point, it was clear the flowers were taking over:

The had encroached onto the ceiling. Our souls would be next.

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I found this more than a little alarming. Isn’t there an inevitable scene in most horror movies where the house starts taking over and wrapping itself around people? I’m guessing here – like I said, I only have a limited bit of knowledge on this subject, derived from the few scenes I watched, terrified, through my fingers at slumber parties. But I’m fairly sure I recall a part in Poltergeist II (I think that was the movie) where the kid’s braces start growing like mad and extending towards the electrical socket so that he’ll get electrocuted.

Okay, fine. I guess that’s more a case of dental appliances taking over, but still. You see my point. Flowers are terrifying.

And though I was expecting it each and every night, we never encountered any ghosts. The building never tried to kill us. We woke up each morning happy and refreshed, and treated to an amazing breakfast that was included with our bill.

Yup. Every. Single. Morning.

Rand and I had eaten at the Peerless Restaurant before on previous trips down to Southern Oregon and really enjoyed it. I asked him if he thought that the breakfast included with our room would be on par with the dinners we’d had there. He said that he didn’t know how they could possibly be.

And he later admitted that he was wrong.

Lemon poppy seed muffins and a pot of tea.

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Every morning, we had an entree, juice, fruit, and some sort of baked good (guess what my favorite part was? DAMN STRAIGHT IT WAS THE BAKED GOODS). Peach french toast. Poached eggs over sauteed spinach. Lemon poppy seed waffles. Raspberry scones. Banana bread. Scrambled eggs with herbs and asparagus. I had post-surgery steroids coursing through me at the time, and I still found the portions to be generous.

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Honestly, the place could have been haunted and I wouldn’t have even minded that much, provided they kept bringing me those damn muffins.

After we got home, we received a call from one of the folks running the hotel, explaining that we had forgotten a small notebook in our room. They promptly mailed it back to us. The staff was, in every estimation, unbelievably friendly.

Our stay was idyllic. No ghosts. No creepy voices. No shadowy specters lurking in the corners. It was like something out of a horror movie. Or at least, the first ten minutes of a horror movie – when everything is happy and perfect. And a little bit spooky.

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And then we saw the same relief, this time rendered with a Cubist slant:

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And I might have geeked out, because seriously, how cool is that?