9:25 am. The second night here finally gave me the sleep I was searching for. After Fred's spaghetti dinner on the roof of the other houseboat, we didn't have any cleaning to do on ours, so we could go right to bed under the stars.

The night sky is so different up here. Or it's the same, but you can actually see it — the billions of stars, some of which look as close as the trees on top of the mountains surrounding our cove. Eric got here yesterday afternoon, and he brought a schedule of satellites and shuttle fly-overs that should be visible from here this week. My eyes aren't quite good enough to pick out the satellites, most of the time, but the meteors blazing across the blackness overhead are impressive enough.

He also had a schedule of celestial events, planetary conjunctions and the like, but most of them will happen in the pre-dawn hours, and I don't expect to be awake for those. One of his new interests (and he has many) is astronomy, and he's gradually learning the stars and constellations.

After a half hour or so of watching the stars and giggling and telling stories on each other, the way family members do when they no longer see each other every day, we dropped off to sleep. I can't speak for anyone lese, but I slept soundly all night, until the sun peaked over the nearest hill and flashed the new day's light in my face. I quickly gets quite warm in a sleeping bag, once the sunlight hits.

Breakfast, a shave (oh, the relief!), and a shower (ahhh!), and I'm ready to plunge into the new day. And the lake.