So, six-hour drive on Friday, six-hour drive on Monday, and what am I doing during? Plotting my latest novel? Contemplating the world’s problems? Engaging my toddler in educational word games?

No. I’m thinking about all the music mixes I need to make for our next road trip.

Specifically, a Long Songs mix, a Girls’ Names Mix, and a Cities Mix. (I think I’m going to be doing a totally cheesy Anthemic Rock Mix, too, but that sort of makes itself.)

Long Songs seems easy — throw on some Yes, Guns & Roses’ “November Rain,” any number of live Dead songs, and the Allman Brothers’ thirty-minute “Mountain Jam” and you’re good to go, but I want better suggestions. I’m thinking over seven minutes as criteria.

Girls’ Names will be fun, although the mix might end up heavily Springsteen-oriented if I’m not careful. Again, sugggestions?

And Cities is maybe the most (for me) ambitious because … I’m not sure why it occurred to me, and I can’t think of many songs with cities in the title off the top of my head. Um…

and the livin’ is easy.

I’m sitting here savoring what was nearly a perfect day. (Very few things are PERFECT perfect, but this day gets a 98 out of 100.)

Slept in. Lazed a little bit, caught up on some email, ate some breakfast.

And then went to the beach! FairHaven Beach, part of a state park here on Lake Ontario, only twenty minutes from our house, and reached via nearly deserted, mostly picturesque country roads. It was almost unbearably hot when we left the house, and the temperature at the beach was nicely lower, with a good stiff breeze.

I’ll admit it, I’m an ocean girl all the way. Atlantic, specifically, anything from New Jersey’s choppy, slightly gray water to the slurry green tide of the Outer Banks to Florida’s clear warmth. But the lake was awesome! The water was cool, but very clear, and shallow enough that Sara could walk in up to her shoulders even twenty feet out.

And it’s a park, so trees! Shade! Picnic tables! Playground! Clean bathrooms! (Well, you know, clean *enough*.) We spent a good four hours all told, sluicing off the heat in the water, eating an admittedly overpriced lunch from the snack bar (next time = cooler and bag lunches) at a shady picnic table, and watching Sara and Ben tear all over the playground before we left. We even parked IN THE SHADE.

And when we got home, there were lovely cooling showers, and fish fry for dinner, with corn on the cob and cake for dessert! Now we’re sitting on the screened porch, the coolest place in the house, after a short but refreshing thunderstorm, with citronella candles flickering and watching Daredevil. (That’s at least one of the points off the day, if you ask me.)

Very nearly perfect. Now I just need someone to bring me a beer.