"You're lucky I'm even awake right now," I say, following him out into the into the woods, stepping over fallen sticks and piles of sodden leaves along the way. "I'm keeping up as well as I can considering I haven't had nearly enough coffee yet this morning and it's about an hour before I normally get up. I'm a growing boy, you know. I need my rest!"

Derek's clearly excited about wherever it is we're going, several feet ahead of me as we tramp through the leaves. "What's at your cabin?" I ask him because I've been there before already. More than once. I don't remember anything in or around it that's all that extraordinary.