Annie's First Vacation, Part 2

After a visit from the Comcast guy this afternoon, we're back on-line. As promised, here is a pictorial journey of Annie's first vacation to Lake George.

But first, some background. Lake George is a family tradition. We've been doing Oktoberfest at Canoe Island Lodge for about fifteen years. Before that, we stayed at CIL in 1988 and 1993 for a whole week in the summer. Lake George was a family tradition mostly perpetuated by my dad, who loved to go there because of the beauty, the boating, the fabulous food, and the fact that it never changed. He knew exactly what to expect, and he was never caught by surprise. It was one of those rare vacations where he would actually relax and enjoy himself. I remember that he would try to leave Buffalo early on the Friday morning of the weekend so that he could go sailing on the lake before dinner!

It was also a perfect excuse to get the family together. No matter where Laurie and I were, Dad would find a way to bring us all there. While I was in college, he would drive an hour from Lake George to Albany to pick me up at the airport. He performed similar gymnastics to get Laurie to come in from wherever she was. While we were in college, Jim would drive down from Potsdam for the weekend. He was always welcome there, even when we'd only been dating a few months.

Dad died on a Sunday, on what should have been our Oktoberfest weekend of 2007. I don't think it's a coincidence that he died that weekend. It was the time that we were happiest and we were all together. Soon after he died, we thought about how at Lake George they would be right in the middle of the champagne party that they always have on the Sunday of Oktoberfest. Maybe Dad was somewhere, far away, toasting us all with champagne right then. I hope he was.

This year was the first year we went back to Lake George since Dad died. We didn't know how it was going to be. I was excited to introduce Annie to it, but I was very much missing Dad too.

We left Boston on Friday morning. We went the long way, through Vermont, and stopped at a little country store in Brattleboro, Vermont, where we always get lunch on the way to Lake George. After that, we did a quick stop at the Henry Bridge, a covered bridge where we got engaged 11 years ago. We had to introduce Annie to this beautiful place! The fall colors were incredible.

We then headed on to Lake George. We arrived in late afternoon, and Mom and Laurie arrived about an hour later. We had some fabulous food, then we went to bed.

The next day, we brought Annie down to the lake. The fall colors were at peak and were incredible.

Then we went into Bolton Landing, a little town near where CIL is. That's where we did some posed photos on this very large Adirondack chair.  Here's Annie with her grandma:

And here's a photo of me, Laurie and Annie:

 

 

The rest of the weekend was dedicated to eating amazing food and enjoying Lake George. Jim, Mom and I went sailing one afternoon. The wind was pretty crazy so they didn't let us stay out very long. Instead, they took us out on a pontoon boat to Canoe Island (CIL owns this island and gets its name from it). They also drove us around the lake a little. 

 

Here's a photo we took before we left, right outside the lodge. We have a similar photo taken of all of us with Dad from 2005 that is one of my favorite photos.

All in all, it was a good time and it was also a big learning experience. It was challenging to coordinate Annie's feeding and nap times with things going on at the lodge. It would've been even harder if my mom and Laurie hadn't been there to help us look after Annie. 

 

And, not unexpectedly, the whole experience felt empty now that my dad is gone. Canoe Island Lodge and this weekend in general was his big thing. I missed seeing him enjoy himself so much. But we were lucky to be there and I'm glad we went.

Annie's First Vacation, Part 1

This past weekend was Annika's first real vacation! We went to Oktoberfest at a resort in Lake George, NY that we've been going to for about 15 years. It was a pretty chaotic weekend since we've never vacationed with a baby before! Here is a typical afternoon:

It was a little hard to juggle Annie's naps with our desire to sight see, visit with family, etc. And we continue to be amazed by the amount of planning, packing, and just plain stuff involved with traveling with a baby. But I am not complaining! The trees were at peak color for the fall and were gorgeous. We got to go sailing for a little while, and we got to go on a pontoon boat ride on the lake. Annie (and the rest of us) got to see her Grandma Donna and Aunt Laurie.

Unfortunately, our cable modem is broken at home, which means that I can't post any photos on Flickr or anywhere else until Wednesday. (The above photo is from Jim's iPhone). So that's why I call this post "Part 1." I'll post Part 2 of Annie's vacation later.

Home again, home again

We made it back home this afternoon. It sucked having to get up at 4am. In fact, as we were checking out, this couple (?) was just coming back from a night on the town. It was pretty funny. There we were in our jeans, coats and suitcases, half asleep, and there they were, dressed up and still raring to go.

But the good part about getting up so early was that it'll help us switch over to East Coast time, and more importantly, we were at home in Quincy by 4:30pm. That sure beats coming in the door at 11pm and having to go straight to bed. It is really nice to be home. Plus, tomorrow is President's Day so I have a day off (although it is looking like I will have many "days off" in the coming months due to the impending lay-off).

The Las Vegas airport was a disaster. I've never seen such a mess. First, Jim commented that the Las Vegas and Los Angeles airports must use the same rental car lot, because it was out in the middle of nowhere - not anywhere near the Las Vegas airport. We finally got to the actual airport at about 4:50am and already the line for Delta was about a mile long. Then there was a similarly long line at security, and finally a big crowd waiting for the shuttle-subway thing that actually took us to the "D" terminal. All in all, even though we got to the airport over 90 minutes before our flight, it was already boarding by the time we got to the gate. But we made it, and our connection in Cincinnati was much easier. We even had time for lunch.

Tomorrow is "errands" day. But I'm happy about that. It's so good to be home.

More Las Vegas

Today we explored the Las Vegas strip. We walked through the following casinos: New York, New York, Montecarlo, Bellagio, Paris, Bally, Venetian, and Treasure Island. All of them were basically the same, the exception of the Bellagio which both Jim and I just loved.

When you walk into the Bellagio, you see the amazing mosaic floors. Then there's the front hall with this art-glass display on the ceiling:

What do you think, Laurie? Chihuly or a knock off? There were other glass displays in the same theme throughout the casino.

The Bellagio also has a small botanical garden with orchids, topiaries, and Asian-themed decorations, but my favorite was its garden, which was in a courtyard in the middle of the massive building. The garden had several pools with mosaic designs on the bottoms. There were also orange trees and other trees and plants. Wow.

It was a dream. (And by the way, the temperature was only in the 50's. Some kids were in the pool anyway. It was so beautiful that I would've gone in too if I was staying there!) The rest of the casinos were basically just big halls with millions of slot machines with some decorations on the theme, whatever the theme is.

We were walking from about 9:30 in the morning, with a short break for lunch, so by 2pm, I was exhausted. We came back to the hotel, where we took naps. We're going to go out to dinner pretty soon. Our flight leaves at 6:30 tomorrow morning - ugh.

As a side note, I learned today that one of the passengers on board the plane that crashed in Buffalo was an expert witness that I was just in contact with this week for an asylum case that I've been preparing for a hearing. The expert's name was Alison Des Forges and she was perhaps the most qualified expert witness on asylum country conditions that I have ever worked with. We exchanged e-mails on Monday. It just makes me sick that she was on this flight. Actually, the whole incident makes me sick. I'm not so thrilled to be getting on a plane tomorrow.

Las Vegas again

We left Beatty pretty early this morning. The walls at the hotel were paper-thin so we heard when our next door neighbors were taking their showers. Plus, whenever we flushed the toilet, it made such a racket that it sounded like the person using the toilet had just gotten sucked into the toilet too.

Motel 6 is a trip. Our bed had a Motel 6-themed bedspread with depictions of people traveling and staying at Motels 6. I never saw this type of product placement before! The shower had the force of a fire engine hose. And the TV skipped certain stations that the motel said we had access too, such as CNN.

We drove into Death Valley, which was quite amazing. There were really interesting looking mountains, sand dunes, other rock formations, and these plains covered in salt where there used to be a river or lake. And did I mention that the temperature was in the 50's and there wasn't any snow at all?

View of the salt plains:


Me, on top of a sand dune, with mountains in distance:


We also toured "Scotty's Castle," which was a summer mansion built in the 1920's by a millionaire life insurance executive named Albert Johnson. His "friend" was Walter Scott, who was basically a con-man who stayed at the castle for entertainment value (he told wild stories about his life as a cowboy with Buffalo Bill Cody). The mansion was colloquially referred to as Scotty's Castle because people would come there to hear his crazy stories. We had a really good tour and heard some great stories about what life was like back then.

Here's Jim in front of the "castle":

After that, we headed back to Las Vegas. It was starting to rain and we felt like we had gotten to see a lot of Death Valley. It took a couple of hours to get back to Vegas. We drove down Las Vegas Blvd on the way to our hotel and had a look at some of the crazy casino/resorts there. Really, it is a cross between Times Square in New York and Disney World. There was a lot of traffic, probably due to the fact that it was Friday and tomorrow is Valentine's Day.

We got dinner at a place called Bahama Breeze, which had nice seafood. We're staying in tonight and we'll go explore the sights of Las Vegas tomorrow.

I'll catch you back here tomorrow and tell you about Las Vegas.

Ghost town

This afternoon we saw a ghost town, Rhyolite, a town that was built around 1904 when gold was discovered in this area. At one time it had 12,000 residents. But it was abandoned by 1919 due to an economic crisis and problems with the mines. "Rhyolite" is apparently the name of the mineral in which the gold was found. There was another town built at the same time, called Bull Frog, but apparently there is nothing left of that town.

In Rhyolite, there was an old train depot, a house made out of bottles, and an old general store. There were ruins of 2 banks and some other structures. We also found an old cemetery down an old gravel road. It was really interesting. Most of the graves in the cemetery were unmarked or marked in a very primitive way (like a makeshift cross or a piece of old wood in the shape of a headstone). It seemed that many of the people there were buried long after the town had been abandoned. They probably grew up there and wanted to be buried there. It makes you wonder what it's like to live long enough to see your entire town completely disappear.

Here is a photo of the general store and bottle house:


From the cemetery:


After that, we headed back and looked at food options. There was the Sourdough Saloon, the Mexican-American Restaurant, and "Rita's," inside a casino. AAA recommended Rita's, so we went there. We had to walk through a very smokey casino, where there were a few people playing slot machines. The restaurant was unremarkable.

After dinner, we drove back out to the road to Rhyolite to look at the stars. There are no lights anywhere and we could see the Milky Way and about a thousand stars. I saw the entire Orion constellation, and I think I found the Big Dipper and the Seven Sisters. I wish I knew the other constellations.

Tomorrow we'll see Death Valley. Here's a preview (we drove a few miles into the park this afternoon):

Then we'll head back to Las Vegas, which we'll explore until we go back to Boston on Sunday morning.

Beatty, Nevada

We have stopped in Beatty, Nevada for the day, which is near Death Valley. It's still early so we're going to go tour some ghost towns. That's about all that's around here. Cactus and abandoned gold mining towns. The one that we're going to see now, Rhyolite, has been abandoned since 1919 but I guess some old Westerners were filmed there in the 1920's. I'll post some photos later.

We were going to do Zion National Park this morning, but lo and behold, it was snowing again and all the mountains were fogged in. We'd already been through this scenario in the Grand Canyon and didn't think it was worth the disappointment with Zion. So we'll have to do both Zion and Bryce some other time, preferably not in February.

On our way here, we stopped in Las Vegas to go to In 'N' Out Burger. Did you know that they have a secret vegetarian option there? If you go to the secret menu on their website, you'll see that they carry a grilled cheese sandwich. Quite good. It had 10,000 Island dressing on it, which you wouldn't think would taste good but it did.

We are staying at a Motel 6 tonight. It was the only hotel in town, aside from a couple of sketchy places, one of which Jim claims is called "Grandpa Chuck's." In order to get an ethernet cable, you have to put down a deposit of $10 (I don't think they've heard of wireless internet yet). When I was registering, the receptionist told me where "the restaurant" was and where "the gas station" was. I think that's because there's only one of each. When we walked into the room, the shade was down. Jim said that if we pulled up the shade and saw an alien outside, we weren't staying here. But no aliens, at least not yet. This place is so deserted and is near Yucca Mountain, where they're burying all the radioactive waste, that we wouldn't be surprised at seeing odd things around here.

Why, you may ask, are we staying here? Because we are so damn tired of sitting in the car!!!!

Cedar City, Utah

We had really fabulous weather today. The sky was impossibly blue and the sun was out. Yes, it was a little cold. But that kept away all the other tourists!

Today we went to Arches National Park, which I think is my favorite national park of all time, as of now. I will post a couple of photos from the ton that we took. It's this relatively small park (about 100 square miles in total) with crazy rock formations, some in the form of arches. It has several very manageable hikes (1 mile or less) where you get to see the best of the arches. The trails are extremely well-maintained. Did I mention how incredible the rock formations are?

Here are a couple of typical photos. First, a photo of Turret Arch:

Here is Jim, on top of one of the smaller rock formations:

View of North Window Arch from Turret Arch:

After Arches, we drove for a long time. We basically drove across Utah. The scenery was out of this world: rock formations in various colors and snow-covered mountains, mainly. Here's a typical view:

The road and the land around it was mostly deserted. One stretch of road went about 100 miles without any exits.

We stopped for lunch in a town called Green River whose claim to fame is that it's the world's watermelon capital. It has a watermelon festival every September. No watermelons this time of year though.

We have stopped for the night in Cedar City, Utah, which is somewhat near Zion National Park. We are going to Zion tomorrow morning before driving into California for some (hopefully) warm weather. We are also near Bryce National Park, but I think we're going to skip Bryce and just do Zion this time.

Cedar City is kind of an unremarkable town. We stopped at a motel that we thought was a Best Western. But when Jim went in to get a room, they told him that they were no longer a Best Western. Jim realized that the receptionist had been scraping the Best Western sign off the door when we pulled up. Then we realized that there were trucks in the parking lot, covering over all the Best Western signs. Kind of weird. But the room is pretty cheap, and it's clean. So it's OK.

We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Don Miguel. We were the only ones there. The town seems somewhat deserted.

Lots of driving tomorrow, but hopefully more amazing sites and continued good weather.

Moab, Utah

This morning we woke up to over a foot of snow that had fallen overnight. And no snow plows in sight. The car nearly got stuck. Here's a photo of it with the snow:

I can't say that we were surprised to see more snow, but not this much. I am really glad I decided to pack the winter boots. I almost didn't. I wish I'd brought my hat, gloves, and my big wool coat.

We were going to stop for breakfast at the little restaurant in front of our hotel, but we didn't want to get stuck in the parking lot so we hit the road instead. We stopped at a Burger King drive-through and then started driving out of Chinle. We decided not to stop to see Canyon de Chelly after all because we didn't want to get snowed in.

Then there was a 50 mile drive on the road up to the main road. The road seemed like it had been plowed in parts, but it was very slippery. As we got closer to the main road, the snow had started melting and there wasn't as much of it, so the road was much better.

So we drove back into Kayenta, where we ate at the same diner, and then headed into Monument Valley, which was incredible. There was only a little snow, and none on the road, which was good. The weather was clear, with a blue sky. Monument Valley contains these red rock formations that just spring up out of the desert. They were very striking in the snow. They almost looked like they were carved and placed there by an artist.


We kept on driving and arrived in Utah. We started to see more rock formations. One of the first was in Mexican Hat, Utah, where there is a formation that sort of looks like a sombrero. We also saw the Abujo Mountains, which were covered in snow. The formations were more of a tan color, instead of red. One of the most striking was Wilson Arch (you can see the little dot of Jim, with his orange shirt on, which gives you an idea of the scale of it all):

I think we will see more of these tomorrow when we go to Arches National Park.

We stopped for the night in Moab, Utah, which is quite a different place from the places we stayed in the Indian Reservation. It is in a valley, surrounded by red-rock mountains that are almost golden in the sunlight. It is a little town with restaurants and gift shops. We ate dinner at a Thai restaurant and bought some postcards.

Tomorrow we are driving to Arches and then Bryce National Park. The plan then is to head into California for some warmer weather. We'll see how it works out.

Chinle (Canyon de Chelly), AZ

We had quite a day today! Although there were periods of snow, we got to see a lot of amazing sights.

We started out at the Grand Canyon, where it was snowing. The snow and fog cleared for a little while and we did get a good view.

But then a blizzard set in and the driving was pretty scary. It was a sheet of ice. But as the elevation began to decline, the snow stopped and the views were even more amazing:

We then headed to Kenyatta for lunch where we ate at The Blue Coffee Pot (a local diner). Then we went to Four Corners, which is where four states join up in one spot: Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado. Here's Jim, standing on four states:

After that, we decided to drive to Canyon de Chelly, which is where we're spending the night. The sights here are amazing. We drove through red rock formations and desert with tumbleweed. We ate dinner just now, and it started snowing hard while we were eating. So I think we're in for the night.

We are technically staying in the town of Chinle. It is quite amazing how desolate and poor this area is. There are trailers everywhere, with very few houses. The school looks like a prison. A lot of the schools we've seen around here are just a bunch of trailers clustered together. It makes you wonder how kids can get an education with such poor resources. Along the side of the road, we saw a lot of huts and stands where the native Americans are selling jewelery and pottery. This whole area is an Indian Reservation. It is so desolate - there are no trees, no farming, just desert. I wonder if the native Americans had a choice about going here, or if this is one of the circumstances where the U.S. Government decided to find the most barren part of the country and forced them to live here. I don't understand how they live. They can't even farm out here.

Anyway, the scenery is unlike anything we've ever seen before. It's amazing to us that we're still in the same country as the Northeast.


So we don't regret staying with our original plan and driving this way. Tomorrow we will drive up to Utah via Monument Valley.

Grand Canyon again

Here's the view from the Grand Canyon this morning:

Here's our hotel:


We are going to head to Monument Valley anyway. It looks like the snow might let up. I think we're going to see the Four Corners today too, depending on the weather.

Time to go!

Grand Canyon, Arizona

After flying into Las Vegas last night, we drove to the Grand Canyon today. We made a brief stop at the Hoover Dam and then drove through the desert to the town of William, and then on to the Grand Canyon. We're staying at El Tovar, a hotel built in 1905. It is very cozy and has a lodge atmosphere.

Here's the view we're had of the Grand Canyon so far:

Yeah. Not so much. It is actually snowing really hard here and the canyon is almost completely clouded in. The temperature is in the 20's. It's pretty disappointing. Actually, the Grand Canyon looks a lot like what we saw in Yellowstone. :(

We are hoping the weather improves tomorrow, but the Weather Channel says that they're supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow tomorrow and 4-6 more inches tomorrow night. So probably not. And all the sights to see around here, like Monument Valley, Zion, etc. are also supposed to get snow all week.

So we are probably going to drive south and then to California tomorrow. I think we're going to try to see Death Valley and Joshua Tree instead. I need a break from the snow, and worse than the snow is the fact that everything is clouded in! So we can't see anything.

On the good side, though, we did get to see some amazing sights at the Hoover Dam. The rock formations/mountains there were amazing, as were the Colorado River and Lake Mead. We drove and walked across the dam. They are building a suspension bridge right next to it, presumably to divert traffic away from the dam.

Here are some photos from the dam:


It'll be a surprise where we blog from tomorrow night, I guess.

Good news, bad news

The Bad News:
I'm probably getting laid off when I get back from vacation. I found this out last night, shortly before I left work for the day.

The Good News:
We start our vacation today! We are flying to Las Vegas and then renting a car. I can't wait to get away. Usually I'm a little nervous when I leave for a trip, but not so much this time.

The Bad News:
I get to think about what the hell I'm going to do with my career for the whole vacation.

The Good News:
I get to think about what the hell I'm going to do with my career for the whole vacation.

Coming attractions

Not much to blog about these days. My job situation stinks and it's cold and icy outside. I'm very afraid of falling on the ice, and even bought these metal traction devices for my boots. They really only work on packed-down snow, and are actually really slippery on most other surfaces, but they give me some confidence, anyway.

But I'm happy to say that a week from tomorrow we go out West for our vacation!! Yea! So stay tuned here for a daily update on our travels.

Vacation plans

In typical fashion, it is the weekend and I've been awake since 6:30. Since it's counterproductive for me to lie in bed, turning things over in my head, and then getting worked up about these stupid things, I decided to get up. Plus, that means JK^2 can sleep in peace for a couple more hours without me tossing and turning. I made myself a cup of tea (Irish Breakfast - it was a little too strong), and ate some of the raisin bread that I bought at the store yesterday. I love fresh-made raisin bread! This stuff was made on Friday!

We finally planned our trip. We weren't sure we were going to take one. We started out with grandiose ideas - Turkey, or Rome, or taking a 2-week cruise around the tip of South America. These are all places we'll go someday. But not this time. After looking at the expense of these trips, as well as the amount of sitting in a plane, we questioned whether we should do a trip at all. My job prospects are uncertain at this point because of the economy, and judging from the rate that my belly is currently growing, I may be on the large side next month, when we plan to go. Not much fun sitting on a plane for 12 hours when you're worried about blood clots and you have to get up every hour to go to the bathroom. I'm also somewhat restricted as far as how long I should be walking, etc. I need to take it easy. Spending a week walking around Rome would be super cool and I don't know when we'll have the opportunity to do that for several years. But I think it would be too much this time around. Plus, it would be expensive.

But we still wanted to do a trip. We probably won't be traveling again for a while. Plus, it's only a month away. How big am I really going to be? I've only started really showing over the past couple of weeks, and for the most part, I still feel fine.

So we decided to take the trip we had to cancel last winter when I got the flu. We are flying out to Las Vegas, renting a car, and driving. We'll probably go to the Grand Canyon, which neither of us has ever seen. It seems that since we've lived in the U.S. for 30+ years and have seen large parts of Europe as well as small portions of South America and Africa, it's time to see a major part of our own country. The Grand Canyon is a big thing not to have seen. So if the weather is right, we will drive there. If the weather isn't right, we can drive to southern Arizona instead, or up into Utah. By flying into Las Vegas, we're very flexible.

Yes, this will still involve the same issues with sitting and need of bathroom. But I think I'll be OK. There are lots of opportunities to stop and you have more control when you're the one driving the car. An added bonus is that we got the plane tickets for free with JK^2's frequent flier miles. That cuts the expenses by a lot.

I'm really happy about the trip. We'll get a much-needed break from the cold and from work.

Mountain climbing and reunions

This weekend I climbed two Adirondack mountains and attended JK^2's 10-year college reunion. It was a lot of fun! We went with our friends Nate and Jess.

We left Boston Thursday afternoon and got to Keene Valley before dinner. We were staying at a very restful, red cottage with an old upright piano. I played a little Scott Joplin and then we headed to dinner at the Noon Mark Diner. This is a little restaurant that sells fabulous pie. Also, when I first moved to Boston and JK^2 was still in college, I used to drive up after work and meet him in the parking lot at the Noon Mark Diner. We would then continue the drive up to Clarkson. So it has sentimental meaning. The food there isn't fabulous, but their pie is. I had strawberry rhubarb and Jim had raspberry rhubarb.

We then went back to the cottage and played a game called San Juan. It was fun. After that, it was time for bed.

The next day, we got a few groceries at a little store, and then started our hike up Cascade Mountain, one of the 46 Adirondack High Peaks. JK^2 and Nate are trying to climb all 46 of them, and they have done 16 so far. They already hiked Cascade once, but it's an easy hike and good for beginners (like me). It is about 2.5 miles each way. The hike was pretty hard and I'm not in fabulous shape, but I got into a groove after a while and it was OK. The weather was cool and cloudy.

We got to the top of Cascade around 12:30. Here's me at the summit:


Here are Nate, JK^2, and Jess:



You'll note that we're all wearing rain gear. It started raining just as we were getting to the top, and it completely clouded over. We couldn't see a THING from the top. Ugh. It was really disappointing!

After that, we hiked down to a place where we wouldn't get wet and ate our lunch - bread, cheese and trail mix. There was another High Peak nearby, called Porter. It was just another 20 minutes to that peak, so JK^2 talked me into doing that one too. :) I was feeling OK and thought that since I had already hiked up there, I might as well do the other peak. Jim said it would take us another 4 hours, because we would hike down the other side of Porter, but I didn't quite believe him, I think. He also said that it wouldn't be as hard because it was downhill and not so steep. Nate and Jess decided to not continue on (smart move). They went back to the car, and agreed to meet us at the other side of Porter with the car.

Then JK^2 and I did Porter and the view was better, because by then it had stopped raining.



Then we started the 4 mile hike back to the "Garden" which is some old lady's garden that she donated to the Adirondack Mountain Club and is now a parking lot at the end of several of the High Peak trails. Well that hike was crazy. First, it seemed like no one had been on our trail in quite some time. It was a bushwhack for about 2 miles. Parts of the trail were covered in water-logged ferns, which made our pants look like we had just taken a shower with our clothes on. There were rocks we couldn't see until after we had tripped over them. It was nuts. We got to Little Porter, which is sort of a look-out point on Porter with a view. We stopped there for a little while to take a break, and then hiked on. The rest of the trail was much better.

On the way, we saw what I think are trillium and orchids:


At the end of the trail was a bridge over Johns Brook, and then we were done. We were both in a lot of pain!! I'm still sore now. Plus, a bug seemed to take a liking to the back of my neck. I had a whole slew of bites back there.

Nate and Jess picked us up from the parking lot and took us back to the cottage for showers. We went to Lake Placid for dinner, and went to the Noon Mark Diner again for pie. (I had raspberry-peach-cheese pie). Then we played another game, Citadel, that night at the cottage before bed. We didn't like Citadel as much as we liked San Juan.

The next morning, we got up (miraculously) and drove to Clarkson for the reunion. We stayed in the dorms on Saturday night, which was interesting. How did we sleep on those beds for 4 years? I could feel the springs in my back! I must be getting old or something. Some highlights from the reunion:

Going to a "Chemistry Magic Show" in which one of the exhibits was Dr. Jim Peplowski (JK^2's freshman chemistry teacher) with a nerf gun, shooting fire out of it:


Going to the WCKN dinner, followed by a viewing of "Casual News 1998," produced by Nate. Jim and Nate had to clean the head of the VTR machine before playing it:


Then we watched the excruciating hour of Casual News. We didn't realize how bad it really was. :) The only redeeming part of it was Dave's "I'm just an old woman" sketch, which was just as goofy as it was in 1998.

Today, we had breakfast at Cheel (the student union) and then hit the road. We took the ferry from Plattsburg, NY to South Hero, VT:


Then we met Dave and Sandra for lunch in Burlington. Their new house is really coming along! And Burlington is a really neat city, especially when it doesn't have as much snow as the last time we saw it. We got home around 6:30pm. New Hampshire always seems bigger than it looks on the map.

A fun weekend! Although I felt old going to a 10-year college reunion, it was a nice excuse to get away for the weekend. We got to be outside, we got a lot of exercise, and we got to hang out with Nate and Jess. Wish we could do it more often.

Vacation!

Hello out there - this is the other half of JK squared. We are finally planning our vacation: a cross-country drive. We'll be traveling during the last 2 weeks of May and will try to blog about it here as much as we can. We plan on looking for attractions such as the largest ball of twine and the Corn Palace, and well as the obvious, like Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone. We are doing the northern route: Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, then north through Wisconsin, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana. After we drop the car off with my sister in Twisp, WA, then we'll head south, ultimately arriving in San Diego, where we fly back to Boston. (Maybe we'll have dinner in Tijuana on our last night!) The goal is to have a relaxing trip, and to see stuff that we wouldn't independently buy an airplane ticket and travel to see.