Day 85: Once a mountain

I was woken in the early hours of the morning by Exile #2 and by early afternoon we were driving to the hospital. The big day? Not really.

In fact the early waking was due to a sick (again) Exile #3 who far from performing for us in an all-school concert was forced to miss school altogether today.

We drove to (and past) the hospital on our way back from the State Museum of New York where we investigated the wildlife of the Adirondacks (including lots of interesting mammals that no longer live there thanks to man), the birds of the state (many of which are now being spotted locally thanks to the arrival of both Spring and my parents), New York City (including the events of 9/11 and the original set of Sesame Street). We also went up to the fourth floor to ride on a renovated carousel. Exile #3 and her Grandma chose to ride in a sleigh, Exile #2, myself and my father chose to ride some horses and Exile #4 chose to ride sitting on a bench in an innocuous looking round container. It turned out that this round seat rotated quite quickly surprising all of us, not least Exile #4 herself, and I had to dismount from my charging steed so that she could sit on my knee for the second half of the ride.

As you can see the 'mountain' has virtually disappeared. We actually had fresh snow several times today, but it seems to have lost its ability to accumulate at last. Temperatures are just above freezing (10 °F below normal apparently) - not exactly inspiring us to venture into the great outdoors at the moment. Not that we're making many plans at all except day-to-day at the moment.