Day 1.233: Girls, rock

Why break with tradition?

On the eve of a little trip with our current visitors, we inflicted a baseball game on them. We had free tickets because the previous game we attended was rain-delayed and the fireworks had to be cancelled, so we traded them in for tickets to the last firework night of the season.

At the end of the game, before the fireworks, many of the women in the crowd were invited down onto the field where they were greeted by Ray 'Albany, Schenectady and Manchester Vermont' Bleser (the owner of Northeastern Fine Jewelry).

He sent them off to do this:

Until one of them (scrabbling around in the dirt with a spoon) found a half-carat diamond.

We didn't win anything, but we enjoyed the evening and the very rain-delayed (for us anyway) fireworks.

Day 1.232: DAY 1232

We seemed to be on-the-go most of today without doing anything of any great significance - just as well I saw this back in late May (just after the unofficial beginning of the summer) and predicted a slow-news day for today (just before the unofficial end of the summer).

Day 1.231: Gifts traverse afar

My parents arrived here today with these greatly appreciated gifts - the now customary donation to the toothpaste stocks and some things for the over 7's*!

Mincemeat is hard to find here - so much so that it has become a joke that no-one even knows what it is.

There is a grocery store advert on the radio that starts like this:

High gas prices are making mincemeat of my household budget - I don't even know what mincemeat is, but I bet the price is through the roof...

This evening was the triumphant (in my opinion anyway) return of Rock Band night - hopefully our greatly jet-lagged visitors were not too much disturbed by it (or if they were will get a good night's sleep now that we've shut up).

We ended the night with the song that caused the demise of the Legendary-aspirations of Electric of Nouns - hopefully Exile #2 and I will also get a good nights sleep and won't wake up from nightmares of nearly-endless songs stopping 90% of the way through after the continuous bass-guitar riffing made mincemeat of my fingers.


* Legal Note: all the over 7's in the household are over 21. I wouldn't like anyone to think I am soft on under-age consumption of mincemeat. Alcohol is a different matter as we know.

Day 1.230: Summer's end

The nights are cooling down, the flowers are dying back, the parks and pools are about to close, school is about start.

Because the seasons are so marked here there is an anticipation about the transitions, the colours of autumn will soon bring tourists to the mountains of the Adirondacks and drama to our own back yard. But for now, even the end of summer has a beauty of its own. These transitions are subtle magic, so easy to miss in the flow of life and so worth catching.

Day 1.229: Fruitbody and friends

Here are some of the fungi we saw on our walk at the lake on Friday including the coral fungus in the first picture - the same one that thanks to a combination of flash and camera-wobble ended up looking underwater in the previous picture. Well I thought so anyway - thanks for playing (along).

About ten years ago, Exile #2 (currently third match in a Google search for 'Drummy Mummy') and I came up with the idea for a children's book or TV series based on the adventures of a cool mushroom called Fruitbody and his friends - because his fibres are invisible and permeate a long way - Fruitbody can pop up anywhere. His friends had other special powers - Puffball can roll, Fly-Agaric can fly (maybe) - OK we didn't really think it through. I'm sure if we'd developed it this last picture could have been related in some way to a love interest. I don't know what it is but I'm calling it the "valentine's heart fungus". Let's see if anyone Googles for that!

Day 1.228: Standing in the shadows at the end of my crib

Exile #2 spotted the likeness. Thanks to Exile #3 for one of the images and to stereogum for the other one.
Of course this picture (possibly C rather than A?) had to come with pop pun 73 for very long title watchers - follow me out of town come on kids!

Day 1.227: Nuestro charco es tu charco

At the beach on Friday, E5N1 invited himself into this puddle with these strangers.

Today's new trick - he climbed up to standing on the sofa and lifted a deserted half-cup of coffee down from a high shelf (without spilling any) then proceeded to play with it (with spillage).

He has taken a few unsupported steps on a couple of occasions over the last few days but despite remaining basically a non-walker, his climbing now basically knows no bounds - floor to chair, chair to table, table to - WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?!

He gets away with a lot thanks to his boldness and other charms.

Anyone know or want to guess about the coral? Answer to follow in the next day or two.

Day 1.226: At the OK Coral

Here are some pictures of our boating adventure on Friday.




We saw our guests off at the airport earlier - that all went smoothly and it appears that their connecting flight was on time and their transatlantic flight has left, so all seems to be going smoothly for them.

We saw no sign of gunfights, but we were surprised to see this coral at the lake. Can anyone work out what it was doing there?

Day 1.225: Slip sliding away

It was our last full day with our current guests and we took the opportunity of a hot dry summer's day, to give the kids chance to get cold and wet. On its third outing, Exile #3 mastered the slip-n-slide enough to slide its full length on at least one occasion. Her cousin took no time at all in mastering it.

Exile #4 had a few goes but eventually took to some sidewalk artistry with some help from E5N1.


Later in the afternoon we watched some Premiership Football on the Fox Soccer Channel, had a good walk and then a nice meal and a couple of bottles of wine. We'll be sorry to see them off tomorrow but I think they've had a good holiday.

Day 1.224: Once more unto the beach

We decided to go over to Grafton Lakes State Park - where we have visited several times in cold and warm weather. Today was only the second time we had been between Memorial Day and Labor Day when the beach is 'open'. Once again we found ourselves and others bemused by the rules - more than one parent was pondering why it was OK for their small child to play in the water as long as they were not wearing any sort of flotation device - but not if they were (unless it was a US coastguard approved one). Also, there was a sign saying 'no balls on the beach' even though there were volleyball nets set up. My sister suggested that maybe they were for badminton - which needs no ball!

After some initial sand-play, we had lunch at a shady table, conquered the 2.5 mile circular walk around the lake (it has previously beaten us), hired a couple of rowing boats for an hour and then returned to the by-then 'closed' beach where the kids got on with their own things:

Exile #3 and her cousin got lost once again in a world of their own invention:

Exile #4 built some late-in-the-day sandcastles:

And E5N1 made one more attempt to make sense of all those rules:

Day 1.223: It started with my sis'...

...who suggested that her son might like a glove and ball as a belated birthday present (this was as we were leaving the game last week).

So today we went to the mall (not something we do very often) and shopped for baseball equipment. Having picked out a glove, we realised that the girls had found some that they liked. Then we realised that they would need someone to play catch with and so on.

Who'd have thought it would come to this? (Roll mouse over to see what I'm getting at!)

We ended up with six gloves and seven balls (although we only bought five and four respectively ourselves). Yes, the girls did choose pink ones with LEDs that flash when you make a catch. The average price paid was only a little over $15 per glove, so I think we did OK. We had a very good game of catch afterwards. This evening my brother-in-law cooked curry while my sister read stories to the girls and Exile #2 and I went out to buy picnic food for tomorrow. After a lovely meal and some wine, we played some Rock Band - what else do we need for it to be the perfect day?

Ah, yes a pop pun of course! It's pop pun 72 for title watchers: you don't remember it, do you?

Day 1.222: Sea's (or sand's) wings

It wasn't all museums, lakes and mountains you see. There were swings and see-saws to try out:

by Tupper Lake in the evening,

outside the schoolhouse at the Adirondack Museum,

by the Ausable Chasm upper parking lot,

at the excellent Shaheen's Motel in Tupper Lake.

I have just finished a three-day work week. Our guests are travelling back from their trip to Niagara Falls and the Finger Lakes this evening and we have a few more days to spend with them before they return to the UK.

Day 1.221: Lake lustre

Tupper Lake, New York is the name of the town. This is the lake of the name.

Pictures were taken on Friday evening. Curiously, Google Maps shows most of this area as dry land. It isn't.

Day 1.220: By rail/road

We had a fairly long drive home yesterday, but found time en route to visit the:

AdirondackScenicRailroad
Exile #4 tried on the conductor's hat for size.


Whilst E5N1 made himself at home:


And tried out the joys of commuting:



We got home in the early evening, but it has been a full-on trip of 500 miles and 600 photos. This morning, our guests left on a second leg of the New York State tour, but after she took E5N1 up to bed for a nap after lunch, Exile #2 found that he wasn't the only one who was a bit tired.