Day 4.304: Gust: wind-chill

I couldn't believe my ears as I drove home listening to WAMC tonight. It turns out that in North Dakota and north-west Minnesota, the wind-chill warnings are being phased out in favour of extreme-cold warnings.

Shocking right?

No? Well, bear with me!

This shunning of wind-based warnings (which seems very sensible indeed incidentally) was being announced by the gentleman pictured here.

His name is Greg Gust.

Oh yes.

[Picture from noaa.gov]

Day 4.303: Elmo from head to toe

Well, from shoulders to toes anyway!

E5N1 brought me the kids camera to upload the pictures to the computer this morning.  There were a number of photos that he had taken but this one caught my eye.

Exile #2 took it a few days ago.  E5N1 is quite pleased with his Elmo pajamas and slippers - as you might be able to tell!

Day 4.302: A "history" lesson

On Saturday, after walking with poets, we dined with history at this diner in Red Hook, NY.

The signs were in two minds about where to put their quotation marks.  Was it a "historic" diner or a "historic diner"?  Well, assuming the blue sign was not lying I think they can reasonably drop the quotation marks altogether and lay claim to being a historic diner.

We had a good meal.  The kids shared fish and chips - very nicely cooked in both cases, I had a very nice omelet with the server's recommended accompaniment of hash brown with onions and Exile #2 had some potato skins - which we were happy to see were actual skins (rather than large chunks of potato) crisped-up and served with chilli and cheese.

It was here that our conversation turned to Rip Van Winkle and what we might discover if we repeated his feat of waking up after a decades-long slumber so it was appropriate that our journey home took us over the bridge that bears his name - and on such a glorious day it was quite a delightful way to see the river.

Day 4.301: Poets' Walk

The trip that led to my wearing Exile #3's sunglasses which in turn led to great hilarity was to Poets' Walk - a park at the eastern end of the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge about an hour down the Thruway south of Albany.

It's certainly not like most of the upstate parks we visit. Somehow it's more civilised (and more highly occupied) than most - we saw maybe four or five other groups of visitors. It feels more like an English country park than an upstate State Park - less trails-in-the-woods and more paths-to-meander-along.

There are some marvellous open vistas:

as well as gazebos, bridges and elegant woodland:

It's said that the views from here may have inspired Washington Irving to write about Rip Van Winkle falling asleep for 20 years in the Catskill mountains. Whether that really adds up since he wrote the story in Birmingham (the one in the UK), I'm not sure - but who am I to stand in the way of a good story?

The kids were not inspired to write poetry there - although it did spark a discussion about what we might find if we woke up having slept for several decades. I didn't feel the need to write verse either, but I did wonder at how the green leaves which in the spring and summer provide a backdrop for the interesting colours of nature, at this time of year seem to pop and stand-out against a backdrop of orange and brown.

Photos are here

Day 4.300: Know it sounds frunny...

After a rough first week of running after my first 10K race, I had a good run again and decided it would be good to run one more race this year - so I signed up for the inaugural Fall Frun 10K.  So this morning, bright and early (slightly more and less so respectively because of the end of daylight saving time), I made my way to Shenendehowa High School where the gym and the running track were being used for the event.

The actual race was mostly on the public roads of Clifton Park but the end of the race was three-quarters of a lap of the track which was a fun way to end things - I hadn't run on a track for many years.

The race was very well organised and had some fun technology including instant online results during the race and live video streaming.  I don't think it kept Exile #2 and the kids in rapt attention however!  I hung around at the end hoping I'd won the guitar in the draw, but sadly, despite my chances being increased by the dwindling crowds and the must-be-there-to-win rule, I'll have to settle with coming away with a personal best - having knocked a rather pleasing thirty seconds per mile off my time from two weeks ago.

So, after a 195 day furlough for the feature, it's (a fairly simple) pop pun 120 for title watchers like Frun-day morning.