Busy but not forgetten

Sorry that it has been such a long time since the last post in the blog. A lot has happened in life between the end of our vacation in Montreal and today. Surgeries, purchases, and other life events have take a lot of time up and put a serious dent in our time available for blogging. Stay tuned, though, we're still committed to writing in the blog! (Although its likely to be after the new year before any serious return occurs)

Vacation 2009, Part II

Sooooo, where were we? We left Montreal the morning of August 13 and stopped at a place called the Orange Julep (a close relative of Orange Julius?). This is basically a hotdog stand at the bottom of a giant 40-foot orange ball. We had to go, so CMH could take my picture by it.

Then we were off to Super Aqua Club, a water park near Montreal. It was hot out, it was sunny and even though it was a weekday it was REALLY crowded. I mean really. Mobbed. The park was mobbed. We were there seven hours and only went on 10 rides due to the long lines (and several of those were the dinky-ish rides cuz those lines were shorter). This was the first place we went to on our trip where such little English was spoken; all the signs were in French and few workers seemed to speak it. CJW tried to communicate with a worker at one point, to little avail. Another time, we were in line for a fun waterslide when two workers came by and started talking loudly at everyone in line in French, pointing and gesticulating for several minutes. At one point several people in line with us raised their hands, as if they'd been asked a question. We had no idea what any of this was about! We just hoped it wasn't important!

Late in the day, we were in line for what would be our last ride. In front of us were two women. Suddenly 10 small children and four adults (for real) showed up and crawled under the rope to join these women in line. Um, what??? Talk about budging! The man spoke somewhat broken English and said he and other family members had been in another line and decided to join this one. The guy behind us argued with him briefly, but nothing happened. We were rather annoyed, but there wasn't much we could do about it (other than I guess budging ourselves) and there were no employees around to enforce things. Boo!

That evening we drove to Tremblant, a lovely resort town about 90 miles northwest of Montreal. On the way, we had dinner at St. Huberts, a popular restaurant chain that is part fast food, part sit down, part pub! It's all chicken all the time there, pretty much. We got to Tremblant that night and checked into our hotel at the pedestrian village, as opposed to the actual village of Tremblant. The pedestrian village is a collection of eight or ten hotels and dozens of shops and restaurants at the base of the mountain.

On our first of four full days in Tremblant, we got our bearings. We walked around the pedestrian village and rode up the fun gondola that carts people from the bottom of the village to the top (it's on a steep hill). It gave us great views of the area! I made activity reservations for later in our visit. We lunched at a cafe/coffee place attached to our hotel. Later in the day, we rode three times each on the "Alpine Luge." This involves riding what's basically a fancy version of an adult Big Wheel down a winding road along the mountainside. It was advertised in part as kiddie entertainment, but we still found it enough fun to want to do it again later in the visit (though we didn't get around to it). Here's a video
someone else made of the ride.

We also played mini-golf, during which CMH bested me by five strokes. Drat!

Around 7:15 we rode the "panoramic gondola" up the mountain to watch the sun set. Normally the gondola closes at 4:30, but we lucked out in that on this particular weekend they were having a "stargazing" event at the mountaintop at night. So we rode up, hiked maybe a 1/2 mile to a "360 degree viewing platform" and joined some others in seeing dusk settle on the mountains. It was a lovely time, hampered slightly by a man who asked CMH to take a group photo just a couple minutes before the sunset, and then was very picky about where everyone would stand and where CMH should take the photo from, what lens to use, etc. Grr! But CMH was a nice guy and took it anyway!

After sunset, we attended two half-hour presentations about the Northern Lights and then the constellations. They were interesting, to an extent, but a bit dry for a vacation topic! Then we walked around in the dark amid the crowds; a bunch of astromoners were on the mountain and were letting people look through their telescopes; we saw Jupiter and three or four of its moons! Afterward, we headed back down the mountain for some dinner in the pedestrian village.

The next day was quite taxing physically. In the morning, we got up and rented bikes. We rode only for two hours, but boy it felt like more. CJW hadn't biked in awhile and felt pretty out of shape trying to ride up hills. But we saw nice scenery, as we wound around the Tremblant area, from the resort village to the "regular" village, and from one lake to another, where we saw a hydroplane take off. I pretty much ran out of steam on the way back -- lame, I know! -- and was forced to walk the bike up a few hills. Boo!

We then had lunch at a lovely crepe place. During the meal, a rotund, clownish man dressed in a policeman outfit but with huge glasses, a magic-marker mustache and a fly-swatter instead of a gun came around the café…wha? Hmm, well, we headed out again, this time to kayak (now we'd exercise our upper bodies)!

We drove about 8 km to a covered bridge that was actually a restaurant/bar spanning the Rouge River. Kinda a cool concept, although I suppose it’d be annoying if you thought it was a bridge you could actually drive across, only to arrive to see it wasn’t! We met up with the man we were renting the kayak from, and he hauled us, the kayak, and about a dozen other people with canoes to the launch point. We were the only Americans, he spoke some English just for us in describing what would happen.

CMH and I have come a long way since our disastrous first kayaking experience in Puerto Rico back in 2006, when embarrassingly, the guide had to attach our kayak to his with a rope because we simply couldn’t steer. None of that this time! I suppose it helped we were on a river with a current and all, but things worked well. CMH sat in back and did most of the steering. We ran aground a few times in the very shallow river, but it was overall more relaxing than taxing, since we could paddle awhile, then just sit and float if we got tired. We were on the river about three hours.

That evening, we had dinner at the Diablo Microbrewery, which had some decent beers, then went up the mountain again for more star-watching. Afterward we went back to the Diablo for one more drink…

To be continued…cuz CJW is tired…

Vacation 2009: Montreal

Chris and I arrived in a suburb of Montreal last Saturday afternoon. Our border crossing was painless and it was only about a 5 hour trip from Syracuse.

We had a picnic dinner with some friends of Chris from his internet Survivor tv show discussion group. One we had met in Vancouver two years ago (Lyn) (who happens to be here visiting as well) and our hosts (Mady) that were celebrating some birthdays. When we arrived our host's kids noted that and spread the word that the 'Chrises has arrived,' and many came out to greet us. We had a pleasant time, had some good food, and got some touring tips for our visit, including meeting Terry who we may see again in Mont Tremblant.

Sunday was a fairly laid-back day. We spent most of the day wandering around the old town part of Montreal and the old port area. The photo at left is from the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Not built to look like the church of the same name in Paris, it is still very opulent and fancy inside.

The old Montreal area and port areas are very hip and revitalized from the bad areas they were 20 years ago. We took a small tram "tour" that took us around to different parts of the port and pointed out the history of various buildings and such.

We came back to the hotel and relaxed for a while in the pool and hot tub to sooth our sore muscles.
Later we took the subway out to the latin quarter for dinner and relaxing with some drinks. We got sprinkled upon a little in the evening hours. Montreal is a very walkable city, and our hotel is very centrally located, so it has been pretty great to be able to Metro or walk to most of the places we were interested in visiting.

Monday we spent most of the day over on the island of Notre Dame, which is in the middle of the St. Lawrence river. We walked down to the old port and then took a very short ferry ride over to the island.
On the island there are several parks and other facilities including an Aquatic center (private) where there seemed to be swimming competitions ongoing. We could see the swimmers in their fancy high-tech suits off in the distance and heard national anthems played Olympic style at the awards presentations.

We walked around the island planning to go to an old fort that is now a museum, but it was closed until fall of 2010 for renovations. We also went to the Biosphere which basically is a science museum inside of a geodesic frame. Apparently we (America) built the dome for a worlds fair, but everything except for the frame itself burned down in the 70s. During our biosphere visit it stormed pretty well outside, but we were indoors and were able to enjoy the storm from the height and vantage point of the biosphere area. The picture above is from near the Biosphere where a starfish was formed out of plant vines.

Later in the evening we met up with Chris's friends, Mady and Lyn, and had a fairly fancy steak dinner. Afterwards, we walked up to McGill where Mady went to university. Our final stop was to have a nightcap at a cool jazz club. Very New Orleans in the 1920s. Mady was able to schmooze the host of the club in order to give us the best table in the club -- the owner's table. It was late when we arrived, but we enjoyed about 45 minutes of the set before the finished up for the evening.

Tuesday we spent most of the day exploring Mont Royal, the large "hill" the is to the north of the City, and happens to be what the city is named after ... Montreal, Mont Royal, get it? Our guide book was a little out of date on the directions to get to the top of the mountain, mainly due to the construction on-going. We eventually figured out the detour and made it up to the mountain and the first destination -- A chalet. A cool hunting-lodge style facility that could be used as a ballroom for events and such. The roof area had interesting features of squirrels carved into the beams. Pictures that describe the founding of the city surround the perimeter of the room. The picture at left is of the city skyline from the view just outside of the Chalet. Being back from and very nearly above the city gives a remarkable view

After a little time in the Chalet to catch our breath, we headed out explore other parts of the park. After a little while we got caught in a thunderstorm and ended up sheltering with hundreds of other people until the storm had passed. After the rain, we spent another couple of hours exploring other areas of the park including a museum, small pond, and other features like the famous lighted cross.

When we arrived at the hotel we were exhausted after our adventures and took some time to relax in the hot-tub in the hotel before heading out to the Three Amigos for dinner. Not the best tex-mex in the world, but an enjoyable and lively atmosphere. I had a sangria made with white wine that was quite enjoyable as well.

Our last day in Montreal proper was spent touring through the Botanical gardens with Mady, her mother, and Lyn. Both Lyn and I had our cameras out and were taking hundreds of pictures. Mady's mom was our guide and was quite familiar with the gardens and the layout of the huge place. We enjoyed countless gardens of flowers, of vegetables, orchards, and even themed gardens. The Chinese and Japanese gardens were particularly interesting, and quite elaborate.

Its not really possible to do the gardens justice in words; their breadth and literal physical size is quite breathtaking. In 5 or so hours we probably covered something on the order of 50% of the space. Also on the premises are other museums and facilities like the Insectitorum and the Biodome. We didn't even get to venture near those places. Chris and I were especially impressed with the vegetable gardens which were quite large and quite productive it seemed.

Our last meal in Montreal was in the Old Montreal area at a place called Giorgios. They had quite the deals going for meals -- each came with soup and cappuccino. We all ordered some variation on pizza -- some of us with pasta and some of us just the pizza itself. A very reasonable price for all the food we got, and the food wasn't bad either. Oh, and some-what unusual for us -- they had a policy of bringing your own wine. We ended up going across the street to a convenience store and getting a bottle to share. Finally, after dinner, we had a little time left on the parking meeting and walked around the Old Montreal area. After a little shopping in the tourist junk stores, we headed out, and said goodnight to Lyn and Mady.

The next morning, we packed up, checked out of the Delta Montreal Hotel, and headed to the Super Aqua Club that wasn't too far way. I'll have to save that for the next blog post!

A Weekend on the Cape

I've spent the last few days on Cape Cod with my mom, where we had a quiet but fun time. Poor CMH had to stay at home to work all weekend.

I flew in Friday morning to Boston after getting up especially early for me - 5:30 am, eek - then took a bus to Bourne, just over its namesake bridge spanning the Cape Cod Canal. My mom, aunt and grandma met me at the bus stop, and then we headed to the Chart Room, a restaurant my sister and I spent many a summer's noon or evening at growing up, for lunch.

We went to my aunt and uncle's cottage after lunch. This is where my family spent a week or two each summer as far back as I can remember. Now my aunt and uncle are retired and live there fulltime in summer - their "regular" house is west of Boston - but were taking a few days off to go to a big anniversary party. So my mom was spending the interim days at their cottage, and now I was there too. All quite nice of Aunt M and Uncle Wayne. We all had some slightly mushy strawberries from my garden when we got there.

Pocasset, where CMH and I also spent a week last year with my family at a rented house, is a small, quiet town between the Bourne Bridge and Woods Hole, where ferries depart for Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Friday evening, after she took a nap and I laid around on the deck, my mom ordered a pizza and a salad, to which I added some other garden items - a red tomato, yellow pear tomatoes, some herbs and a cucumber. The cucumber oddly tasted a bit hot, as if itd been crossbred with a mild pepper. We soon realized that somehow the heat of a fajita pepper also in the container I'd brought with me had filtered into the cuke. The pepper was a bunch hotter than the last one I'd picked, and we couldn't even eat it, alas. i'll be curious to see how hot the next one is!

On Saturday we drove to Sandwich, "the oldest town on the Cape," where we had....uh...sandwiches for lunch at a small cafe. Then we visited a few gift shops - items to be named later were purchased - before going to the Heritage Museums and Gardens, a pretty neat (and self explanatory) attraction nearby.

We walked among beds of daylilies and hydrangeas, before long arriving at an indoor antique carousel that my mom - a fan of such things - promptly rode. I left her for an hour to the museums on the property, and went on a walk - you couldn't really call it a hike - through a small woods along a grassy trail that wound down to a lake. After nearly getting my Crocs (yes, Crocs, deal!) stuck in a mushy bog area, I found my way back to the facility's main road.

I stopped in at an herb garden, then solved a small "garden maze" before rejoining my mom, who was reading a magazine and enjoying an iced coffee under a large tent that served as the cafe. All in all, we had a good experience there, although admission is slightly high ($12) and the little shuttle my mom used while I was away from her only stops at two places, the cafe and the art museum that also houses the carousel. She can't walk too far at once, especially in the sun, so this limited her enjoyment somewhat.

Saturday night we went to The Silver Lounge, the other frequented restaurant of my youth. While the Chart Room sits on the edge of a harbor - its built from old barges - the Silver Lounge is beside a two lane highway and features a dimly lit main room and a caboose. Really, a caboose. You can eat in there at tables, some of them way up high. We did, and had fun despite the loud yammerings of a nearby fellow diner. Eating in the caboose also necessitates being kid-friendly, as families with small children often dine in there. One other note about the Silver Lounge: its signage STILL says it is only open from 11:30am to 12pm (i.e. Noon). That's 12am you mean, folks! It's said this at least since 2004.

On Sunday my mom and I went to the Silver Lounge giftshop, since, well, it's on the list of things to do on the Cape and we were there too late the previous night. While there I got caught up in the ill-fated Tom Watson hoopla and spent much of the next few hours checking espn.com for updates via my cell phone (overall I was online WAY more than I intended, what did I do before the Internetz?).

Then it was on to The Knob, which CMH and I blogged about last summer. Hidden away north of Woods Hole, it's a postcard perfect, serene beach and wilderness area that juts gently into Nantucket Sound. My mom wasn't sure she could walk all the way to its picturesque pointe, but managed just fine thanks to all the shade along the way. I waded into the water below briefly, then we headed back to my aunt's cottage.

Early evening found us back in Sandwich, at the somewhat fancy Dan'l Webster Inn for an "early bird" dinner. I apparently had been here as a small child but could not remember it. The main attraction was the food, but a major sideshow developed in the adjacent garden area, where a squirrel continually rampaged a cylindrical birdfeeder. It hung upside down from it, grabbing seed with its jaws and paws. Several times, it crawled all the way inside the feeder (the sick part of me wondered if itd get stuck), gorged, then backed out. Birds would fly over to the feeder in bunches whenever the interloper was scared off by approaching human, then scattered when it returned for more seeds.

Oh, the food there was very good.

After dinner we wound down our visit with a stop at one last culinary Cape tradition for my family, the Whistle Stop ice cream parlor. Inside, miniature trains roll overhead, a rather cute feature. I got us some dessert. Yum!

Later, we went for a walk, then turned in somewhat early. This morning my mom dropped me off at the bus back to Logan Airport. As I type this on my Palm Treo (uhhh my thumbs will hurt later), we're descending into Baltimore, from where I have an hour's drive into work. It was a brief visit to the Cape, but a fun one nonetheless!

Elton John and Billy Joel Concert

This weekend we attended the longly await, highly expensive Billy Joel and Elton John concert. It was the first concert to be held at the Nationals Ballpark, which was a little coincidental since we had also seen the first baseball game at the same stadium. CJW bought the tickets months ago, and I had nearly forgotten about them until he had them until a few weeks ago when he reminded me that the concern was coming up.

We took the Metro system to the park since the parking passes were a relatively insane $40 each, and, its a good idea to avoid driving. Of course, things got off to a slow start since most of the Metro line was experiencing delays due to "scheduled" maintenance. I like how they emphasize "scheduled", as if the delays being "scheduled" make it less bad. Anyway, given the recent accident, I don't think anyone was really grousing about the delays -- we'd rather arrive safely and late than ...

So we arrived at the stadium about 20 minutes early when all was said and done, did the necessary business, and settled into our seats. Elton and Billy arrived on the stage about 20-25 minutes late -- I suspect they were waiting since there was a continuous stream of people coming in. Unfortunately, technical problems cropped up in the first sing. Elton's piano peddle (the sustain peddle) was sticking and staying in the sustained position. He was very clearly frustrated, and Billy, being the awesome entertainer that he is, took off his suit jacked and crawled under the piano to give it a once over. Eventually, they gave up, and Billy graciously switched the concert order and went on with his "solo" songs first so that Elton's staff could address the piano issues.

The concert was rougly divided into "solo" hits from Billy, then Elton, and finally the "joint" hits with both. I've never been a super Elton John fan -- perhaps its my age and I'm a little too old to really have gotten into his music -- but I've always been a big Billy Joel fan. In fact, C2 took me to see a musical featuring the music of Billy Joel for Christmas a couple years back . My take away after watching them both is that Joel is a better "entertainer" -- theatrics, dancing, general "bedside manner" John is a much better musician -- his improvisation, piano work, and such really show his musical talent. Its funny, when I was little, my thought I would be good at the piano with my long fingers. Elton John has short stubby fingers and I was amazed at this ability.

All in all, there were plenty of classics to enjoy. "We Didn't Start the Fire" is alway fun. "Allentown" as well. "Rocketman" from John was an extended version that was really cool. "Candle in the Wind" is a classic. And how else do you end such a concert except with "Pianoman" Only two main "complaints" with the concert. We were on the aisle, which is a good thing -- except when you have a few people in your row that need to get out every other song to buy more greasy grub or beer. It started to get annoying after a while and I started to threaten to charge them a toll to get up and let them pass. The other was the sound. I know how incredibly challenging it must be to setup the sound for a place like a ballpark. However, the echo was horrendous, especially in busy piano interludes. I think they could have done a much better distributing speakers throughout the stadium and adjusting the sound system for the time delays to minimize the echo. For much of the concert it was OK, but some times it got really annoying.

Thanks to CJW for arranging the fun event.

P.S. CJW and I had a bit of a disagreement during the concert. Everytime I looked over he seemed to be on his phone texting or surfing. He told me he was "live blogging" to one of his discussion boards. I thought for his $100 ticket he should enjoy the concert and lay off the keyboard. Any comments?

Hikes, Wines, Burritos and Fumes

For the Fourth of July weekend, CMH and I drove about 80 miles west to the Front Royal area. Much hiking and wine-tasting was had, with a small dose of Mexican food and gasoline fumes.

We left Friday morning in my car, which had just come back from the shop. It had had a leak in the top of the fuel tank that was causing a gassy scent to emenate from the car, and kept it from starting immediately at times. The problem was supposedly fixed.

CMH and I first headed to Chrysalis Vineyards, near Haymarket. This place bills itself as the closest vineyard to the White House. I guess that means they hope Obama will show up like he did at the Dairy Godmother, Ray's Hell Burger, and Five Guys?

CMH had been here before, maybe 8 years ago. Apparently it has expanded greatly since then, to the point where we didn't especially enjoy ourselves. (I'm sure it didn't help that it was a holiday weekend.) After entering the tasting room and buying tickets to the tasting, we had to wait 20 minutes for the next to begin. The tastings were held outside, which was nice, but we were stuck in a group of about 25 others, crowded around a small table, while the "wine guide" and his assistant hurriedly poured out samples of their product. It was all very rushed.

Also, CMH and I, who had only purchased an "estate tasting ticket" for $5 and 7 wines, were rather awkwardly ejected from the proceedings after those wines were done, while everyone else who paid $10 to taste 12 wines, continued on. "Are you sure you don't want to upgrade?" asked the tasting guy, as if we were seeking more legroom on a United flight. It was a bit off-putting, and it would have been better if the tasting groups had just been split into the $5 and $10 groups from the start.

We headed further west, going next to Three Fox Vineyard, which was a much more pleasant experience. The propetiers apologized for crowded tasting room, saying one employee had simply not shown up today. And it was just $4 for 13 wines to sip at! None of this tiered tasting. CMH rewarded them by buying three bottles, as opposed to none over at Chrysalis.

The bad news: We got back in my car and I thought I smelled gas. But it started fine! So maybe it was just leftover fume-age from before? Hmmm.

Well, then we were off to Shenandoah National Park -- the north end, at Front Royal. We paid admission and drove in about 20 miles on the Skyline Drive. This was my first time there, believe it or not. We found a trail to hike in CMH's book, of about 2.6 miles. It wound up and around an old barn, then through woods and past a lovely view of the Shenandoah Valley. It took a bit over an hour to walk, and then we were back at my car, which now definitely smelled like gas, and also took several seconds to start up. In other words, the same thing that had been wrong with it before it spent four days at the dealer (at least it was covered by my warranty).

We had dinner at a Mexican place in Front Royal, then headed to Strasburg, where the hotel was. The next afternoon, after a leisurely morning, we headed back to Shenandoah and a much longer hike -- 6.8 miles. It was a very nice day, fairly cool for this time of year. We went up Hogback Mountain slowly but surely, across four -- count em, four -- peaks. Well, OK, actually it was three. At one point our guidebook got a bit confusing as to which way we should go in a fork in the trail, and apparently we chose the one less traveled, and that made all the difference. It resulted in us bypassing the tip-top of the mountain, and we weren't sure how. CMH kinda wanted to double back and try again, but I was lame and said no, why make the hike 7.1 miles??

For much of the hike, we were actually on the Appalachian Trail, and encountered a number of others. Twice we ran into a woman with a large blue bird. She was just carrying it around, tethered to her so it wouldn't fly away. She even let us take her picture!

This hike wasn't nearly as draining as the one we went on in Maine last July 4 (we even posted on it twice)! Afterward we drove to Luray and had a snack and some coffee, then it was back to Strasburg, for...uh, another Mexican dinner. Limited options! Then fireworks. By now my car was clearly having petroleum-leakiness-related issues, but at least it was starting somewhat properly. Sunday it was time to head back to Alexandria, and after dinner with our friend Lisa and her family, the long weekend was over.

And now my car is back at the shop. Hooray!

Messy Magnolia

On the "border" between our house and the house to the north there is a large and mature Magnolia tree. It was probably planted when the house was first built, guessing by its size and its maturity, although I am certainly not an expert.
I had always associated Magnolia trees with the south, and indeed, Wikipedia mentions that the tree is the state tree for Mississippi. Wikipedia also mentions other interesting facts about the tree species, including that its age is older than the age of the existence of bees. The big, tough flowers are a evolutionary hold-over from when beetles used to chow down on the flowers and be the primary means for cross-tree fertilization.

As beautiful as the tree is, particularly when blooming, it, unfortunately, is a fairly messy beast. It is considered an evergreen, and the leaves remain green throughout the winter. But it almost always seems to be slowly shedding leaves, and apparently, is worst in times of high-growth, particularly the spring. According to various websites, including this on on Magnolia Questions, the growth of new leaves causes the "undergrowth" to shed.

So, this spring, we've raked up at least a couple of large lawn and leaf bags full of leaves. Our neighbors, who are still learning to operate their power mower, have taken to raking the leaves and mounting them around the base. Since the Magnolia leaves are so hearty and waxy, they don't quickly mulch or decompose. They stick around a long time.

So while the blooming Magnolia is quite pretty to look at, its a messy tree!