Tully Trip 2015

We've returned from our annual trip to Tully Lake, where we had a fabulous weekend of camping with Ian and Elizabeth.

Here's Lucy's take on it:

Here's the whole gang at the end of the weekend (we probably should have taken one at the start):

We've been doing this since 2012, when we looked like this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakeb/8016683159  or this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakeb/8016674708

And here's the whole gang in 2013: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakeb/10010118613

And here's the 2014 version: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakeb/15397401305

We've refined ourselves a bit over the years, improving our gear and our food. This year, cast iron skillet yielded delicious bacon as well as dough deep-fried in that very bacon's grease.  It was amazingly delicious.

Sadly, due to an algae bloom, we were not allowed to go swimming or wading, which also meant that we couldn't bring Alice (because there's no way to keep that dog out of the water).  So Alice had a lovely time at Camp Furvana (Paula's house) and we spent our time on long hikes and just hanging out.  We went on a beaver hunt (in the canoe) but sadly did not see any beavers.  But we did talk a lot with a ranger, who is a wildlife rehabilitation specialist.  She is raising a baby beaver who got separated from her mother.  In related news, Lucy now wants to grow up to be a wildlife rehabilitation specialist (previous plan was zookeeper).

Can't wait til next year.

 

Merry Christmas!

Hope you're having a lovely day, wherever you are.  We're here:

Edmonds, Washington (waiting for the ferry to Kingston).

Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings, etc.

Cheers!

Portland, Part Deux

So we spent a week at Manzanita (and I know, I owe you a post entirely about that, but for now you will have to settle for the Manzanita Trip Flickr Photo set), then we returned to glorious Portland.  Only, we were not so happy about the drive to Portland.  We were less than 10 minutes from our destination, when traffic ground to a halt, and we encountered this:

Yes, that says ALL LANES CLOSED.  We spent the next THREE HOURS (really!) driving those final two miles.  UGH!  While we were sitting there, not moving on the highway, the Emergency Broadcast System announced that we needed to take cover due to impending severe thunderstorms and hail.  The severe weather never really materialized, and instead, we got this:

Yup, what you're seeing there is a super-violent, really threatening rainbow.  Because that's how Portland rocks severe weather.
Also, we spent a lot of our three hours sitting under this:

This looks to me like an amusement park ride, but it's actually the Aeriel Tram, which is just one of the many methods of public transit in Portland.  So, some people actually commute to work on this thing!  Fun fact here, among the various slogans that Portland claims, one (since 1995) is "The City that Works."  I would like to add, it is "The City that gets to work via particularly awesome means of transit, including SkyTrams, cargo bikes, roller blades, and pogo sticks*."
*I don't actually know that anyone actually commute via pogo stick, but I am pretty secure in my guess that if anyone does this, that person lives in Portland. 

So I've now spent a ridiculous amount of this post talking about just getting to Portland.  But there's so much more to cover and I am so very tired.  I'm going to try to get the highlights down, just so we can remember things and hopefully expand a bit later.

In Portland, we continued our visit with Susan, Sone, Leone, and Evelyn, and the kids kept up the super-hero and imaginative play time like crazy:

Yup, that's Harry Potter Lucy and Astronaut Leone, jumping.  They had a great time. So great, in fact, that when it was sadly time for us to leave, Leone informed us "I can't bear it."  He actually said that.  I wanted to cry.

We also continued to stuff our faces with pastry and baked goods from Grand Central and pizza from Pizzicato Pizza.  And we spent a lot of time just generally enjoying the charming environs of Multnomah Village. It's adorable and delicious and charming we would like to go there now.

We spent a bit of time at Oaks Park amusement park, one of those sort of old-time throw-back parks with old clickety-clackety-kinda roller coasters.  It was, as our good friend Leone would say, very "old school."  They also had a lot of these things:

I'm a fan.  You'll see, though, that Lucy doesn't exactly look like she's having fun.  This is because she has recently discovered the cruel, cruel truth about carnival games: you're not going to win that stuffed animal you see.  We've been to FunLand in Rehoboth in years past, where it seemed that Uncle Ernie was always able to secure a stuffed toy from some kind of game of chance.  But here in Oaks Park, there's no such mercy prize for the crying child.  Life lesson learned.  But not accepted.  She still wanted to roll the bowling ball down the thing and try to make it stop in the right place (of course, this did not work, and of course, we left again in tears).  Way to go, Oaks Park!  Nonetheless, Lucy did enjoy the carousel and the bumper cars, and we got to catch up with old friends:

We continued on our Very Portland Weekend (TM) by meeting up with friends in the Mississippi Avenue Neighborhood and hitting some of the favorites there.  We got great ice cream at Ruby Jewel.  Lucy stuck with the simple double chocolate, but Jake got some kind of concoction, and it was delicious.

Walking down Mississippi, we passed a family with a child carrying a bag with a sea cucumber in it.  Oh sure, that's totally normal, right?  Well, the last time you saw a kid with a bag full of sea cucumber, did you ALSO see a chicken running around on the sidewalk and then walk over to see someone's Lego display in the window of a lighting supply shop?  I didn't think so.  (FYI, the kid had just bought his sea cucumber not for eating, but for displaying in an aquarium.  He was right outside Cuttlefish and Coral, a salt water aquarium supply shop.  Also, here's a link to someone else's Flickr stream with photos of the Lego display in the Sunlan Lighting shop window.)

And then there was Pistils, a place where they have live chickens hanging about. Just, you know, downtown, in a city.  Chickens.  Walking the street, inviting you into the store.  Did I not make that clear?  Here's some photo evidence, and mind you, this is in the city of Portland, in a business that sells garden things and, well, chickens:

Lucy was delighted and didn't want to leave the chicken store.

The chickens, on the other hand, did.

We did a bit more strolling along Mississippi, and I got an awesome falafel at Wolf & Bear's.  Delicious.

We also had a grown-up night out at our friends' bar, The Foggy Notion, where you should absolutely go if you're in Portland.  We regret that we didn't get to go to The Playground Gym with Lucy, but we definitely plan to do that next time!

I also had a lot of luck with shopping, and really enjoyed the fashion fun of Portland and the shoppes in Manzanita.  Here are the spiffy hats Lucy and I acquired in our attempt to fit in in Portland:

Do we look like we could be in a Portlandia sketch yet?  Well, let me just say, the hats are local.  I didn't put a bird on it, but I could have.

There's more to write, but there's also a definite need for sleep that my eyes are about to enforce.

Portland, we hardly knew ye.  We hope to be back again soon.

There's so absurdly much to love about Portland, Oregon

[Note: I wrote this on August 3rd  but didn't have a chance to finalize & post.  We're home from the Oregon trip, and I have several other posts in process.  Stay tuned.]

We're having a fabulous time in Oregon.  So fabulous that I wanted to take a few minutes to jot down some notes here.

For instance, we are in a city where there is Trek in the Park, which involves live reenactments of classic Star Trek episodes.  We didn't get to go, but loved seeing it in the headlines of the local paper.

We stayed with our lovely friends Susan and Sone and their awesome kids, Leone and Evelyn.  Leone especially is really into super-heroes (particularly Batman) so he and Lucy got along famously.  Here they are in the middle-row seats of our car:

Yeah, they're crazy about each other.  Oh, and about that middle-row thing: we ended up, by total luck, to get a 7-passenger car (Dollar Car Rental's "Lock Low" deal!).  It was awesome -- Dads up front, kids in the middle, Moms in the back.  Good times.  Here are a couple of the heroes in action (yes, Lucy arrived with her own cape -- she is Wind Girl).

For now, here's a quick run down/review of the places we've been (and loved):

Favorite Bakeries:
Grand Central: This is a great place within walking distance of where we were staying.  Lovely and tasty and nice and close!
Things we ate: ciabatta bread,  donut muffin, chicken salad sandwich


Pearl: This place is spectacular, and located near some of our other downtown destinations (see below, "bookstore").  Here is Lucy, very pleased with her selection (notice the "eat bread." sign behind her).

(BTW, I am trying to figure out how to rotate this photo but it's just not working right now.)

Things we ate: cinnamon crown, roast beef sandwich w/ arugula & horseradish aioli, apple hazlenut bear claw, and finally, The Greatest Cookie Ever, also known as the Valrhona White Chocolate Sandwich Cookie.  It is amazing.  It really is the greatest cookie I have ever had the priviledge to eat.  There's a review/images here.

Favorite Bookstore, Ever:
Powells (obviously)
This place was just amazing.  You need a map to find your way around.  Susan kindly offered to read to the kids so Jake and I could explore a bit.  It was so lovely.  Our bags are much, much heavier for the return trip.  Also, I have a couple book reviews to write for an upcoming post!

Favorite Distilleries:

Clear Creek Distillery:
We've known about this place for a while and have always wanted to visit.  Awesome tasting room and all sorts of goodness.  Cheers!

Bull Run Distillery:
This was a new discovery for us.  The tasting room lady at Clear Creek actually recommended it and we're glad we went.  Terrific gin, rum, and bourbon.  Woo hoo!  Party in Manzanita!

Portland Farmers Market might be the best place I have ever been, ever.  We got amazing produce and ate delicious tamales and saw so many, many people and foods and such awesomeness.  And it happens every week!  It is King Awesome.

So from Portland, we're off to Manzanita for the week, and then returning for another weekend in Portland.  More on all that later.  But for now, Three Cheers for Portland!

You can't go home again

This post brought to you by the not-so-long-lost past, as viewed from Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  That's where I grew up.  We were back there for a visit in June and had a lovely time.  But it was a bit shocking to see how many things have changed, just since our previous visit (back in Fall of 2012, so not that long ago).

The first big site to see (or see no longer) was the big factory, Carlisle Tire and Wheel, that's in the block behind my Mom's house.  Here's the intersection one block away from her house:

Yup, that sign says "Factory Street," the street that runs right behind my mom's house. It maybe should now be called "Pile of Rubble Street," but I guess that's not really likely.

I don't actually have any photos of this factory, because it was the kind of thing I didn't really think I would need to have in a photograph.  Friends from my high school worked there sometimes during the summer, and many of my friends' parents worked there, too.  I mean, I figured it would always be there.  It's FACTORY street, after all.  And it's not just this little corner: it's a 9-acre parcel of land.  I didn't realize it was that big back then, but it spans several blocks that I walked every day to school.  Here's a map

So "B" is my Mom's house, and that huge rectangle in the middle is where the factory was (interesting that google maps shows nothing in that lot on the map, but the street view shows the factory there!).  Note: "Smitty's Homebrew Shop" was not there back then.  What was there was a small business run by a guy who fixed and restored player pianos and those crazy music machines that you hear/see when you ride a carrousel.  More on that in another post.

I did manage to find, on googlemaps, this photo of the intersection (the intersection I pictured above):

So that building was there last fall (and whenever it was that the google car passed by) but is just a pile of rubble now.  There's a whole website with updates on the progress of demolition, which you can check out here.  Apparently, there are plans to make a bunch of medical offices here, and also perhaps a senior living community of some sort.  There's a bit more about all that, plus pictures of it pre-demolition, here.

And here are a few more of my post-demolition (or should I say mid-demolition, since it's still not done):

So in addition to tearing down Carlisle Tire and Wheel, a few blocks in the other direction, they're demolishing Masland Carpets, another massive parcel of industrial buildings.  So here's the full map of destruction:

"A" is my mom's house, and you can see, on both sides, there are huge swaths of industrial land that are....well, who knows what they are actually going to become once the rubble is cleared.  There was a massive fire at the Masland site back in May of 2012, but the factory wasn't really in operation anymore.  It had been a big employer since it started in 1919, and I had a few friends who worked there at times.  There's some trouble with the demolition progress, which you can read about here, but apparently they're going to build a hotel and various other businesses on the site.

It's kind of shocking to see these things being torn down.  I mean, I wasn't really attached to them or anything, but they just seemed like they would always be there. Here's where progress was as of June 2013:

So in addition to these industrial sites, one more demolition hit a little closer to home.  This tree, in the backyard of my Mom's house, was the subject of an extensive report that I wrote in the third grade for Mrs. Drachbar (my totally awesome third grade teacher who I also ran into when I was visiting):

But despite its literary significance, the tree has been removed.  Sigh.  See here:

Now you see it (and me, frolicking in its leaves!):

Now you don't:

I should note that although I am happily raking leaves in that picture, at no point did I really enjoy raking leaves from that tree, except for when it was to make a pile to jump in.

 My Mom even got a few shots of the thing after they took it down:

It was huge.  But it was causing problems, including the fact that it was shoving its thirsty roots into the foundation of the house and wreaking some havoc there.  We're sad that it's gone, though.

But perhaps the most disruptive destruction I encountered on this trip was the shocking and outrageous discovery that our very favorite potato chips in the world -- Kay & Ray's -- have been discontinued, forever.  I'm really feeling bad about this one, because I even had a blog post in my head to write about them.  When we were in Carlisle back in the fall, we had bought a bunch of them (as we often do) and brought them back for various taste tests, gifts, and party fun.  I had a whole thing to say about their "dark" chips and whatnot, but now, they are gone.  And I can't even find the photos I had of them.  This one from the internets will have to suffice for now:

Kay & Ray's, RIP.

Well, as long as I'm being all nostalgic, I'll end with a favorite picture that I just scanned from the pile I brought home:

That's me and my brother and my grandparents' dog, Heddy.  Please note that I am rocking a Lehigh warm-up suit, and my brother is rocking the Lehigh hoodie with plaid pants.  There's no date on this photo, but I'd put it at about 1982/3-ish.

That's it for today's walk down Memory Lane, Carlisle.  Stay tuned for more updates from the past.

Savannah

I am in Savannah right now, and it is lovely.

This photo is sideways because my internet connection here in the hotel stinks.  Also, I may be a bit sideways.  But still, you can see the beauty.  And the moss.


Lucy & Jake are home in Lowell while I enjoy the awesomeness of a conference on the Gothic in a very haunted city.  I had a tour of Flannery O'Connor's childhood home (AWESOME!!!! Photos forthcoming) and a ghost tour of historic Savannah this evening.  I look forward to writing more when my internet connection is less historically slow.

...and we're back

We're back from our yearly Pennsylvania/Maryland/Delaware tour.  A good time was had by all.  Apologies to those of you we didn't get to visit; things were a bit jam-packed.  Some highlights from our major destinations:

Carlisle: They'll fix you up
The above proposed promotional tag line for Carlisle is a result of the fact that we (finally) got a bunch of things fixed while we were here.  And all within like 8 hours.  I got a new battery for my watch, then Jake got his battery fixed, then we got the car fixed.  It was an amazing day of getting stuff fixed.  What was wrong with the car?  Well, if you saw us during our travels, you also heard us....Ernie suggested that we could easily join a motorcycle gang.  Lucy exclaimed "the car farted!"  We needed a bit of exhaust work.  But all is well now!

Sign that delighted me: Free Veggies Mondays 5:45 / Next Bike Repair Clinic (seen outside a local church)

Sign that horrified me: Gun Raffle (seen outside the local fire station)

Sight that delighted me: A giant field of solar panels at my old high school, including SHEEP grazing underneath them to keep the grass & weeds under control.  Brilliant!

Other highlights: walking Gus (Mom's neighbor Gloria's dog), as pictured here:

Among other Carlisle attractions, there's always the fun of going up into the attic archives at my Mom's house.  On this trip I found and claimed:
-a doll that I made of Long John Silver as a book report project in the seventh grade (it now sits in my office as a talisman against extra credit projects)
-two metal casket plates engraved with my name (I once made these regularly on Saturdays spent at the Boyertown casket sales office with my Dad.  I thought they were all long gone, so I was delighted that these had been saved!)
-my three Strawberry Shortcake dolls (Apricot, Lemon Merigue, and Lime) all wrapped up inside their original boxes (will they go to Lucy or will they go on Ebay?)

Being back at my Mom's house always involves seeing things that I haven't looked at in decades....particularly since she did a really good job of saving all of my (and Brendan's) toys and has cleaned them all up to share with Lucy and Luke. One of the greatest hits is these fish (shown above), which are a really simple thing -- basically plastic or vinyl and they cling to the walls of the bathtub.  I remember them vividly my childhood, and Lucy is crazy about them.  The design is just so simple and pleasing.  But we have no idea where they came from, or who made them, or if anything like them is still made.  Readers, do they look familiar?  We think they're circa 1978 or so.  Maybe 1980.
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Maryland:
It was a short visit to Germantown, but we were delighted to see Brendan & Jennifer & Luke.  We can't wait to meet their new family member, too.  We visited the best playground ever: South Germantown's Adventure Playground.  It was really, seriously, amazing.  It even accommodated grown-ups (though the taller ones had some trouble with the height of some things).  Because Lucy and Luke were both vibrating balls of excitement flying off in different directions, it was difficult to get a photo of the two of them together.  But there are a few good ones:

There's some video of that madness, too, and I will try to process it and get it posted soon.

We also played an exhausting game of Settlers of Catan.  Mistakes were made, alliances formed, trust broken....we may never play again.

Below is the first photo on the camera from Germantown, which bears striking resemblance to the last photo on the camera from Rehoboth (a bit further below):

There was a lot of reading going on.
__________________________________________
Rehoboth:
There was so much that happened in the week that it's hard to keep track.  Lucy had an amazing time with her cousins, who very kindly tolerated her particular variety of insanity, which included fairly constant singing, a return to her narration mode ("she said"/'she exclaimed"/"she yelled as she pushed" after every statement), and an obsession with being read to.  Jamie read her a ton of books, as did most of the visitors to the house.  She slept in our room, and in the middle of one night, she awoke and groggily, pitifully asked, "can somebody please read something to me?"  Yup.

 

Speaking of beach reading, I picked up the second installment of Deborah Harkness's trilogy and devoured all 500+ pages while at the beach.  I was in a race against Jessamy (I lost) to finish.  It was terrific.  You may recall my praise for the first volume, A Discovery of Witches, but I may have liked this one -- Shadow of Night -- even better.  

In the spirit of reading, we visited our favorite beach store, Browseabout Books, where we had a special visit from Clifford, the Big Red Dog. Here's Lucy's face when he arrived:

 

Yup, pretty excited.  But she wouldn't go up to him.  Oh well.  Instead, she and Jamie and Ma read some books together:

Besides reading, there was also some bike riding, with the tandem playing a key role in our transportation around the beach:

 

(And yes, Lucy is carrying two loaves of french bread there in the back seat.)

The big beach event was the Cocktail Party hosted by Ernie and Vonnie.  The crowd was huge, the food was amazing, and the dancing....well, here you can see for yourself:

Sadly, I didn't get many pictures (though I did take some pictures of the night-before-practice-cocktail-party: check the flickr stream right around here), but boy, did everyone have a good time.  On the way home from the party (we were on the bike) Lucy asked, "Can we have a cocktail party at our house tomorrow night to thank Vonnie and Ernie for their cocktail party?"  Genius idea.  The kid likes a cocktail party.

Jack and Charlie and Sammy's Lemonade Stand was another standout, particularly with the amazing feature of potato chip cookies.

These boys are sitting on a goldmine -- investors?  Seriously, they could make a mint on this.

We also took the requisite visit to Funland, which was, despite this image of Lucy's apparent displeasure:

very fun, as you might infer from this image:

Cousins: they make everything more fun.

And although Lucy was completely exhausted (and covered in ice cream) by the end of the evening, she really did have a tremendous time.  We all did:

Final analysis: Funland: it's fun.

 

So long, Farewell, 506 Scarborough:

I'm going to wind things up here, but wanted to end by thanking all the lovely folks who made our trip possible.  It was great to see all of you.  I've tried to put the better photos up on Flickr.

And if we didn't get to see you on this trip, I sure hope we can next time!

Where has the summer gone? It's almost August.