Summer Road Trip Part 4 - The Adirondacks

After Cooperstown, we took the scenic route up to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks, where Nate's family has a cabin.

The last time Nate was at the cabin was the last (and only) time I was there - 5 years ago. But of course, not much had changed in that time. Still no running water or electricity - not my ideal vacation, but very conducive to relaxation - although we kept pretty busy while we were there.

On the first day, Nate and I went on a hike up Severance Mountain, 1 mile up, 1 mile down. We did it in about an hour, plus some time at the top to catch our breath and enjoy the view. We followed this up with some shopping in "town" mostly at the Schroon Lake town store where I found lots of excellent Christmas Gifts for my step-mother, who is a woodsy, animal-appreciating person. Hopefully when Christmas comes around I'll remember I already got her a gift!

Back at the cabin (which is only accessible by boat, across the lake from town) Nate, his dad, his sister and I took turns churning our homemade coffee ice cream. It was delicious and creamy and the perfect end to the day, along with the swim we took in the cool lake.

Day 2 at the lake was an excursion to Fort Ticonderoga, 45 minutes or so west, with Nate and his sister. We spent the morning at the Fort listening to the fife and drum corps and looking around in the barracks. There is a huge "King's Garden" on the site which was my favorite part of the visit. We got to see some very nice flowers, including some crazy large thistle (pictured).

Day 3 we had planned to go to Lake Placid, but got caught up at the cabin instead helping to put in the new dock (a momentous occasion at the old cabin where things rarely change). Well, Nate helped and I watched and took pictures. Nate's grandmother kept calling me the official photographer. Nate and I also went on a short kayak trip and I fell in love with some lily pads (shown).

We played a lot of games at the cabin (Monopoly, Boggle, Scrabble, and an American Trivia game which we bought at the Fort Ti gift shop), and did lots of reading. It was such a nice break from city life - so quiet! I hope we can make it all the way out there next summer too, although we might not drive the whole way again; more likely we will fly in to Albany and drive from there. Either way, a wonderful, long, relatively restful vacation.

And so ends the recap.

Summer Road Trip Part 3 - Cooperstown

We continued East along Rte. 20 (which had brought us all the way from Buffalo) toward Cooperstown, NY, home to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I had made our hotel reservations at the Inn at Cooperstown, which turned out to be part of the Select Registry of Distinguished Inns of North America (as was the Packwood House in Skan.). Cooperstown is a darling little town; the directions to the Inn said that it is "three buildings north of the only traffic light in the village." We approve of one-traffic-light villages.

Nate being a beer connoisseur of sorts, we made a stop at the Brewery Ommegang, which is a Belgian Style brewery. After a nice tour, tasting, and spending of a pretty penny at the gift shop (mostly on growlers, 2L bottles which they filled for us from the tap), I made a quick stop in the ladies room and was impressed by the artwork.

Back in town, we went on a nice pre-dinner walk by Otsego Lake, then visited the Cooperstown Heroes of Baseball Wax Museum before having a nice Italian dinner. After dinner we browsed in some shops, considered buying lots of baseball paraphernalia that we didn't end up purchasing, then went back to the hotel for a rousing game of Scrabble.

Monday morning was all about the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, where we lined up just before opening with many other tourists and Little League teams. The memorabilia was endless at the museum so we worked up an appetite looking at all kinds of stuff. My favorite part was the room that had a locker of each current team, which housed items from recent feats, like the hat Kerry Wood wore during his 20 strike-out game. I also enjoyed the room that was about the women's baseball league (above - A League of Their Own is one of my all-time favorite movies).

Every day at the Baseball Hall of Fame they show a different artifact which isn't normally on display. Nate and I lucked out and got in the first row to see the ball the President Taft threw out at Opening Day in 1911 (or thereabouts - I can't remember everything, can I, but I can tell you that was the first ever Presidential Opening Day first pitch) and Eisenhower's own baseball glove.

Thanks to a local who warned us against going into the restaurant that had just seated an entire Little League team, we took her second piece of advice and got massive, amazing sandwiches at Danny's Market. So fueled by our lunch, we were ready to go back to the museum for the main event: the Hall of Fame. I myself found the museum more interesting, just because it was actual stuff and not plaques, but maybe someday when there's someone in there who I actually saw play or something, I might be interested in going back (like Greg Maddux, in a few years).

Anyway, on to the Adirondacks!

Summer Road Trip Part 2 - Shailer's Wedding

The second main stop on our road trip was Skaneateles, NY where my friend Shailer was getting married.

The wedding was at the Frog Pond B&B, to the northwest of the town. It was a very cute stone house with a pond (and frogs), a nice outdoor spot for the ceremony, and an old barn, where the reception was held. Shailer is a very crafty person and she had done just about everything for the wedding herself, with a few forgivable exceptions:

Her wedding bouquet (and her husband's boutaineer - sorry, that's not how it's spelled but I couldn't find the right spelling on my comp's dictionary) were made of clay. They were absolutely perfect looking and she'll get to keep forever. The woman who made the bouquet posted it on Martha Stewart - my dream.

The cake was made my Shailer's cousin Stephanie. It was a blackberry cake and was absolutely amazing. I almost had the waiter bring me an extra piece. Shailer's wedding theme was Lovebirds, which showed up on the cake, of course.

It was a beautiful event, start to finish. I only hope Shailer wasn't too wiped out by it because I might want her help when my special day comes up

:-)

Nate the Great and I stayed overnight in Skaneateles at the Packwood House, a new hotel run by the Sherwood Inn (where his parents lived for a year early in their marriage - we tried to get a room there but it was all booked up already in Jan.). We got to have breakfast at the Sherwood Inn on Sunday, then spent a very nice few hours walking around downtown Skan. and looking in many real estate office windows and picking out our dream houses. There are many to choose from in Skan. and to live in that town I would put up with my not-so-dream house. Take it from me; if you're looking to live in a small town, Central New York is the place to be.

I never posted this picture before because I was afraid Shailer might read about it. The Amy Butler Midwest Modern quilt I was making early this year was Shailer's wedding gift. I posted plenty of pictures of the front of the quilt, but I never posted this one - the stuff I put on the back. This is a picture I found on their wedding website, scanned into my computer, then printed on printable fabric. I also copied their Save-the-Date (which Shailer made herself) onto printable fabric to put onto the quilt (shown).

Summer Road Trip Part 1 - Cleveland

When we were invited to my friend Shailer's wedding in Skaneateles, NY, Nate the Great and I decided to plan an extended road trip out to Central New York state. Stops on the way would include Cleveland, OH, an overnight at his parents' house in Buffalo, then Skaneateles, Cooperstown (the baseball Hall of Fame and Ommegang Brewery) and we would end up at Nate's family cabin at Schroon Lake, in the Adirondacks. Whew!

The reason I've been MIA for so long was because this trip took us 10 days, plus a few afterwards to recover.

At the first stop, in Cleveland, we spent many hours at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where we saw some great things, including the jacket Michael Jackson wore in the Thriller video, and his sequined glove. I can't say if I would have cared as much if not for his recent passing, but no matter, it was still cool. They also had a large exhibit of Bruce Springsteen's stuff - I almost found out the true words to "blinded by the light" but alas, his handwriting was not very clear so the original lyrics he wrote out didn't shed the much-needed light on the subject. We also got to go inside Johnny Cash's tour bus.

I will say this about the R&R HoF, if you do go, try not to go during a period of time when you would want to eat a meal. The dining options are nowhere near as good as what I'm used to at a museum cafeteria; the food was closer to airplane food.

In the evening, we saw the Cleveland Indians play the Seattle Mariners at Progressive Field. Since we got to the field early, we had plenty of time to look around and we found a small Indians' Hall of Fame right there on the premises. The Cubs definitely need one of these! The game went pretty quickly - just under 3 hours - so we were able to stay for the whole thing before our 3 hour drive on to Buffalo. As we drove away, our way was lit by the Friday night fireworks at the baseball field. What a way to go! Oh yes, and my Seattle area readers will be happy to hear that the Mariners trounced the Indians, with a little help from 2 ex-Cubs (Ronny Cedeno and David Aardsma). A good start to a great vacation!

To be continued . . .

Bikes, beer and brunch.

Saturday was a beautiful day and in spite of the perfect weather our team's softball game was cancelled. Nate the Great and I used the afternoon instead to go back up to the Forest Preserve and go biking. After a 9 (or so) mile ride, we took a little lunch break, sitting on the banks of the north branch of the Chicago River.
Saturday evening continued to be beautiful for a party at Katie and Kristen's apartment, and back yard. There were brats and burgers and a full keg which was definitely empty by the end of the night. The party was supposed to be celebrating our final regular-season softball game, but it also coincided with Anna's birthday (Anna is the center lady in the photo) so we sang happy birthday and she had cake and lots of strange men hitting on her all night.
Sunday morning we were up bright and not so early for Anna's birthday brunch at DeLeece. Having done my online research beforehand, Nate and I were looking forward to ordering Lobster Benedict all week and so we did. It was pretty good, but needed more hollandaise! (what doesn't?)

We "walked off" brunch (yeah right) by taking a long route home and ended up at Scooters (oops) for some frozen custard. Now it's an exhausted Sunday night and not looking forward to work tomorrow. The better the weekend, the more I don't want to work! But vacation is just 4 days away . . .

I just felt like it!

Lots of people know I am a bit of a sweater diva. Some of those people might even say that is an understatement.

But sweater divas sometimes have a change of heart, when it comes to some sweaters. In lieu of throwing out some old ones, I decided to be crafty and felt them!

This is my first of hopefully more than one felting projects - with a green cable-knit sweater. This is just a simple, little catch-all for putting on your bureau, or wherever you need to collect some stuff. I made this for my friend Anna, whose birthday is coming up this weekend. I hope she likes it, but when it comes to homemade gifts, you don't really have a choice!