Awe. And then some.

We're at the Grand Canyon.  It's awesome.  Completely, utterly awesome.

We spent eight hours today hiking five miles down the Bright Angel Trail into the canyon, and five miles up again, an elevation of about 3,000 feet. We took it slowly, stopping at the rest houses we came to and refilling our water bottles, and all along the way enjoying the amazing views.   Although it can get formidably hot in the lower part of the canyon, today we were lucky.  The sky was cloudless blue, but the temperature stayed bearable even in the middle of the day.  A Park Ranger we met on the trail agreed that we were incredibly lucky to have such perfect conditions.

At the end of the day we joined the crowds at the South Rim to watch the sunset.  And now, very happy and very tired, it's time to sleep.

Dam, that was good

Much of the day was spent with the Hoover - the Hoover Dam, that is.  It's one of the seven wonders of the industrial world, an amazing and elegant feat of civil engineering.  It tames the mighty Colorado River and generates power for several states in its huge turbines.

To get to it at all we had to pass through a security checkpoint.  Given the dam's importance to the southwest region it has always been guarded carefully, but even more so since 9/11.  Soon after, we were slightly delayed again as we waited for about 500 Vietnam Veteran bikers to make their annual ceremonial Memorial Weekend ride across from the Arizona side of the dam.

We enjoyed the views as we walked across the dam, though it was blowing a gale.  We took a good look around the Visitor Center, where we learned how the dam was designed and built.  We then went to explore a couple more views - of  Lake Mead (the reservoir created when the Colorado was dammed) and from the still very new O'Callaghan-Tillman Memorial Bridge, a beautiful bow-shaped construction which acts as a security checkless by-pass for travellers who'd otherwise have been obliged to cross the dam.

We were at the Hoover Dam for a few hours, but we didn't return to Las Vegas.  Instead we drove on for a couple of hundred miles, and now...  But I'll tell you tomorrow all about where we are now.

City of Lost Wages

The Man and I took a flight today, all the way from up there in the northeast to way down here in the southwest.

But...are we in Venice?  Paris?  Egypt?

No, of course not.  We're in Las Vegas, Sin City itself.  Whatever you imagine it to be like, you're about right.   We walked the Strip tonight, in all its gaudy glory.  The Man was offered multiple opportunities to meet some nice girls.  Quite a few people were cheerfully falling over in the street (they may have had a couple of drinks).  People were playing on slot machines like you'd find in a pub, only there were slightly more to choose from.  We caught a glimpse of Elvis standing on a street corner, and according to the billboards we could have gone to see Celine Dion, Barry Manilow, Donny & Marie and any number of other long-dead stars of yester-year.

I'd tell you more, but I'm just too sleepy now, and tomorrow will be another long day...

Wanderers return

Last night's storm struck just as we were heading up to bed.  It was preceded by a fearsome wind that sounded like it was rushing up the street, then lightning and thunder.  All very dramatic, but there was no sign of anything having happened when we got up this morning.

Dad and I started the day with an excellent walk at Five Rivers, beside the Beaver Tree Pond.  We saw a beaver!  And turtles, geese, chipmunks.  It was very peaceful.  We were all done and on our way before the day heated up - close to 90F again.

Then packing and preparations for me.  Followed by some unpacking as the first of our family travellers returned.  The Girl came back to us today.  She'd had a great week away at Nature's Classroom up on Lake George in the Adirondacks, but still was very happy to be safely home, reunited with her...computer games. 

She was soon followed by my Mum and aunt, who had also had a wonderful time seeing the sights of New York City.  They seem to have packed a lot in - island boat trip, visit to the Metropolitan Museum, views from the top of the Rockefeller Center, tour of the UN - a bit of everything, but leaving plenty more for a return trip someday.

Get away!

The weather has varied a bit lately, but my overall impression is that it has been cooler and wetter for the time of year than we've experienced before.  But today - suddenly summer.  Blue skies, bright sunshine and temperatures nudging 90F.  There were rumbles of thunder in the early evening, but no storm yet. 

I spent part of the morning chatting with a graphic designer about ideas for a new Friends of Five Rivers flyer, so that was very enjoyable.  Then I did a little bit of shopping to prepare for an upcoming trip.  The Man and I are planning to sneak away soon for a few days - can you guess where we're going? 

I'll give you a clue:  knowing that we're both as square as boxes, that we don't drink, don't smoke and can rarely, if ever, be persuaded to risk so much as a dollar on a raffle ticket...where in the world is the least likely place we could be headed?

Snakes alive!

While my Mum and her sister headed off to the bright lights and the big city first thing this morning, my Dad and I chose to seek out a quieter environment.  I hadn't been back to the Landis Aboretum since my parents' visit in October 2008, so it was high time for another visit.

Of course it looked rather different this time, in spring greens rather than fiery fall colours.  There was blossom, too, though - the lilacs and crabapples were in full bloom.  The morning was rather overcast and the paths underfoot claggy with mud in places after all the rain we've had recently, but it was still a lovely place to be.  Birds obviously thought so too.  We heard and saw plenty of them, and Dad had his first sighting of a bluebird, which is probably my favourite bird of all.

I had another encounter with wildlife later on in my own backyard.  I was lifting up the base of a pot which had been left behind the deck, and was startled to uncover a 2'-long snake.  Blimey!  It had slithered away under the deck before I had a chance to show it to the Boy, let alone find a camera.  But research tells me it was a harmless common garter snake, nothing to worry about.

Animal stackers

We just finished watching the second half of the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and pretty scary it was.  But not nearly as scary as the cost of the Boy's proposed orthodontistry, which I discussed this morning with the dentist.

Ah well. To take my mind off that prospect, I baked some excellent fruit and nut bars - almost totally fruits and nuts, with just a tiny bit of flour/sugar/egg mixture to bind everything together.  Very yum.  Also I took my mum and aunt on a driving tour to see the sights of the State Capital.  They're heading south to New York State's more famous city tomorrow, with its rather better known sights, so perhaps as well to get our more modest ones in first.

I've also been stacking animals.  When our mosaic fell off the wall the other night, scattered in among all the shards of glass were a lot of wooden animals.  They'd previously been arranged along the top of the picture frame.  Anyway, a pile of wooden animals just asks to be stacked, don't you think?  It's quite hard to do, and very addictive.

Farewells and good buys

The Man and I delivered our daughter to school early this morning to join her fellow 5th Graders waiting excitedly to head off to "Nature's Classroom".  It's a week-long sleepaway experience for kids up at Lake George.  Much more about it than that we don't really know, except that most of the time will be spent outdoors, rain or shine.  We're expecting an exhausted and possibly damp child back on Friday.  I rather suspect she's going to have a wonderful time.

A little later I went shopping with my Mum and aunt, and they were very happy with their purchases, including quilting supplies and smooth-edge can-openers, and some clothes from L.L.Bean. 

Later still, to the library with my Dad to pick up a DVD for the Boy.  He's had Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 on request for a few months, and is no end chuffed that it has finally come in while his sister is away so that he gets to watch it before her "for once".  We watched half of it this evening.  I've seen/heard enough HP now to have at least half a clue about what was going on - anyone coming to it cold would surely be utterly baffled.  But it does live up to its PG-13 rating:  sequences of intense action, frightening images and "brief sensuality" - yes, more snogging - uggh, look away now!

What's the buzz?

It's a while since any of us has been up to Indian Ladder Farms.  Today was the last day for meeting baby animals there, so we all made the trip.  There were loads of lovely babies - ducklings, bunnies, kids, lambs and the like.  The Girl was also delighted to be reunited with all her older farmyard friends (especially the goats - she has an affinity with goats, read into that what you will), and she proudly introduced them all by name to her extended family.

As an added bonus, the director of the farm camp that the Girl loves so much happened to be on site taking delivery of a consignment of bees.  So we were invited to meet the bees - the children even had a stingless drone crawl across their hands.  The bee man delivers bees here and there by the boxload, 10,000 to a box.  He explained that you need at least 40,000 for honey production.  That seems like quite a lot of bees.

The day also featured visits by various members of the household to Thacher Park and the Indian Ladder Trail, and a fair bit of cycling around the neighbourhood.  This evening, a belated birthday celebration for my Mum, featuring gifts and a cake.  Better just-over-a-month-late than never.

Water features

The Man treated his in-laws and my aunt to a tour of Capital District water features, including Cohoes Falls (in full spate after a week of heavy rain) and the Hudson-Mohawk confluence and the start of both the Eerie Canal and the Champlain Canal, all within a few steps of each other at Waterford.  The canal locks are still closed as the water level is three feet too high, and one lock has even overflowed.

Meanwhile I stayed at home and helped the Girl pack for an upcoming adventure with school.  The packing list, as long as my arm and then some, ends with the instruction to fit everything into a duffle bag that your child can carry by him/herself.  Ha! I almost wish I could go with the 5th Grade travellers just to see them all toppling under the weight of their sleeping bags, hiking boots, waterproof boots, flashlights, kitchen sinks etc.

Linton in pieces

If you've ever visited our home, either in Linton or out here, you might have seen The Linton Mosaic - it's a large family artwork we completed many years ago and which we're all very fond of.  Well, it fell off the kitchen wall in the middle of the night, with a mighty crash.  The paper mosaic itself is fine, but the glass of its frame smashed into a million pieces all over the kitchen floor.  Lots of fun cleaning that up this morning...

I took our visitors down to Olana during the day, and I think they enjoyed the tour of Frederick Church's house and the views of the Hudson River and valley.  The sun managed to shine during our visit.  We followed up with lunch at a cafe in the town of Hudson.  Unfortunately the service was incredibly slow - the waitress explained later that two members of staff had failed to show up today so she was having to do the work of three people.  We were pretty ravenous by the time the food finally arrived.

 The weather had broken again as we set off for home.  A times during the journey it was raining so hard I couldn't see the road in front of me.  Thunder, lightning, the works.  But we did make it home all in one piece.

Quick change

There was a whole lot of noise going on outside our house this morning around breakfast-time.  The neighbours were having some trees taken down: five spindly pines that formed a border between our properties, and a sickly maple.  The workmen had them all down and chipped and the stumps ground astonishingly quickly - about twenty minutes from start to finish.  We watched amazed from our sitting room window. Our immediate landscape looks quite changed, but on the whole I like it.  The Girl is very happy because now her route from our yard through the neighbours' to the school bus-stop is unimpeded by low branches.

It's been a gentle sort of day with the newly-arrived visitors, not venturing too far afield, and featuring some necessary afternoon naps.  This evening we all attended the Girl's last concert at her current school.  Choirs and orchestras again, much like the January event.  The musicians had come on a long way and were playing more advanced pieces.  The 5th Grade singers are suddenly looking big enough to be leaving elementary school...which (gulp) is what they'll be doing in just a few weeks from now.

Welcome visitors

I've been cleaning the house all day, which can only mean one thing: visitors! 

For though I'm sure my parents and aunt have come to see the lovely children and do a bit of US sightseeing, not to check if I've dusted the radiators recently, I still felt I ought to make an effort. 

They arrived about 6:45pm, after an uneventful but very long journey.  I hope they'll be following this up with a long and uneventful sleep so that they can quickly get into our time zone and enjoy their stay with us.

Taxation without representation

It was all go this evening down at the High School.  Art exhibition, music recitals, a hunger-charity event and a bit of fair trade action...  But the main reason the parking lot was packed was because the people of the town were electing some new members to the local Board of Education and voting on said Board's proposed budget.  The budget determines how much everyone will have to pay in school taxes next time around (charged per household, whether or not you have children - hey, that sounds like socialism!), and it seemed like a lot of people felt motivated to have their say.  Additionally, this year one of the district's elementary schools has been scheduled for closure as a money-saving exercise, so there are strong feelings on that issue too.

But however the Man and I may feel about anything, we don't get to vote.  We pay the same school taxes as our neighbours, and we send our kids to the same school, but we are not US citizens so our voices don't count.  Hrrrmph.

So I went to the High School anyway - to enjoy the sideshows, to say hi to friends and to stomp about feeling righteously indignant.

Rainy days and Mondays...

...are sometimes one and the same thing.  And though they don't always get me down (as that Carpenters' song would have it) this one did make me feel a bit dull and listless. So it was just as well that one of my fellow Friends of Five Rivers board members, who is very cheerful and lively, came round for coffee to discuss membership-drive ideas. 

We even ventured out in the torrential rain to 5R itself.  Generally speaking there's only one river - and that's more of a creek really - at Five Rivers.  For some reason the nature preserve was named after the five major rivers of the region, none of which run through it or even very near it.  But today there was quite an impressive river running the length of the carpark/parking lot.

OK, competition time.  Prizes (or honour at least) to anyone who can name all (or any of?) the aforementioned five rivers.  Note to the Exile (a frequent 5R visitor)- you can enter if you like, but no Googling.

Table talk

Rather uncharacteristically, the Man and I went out this morning and bought a new kitchen table and chairs. 

Our old table was passed down to us by my uncle and aunt many years ago when we first got a house together.  Since then, time and two feltpen-and-scissor-happy children have taken it beyond "distressed" to fully distraught.  But still we shipped it out here, along with an odd assortment of mismatched chairs and sundry other oddments of furniture that had seen better days even before they belonged to us.  But we'd always intended to replace the table, and finally we have!

Now we'll also have chairs for our guests (some are arriving soon) to sit on without imminent risk of collapse.  Since we've already had three visitors go through chairs in this house, that's probably not a moment too soon.

Thru voting

We've had one of our jobs-around-the-house days, breaking off from time to time throughout the afternoon to follow the Eurovision Song Contest online.  UK readers, were you watching too?  (US readers, I don't imagine for a moment that you were or can understand why anyone would.)  The children favoured Jedward to come in first for Ireland ("Even though I don't like troll dolls," adds the Girl), so only disappointment for us there, alas.  None of us was very excited about the winners, though no doubt there has been dancing in the streets of Baku tonight.

The Man thinks this photo is interesting but I'm not so sure.  Please vote with your comments (assuming comments are back in action - they've been down for a couple of days).

The tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing...

So, it wasn't just me that was knocked out last night - Blogger itself was down and out, hence no post.

Actually I wasn't doing so badly by yesterday evening.  The dental work was all over by noon.  It wasn't exactly a picnic, but not nearly as terrible as I'd anticipated.  However I was so doped up that when I got home I went straight to bed  - and slept for six hours.   I woke up in time to visit an art exhibition at school, and hungrily ate my dinner of yoghurt (I was on a 24-hour cold-soft-food diet).  Then back to bed for another long sleep.

Today I've been feeling pretty much fine, though I'm still on painkillers.  I don't know if it's those, or yesterday's inactivity, or Wednesday's physio or a happy combination of all three, but since losing my tooth I seem to have regained my elbow - no pain there at all now.

The future looks...blurry

The first half of the day had a medical theme.  Physio in the morning (it's helping and my tennis elbow is definitely improving) and a routine check-up at lunchtime.  The doctor gave me a clean bill of health, though she warned me that I'll probably have to wear bifocals before long and asked if I was worried about having a mid-life crisis.  Not until she started on about bifocals, no, not really.

This evening we made it to the 4-H meeting, held in a local church hall, but were chased out by some Boy Scouts who reckoned they had first dibs on the room.  We all (the few that had turned out for the meeting) ended up at our house.  One kid finished making a toolbelt and the Girl made a skirt on the sewing machine, but all the Boy managed to make was a nuisance of himself.

Tomorrow I'm booked for dental work, including extraction of a wisdom tooth.  I'm looking forward to some serious sedation, so there's a good chance someone else will be writing the next blog entry you read here...

Bracelet breakthrough?

For several months, off and on, I've been working with one of my fair trader contacts to develop a fair trade fundraiser for the kids' school.   The idea is to commission a cooperative of weavers - Mayan Hands - in Guatemala to make friendship bracelets in school colours.  Tonight I presented the idea and some sample bracelets to the PTA, who have agreed to put in an initial order for 300.  Everyone anticipates that the bracelets will sell well, and that there'll be more orders to follow.  And since our school colours are in fact shared by the whole school district, I'm hoping other PTA's will decide they want the bracelets too...  It could grow to be quite a big thing.

This venture opens up some great opportunities for introducing a whole lot more people to the concept of fair trade.  I'm pretty excited and really hope we make a success of it. 

Active kids

The call came the other day for someone to make a 5' tall cut-out of an "active kid" and naturally I couldn't resist volunteering.  Well, I have to admit it, I am still congratulating myself on the success of my giant carrot a few months ago.  The 5' kid is going to be used as some sort of healthy-choice related counting device during Healthy Kids Week starting next Monday.

An active kid is slightly more of a paper-cutting challenge than a carrot, I must say, but I gave it my best shot.  Now it's  hanging about on the back of our front door until I have to take it in to school.  Tonight without the hall light on it looks disturbingly as if a large, terrified child ran right through the door without opening it.

When the Man got home from work I cashed in one of my Mother's Day coupons and we all went for a walk at Five Rivers.  Though we picked the Beaver Tree trail we didn't manage to spot any beavers, but we did spy a chipmunk and a whole gaggle of geese, and just generally had a happy little hike on a perfect evening.

S.O.L.

We were in BestBuy today, purchasing an electronic gadget.  A helpful young assistant explained things to us, including an insurance policy which meant that if we were to drop or otherwise damage said gadget the store's "Geek Squad" would repair or replace it - "But" he added, "If you set fire to it or drop it in the pool you're S.O.L."

"S.O.L.?" we queried.

"So outta luck." 

You could say I was S.O.L. when, having realised we were out of dishwasher detergent, I decided to put concentrated washing up liquid in the dishwasher instead.  Ever wondered what would happen if you did that?  Well, a nice clean kitchen floor, for one thing...  Hmm, maybe not S.O.L. after all.

And decidedly not outta luck in my (US) Mother's Day gift today from the kids:  a homemade book of coupons.  I can now insist that, without complaint, they stop whining about feeling hungry; turn off the CD player; go on a hike; or give me hugs (to a limit of 5,000).  Plus a few other things that arguably they should do on demand anyway, but still it's lovely to have them offer.  Each coupon can only be used once, mind you, and not at all after the expiry date of August 31.

Master of the rolls

A bit of tidying and sorting today, and a bit more planting out of seedlings.  The kids were in a lively frame of mind, so after lunch the Man and I wandered out onto the deck with our cups of tea for a moment's peace in the sunshine - just as the neighbours started up their drive-on mower and a strimmer...

This evening we've been out for dinner at a friend's house and had a lovely time.  Lots of laughs, and we got to bring home some home-grown rhubarb into the bargain - my kind of night out.

The Man had a go in their giga ball.  Here is a snapshot of his human hamster's-eye view.

Buried treasure

The Boy planted out his sunflower seedlings today - grown from the seeds we planted a few weeks ago.  I don't know if we're being optimistic.  On the gardening phone-in I sometimes listen to they always seem to warn of late frosts through to the end of May.  Oh well, we'll give it a go and meanwhile plant a new batch of seeds for back-up.

We've all sorts of other things that look ready to go out - lettuce, rainbow chard, cucumbers and more.  The Boy got enthused enough to go and start raking our dormant vegetable patch.  I suddenly heard a whoop of astonishment - he'd raked up a carrot!  And not just one, a whole bunch of them, as colourful and good as new even after our long and bitter winter.  Treasure indeed! 

Medical mystery

I've had a few physio (physical therapy) sessions now for my tennis elbow problem, and they've provided some temporary relief at least.  Today I received a "THIS IS NOT A BILL" statement from our medical insurance company, aka an "Explanation of Benefits".

These "Explanations" leave me a bit baffled.  There's a list of figures that the clinic has submitted to the insurer as a bill, then the figure that the insurance actually covers.  Subtracted from the latter is my standard, pre-determined co-payment of $15 per session.  For one session the clinic claimed $185, and the insurer paid $27.60 - but apparently that's ok.

The implication seems to be that a medical provider puts in a claim for any random figure, with the expectation of being paid just a fraction of it.  How does that work?  And if you don't have insurance, if it's just you, the patient faced with that big bill - can you get away with paying only what you feel you can afford?  I suspect not. 

I wonder if any well-informed reader can help me out on this one?

Knit One, purl One

I made a great find in Barnes & Noble today as I casually browsed through the craft book section.  All old hat now, I suppose, but who could fail to fall for a book called "Knit Your Own Royal Wedding"?

I've done a little research and come up with this video.  Watch and enjoy.

The Corner from Hell

We have a ludicrously big bedroom.  Our double bed (here known as a "full bed", the size found in many an American child's bedroom) which we shipped over from England, looks lost in it to say the least. But if, reading this, you are wishing you had a bit more space in your own bedroom...well, you might want to think about that.  Nature abhors a vacuum , they say (almost as much as I abhor our vacuum cleaner, ha ha), and where there is space, stuff will accumulate to fill it.

One area of the room, which is slightly tucked away from the main part (hard to explain), fills up with mess so consistently that I suspect evil forces are at work there.  It is known affectionately as The Corner from Hell.  Today I set about trying to tidy it up.  I do this from time to time, though you wouldn't know it. 

It's papers, mostly, generated by fair trade projects; plus piles of the kids' schoolwork; some crafty odds and ends; a half-finished cardboard model of the Empire State Building...you know the kind of thing.  Tidying it is such a nightmare because you have to drag everything out and make it all look so much worse before it looks any better.  And to be honest it's still at the looking worse stage right now - but tomorrow...

This evening, parent orientation night at the Middle School, which the Girl will be joining next year (along with around 399 of her peers).  The place runs to an oddly precise timetable:  the school day starts at 8:03 and ends at 2:46 - who dreamt that up?  We had a lot of information thrown at us and don't feel too much the wiser about what to expect, though we were reassured multiple times that it'll all be fine.  Even when , as one teacher cheerfully warned, "You'll find your child is going along nicely, getting straight As, and then suddenly - they like someone..."

Adventures ahoy, oh yes.

Flowery prose

For the second successive Monday, the Girl was off school sick.  That could be a fun tongue twister, but it didn't feel much like fun getting up ten times between 2 and 3:30 in the morning (interspersed with radio discussion about the death of Osama bin Laden - it was all a bit surreal in fact).  Anyway, needless to say the Girl is fine again now, and fingers crossed the rest of us will be too.

So, it's been a quiet day, catching up on correspondence and such-like.  Cooler and breezier than the weekend, and our cherry blossom, which finally bloomed right at the end of April, is already starting to drift away.  We are very lucky to have in the front yard a white cherry, pink plum and green maple which all come into pulchritudinous colour at the same time.

No pictures (because I forgot to take any today) of our daffodils  - probably all over in the UK by the end of March, but just coming into their prime here at the start of May.  The Boy and I gathered a handful first thing to take in for his teacher for Teacher Appreciation Week.  Is there such a thing as Teacher Appreciation Week in Britain?  Teachers and teaching assistants out there reading this - d'you feel sufficiently appreciated?

Mowtown

After all yesterday's busyness, today was more of an at-home day.  The weather was perfect.  We did a little yard work and the Man was inspired to get the lawn-mower fired up, to join in the medley of mowers playing around the neighbourhood.

It was a pretty lovely day yesterday as well, so too bad that I spent most of it indoors.  The Man and I did get out for a brief stroll at Five Rivers in the early evening though. 

This evening our family, inspired by the Boy, started chatting in D-language over dinner.  If I explain that it all degenerated into a chorus of "Dinkle, dinkle dittle dar" you'll get the picture.  A bit silly, but it's a very effective way to pick up everyone's spirits if the mealtime conversation starts to flag.  Dou dould dry dit dometime!