A big Happy Birthday to the lovely hergrace! Wish we were together this year like last!
Tag: steph
Bloggedy Blog Blog
It’s funny when I think about it. I mean, I haven’t been doing a good job at updating this weblog – what makes me think I can keep another one going? Well, actually, it’s an experiment and possibly useful for one of my current university classes.
I have created a Science Blog on my website. For our Informal Science Learning class, we’ll eventually have to make something that’s a way of doing some Informal Science Teaching. One option was a blog. And since my website has a database that isn’t being used and the ability to install WordPress, I thought, “Why not?”
I haven’t made up my mind yet on the theme I’m using, but you can check it out and let me know what you think. The current photo, BTW, is hergrace and judiang at Epcot on New Year’s Eve 2003. I love the shot which captured the writing from the light up toy. (I use the photo in one of my physics classes on optical illusions – and I spin the pictured toy which now says “Physics is Phun!”)
How did *he* get into my dream???
The kitties have been especially annoying this morning, doing what they could to try and get me up at 4am. Pretty much 4am to 5am was me spent trying to sleep while Linus kneaded the bed around me. Lucy was being nice and simply sleeping on top of me. I did fall asleep around 5am and only recently awoke (again, Linus kneading the bed). And what was I dreaming about when I awoke?
Well in this dream, elsaf, judiang and I were vacationing together, as we are wont to do. But we get picked up by some security folks when we land at the airport and are driven to some unknown property. When we arrive, it’s an ordinary enough house and no security folks are actually IN the house. Whose house, you ask? Why President Bush’s house, of course. (!!!!) So we’re there and thankfully spend more time with his wife (not sure she looked like the real Mrs Bush) and son (who looked a bit like hergrace‘s youngest only with short hair that’s curlier).
As we did at Steph’s place, we were having a birthday celebration for someone (but I don’t recall who now). Rather than bake her famous cheesecake, Elsa had apparently ordered some pecan dessert thing – all very hoity toity – and had it delivered to the place. Never did get to see what it was (I think it was something in an intricately tiered thing) but I did get to eat ice cream in the dream. And spent most of my time in the dream having to play with the little kid. The final bit in the dream is all of us at the dinner table – including the Prez.
Well, actually, there was something of a follow up to it. When we were heading back home, someone was bragging about their holiday, but I had ’em pipped when I said I got to vacation with the President. He asked what that was like and my response was “Well, I still don’t like him all that much, but his wife and family are pretty nice.”
So, my dear psyche, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON?????
BTW, I think I’ve figured out why the kitties were so antsy (pun intended). I went to clean out their automatic feeder to put fresh cat food in it and found that teeny tiny ants had discovered it. ICK! Looks like I shall be buying some ant dots after work today! (The being squicked by ants is pretty much why I haven’t gone back to bed. Ick!)
Things I learned…
While vacationing with hergrace, elsaf and judiang, I discovered some interesting things, which I shall endeavor to share with you folks.
- Judi, Elsa and I can’t name all the state capitals to save our lives.
- Steph’s in-laws are two of the most hospitable people you’re ever likely to meet.
- Barns are painted red cuz the paint is inexpensive (confirmed with papa).
- The wait for the Holland tunnel is longer than actually traveling through it.
- Street lights in NYC are relatively coordinated with each other.
- Grafton, VT is where the best Vermont Cheddar is made.
- Steph’s boys are growing up so fast! I mean, the eldest has his learners permit now! Eeeep!
- Even with a room full of geeks, getting regular DVD players to play non-regular DVDs is pretty damned difficult.
- GPS units don’t know where you’re going if you don’t know either.
- Garmin, the GPS manufacturer, has stock in the Holland Tunnel. (Well, that’s our best guess at its continual behavior to try and send us through it both times.)
- You *can* go from Vermont to Philly without going through New York City.
- Trina is still obsessing about driving through the Holland Tunnel and NYC. (Sheesh woman, GET OVER IT!)
- The Vermont Country Store requires hours of looking in order to see (and taste) it all. I think I need another trip to VT.
- Ben & Jerry’s is no longer owned by Ben & Jerry.
- How much wood a woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
- There are still glassblowers around using the same equipment that was used centuries ago.
- Vermont has Deer Crossing, Moose Crossing, Bear Crossing, and Truck Crossing signs. (I always wondered what happened when trucks went wild!)
- When the airport security check your luggage, they pack it back up even better than it was when you packed it.
- Judi liked the last ep of Doctor who least of the four of us. That surprised me to no end.
- I have some of the bestest friends in the world. (Well, I knew this before the trip, but it’s always great to confirm it.)
- As lovely as Vermont is, There’s No Place Like Home. 🙂
Also, in the “It’s A Small World After All” stakes: Today at church, I found out one of the ladies there has a son who lives in Springfield, VT and attends a Unitarian Universalist Church in Chester. (She says it’s the old stone church – I didn’t know that was a UU church!)
Girls’ Day Out
Yesterday could well have been subtitled, Girls’ Day In, since we stayed in all day (well, in town). But today, we did go out and we left the kids at home.
We started off again with another leisurely morning. hergrace had purchased some sticky buns from Baba A Louis yesterday, so we had those at breakfast. And without ever getting off my duff at the kitchen table, we moved right onto a lunch of leftovers. I had leftover steak and salad, which was very tasty. Plus some of the sour dough bread I’d bought the day before.
Steph, elsaf and I then walked to Mitch’s Maples which was a mile away from the farmhouse. The place is a self-serve maple syrup store. I wanted some of the maple cream that I’d tried at the farmhouse and this was the place to get it. $7 and signing the guest book and I had my cream. It was quite neat to be in a self serve store that’s done by the honor system (and employs closed circuit TV…)
After the walk, it was time for us to head off to Simon Pearce – a glass shop at the Old Mill in Quechee, VT. At Simon Pearce we got to check out the waterfalls and covered bridge and to watch the glassblowing. Wow! Was that guy buff or what? Oh wait… The process of glassblowing is really neat. And the Master glassblower? He was fine. 🙂
We looked around the shop at Simon Pearce and marveled at the beauty and the prices. Even the seconds were pricey, but they were very beautiful as well (and often we weren’t sure what made them seconds).
As it was 5:30, we decided to have Garmin choose supper for us. (We were in the rental car on this trip.) Despite the fact that it had earlier tried to send us down a one lane dirt road, we were trusting it with supper. It had lots of restaurants in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, so we picked one there and let it direct us (rather ineptly at first) to West Lebanon.
Our first choice of supper turned out to not be a German restaurant but instead a chocolate store. Which was closed. But across the shopping complex was the Weathervane, a New England seafood chain. While there, judiang and I gorged ourselves on lobster while Elsa and Steph stuck to lighter fare. And we all had dessert – I went with a classic hot fudge sundae, which simply hit the spot. It was a very good (very expensive) meal! Best of all? The last bite of lobster was the best of them all. Yum!
Garmin the GPS got us back OK and halfway through the trip, Steph gave it a sex-change and made it a British male (Daniel) rather than the American woman (Jill) we’d been listening to. Garmin is now very demanding, rather than simply exasperated.
We’re now back at the farmhouse and checked into our flights. Judi’s working on a movie of the glassblowing while Steph & Elsa are watching Harry Hill. We’ve had a fabulous time at Steph’s in-laws and have thanked them over & over for the chance to be here. It’s always great to be with my friends. Gonna miss y’all, girls!
More pink flowers, the variety of which I know not.
Some purple flowers.
The Sugar Syrup Shack.
The waterfalls by the Old Mill.
The covered bridge by the Old Mill.
The big ass kiln at Simon Pearce.
The very buff Master Glassblower.
Oh go blow!
The mold where they would blow the glass to shape in. The glass is so hot, the wood mold burns.
Transferring the glass vase to the pontil.
Steph’s Birthday
Yesterday was hergrace‘s birthday, so we celebrated in grand style. But before we got into all of that, we had a whole day to experience.
Once again, we had a nice leisurely start to the day. And eventually we headed off on our 4 mile walk to Baba A Louis bakery, Chester town proper, and back to the farmhouse. At Baba A Lou’s we got some baked goods (surprise surprise!) I picked up a loaf of sour dough bread and a cheese & herb croissant. And as we rested outside of the Cathedral of Bread (well, that’s what the place looked like) we all ate our croissants.
We headed into Chester’s downtown in order to have the walk back be at a less steep incline than our walk to the bakery. The town is very quaint and quiet. We popped into a couple of stores, but didn’t buy anything. We also checked out a small suspension bridge near the downtown and walked across. Then on to the town’s cemetery for some perusal of very old headstones (some 18th century ones).
We then returned to the farmhouse, stopping only at Lisai’s market to get some bottled water. When we returned, we all crashed and felt good about getting out on such a lovely walk. The weather was simply perfect for the walk – not hot or cold, not too sunny or too dreary. A very lovely day.
The afternoon was spent geeking and reading and relaxing. And eventually the plans were afoot for supper. Steph’s father-in-law was going to grill steaks, elsaf would bake potatoes and make the salad, and all of us would eat well. Steph’s mother-in-law decorated the dining room in 4th of July party favors and decorations. And with pinwheels at every seat, we had plenty to keep ourselves entertained while we ate our wonderful supper.
Once the supper dishes were cleared up, the birthday cake was brought it. The birthday cake, made on Dairy Day Monday, was an Elsa-made cheesecake. Yummy! She also made a strawberry sauce for those who aren’t cheesecake purists like I am.
After desert was present time. Steph got lots of lovely gifts from her family and friends. Including several Doctor Who toys. Woohoo! The party eventually ended and folks started heading off to bed.
The girls and I stayed up to watch The Last September, a David Tennant movie that judiang gave Steph for her b-day. The movie was a bit hard to comprehend with all the people being introduced without proper introductions. And DT had a big furry caterpillar on his upper lip. So to keep the squee going, Steph put part 2 of Blackpool on for watching.
Rather than staying up til 2am, we actually filed out at fairly decent times. Elsa left at midnight, followed by me at midnight thirty and finally Judi ordered Steph to bed at one.
Today is Independence Day and our only real plans are to visit a local glass blower and watch them make beautiful glassware. Hopefully we’ll get to see some fireworks tonight too!
We’ve had some very sunny days here.
The folks in Vermont call this a creek, but I know it’s a “crick.”
More mountains (Vermont has a bunch!)
I can tell a train has been here. I can see its tracks!
Lots of scenery on the walk.
A scarecrow! I wonder if he’ll come to life & attack us!
Baba A Louis – the Cathedral of Bread!
Foxglove flowers outside of the Cathedral of Bread.
Pink flowers outside of the Cathedral of Bread.
Steph’s birthday!
Present Squee!
Dairy Day Monday
Yesterday was a day devoted to MILK! And as I love MILK, yesterday was a very good day indeed.
We started off the day heading off to the Grafton Village Cheese Factory in, of all places, Grafton village. There we got to watch the folks actually making cheese. We learned what cheddaring means (to break up the curd to dry it) and watched as they cheddared, salted, and shoveled the curd to make it into cheese. Then the place squooshes out more whey and then lets it age.
In the store part, we got to taste all of the types of cheddar that they make. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 year cheddars, garlic, sage and hickory smoked cheddar. And after tasting them all, I bought one of each type of cheese that they make. Mmmmm, cheese!
Next we headed off to the Ben & Jerry’s factory to take a tour of it. judiang and I got the package deal of t-shirt, pint, and tour for $20. And we got our pints right off the bat so we could eat while waiting for the tour. (elsaf was smart enough to wait until the tour & all were done). We didn’t finish it, but we made good headway into our pints. I got the Brownie Batter flavor (which I’d never seen before) and Judi got the Peach Cobbler (ditto). Both were tasty.
When we got on the tour, we saw a couple of movies and then the factory bit which was cool to watch. The tour leader asked if any of us knew the significance of -40 (temperature). And of course I knew the answer (science geek that I am). Alas, I didn’t get a prize. Still, when we got to taste a sample of B&J ice cream at the end of the tour, there were leftovers and I had a second sample. Mint chocolate chunk – yum!
After the tour, I returned to the car to get our ice cream from before (and put our new pint of Creme Brulee in) and we managed to finish our pints. Elsa had some Americone Dream, and hergrace had a sundae with “Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz” as the ice cream base. All in all, a wonderful selection of ice creams.
We returned to the farmhouse nicely full of dairy and then worked on getting Doctor Who onto a platform we could view it. And when we were finally hungry (ish) we ordered pizza. Mmmmm, a nice capper to Dairy Day Monday.
A sign that cheese is around!
Cheddaring the curd
Shoveling the curd
Covered bridge by cheese store
View from the bridge
The Flavor Graveyard at Ben & Jerry’s
Ben & Jerry’s
Manchester, Vermont Vermont
The trouble with the musical Hair is the catchy music that sticks in your head. And as we traveled to Manchester, Vermont yesterday, I had the Manchester, England England song running through my head. And hopefully some of you are now suffering.
So, after the late night on Saturday, we actually got up before nine am. Even judiang got up before nine (because she misread the clock in her room and thought it was after ten – heh heh). The morning was a nice slow one as we had cereal for breakfast and chatted with folks in the kitchen. Then it was photo time. We took pictures around the farmhouse and neighboring homes. I love the stone buildings in this area and got a really nice picture of a stone church.
Stone Church
One of the neighbors saw us out taking pictures and she invited us into her house, which was a former stone schoolhouse. She even let me ring the school bell, which was very cool. 🙂 Out back of her house was some very beautiful scenery and several stone benches. We all sat on one stone bench in the back in a little nook. And then, being the geeks that we are, we all took photos of the other three on the bench. Judi posted hers already. So here is mine.
Three on a Bench
Next we returned to the farmhouse and gathered up hergrace‘s boys and then headed off to the Vermont Country Store. The last time we visited Vermont, Steph took us there and I loved it. (Well, I’ve always loved their catalog, so being there in person was even better.) I sampled almost every sample they had in the place (well, I was hungry) and bought quite a few small items. And still hadn’t seen the entire store before we shuffled off to a late lunch in Manchester.
When we got to Manchester, Steph took us to Flat Road Grill for lunch. I had the Crocque Monsieur (grilled roll with ham, apples and Vermont cheddar), fries and a very nice cream soda. I enjoyed the sandwich – apples are a fun addition!
We parked at the bookstore in Manchester and shopped there. I bought a book (surprise, surprise) and enjoyed looking at the store, which had lots of neat other items.
Interesting Sculpture Outside Bookstore
We then walked around Manchester, which is an Outlet Town (like an Outlet Mall only all throughout a town). Steph and I were foot people, so we went into a shoe outlet store and looked at all the nice shoes. And oggled at the Mephisto shoes. Someday, baby, I’ll buy a pair of Mephisto. When I’m rich.
Our next stop was a sock outlet. Mmmmm, socks! Steph recommended The World’s Softest Sock, so I found some nice lavender colored ones. Only to discover they were mediums. I needed large. And the large socks weren’t nearly as fun colors as the mediums. Ah well. I bought red, green, and white – 3 pairs for $15.
One of the neat things about Vermont is that they have mountains! And while we were shopping in Manchester, we had many lovely views of mountains. (Ohio is rather bereft of mountains – at least where I live.)
Mountains!
We returned to the farmhouse and dropped Judi and the boys off. Then Steph, elsaf and I headed off to a local market for supper supplies. Alas, they were closed, so we went to a grocery store in Springfield. The grilling decision was made for us when we discovered they didn’t have enough wild salmon for everyone. So we got some chicken breasts and salad fixings. Plus two types of sour dough bread.
Steph and Elsa worked on the supper – Steph made the marinade while Elsa chopped up the veggies. Then Steph’s father-in-law grilled the chicken. Supper was WONDERFUL. We sat around the dining room table and had a very nice evening.
We then ate ice cream in the kitchen while folks cleaned the supper stuff up. Then the girls and I (and Steph’s youngest) sat down to watch the new Doctor Who. Only, due to many, many technical difficulties, we were only able to watch 15 minutes of it. Still, we did get to watch Curse of the Were-Rabbit while things were getting resolved.
Around 1am, we shuffled off to bed, and now it’s the next morning. We’re going to celebrate Dairy Day Monday. 🙂
Chester Without a Map
For those who’ve seen the David Tennant movie, LA Without a Map, you’ll know what I’ve based the title of this post upon.
So yesterday I headed off to Columbus to fly Southwest to Philly.
I arrived on time and found a text message on my phone from judiang saying they were in baggage claim D waiting on me. So without checking the arrival boards, I headed for baggage claim D, assuming my friends knew where I was supposed to go. 🙂 Turns out they did, but Philly Airport sucks and took ages to get my bag to me. Bah! (And one fellow was waiting for his and saw his sock come down the conveyor belt. “Hey! That’s my sock!” Shortly after that, we saw his open bag come down the belt as well. Whoops!)
Once we were all ready, elsaf, Judi and I headed outside to wait for the Budget van. Four billion Avis vans and all the other rental agency vans went through before the Budget van finally came. The car we got (in slot A13 – you think we’d’ve known bad luck would be forthcoming) is a Ford Focus and Elsa got us a GPS to go with it. We stuck Garmin up on the windshield and programmed the destination. Well, sort of. It turns out none of us remembered to print the address off of the Vermont farmhouse we’re staying in. As hergrace was most likely on the road, we didn’t want to phone her. So we used some random Chester address instead.
And off we went! Elsa drove us out of Philly and into New Jersey. While still in PA, we had lunch at Friendly’s, and left the GPS in the car harping at us to get back on track. After lunch, Garmin decided it had a better route picked out. But wouldn’t tell us. We thought maybe she was sulking. Finally, she told us her new route. Alas, Elsa soon made a misturn, but Garmin recalculated the result. And at the same time, she had a shin cramp, so she asked if I could drive for a bit. Sure, I said, with no idea of where Garmin would be sending us next.
So we were in New Jersey, and Garmin started sending us on surface streets to get us on this new route. And then I missed a turn, so she recalculated the route and vindictively decided to send us through the Holland Tunnel. With me driving. Me, the country girl who never drives in big cities. Me, the girl who can’t do a left turn to save her life. Eep!
4 days later, we got on the other side of the Holland Tunnel. Well, it was probably 2 hours, but it felt like days. And then it directed me to skirt around New York City on 12th Avenue. Which I did. At one time, Judi suggested me pulling over and letting Elsa drive. Um, pulling over in some unknown part of New York City? I don’t THINK so.
While I was driving, we FINALLY got a call from Steph. We’d discovered during dinner that none of us had a recent phone number for Steph. Whoops! But Judi assured us Steph would eventually call us. And we all cheered when she did. We got the address of the farmhouse from her and also took down her phone number. And told her it would be after 1am before we’d arrive.
Still, I got us out of New York and into Connecticut and finally found a roadstop 12 miles into CT where we could switch drivers and get something to drink. I became a two fisted drinker after that drive with a mint shake in one hand and water in the other. Elsa then headed off through Connecticut. After awhile, she started getting sleepy, so we found (after many attempts) an open gas station where we filled up and Elsa walked around. I offered to drive again provided the GPS didn’t send us to NYC again.
Thankfully, it didn’t. I drove through CT and into Vermont. Yay for Vermont. And then it directed us to Chester, where we began to recognize landmarks from the last time we were here. We cheered when we arrived in Chester. And then even louder when we arrived at the farmhouse. Yay! Steph and her mother-in-law greeted us (sleepily) as we got out of the car. It was just after 2am. Blergh!
Steph showed us up to the rooms where we were going to stay and then we chatted in the hallway for half an hour or so. Then finally slunk away to sleep. Ah, sleep. It is of the good.
Alas, I woke up at 6:30 then 7:30 and finally got up at 8:30. But apart from many many typing errors while writing this, I think I’m awake. Today we intend to have a great day with Steph. 🙂