Lately, I keep looking out the window and thinking it's snowing. I smile, then I'm visited by a pang of regret; hopes dashed again.
Sherri's a wonderful person who grew up in that house across the street, then moved away from Ithaca about the same time I came to the area. Just a coincidence. She and Tom, someone I grew up with, moved to North Carolina last year. They're loving it, as long as the bear stays outside of their house.
How many of us can thank Carl Sagan for our early interest in the cosmos? I thank him quite often on my way to work and when walking the dog. Better late than never? Too soon to tell. Roxy wanted to get in on the tradition of putting rocks on his gravestone. In this case Rox. It was a good way to start 4-8-24.
Kari joined Gail, Amy and me for a trip to the Zone of Totality in Geneva, where we sat on the beach at the north end of Seneca Lake. She recently got a puppy so her brother dis-invited her from going to his place on Upper Saranac Lake.
Though it started bright and clear in the morning, and I was able to get my staring at the sun over with early, clouds were on order in the Finger Lakes for the afternoon. The day before and following day were both blue-sky days start to finish.
People where it was sunny commented on how it got colder during the total eclipse. We started cold.
Sure looked like a hell-of-a thunderstorm coming our way.
About 15 miles south the lake was out of the path. What a sight.
The family had fewer clouds for their gathering in Hamburg. We had no use for the glasses unless we wanted total darkness.
Peter went to Saranac Lake without Kari and the puppy. He shared what I think is the neatest picture I've seen from the day.
For the data geeks.
Dead space? Space lives!
Yeah, plenty of rain around here, and some snow melt from the hills.
Wood and stone.
A local waterfall off the beaten path. I'm not sure if I ever went to this one, though the street and access road are at the top. It's 300' from a similar one I know I never walked to the bottom of until recently.
I got to a new place farther afield on Easter Sunday when I went to Little Mill Creek east of Dansville. Dinner with the family at Jim's house was good too, but even though there were two toddlers and a baby, I have no photos. Go figure.
Just another used rubber, tossed and forgotten for someone else to pick up. Always wear gloves when picking up trash, or be selective about what you'll collect.
Asphalt doesn't even last a year without cracking upon impact to the post set in it. And the impact leaves an expensive variety of plastic on the road.
McGraw Tower is still encased. Chimes concerts are open to the public, but not the observation deck.
I swear, this guy never runs out of tape despite the situation we're in.
A last-grasp at skiing with city friends out in Caroline. I had to play host since Connie and Andy were traveling. We paid our trail fee by getting them some electricity. The bridge needs to have something carved into it. Class of '84 Rules!
Skater's heaven, doubter's regret.
Cali got dressed up for Valentine's Day. Or is this an old picture of Matt?
And an old picture of Dylan?
Luba also dressed for Valentine's Day. But this is a pretty typical outfit for her.
Emma had us concerned over Christmas break when she visited her family in Japan and there was an earthquake. I got bad info that she was in the area that experienced heavy damage. She wasn't, and was OK. She also was not on the plane that caught fire. After returning to the US, she went to NJ for a climbing competition and did really well, just missing nationals. Maybe next year (after winning states in tennis, of course).
Like a lot of my friends from Westfield, Susan was born in 1964. February 19 in her case.
There are also a whole bunch of friends and family turning 70 this year. Frank hit the milestone in February, Tom will in March. Funny, the kids at school think I'm old.
A photo I found on the internet recently. Various ages, most of them still playing together after almost 50 years.
No idea how old they are, but they are fun to hang around with. Kind of quiet.
Gail revived an old activity: traveling for work. She went to a meeting in Amsterdam (the Netherlands, not NY) and met with all her coworkers; they all work remotely from a few different countries. She was blown away by the museum of street art. I think it just looks like a bunch of post-its on sheets of contact paper, but she said she was jet lagged and thinks maybe that influenced her appreciation of the exhibits.
Coincidentally, while she was away, someone loaned me a book about biking in Amsterdam that included this passage from a 1933 travel guide to the city. She didn't write me a postcard, but did bring a few home.
She tagged on a couple days to take the train to Oxford (England, not Mississippi) to visit friends who used to live in Ithaca.
She saw cool, old trees.
And a dry-laid stone wall that was several miles long (also old).
Lorraine took an action photo of Gail (and Darragh's back) and her new book bag from a famous bookstore carrying some interesting books she bought us at the famous bookstore.
An old building at Oxford.
Between walking the dog, working and thawing out food from the freezer, I didn't have much time to shave. I decided to see what my beard would look like after a 25-year absence. I was hoping the wall would make it look redder.
It doesn't look all that different than when I was in my 20's. I think it's the shirt that makes it look so red in this photo.
While Gail was across the pond, Roxy and I spent a few days out in Caroline with Connie and Andy. No skiing, but plenty of sunshine.
And couch time.
Connie "hates" the section of the FLT I maintain, but she was willing to slum it and go with Andy and me to do a little work on it. Getting to see these trees is totally worth falling in the mud. At least that's what I tried to tell her.
The warm temps brought a good flow of sap and Yaple Maple fired up the evaporator for their 31st season. We've been getting ours there for about half of that. Not sure why we didn't before, I used to live just down the road and C&A have lived in the hood forever.
I signed the book and had a nice visit with Frank while he was idle. He always remembers at some point when we talk that I'm "that guy who built the half-cabin on Honeypot." Guilty.
There's a lot to do besides tap, run lines, haul sap, cut, split and stack wood, feed the fire. They have two or three different timers set to make sure everything gets checked and done at the right time.
No timer reminds visitors to sample. Roxy enjoyed her first taste of maple syrup. But now she'll only eat it if it's less than an hour old. Spoiled bitch.
The sunrises and sunsets were not to be missed while I was there. I think I even put on a coat to watch a couple of them.
I hopped in the old neighborhood school bus but couldn't get the engine to turn over.
They took advantage of trapped support to get started on a 2000 piece puzzle. We got about 1000 together in the few days I was there, then the other half took a week. That's not to imply anything.
Found a photo in an album that I've wanted to recover. Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park, 2002.
Didn't even know about this photo. 2005?
The second cairn I ever built. Easter Sunday, 2003. All the others of this style have fallen or been knocked over.
The pond went from solid ice to almost no ice in the four days we were there.
This week provided an unexpected opportunity to return to Caroline and ski. Three times! Gail and I went out after they got just enough snow to ski (we missed it by an inch in town); I returned with a couple friends for a tour the next day, and made a final trip for an hour solo and 3.5 hours with Andy to the Summer Land Preserve and back as it warmed up. It wasn't much snow, but the conditions were mighty fine where there was enough, and I got a rare chance to ski in single-digit F temperatures.
