Traveling East

Talk about being slow. I’ll blame it on a short and busy week - coming back late from our trip, lots of school meetings, working on the levy campaign, open house meetings with parents, and so on. They say an indicator of a successful blog is quick and current entries. I’m not looking to expand my readership.

So Nicki and I did a little traveling. Left last Friday heading to Little Valley, stopping there just long enough to store the kayaks in the garage and do a beef on wick lunch at the Congregational Church. Lots of talk among the ladies about which Memmott I was - the bets were on Ed, of course. You time lunch right you get lots of attention and they toss in extra sandwiches and pie for free. Then we continued eastward along the southern tier with the jog up toward Albany until we arrived at Laura’s round eleven. Had plenty of rain the last couple hours of the trip but avoided the flooded or missing sections of highway. Laura and kitten Zoe were ready for us with pastries. Only 665 miles in one day.

Saturday morning we did breakfast at iHop, drove to Stanford, and caught the train into New York City. From Grand Central we subwayed to the World Trade Center area where we met Martin. Walked around the recovery site, down to Battery Park, up to China Town, and to Little Italy for supper. Wandered a little more to a park with break dancers where we split with Martin and caught the subway back to Grand Central. Another train ride, while reading the Sunday NY Times, to Stanford and a drive back to West Hartford. A long day but nice. Sorry we didn’t contact Will and Jen and Susanna but time was tight and we focused on the kids.

Sunday morning was breakfast at Mo’s Midtown of course. That was fuel for the road. A little work setting up a printer for Laura’s computer and playing with Zoe and then we were back on the road heading west. A beautiful fall day with lots of color going over the Hudson and through the Catskills and into the Alleghenies. Picked up rain just after nightfall and before arriving in Little Valley. Martha had an unbelievable supper ready for us - turkey breast, scalloped potatoes, with apple crisp for dessert. Weren’t expecting that - what a hostess!

Monday morning we met Ed for breakfast at Dina’s. Back at Little Valley I made the call to set up installation for broadband - so the homestead will have highspeed internet. (Give me a little time to add the wireless router - and picture us serving coffee to the locals with their laptops on the porch). We reloaded the kayaks and headed for Presque Isle near Erie. Beautiful park. Spent most of our time exploring a large lagoon area in the center of the peninsula. A few herons, lots of ducks, and one animal swimming just in front of us that we’re pretty sure was a beaver. Ended up in Misery Bay which was the temporary home of the fleet of ships commanded by Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry in the War of 1812. Not many people in the park. No other kayaks. No fisherman. Very quiet and scenic.

For the final leg of our trip we had supper on the east side of Cleveland and drove through a final bit of light rain as we returned to Oberlin. 1,500 miles total. A very nice trip. A compact but worthy vacation. And if you need your photo fix click on Travel Photos. In that collection is a photo Martha took of a broken hinge on one of the dining room cabinet doors. We’re trying to find a match. Keep your eyes open.

Fair Play

Nicki has been complaining that my blog doesn't feature enough photos of me. Seems she wants some balance considering I enjoy posting photos that happen to contain her. So since my last blog entry had photos from years gone by, here's one of me from the last century - maybe a little more than 25 years but close. Not much has changed of course.

You're probably wondering when I'll mention our kayaks. Learned today that duck season starts this weekend and that our favorite lake (see below) will have shotgunners in boats instead of guys with fishing rods. Hope they can tell the differences among ducks, herons, carp, and osprey. We won't be there to protect them.

25th

Yes - though time does fly - it has been 25 years - very good years! And to celebrate we didn't go out to a fancy restaurant. We didn't go out to a movie. Instead, even though it was a gray almost rainy day, we loaded up the kayaks and hit our closest lake - Findley of course. Since it is getting darker earlier and earlier we only paddled for maybe an hour and a half but we saw our usual herons and spooked a bunch of carp and even watched a pair of osprey circling the lake. And we had a chance to test out our new cold-weather wet-weather coats bought in Freeport this summer. And maybe our first taste of cool weather boating.

Once again we were putting our boats on the rack in the dark. With the clouds it gets dark very fast. We had the lake to ourselves and that means it was very quiet. I think we saw 5 walkers - no other boaters - no fishermen. As we drove out of the park we were watched by one lone deer. On the way home we dined at a Burger King. Kayaking was Nicki's choice though I approved. We can do fancy stuff another day - maybe this weekend? Oh yeah, I did do a bunch of roses delivered to Nicki at work. A good day. And, yes, I can do another 25 - easy.

Finding Fall in Findley

We are keeping to our mid-week kayaking schedule. Tuesday evening we made a dash away from work, changed our clothes, and headed for Findley. Made it there about 5:30 which gave us a couple hours of boating. We are beginning to notice the changing fall colors and the lake is getting a smattering of leaves floating on the surface. Started by visiting the shallows near the tall grasses. We’ve found the large carp wallowing in the warm waters. This time Nicki was leading along the shore and found herself in the middle of a pack (5 or 6?). When her boat was almost on top of the group they did their explosion thing - manic flippering on the surface until they get to deeper water. There is a slight concern that they might collide with a boat. So far they’ve managed to escape contact - but it has been close - and it is exciting. Certainly disturbs the tranquility. Things happen too fast for photos - sometime I’ll bring the video-camera cause it is slightly unbelievable until you’ve seen it happen.

The rest of the paddling was normal. We snuck up on a few herons. One old guy refused to get spooked by us and watched contentedly from his perch in a tree. And our thousands of little black birds were swarming and swooping into the tall grasses while a hawk hunted for dinner. There were more people in the park than we expected - might have been the warm evening that brought them out. Even shared the water with 3 other kayaks.

Monday evening Nicki and I did go to a Katrina Relief Concert held at Oberlin College. A real mix of music that was broadcast live by a Cleveland radio station. The audience was a little sparser than I expected but the music was impressive - all performed by students.

I’m also getting involved in our local school levy campaign by running their website - YesYes for Oberlin Schools. There are 2 Yes’s because we are actually asking for voters to approve 2 levy proposals. We did this before - about 2 years ago - but it didn’t generate the funds we expected so we are trying again. One big complication is that our superintendent just announced that she is leaving Oberlin in January to become superintendent of the Pitt County Schools in North Carolina. Our selling point for the levy campaign will now be that we need a financially stable system to attract worthwhile administrators. Right?

West Branch

Nothing like a weekend to complete a busy week. We really look forward to our time.

Friday evening was recovering at home and watching the sorrowful Indians game. They should have won.

Saturday Nicki worked on cleaning the house while I went into school to do tech work and to get ready for a big reading achievement test we are giving our 3rd graders Monday. And of course we watched/listened to the even more sorrowful Indians game as we worked. That evening we did a little shopping out of town and on the way home went to a jazz concert at the college - Purple Stuff - a student group of various musicians featuring two fantastic drummers. Of course it was free and amazing music. We were probably the oldest people there by 30-40 years (but I thought we fit right in).

Sunday afternoon after the most sorrowful Indians game we drove about 70 miles east to West Branch State Park which has the Michael J. Kirwin Lake (also known as the West Branch Reservoir). The maps said it was a scenic lake with mountain bike trails, campgrounds and lots of fishing. It has a great reputation for muskies up to 50 inches (but we didn’t see any). If you look real close you might see the ripple of one following Nicki's boat but I don't think so.

It is a very nice serene lake though the water level was way down. Lots of fisherpeople but the lake was big enough and they were spread out and there weren’t many powerboats that late in the day. A big enough lake that we had some nice wavy motion from the infrequent powerboats.

Had a very nice sunset. Not much wildlife - not sure why not since the migratory season has started. No geese or ducks and only 2 skittish herons. Might have something to do with the low water and the lack of trees right on the water’s edge. And again we were tying up the boats as it got dark. Either we need to start kayaking earlier in the day or mount lights on the boats. We are getting very good at putting the boats on top of the CRV by touch. Stopped on the turnpike for a late supper on the way home. Forgot that West Wing was on at 8:00 so we missed it totally. I much preferred having it on Wednesday nights.

And the Indians season is over so we can stop watching baseball. That will free up a considerable amount of time in our schedule. We are trying to do at least one evening of kayaking on Findley Lake during the week and discover a new lake on the weekend. That will work until the days get too short and the temperatures too cool.