Year of the Startup

I was in so much pain from the gorge walk yesterday that I didn’t go for a walk today.  Instead, I picked blueberries with my mom and my wife.  I used different muscles by squatting for 45 minutes.  We did get 15 pounds of blueberries though.

It was another Thursday, so another visit to my grandma.  This time, rather than driving all the way to grandma’s house and then back to Auburn for lunch, my family stopped at the Fingerlakes Mall and walked around the Bass Pro Shop to compare it to ours.  The store was very nice, though smaller.  We then went to Applebees and met grandma, my parents and my cousin and her daughter.  I hadn’t seen my cousin in 13 years; it was great to see her and meet her daughter.  Her daughter is awesome.  We all had a good time.  When my parents and grandma went off to do the weekly shopping, my family toured downtown Skaneateles.  The place isn’t big, but it’s trendy and there is a lot of cute stuff in the shops.  We bought some stuff at a Christmas store.  I was more interested in the store itself, which was actually a Victorian style house from 1816.  The flooring and exterior details were wonderful.  Eventually, we wound up at grandma’s house… and then went home (with a side trip to Gas and Walmart).  The evening was mostly spent anticipating my brother Kevin’s arrival, along with his son.  They showed up a little after 11PM.

Jeffrey and I wait outside a store while the girls shop in Skaneateles

Today was a very rigorous day for me.  It started with a two mile walk with my dad, something we’ve been doing almost every day.  I hope to keep this trend running when I get back to California.

When I got back, the family wanted to go on a “gorge walk.”  I have never had any interest in doing this walk, even though my family does it a couple of times every time we’re here.  The gorge is maybe 300 yards from my parent’s house.  I had done this walk as a teenager, and at that time, the river running through the gorge was high and the mouth to the gorge was swamp.  There are no sides to this gorge, so you’re basically walking up a river (emphasis on up).  As teens, we stopped once we got to a waist deep river.  It was too hard to navigate after that with all the oncoming water and uneven rocky surface below.  30+ years later, the swamp has been replaced by a barn and a house on higher ground and the river now dumps into the remaining swamp across the street.  Someone has made a path to the entrance of the gorge and even put a bench there.  Since this has been a year of severe drought around here, the river is just a trickle – virtually non-existent.  We were able to walk on dry, loose shale all the way up the gorge.  The gorge was gorgeous, but the walk up was over and under large felled trees and across lose shale avalanches.  The river would usually wash these things away for the most part.  Halfway up the walk, my kids wanted to show us a section they could climb up such that they were overlooking the gorge.  It took them a while to get up the 100 foot cliff wall, meanwhile, Barb and I stood by mosquito infested still water.  The kids got to the top, we took pictures, then Jeff wanted to get a picture of Courtney from the other side of the gorge.  He climbed down, then shuffled up the rock avalanche on the other side.  He got down slowly (slid most of the way, creating a lot of dust), while Courtney descended down the other side.  I was really impressed by their climbing abilities until the kids told me that someone had installed ropes from the mid-point on up, making the entire climb possible.

We trudged along, seemingly forever, until we came to the kid’s stopping point at “the waterfall.”  This 20 foot waterfall was virtually impassable, which is why the kids stop here.  Usually, it’s a waterfall.  This year though, it was merely wet, drippy rock.  Courtney climbed about a third of the way up.

Courtney climbs the waterfall

We walked back, which was much, much harder than going up.  A fat man with bad ankles on loose shale will not do well here.  I slipped five times on the way down and wound up on my butt in the water once.  After what seemed like an eternity, we emerged from the gorge.  We headed immediately to the lake.  I wanted to wash off all the crud and get my ankles in cold water.  It felt good.  My banana and beer lunch was good as well.  A little later, I helped mom with yard work – I mowed her one acre back yard.  After that, I was pretty much spent for the evening, wanting to simply lie in bed in a semi-fetal position.  Instead, I watched Tour of France, practiced guitar with Jeffrey, then went to bed.

We have done so little in the last four days that it hardly seemed worth it to jot anything down.  We’re resting and sometimes cooking, and always eating, and pretty much always watching TV.  In the evenings, we’ll take a dip in the lake.  By day we might also do a little house or boat repair – never anything too major though.

On Saturday, we went to the windmill (the Mennonite craft place), and after walking through half of the place, the skies opened up and we got dumped on big time.  We got home wet.  The sun then came out and it became very muggy.  Good thing there is a lake nearby!

On Sunday, we drove all the way to my dad’s church.  It takes 1.5 hours to get there.  The service was wonderful.  We had Chinese buffet for lunch.

Jeffrey got swimmer’s ear, so on Monday, Jeff and I went to the doctor to get ear drops.  We had to deal with road repairs on the way out.  It was not fun.  (we also found the house of the one guy in the area who owns a Porsche Cayman – he sometimes exercises with my parents at the gym and always asks about my Cayman).  After the visit, we decided to take another path home.  It started on a mountain top.  The views were lovely, and the homes were very nice and new.  We then went down to some river in the forest, and then to where the really poor people lived (all within a mile!).  The housing began to improve the closer we got to Penn Yan.  Jeff and I did some grocery shopping and then went to pick up his prescription.  It wasn’t ready and somehow they lost it.  We waited 35 minutes.  Since it was now lunchtime, we stopped off at Seneca Farms and had a very nice lunch… and bought some ice cream.

Today we picked blueberries (15 pounds) and went to a farmer’s market.

Buckets of blueberries

We were actually beginning to “itch” to do something today.  I guess our rest is over.  The kids are now restless, and even my wife wants to “travel to see something historic.”  The big event of the day was watching the new incarnation of Spiderman at the local theater.  First though, we would visit Dunkin’ Doughnuts.  The movie was alright.  The air conditioning was awesome on this 100 degree day.  When we got home, we decided that it was time to move the big weight for our wooden raft out to its proper place in the lake.  Our former neighbors had given us this thing, and the new neighbors didn’t want it anywhere near their property… except that it was currently on their property.  The weight was a two foot diameter bucket, three feet deep that had been entirely filled with cement.  There were also three iron legs sticking out the bottom at 45 degree angles.  The thing weighted more than 500 pounds.  Three generations of men (my dad, me, my son) spent the next hour rolling and upending this thing in shallow water to get it from our neighbor’s property to the far side of our property (~80 feet), and then another 25 feet out to near where our lake’s drop-off point is (the edge of the lake gradually goes from one foot to six feet for about 30 feet, then drops suddenly to around 140 feet deep.).  The trick, as always, is to get the weight near the edge, but not have it drop over; if it goes over the edge, it is gone forever.  The kids, meanwhile, prefer that it’s right on the edge so they can dive on the deep side.  I think we ended up around five feet too short – we’ll have to move the weight some more, but not today.  We attached a chain to the weight from the shore so it wouldn’t go over the edge, and then we attached the raft to the weight.  Done!  Our reward for the evening was a wonderful Chinese meal cooked by Jeffrey.  The kids then decided to spend the evening watching the original Spiderman movie.  I liked the original movie better, yet I like the new spider-man better.  Toby McGuire does not fit my image of Peter Parker.

The Raft

On Thursdays here at the lake, the event is always visiting my grandma two lakes over at Skaneateles.  Today would be no different.  Our travels to her house took much longer than usual because we ran into four separate road repair jobs.  Now why anyone would do road repair in the middle of the summer on a 93 degree day is beyond me, but there they were, laying down gravel and pavement.  The forth section was the worst – they had entirely dug up the road so all of us had to drive 10MPH or less across bumpy loose gravel.  I felt really bad for my dad in the car in front of me: he washed his black Mercedes yesterday and now it was getting all dusty again.  Eventually, we got to grandma’s house, and then proceeded to do all the usual things that we do on a Thursday: take her out to lunch, go to the cemetery to water grandpa’s flowers, go to the grocery store, go to the bank, then home for a little conversation.  For the first time since I can remember, I didn’t venture to her very steep back yard or down to her cellar and garage (the place of so many childhood memories).  My uncle had cleaned-up the downstairs a few years ago now, and now there was nothing to see – just an empty couple of rooms that smelled of mold and oil (I love that smell!).  When we went home, we went a different way to avoid much of the road construction.  We still had to hit that big gravel one, but not the other three.  We all stopped off in Geneva to get groceries, and then Courtney asked to stop in Penn Yan as well to pick up bait for fishing.  We got home at 6PM and ate leftovers.

We did absolutely nothing today and it felt good!  I didn’t even get near my car, or see anything historic; heck, I barely even went outside today.  It was hot, so staying indoors wasn’t a bad thing.  I did go get a couple of buckets of ice cream with my dad, and late in the evening, I played Frisbee with the kids then took a dip in the lake; all in all, a pretty good day.

Any day on the lake is a good day.

Today was our longest drive day, with a stop in the middle to visit Barbara’s grandma in Pennsylvania.  Again, Greta chose to put us on country paths.  The drive seemed long, but we made it only 20 minutes late.  Granny had several stops to make, since she is no longer mobile by car or really by walking, so we took her around town.  We went to the post office, the bank and Wal-Mart.  In the middle of all that, we ate lunch at a steak house that also served buckets of peanuts.  Shells were all over the place, and the servers invited us to throw our shells on the ground.  Sort of funny, but when the waitress was slow in getting to us, granny would yell at her.  Old people just don’t have patience, but we did get out of there faster thanks to her.

When we got back to her place, Barbara’s aunt and uncle had arrived.  It was so nice to see them.  Ken was his usual jovial self.  We chatted for about an hour and then went on an even longer car ride.  OK… Google Earth had recommended two highways to get to my parent’s house.  Greta was giving us all these back country roads, yet she was going to save us an hour of travel time.  I weighed these options and opted for the country roads.  Maybe I shouldn’t have.  What Greta doesn’t include are wait times at stop lights.  Also, country roads are twisty and filled with drivers of all abilities, so driving becomes much more of an active event, rather than a passive one (i.e.: set the cruise control and point in a general direction), which a highway offers.  By the end of our five hour drive, we had lost 27 minutes due to stop lights and two (minor) wrong turns.

The lake was so wonderful to see.  After all these travel and days of unrelenting heat, my body felt absolutely wreaked.  I’ve been taking Motrin just to move.  Now I can relax.

Yeah, Monticello day.  The drive there was without incident.  For the third day in a row, it was a 100 degree day.  I’m getting a little more wilted every day from the heat, but I wouldn’t miss the stuff we’re seeing.

We couldn’t get into Thomas Jefferson’s house until an hour after we arrived so we went on the “slavery” walking tour with a local historian.  I can’t recommend this tour enough.  The guy (Brandon) was very knowledgeable and he used stories to explain the history.  He then beautifully tied all six stories together at the end.  It was like he was reading an hour long post-graduate thesis to us.  The subject was very dark, but when you are dealing with the issue of slavery, you can’t make it light.  I am now convinced that Thomas Jefferson must have been a very conflicted man.  On the one hand, he desired that slavery was abolished, yet he had slaves his entire life.  He hated dealing with them, but had to deal with them if he was to maintain his vast land holdings and compete with the other farms.

Next up was the house tour.  Again, a great guide; thorough and knowledgeable.  The thing I learned the most here was how curious Jefferson was about his world.  He was a farmer/scientist above all else.  He also really enjoyed having people at his house to chat with him and to view all his curiosities.  He had one of the earliest museums at his house.  He also founded and designed Virginia U.  I did not know that.  You can see the “Greek” building on the campus from his home.  He hated being president because it kept him from his home.  At one point, he said that farming was the greatest and most useful pursuit, and that the dearth of all usefulness was living in a city.  What makes this statement funny is that he spent 40 of his prime years living in the four biggest cities in the world.

His house was ingeniously made.  The guy was obviously brilliant.  He was a problem solver.  I think I liked the basement rooms better than the main rooms.  They were so interesting.  Also, the picture you see of his house on bills and coins is the back side of the house, not the front side.

The familiar (rear) view of Jefferson’s house

After seeing an absolutely worthless 20 minute film about Monticello (skip it – save yourselves!), then somehow losing our car in the vast and confusing multi-level parking area, we were on our way to Kevin’s house.

Greta chose to take us exclusively on back roads today – no highways for us!  The drive was great, and we avoided all the afternoon DC traffic when we got close.  Kevin cooked a wonderful meal for us, we watched a movie, and then we pretty much went to bed.

The weather report said that it would rain until 11AM, and then reach 100 degrees.  Oh joy.  It had rained right up to about 6:30 this morning.

Yeah, free breakfast!  I like hotels that offer a free breakfast.

We were so efficient that we were at the entrance of Colonial Williamsburg about five minutes early.  Once in, we got our tickets, and then watched an excellent old movie about Williamsburg staring Hawaii 5-0’s Jack Lord.  It was a very informative movie that used many of the actual buildings around town.  We then started our all-day walk.  It never did rain, but the 100 degree weather came by 10AM and stayed all day.  At first, it was not muggy, but as the day progressed, it got moderately muggy.

We took one of the most boring tours of the Governor’s house.  Our guide was monotone and talked way too long.  Things got decidedly better after that.  We went into various shops and houses.  I liked all the woodworking shops – I love the smell of cut wood.  All the craftsmen were excellent.  I think our highlight was the silversmith’s house.  The smith there was very good at his job, and we later discovered that he was featured on the book they publish about this town.

Lunch was at the one open Tavern in town.  The appetizer of peanut soup was excellent, as was my Bourbon Mint Julep, but not much else was.  All the entrees came without salt, or really much seasoning at all, and my “Tarragon cream sauce” on my raviolis had absolutely no tarragon in it.  Man, the restaurants around here are surely disappointing.  Hey, at least it had air-conditioning (as did all the other shops – yes, they aimed for authenticity, but they also wanted their guests to be comfortable).

We got through the rest of the town by 2:45 – well short of the 5PM closing time we all thought we would see.  It was simply too hot out today.  We were close to William & Mary College, so I got my shirt.

The heat in Williamsburg wiped-out the kids

Dunkin’ Doughnuts sounded pretty good after that, so once we were shuttled to our car, we headed there.  After Dunkin’, the kids and Barb went swimming.  I was smelling very “manly,” so I showered then watched day 1 of the Tour of France.  My guy Cancellara won yesterday’s prologue, so he was in yellow.  He almost won today as well, but couldn’t compete with Sagan, who has absolutely been on fire this year.

The kids and Barb came back right about dinner time.  We went out to another Yelp recommendation: La Tolteca.  And while not all of the raves were written by people who knew (or had ever tried) Mexican food, the food was not bad at all; in fact, I would call it excellent – the entrees anyway.  The “cheese” dip, which was highly recommended, was a runny mess.  The salsa and the horchada came from a can and a mix.  Any Mexican restaurant in California would be too embarrassed to do this!  But the entrees were yummy.

The folks at the table next to us had just come from Lake Keuka – our eventual destination (I had almost worn my Keuka shirt to dinner tonight!)

It had gotten muggy, cloudy and dark while we were in there.  The news said that there was a chance of another thunder storm tonight, but most likely, it would just be cloudy.  I welcomed no more sun.  Even at 89 degrees, it felt a whole lot better not to have the sun beating on you.

We stayed in tonight, played cards and watched TV.

We all got up nice and early today to do an all-day car drive!  Who doesn’t love one of those?  We left on time!  The iPod continued to play album-oriented rock albums (I’m expanding my kid’s musical awareness).  Today we started with The Carpenters and got through The Cars, Chicago, Christopher Cross and DC Talk.  The kids were unimpressed – about as impressed as they were going from A – C.  We’ll continue with the D’s on Monday.

Once we got out of the police-rich city of Charleston, I set the cruise control for 79MPH, and realized that it was too slow.  Today apparently was Nascar day on highway 95; that, or there were a lot of people who thought that the highway 95 sign was the speed limit.  This all changed the moment we crossed into Virginia.  Suddenly, everybody was doing the speed limit and not a mile over.  I’m guessing that while The Carolinas have no police, Virginia has no shortage of them.  The multiple speed traps I saw confirmed this.

Greta took us on an interesting “shortcut” today.  Google earth had me going down 95 pretty much the entire way, but not Greta Garmin, she took me on some country road that dead-ended at a river.  Fortunately, there was a car ferry there, and it was free!  We took the 15 minute ride across the waterway and got to see Jamestown from the water.  We still got to Williamsburg way, way early – two hours early.  Maybe this was a shortcut.  I think the high speed driving also contributed.

We went out to a highly recommended restaurant (yelp: 6 Crabs) and for the first time on this trip, we were severely disappointed.  None of us liked this fried food.  Lunch at Cracker Barrel today was a whole lot better, and that’s pretty basic food.  We decided to walk off our greasy dinner by heading down the road to Dunkin’ Doughnuts… except that we couldn’t find it.  Both Google Earth and the Dunkin’ Doughnuts website confirmed that the place did exist, but it’s missing in reality.  Perhaps this is a very recent change.

The kids swam.  We strategized about our long walk tomorrow in the historic downtown.  Courtney stubbed her toe on our Dunkin’ Doughnuts walk (she was wearing flip-flops), so now she might have some pain tomorrow.

OK, that missing Dunkin’ Doughnuts thing really bugged me, so about an hour later, we got into the car and went to where everyone said it was.  Turns out, it was a display inside a gas station convenience store.  We put Greta to the task to find us a real one.  It was three miles away right near William & Mary College.  The doughnuts were great.  Since we were near William & Mary College, we decided to take a driving tour of the place.  It was really nice.  I also found myself driving through parts of Colonial Williamsburg.  I didn’t know you could do that, but I guess you can.  Barbara wanted to take many pictures, but the sun was going down.  She ended her evening out by going to the campus book store to get a William & Mary shirt.  They had a deal – 2 for 1 – so Barbara bought two for herself.  Meanwhile, Jeff and I were in the car, illegally parked, waiting for our two women shoppers.  I really wanted a shirt too!

When we got home, we swore we saw lightning in the distance, but there had not been a cloud in the sky all day, so we didn’t think this likely.  Well, we got to our room, turned on the TV and nearly every channel had a tornado warning for Williamsburg.  We, and the rest of the tourists at the Super 8, ran outside with cameras to see if we could catch a glimpse of the tornado, meanwhile, this low, dark ominous cloud was quickly descending upon us.  At first there was nothing, then all of the sudden – downpour!  We were under a canopy.  The other tourists were not; they had to make a run for it.  About a minute later, the pitch of the rain changed.  It was hail.  Courtney grabbed our ice bucket and put it out on the road.  She caught numerous quarter inch to half inch nuggets.  Alas, through it all, there was no tornado.  The tornado touched down in Richmond.  We went back inside and watched TV until bedtime.