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xiphiasSo, Lis's work gave her both Monday AND Tuesday off for American Independence Day, which meant that, this past week, there would only be three work days. And most of the development teams were in crunch mode -- on projects unrelated to Lis's project. Lis needs to work with those teams to progress on her project, and, well, none of them would be available on those three days, so this past week was a good opportunity to take three vacation days. Because, for the price of three vacation days, Lis would get nine consecutive non-work days -- three vacation days, two work holidays, and two weekends.
The first thing we did was drive out to the Capital District of New York to visit friends. Lis had never even MET their two children, a four-year old son and a two-year-old daughter, both of whom are remarkably well-behaved, kind, polite, and determined. Really nice kids, and really nice parents, too.
I'm HOPING that I helped them with a home-repair project, but I'm worried that I made things worse. I can't tell, honestly.
While we were there, besides getting to hang out with our friends, playing Magic: The Gathering (they held a draft tournament in their own house to give us a chance to play, too), watching Doctor Who, and playing with their kids, Lis and I also headed out on our own to take a walk through a nature reserve by the Erie Canal, where we saw a blue heron, a beaver, and a frog the size of my thumbnail, among other things, and we also went to Jumpin' Jack's Drive-In in Scotia. We first heard about Jumpin' Jack's from my father, who went there in college, and Lis and I really love it. It is the paragon of a certain style of burger. Does that mean it's the best burger out there? Well, that depends on whether you like the style or not. It is the best griddle-fried thin-style burger I've ever found -- but a lot of people don't like griddle-fried burgers in the first place, and this isn't going to change your mind.
But Lis and I do like that style, and stopping by Jumpin' Jack's was on our "must do" list when we were in the Capital District. Your can get a burger or cheeseburger, you can get raw or sauteed onions on it. Or you can get the Jack Burger, which has coleslaw on it. That's it. Oh, there are fried things, too, but we didn't get any of those, and the onion rings were unimpressive. Not bad, but not great, either.
We left on Tuesday, and drove out to Howe Caverns, a cave system that's been a tourist attraction since Lester Howe started giving tours of it in 1843. As of now, it's got comfortable, level brick walkways and electric lighting, so it's as easy to walk on as a slightly-damp brick sidewalk, as opposed to the tours in the 1840s, which involved wading through the underground river that dug out the caverns, and clambering over towering rocks.
From there, we went to a really nice, and surprisingly affordable, hotel in the Berkshires called The 1896 House. We woke up on Wednesday, and drove to Shakespeare & Company (the one in the Berkshires, not the famous bookstore in Paris) and saw their Performance Intern Company do The Two Gentlemen of Verona as part of their "Lunchbox Shakespeare" series of just-after-lunchtime plays. We got there early enough that we were able to take their 10 AM backstage tour. Lis went on the tour; I skipped it in order to lay out a blanket and take a nap in their rose garden. Which was also pleasant.
After the play was a question-and-answer period with the cast and director, also a worthwhile use of our time. Then we drove up to Ludlow, Vermont, where my grandparents have a cabin. From that home base, on Thursday, we went to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science's raptor (and other bird) rehabilitation and education center.
The best part of that was the enclosures where they keep the birds who are permanently crippled and can't be released to the wild. We got to see red-tails, peregrines, and bald eagles up close. We got to see one hawk just sorta generally chatting with the red-tails in the next enclosure over -- most of the enclosures had two birds in them, but he was a solo bird, but seemed to be socializing with his neighbors. We saw a pair of ravens -- I hadn't realized just how common ravens are in New England, but, now that I learned how to tell a raven from a crow easily (beak shape, mainly), I was surprised to see just how many we saw on the drive back home. There aren't that many in Massachusetts, but they're all over New Hampshire and Vermont.
And we also talked to three ten-year-old kids who were hanging out there, and told them stories about Dr. Irene Pepperberg's research with Alex the grey parrot. I assume they enjoyed that, because they kept coming back to us and demanding more stories.
From there, we went to the American Precision Museum, a museum about the history of machine tools and industrialization in the United States. It's a small museum, and fascinating. They have interns there who will demonstrate the use of machine tools to visitors -- one young woman (a student at a local vocational/technical high school) used a lathe to make us a tiny goblet out of a brass rod.
Friday morning was frustrating. The washing machine at my grandparent's cottage was working poorly, and it was just one of those mornings when everything just felt like it was going wrong. Eventually, we took the laundry to the laundromat to finish it, so we could wash the sheets and towels and re-make the bed we used. We'd intended to leave in the morning, maybe 10 AM or so, in order to be able to see a couple sights on our way to our next, and final, stop, but we didn't leave until the afternoon. We were going up to the Northeast Kingdom area around Lake Memephremagog, and could have gone to a Cabot Creamery tour, and a meadery, and, once we got closer, to the library in Derby Line, which is a library which crosses the United States and Canadian borders.
Of those, we only made it to the meadery, Artesano Mead, and I'm glad we did. The meadery is in a small complex right next to the Groton public library -- which is itself an interesting building, in that it is a rebuilt house which used to belong to a couple who were deeply involved in the library and historical society. The meadery itself has three rooms -- the back room where the brewing and bottling happens, the front room/tasting room where you can buy stuff, and a side room where they make ice cream which they sell out the window. I think that part of the business is entirely unrelated to the rest of it, but, well, they wanted ice cream, so who can blame them? The ice cream was really good, too.
The place is owned and run by the husband-and-wife team of Mark Simakaski and Nichole Wolfgang, who were both chemical engineers before they got into mead. Nichole was the person who showed us around, and, as you might expect, a chemical engineer who now owns a meadery is a person who really sets off my geek-dar. . .
They've also got a facebook page. . . http://www.facebook.com/artesanomead
They have made a half-dozen styles and flavors of mead -- and have sold out of all of them except their basic one and their spiced one, both of which are pretty darned good. I don't know that it's the best mead I've ever had, but they're both quite acceptable, and we bought a bottle of each. Nonetheless, I really hope they make up another batch of their cinnamon and chili mead.
Also, they've just bought three more fermentation tanks, and they're looking to name them. All their tanks are named after gods or mythological figures that have something to do with bees, honey, or mead, and they're trying to use as many different mythologies as possible. So, if you want to enter the contest, the prize for suggesting the mythological name that they like best is that the will name one of their fermentation tanks that.
After that, we continued north to Newport, Vermont, on the shores of Lake Memephremagog, where my father was to swim in the six-mile race of the Northern Kingdom Swim, and I was to accompany him by kayak. Each swimmer has a kayaker as support and safety crew. In our case, of course, we had the prettiest kayak there, the one that Father built himself. Gorgeous craft.
We got there Friday afternoon, in enough time to pick up some last-minute supplies Dad had forgotten, and even to march in the pre-race parade. The race is part of the Kingdom Aquafest, which includes also a street fair and parades and things like that. There had apparently been a Pet Parade earlier which we weren't around for, but this parade also included lots of adorable puppies and a llama and a camel, too. Also a pony. And a Chinese-dragon-parade version of Memephre, the Lake Memepremagog sea monster. (There was a prize for any kayaker who managed to get photographic evidence of that cryptid. I didn't see any when I was out there, but, well, I was busy.)
Then there was a pasta dinner, and we all turned in early. Lis and I stayed in a nearby hotel, and Dad stayed at the campground next to the lake, sleeping on an air mattress. His original plan was to put the mattress in the back of his SUV, but it was such a nice night that he slept outside. We offered to let him stay with us in the hotel, but he preferred his plan.
We got together again Saturday morning around seven, listened to the last-minute instructions, got Father covered in sunscreen and the boat set up. We kayakers for the six-mile race took our positions on the water at about 8:15, and the swimmers started off at 8:30. And we were off.
I have a Google Tracks data set showing where we went, but we're still parsing it to work out what, exactly, the timing was like. I think that we may have gone as much as an extra half-mile in drifting off course and heading back to each buoy, but I'm going to need to analyze the data to figure it out.
Father can usually manage a mile in 35 minutes, so he was hoping to do the six miles in 3:30, which I thought was optimistic, given that, even if you can do the first and second miles in 35 minutes each, it seemed unlikely that you could manage the sixth one that way. . .
As it turned out, the lake was unusually rough. There were rolling breakers and whitecaps in the middle of the lake, which is NOT typical. There were serious currents. The best time posted for the 6 mile swim was 3:12. We came in at a grueling 4:30, and father told me that, for the last mile, he'd been composing in his head his email explaining to all his swimming friends that, it'd been fun, but this was his retirement from the sport. Honestly, even in the kayak, it hadn't been easy -- the rollers were high enough and the currents were weird enough that my arms are still a little sore from trying to keep the boat on course, near Father, and not swamped.
But we made it, in a remarkably respectable 4:30, which was in the back half of the pack, but not the last quarter. Honestly, having compared the average times in previous years to the average times in this one? In a normal year, the 3:30 might not have been as overconfident as all that. I still think it'd be overconfident, but I wouldn't have been surprised by a 3:45.
Well, after that, we relaxed a bit, and then headed home, where our kitties were very happy to see us.
And that's what we did.
The first thing we did was drive out to the Capital District of New York to visit friends. Lis had never even MET their two children, a four-year old son and a two-year-old daughter, both of whom are remarkably well-behaved, kind, polite, and determined. Really nice kids, and really nice parents, too.
I'm HOPING that I helped them with a home-repair project, but I'm worried that I made things worse. I can't tell, honestly.
While we were there, besides getting to hang out with our friends, playing Magic: The Gathering (they held a draft tournament in their own house to give us a chance to play, too), watching Doctor Who, and playing with their kids, Lis and I also headed out on our own to take a walk through a nature reserve by the Erie Canal, where we saw a blue heron, a beaver, and a frog the size of my thumbnail, among other things, and we also went to Jumpin' Jack's Drive-In in Scotia. We first heard about Jumpin' Jack's from my father, who went there in college, and Lis and I really love it. It is the paragon of a certain style of burger. Does that mean it's the best burger out there? Well, that depends on whether you like the style or not. It is the best griddle-fried thin-style burger I've ever found -- but a lot of people don't like griddle-fried burgers in the first place, and this isn't going to change your mind.
But Lis and I do like that style, and stopping by Jumpin' Jack's was on our "must do" list when we were in the Capital District. Your can get a burger or cheeseburger, you can get raw or sauteed onions on it. Or you can get the Jack Burger, which has coleslaw on it. That's it. Oh, there are fried things, too, but we didn't get any of those, and the onion rings were unimpressive. Not bad, but not great, either.
We left on Tuesday, and drove out to Howe Caverns, a cave system that's been a tourist attraction since Lester Howe started giving tours of it in 1843. As of now, it's got comfortable, level brick walkways and electric lighting, so it's as easy to walk on as a slightly-damp brick sidewalk, as opposed to the tours in the 1840s, which involved wading through the underground river that dug out the caverns, and clambering over towering rocks.
From there, we went to a really nice, and surprisingly affordable, hotel in the Berkshires called The 1896 House. We woke up on Wednesday, and drove to Shakespeare & Company (the one in the Berkshires, not the famous bookstore in Paris) and saw their Performance Intern Company do The Two Gentlemen of Verona as part of their "Lunchbox Shakespeare" series of just-after-lunchtime plays. We got there early enough that we were able to take their 10 AM backstage tour. Lis went on the tour; I skipped it in order to lay out a blanket and take a nap in their rose garden. Which was also pleasant.
After the play was a question-and-answer period with the cast and director, also a worthwhile use of our time. Then we drove up to Ludlow, Vermont, where my grandparents have a cabin. From that home base, on Thursday, we went to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science's raptor (and other bird) rehabilitation and education center.
The best part of that was the enclosures where they keep the birds who are permanently crippled and can't be released to the wild. We got to see red-tails, peregrines, and bald eagles up close. We got to see one hawk just sorta generally chatting with the red-tails in the next enclosure over -- most of the enclosures had two birds in them, but he was a solo bird, but seemed to be socializing with his neighbors. We saw a pair of ravens -- I hadn't realized just how common ravens are in New England, but, now that I learned how to tell a raven from a crow easily (beak shape, mainly), I was surprised to see just how many we saw on the drive back home. There aren't that many in Massachusetts, but they're all over New Hampshire and Vermont.
And we also talked to three ten-year-old kids who were hanging out there, and told them stories about Dr. Irene Pepperberg's research with Alex the grey parrot. I assume they enjoyed that, because they kept coming back to us and demanding more stories.
From there, we went to the American Precision Museum, a museum about the history of machine tools and industrialization in the United States. It's a small museum, and fascinating. They have interns there who will demonstrate the use of machine tools to visitors -- one young woman (a student at a local vocational/technical high school) used a lathe to make us a tiny goblet out of a brass rod.
Friday morning was frustrating. The washing machine at my grandparent's cottage was working poorly, and it was just one of those mornings when everything just felt like it was going wrong. Eventually, we took the laundry to the laundromat to finish it, so we could wash the sheets and towels and re-make the bed we used. We'd intended to leave in the morning, maybe 10 AM or so, in order to be able to see a couple sights on our way to our next, and final, stop, but we didn't leave until the afternoon. We were going up to the Northeast Kingdom area around Lake Memephremagog, and could have gone to a Cabot Creamery tour, and a meadery, and, once we got closer, to the library in Derby Line, which is a library which crosses the United States and Canadian borders.
Of those, we only made it to the meadery, Artesano Mead, and I'm glad we did. The meadery is in a small complex right next to the Groton public library -- which is itself an interesting building, in that it is a rebuilt house which used to belong to a couple who were deeply involved in the library and historical society. The meadery itself has three rooms -- the back room where the brewing and bottling happens, the front room/tasting room where you can buy stuff, and a side room where they make ice cream which they sell out the window. I think that part of the business is entirely unrelated to the rest of it, but, well, they wanted ice cream, so who can blame them? The ice cream was really good, too.
The place is owned and run by the husband-and-wife team of Mark Simakaski and Nichole Wolfgang, who were both chemical engineers before they got into mead. Nichole was the person who showed us around, and, as you might expect, a chemical engineer who now owns a meadery is a person who really sets off my geek-dar. . .
They've also got a facebook page. . . http://www.facebook.com/artesanomead
They have made a half-dozen styles and flavors of mead -- and have sold out of all of them except their basic one and their spiced one, both of which are pretty darned good. I don't know that it's the best mead I've ever had, but they're both quite acceptable, and we bought a bottle of each. Nonetheless, I really hope they make up another batch of their cinnamon and chili mead.
Also, they've just bought three more fermentation tanks, and they're looking to name them. All their tanks are named after gods or mythological figures that have something to do with bees, honey, or mead, and they're trying to use as many different mythologies as possible. So, if you want to enter the contest, the prize for suggesting the mythological name that they like best is that the will name one of their fermentation tanks that.
After that, we continued north to Newport, Vermont, on the shores of Lake Memephremagog, where my father was to swim in the six-mile race of the Northern Kingdom Swim, and I was to accompany him by kayak. Each swimmer has a kayaker as support and safety crew. In our case, of course, we had the prettiest kayak there, the one that Father built himself. Gorgeous craft.
We got there Friday afternoon, in enough time to pick up some last-minute supplies Dad had forgotten, and even to march in the pre-race parade. The race is part of the Kingdom Aquafest, which includes also a street fair and parades and things like that. There had apparently been a Pet Parade earlier which we weren't around for, but this parade also included lots of adorable puppies and a llama and a camel, too. Also a pony. And a Chinese-dragon-parade version of Memephre, the Lake Memepremagog sea monster. (There was a prize for any kayaker who managed to get photographic evidence of that cryptid. I didn't see any when I was out there, but, well, I was busy.)
Then there was a pasta dinner, and we all turned in early. Lis and I stayed in a nearby hotel, and Dad stayed at the campground next to the lake, sleeping on an air mattress. His original plan was to put the mattress in the back of his SUV, but it was such a nice night that he slept outside. We offered to let him stay with us in the hotel, but he preferred his plan.
We got together again Saturday morning around seven, listened to the last-minute instructions, got Father covered in sunscreen and the boat set up. We kayakers for the six-mile race took our positions on the water at about 8:15, and the swimmers started off at 8:30. And we were off.
I have a Google Tracks data set showing where we went, but we're still parsing it to work out what, exactly, the timing was like. I think that we may have gone as much as an extra half-mile in drifting off course and heading back to each buoy, but I'm going to need to analyze the data to figure it out.
Father can usually manage a mile in 35 minutes, so he was hoping to do the six miles in 3:30, which I thought was optimistic, given that, even if you can do the first and second miles in 35 minutes each, it seemed unlikely that you could manage the sixth one that way. . .
As it turned out, the lake was unusually rough. There were rolling breakers and whitecaps in the middle of the lake, which is NOT typical. There were serious currents. The best time posted for the 6 mile swim was 3:12. We came in at a grueling 4:30, and father told me that, for the last mile, he'd been composing in his head his email explaining to all his swimming friends that, it'd been fun, but this was his retirement from the sport. Honestly, even in the kayak, it hadn't been easy -- the rollers were high enough and the currents were weird enough that my arms are still a little sore from trying to keep the boat on course, near Father, and not swamped.
But we made it, in a remarkably respectable 4:30, which was in the back half of the pack, but not the last quarter. Honestly, having compared the average times in previous years to the average times in this one? In a normal year, the 3:30 might not have been as overconfident as all that. I still think it'd be overconfident, but I wouldn't have been surprised by a 3:45.
Well, after that, we relaxed a bit, and then headed home, where our kitties were very happy to see us.
And that's what we did.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-10 03:05 pm (UTC)Near-misses and well done
Date: 2011-07-10 03:24 pm (UTC)When I was 13, we took a vacation a few hours' drive from Howe Caverns and planned a whole day around it. Two carloads of families; alas, I was in the car that broke down halfway and spent the day in the repair shop.
Sounds like you had a great vacation, hurrah! And big congratulations to your father. Very impressive!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-10 04:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-10 08:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-10 09:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-11 12:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-11 04:11 am (UTC)*goes to suggest Britomartis to the meadmakers*
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-11 12:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-11 12:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-12 12:03 am (UTC)Glad you had a great time!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-12 08:44 am (UTC)I was at my job for 17 years before I had enough seniority to stretch a holiday like that. Only 2 people out of our 10, could be on vacation at the same time.
Glad you could go and enjoy yourself, and see your folks too!!! :o)