Sand-us-key!

Ok, on the shores of Lake Erie, it's SO amazing here! The sun today was bright and warm, but not hot, and there was a good breeze all day. We left home yesterday around 11am, and around 1:30 we had a nice big flat tire. Ouch! So we got that changed up, and smooched along the highway a bit, and drank a beer, and the kids were stuck in the van, and then onward to the campground for the night. Nice enough place, though off the beaten track by 45 minutes or so! It's about 25 min from Alfred, which is about 20 min from anything lol! Beautiful if harsh country. Lovely hills and the Allegheny Plateau makes for lots of varied ecosystems there. A few dead Elms, lots of nice people, and some very poor towns...I wanted badly to stop and take pictures, but there is NO way we'd make camp that night before dinner if I got to do that! So I settled for reading most of the new Harry Potter book, instead. THAT was a fun read! Anyway, we made a nice camp last night, had some fried chicken and turkey sausage with garlic french beans and salad for supper, and a nice kip for the night.

This morning we were on the road by 10:30, which made a huge difference. We traveled about 40 miles less today, but got here 2 hrs. earlier. Same 1 hr. for lunch, 2 fuel stops, (getting about 200+/- mptank or about 10mpg hauling this thing!), but that extra hour in the AM made a huge difference. Ori has napped both days, which is pleasant. Beca, as usual, is an AWESOME traveler! She is fun and high spirited and cuddly and easy to be around. I am really enjoying her, and enjoying being with her.

The campground here is fine - easy to get to, lots of kids, pool, games, close to town and amusement park/water park. We're hooked into water, sewer and electric, so it's really just like home. YAY!

Tomorrow we are off to the rollercoasters! So hopefully more to report after ... if we all survive!

Deathly Tired

Well, we finally got our copy of the book - it looks like 759 fabulous pages! Well, long ones, anyway! I'm PSYCHED! We had a great time, Beca and I, at the line up at I Love Books here in town. The local drama group from the HS did improv and Beca got to do some with them! She LOVED it! We did most of the wait with both Ceillie and her Dad Mike (Mom Karen reading magazines with Zeph conked in the van), and Dan and Julia (Fiona and Lynn wen thome about 11:30 for some much needed sleeeeeeeeeep). So now I am going to go read the very first chapter, move the laundry yet again (at least all the diapers are washed!), and hit the hay. JAC goes to Saratoga very early, but that means he may make it back for a bit of our afternoon frenzy. Getting ready for this big trip is a TRIP! I will certainly have earned a vacation after all the washing and prepping, moving of foods and household items etc. to get the trailer really ready. Ori's stuff is all ready (I think! Come to think of it, his toothbrushing stuff isn't in there yet, but ok, that'll come on Sun. AM), and probably enough food stuff that we wouldn't have to get too much more. But it'd be nice to have some breakfast cereal, honey and condiments, too. ;-)

Our itinerary:

1st stop in W. NY (Breezy Point)
nights 2,3 and 4 at Cedar Point/Sandusky
night 5 in Bay City Michigan
Nights 6,7, and 8 at St. Ignace/Mackinaw Island
Nights 9 and 10 in Terrance Bay on Lake Superior )Neys Provincial Park_
Nights 11 and 12 in North Western Ontario (Aaron Provincial Park)
13 and 14 are at the family reunion in Portage La Prairie
15 is in St. Cloud Minnesota
16 is in Northern Illinois
17 is near Sandusky again, right on the lake
and 18 and 19 are HOME!!! It'll be nice to sleep in our own beds for a change!
20 is in Bridgeport at the Gathering of the Vibes
And that's all she wrote for our vacation this year! I'm REALLY excited about it - I think it'll be lots to do and see and lots of chill time too. :D YAY!

Ok, seriously, going to go read Ch. 1. I just can't wait a moment longer!!!

First words of the new book: "The two men appeared out of nowhere...".

Order...order!

Oh my how it gets chaotic so QUICKLY! The house just seems so FULL ... of crap ... laundry piled up downstairs, toys piled up on the main floor (although there is only supposed to be one room with toys in them), we leave in ONE WEEK and have to have clothes packed for both the trip (1 weeks worth plus spares) AND GOTV for the weekend after. YIKES! So I guess that's priority #1. Priority #2? Get the trailer up and going. I have stuff coming in from Sheri and Lisa, and have most of the rest of it here or there already, I just feel so UNready! I guess to some degree it'll just be that Saturday - assuming we have laundry done - that we have to move stuff like blankets and pillows, pots and pans etc., because I'm just not going to buy all that over again. Using all our own stuff is a really nice way to do it, but it's a bit more hassle, more chaos. Gessh.

We did manage to get Nesh here for a few hrs. on Frieday night (after rescuing Boo!) and we went to see Order of the Phoenix at the Jericho Drive-In. WHEEEEE! I enjoyed it a ton! Mostly I enjoyed full hrs. of my honey all to myself. :D T'was awesome. The movie? T'was good. Not awesome. But good. Maybe the HBP will be better...

We have reservations for the first week of our trip - I still need to book resvs for the LAST week - the week inbetween? Mostly in Canada, at the reunion, etc. So I'm much less worried. We'll find a nice lake somewhere - by the time we get that far we're nearly there! Well, nearly. ;-)

So a storm came through, not the worst, but quite a few trees came down, and WHAMMIE! The power is gone for 20+ hours. How lame! Well, it made for a few good pictures. And some nice family time. Beca and I did knitting and played some games, and Ori danced through the sprinkler a lot. And we got our errands done - the ones where the shops were open! Quite a few were shut down because they didn't have power either. Oh well. Ya do what you can!


Trucks in action - the town had to clear the really bad stuff this morning.


Detour at the undamaged end of the street.


Detour at the damaged end. That tree just folded under the wind.


Whoops! That's bad.


A lot of trucks, but it still took over 20 hours to get power back on pretty much all over the capital district (more than 15 towns w/out power). Jason said they didn't lose power last night, but they did late this morning. Lucky we got power back - he's bringing Boo over tomorrow!

Tonight B starts back at Aikido. I think she actually missed it! That's a GREAT sign!

Russ is likely to be in Ithaca by now - he left this morning (and who wouldn't, given that he doesn't have to hang out here w/no AC, 90F heat, high humidity, 2 crazy kids,and no power!). Enjoy the rest of your vacation Russ, and I hope your foot is better soon!

Just Passing Through...

Jerry is on the Wet Coast, hopefully his passport is DONE. He sure went READY, everything tickity boo, signed, sealed and just had to be delivered! He said everyone at the Surry office was super nice and worked with him as much as they possibly could have. So ... fingers crossed ... this morning he walked outta there with his new passport! I wont mention what the rest of his day was like, just in case he didn't get his luggage delivered and you happen to be sitting next to him just now... but it couldn't have been less than STRESSFUL!

MEantime, it's super quiet here. Me, Russ and Ori. And Zami. Hardly deserves a mention, except that Russ has damaged his carpels somehow and is going to the foot doctor tomorrow afternoon, instead of taking a train down to NYC. Poor Russ. He's getting some good reading done, though!

Camp

Yesterday I took Beca to camp. Sleepaway camp. Away for a whole week, camp. I feel like she might not come home till Winter Vacation, or she'll reemerge a butterfly, or perhaps she'll come home and think me extraneous, roll her eyes more often. Ori is outside stringing noodles, but it was only last weekend, or maaaaybe the weekend before that, when it was his sister sitting outside, stringing noodles. Coloring paper plates. Painting with shaving cream. Now she is off to camp, where I can't kiss her owies or help her to sleep. Where someone might make fun of her hair or her t-shirt and she'll have to absorb it, where she can't talk to me about the girl who budged in line or stole her toothpaste. My own fears, completely. I'm SURE that she will find ways of telling girls that do mean things that she doesn't like it. And that she'll find lots of kids who are consistently kind. And who love her jokes. I'll just sit home and worry.

I listened to This American Life's prose on Camp - boy did it SUCK. I think they did a good job portreying the kinds of camps that - I believe it was Joyce - was talking about, full of competition and kissing and popularity. I'm just so glad that something else was available. :D Thank goodness for smart people who like to do fun stuff with their kids...this camp was actually started as a family camp, and then they added a few weeks of kids only camp. It still has family camp, but only a week or so in August, now. It's a wonderful, small camp on a beautiful lake in the westermost Adirondack Park. The tall trees are shady, the cabins are log and sturdy. The trails are brown earth, the woods teem with life. It is a vibrant place with friendly people and interesting challenging things for the kids to do.

As I burrow my toes into the belly of my dog, who lounges under the computer table while I type, I am thinking about bug juice and color wars and war canoes and date night. I only hope that she survives childhood without them. Actually, the bug juice at Camp Unirondack was pretty tasty!