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And I’m not talking about Charlie…

Adrienne and I walked the couple blocks to the Oakside Cultural Center here in Bloomfield to check out a Mandolin Orchestra concert this afternoon. (The Bloomfield Mandolin Orchestra has been around for 70 years now, and is one of the many community music groups that operate in Bloomfield–pretty cool even if the quality isn’t quite top notch, or even middle at times…) The concert featured Italian and Neapolitan songs, and pretty much ended up being a sing-along for the crowd of mostly older Italian types. It was still enjoyable enough, and a nice little diversion from the many chores on our weekend list!

On the way home, we again saw more wild turkeys just hanging out in front yards. An odd site for what I consider to be quite urban suburbs, but still kinda cool! Gobble gobble.

The post named so because I was thinking we went to the apple orchard and bought some shoes (no, we didn’t buy shoes at the apple orchard), which made me think of Dad’s ‘apple-kicker’ shoes.

Anyhoo, Adrienne and I went up to the apple orchard we’d been too a couple times before, and while they didn’t have any Honeycrisps, we managed to leave with two other varieties (Fortunes and Crispins) as well as some fresh doughnuts, cider and fudge. Then we went to quite possibly the largest outlet mall I’ve been to, to purchase some Rockport dress shoes to replace my Rockport dress shoes I purchased more than 8 years ago at a Rockport outlet store somewhere in Iowa on the way to Wichita.(wow that was a really bad sentence but it’s late so I’m not editing.) I’d say I got my money’s worth.

I only took a couple photos of the day, and they’re both from the orchard. First up, Adrienne was so happy about snagging fresh-out-of-the-fryer doughnuts that she had to close her eyes lest they pop out in excitement! Or maybe she was just blinking.

(And yes, thank you for noticing, Adrienne did recently get a hair cut. We call it a little longer than Drew Barrymore-length.)

And here we are enjoying the treats at a table in the beautiful fall weather:

Call me in about 8 years and ask me how the shoes have done.

——-

Edit: here’s a photo of the old shoes, now disposed of:

It was great to have Derek and Heidi in town, if even for a short time. We crammed a bunch in, including walking 11 miles on Friday (and seeing lots of the City…), some good home-cooked meals and a bout of mini putt! Adrienne totaled the scores (David helped just a bit), and announced that Heidi came in 4th, David third and Adrienne and Derek tied for first. The next day after Derek and Heidi left we recounted – and have new results! Heidi fourth, Adrienne third, David second and Derek in first place!

Vacation is wrapping up… David heads back East early tomorrow (Wednesday), while Adrienne gets on a plane down to San Jose for work; she’ll fly back home Friday. We closed out the vacation how we started – with a stop at Burgerville. We’ve stayed at the house of one of Adrienne’s college friends, who is currently teaching in Malaysia, these last few days in Portland. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a Burgerville down the road and we needed dessert to go with Jon Stewart.

Today was actually our only full day in Portland, but we managed to explore two extinct volcanic cinder cones, both within the city limits. Also did some street-food exploring downtown, and some local music exploring at a park near where we’re staying. Also had some good Thai food the previous night, and David got Adrienne to go on a run with him, though she darn-near broke her ankle in doing so (watch out for pears on the sidewalk, is the lesson learned). We also celebrated Adrienne’s Mom’s birthday with family and lunch at a cool elementary school-turned-restaurant/hotel/movie theater. A good vacation, but it’s always nice to get and be home.

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Not much narrative, I think the photos speak for themselves.

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This morning I got up to go running in the 43 degree weather – brr-ish! Did have a high in the lower 80s today, but it still gets pretty chilly at night. Not much action today, hanging out with assorted family. Did a short Winery tour in nearby Lynn, WA, visiting 3 wineries, grabbing some photos of the windmills on the way home. Had dinner at Elaine and Mike’s, with caught steelhead trout and  salad of fresh veggies from the garden. Even played some ping pong outside. Tomorrow’s plans include a hike and visit to the county fair.

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I call it a half-day since 6 hours of it was sitting on a plane – Adrienne in First Class (she unknowingly and unwantingly got upgraded because of her Elite status!) and David back with the commoners. Flight was fine, got into PDX a bit before 1pm local time. Took a while to get our rental car (asked for a compact and the smallest they had was a Chevy Malibu – so far a pretty nice riding car), and then got on the road. Rather than taking the quickest route to Goldendale (via 84 along the Columbia River), David suggested we take a scenic route along US26 through Mount Hood. On the outskirts of Portland we happened (ok, maybe planned…) to find a Burgerville – the Portland equivalent to Beef-a-Roo – where lunch/dinner (was so filling!) was acquired. Should you visit, know the 10 onion ring basket gives you more than 10 onion rings! Food was very good, and then we were on our way to the Mountain. We stopped by Goverment Camp, OR (basically the peak of Mt. Hood) and did a 3-mile round trip hike to Mirror Lake. Also stopped by the famous Timberline Lodge (exterior scenes of The Shining were filmed there).  Continued to take “back” roads to Goldendale – I was really blown away by the beauty of Rt. 44 between US35 and US197 – you’re literally driving down the mountain and view the change in scenery from Mountain to farm valley (just west of Dufur is beautiful!) to the Plateau area on the other side of the Cascade Mountain Range. There are now literally hundreds of electricity-generating windmills on the hills along the Columbia River outside of Goldendale – these things must have a 30-foot or greater wingspan. It’s quite mesmerizing to watch them slowly flow through the wind… hard to keep your eyes on the road! It is interesting how much they’ve changed the landscape in the course of two years (when I was last here – for Christmas two years ago – there just a couple windmills). I’ll grab some photos sometime hopefully – I think I’ll just keep updating the photo gallery below, so enjoy for now!

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In an attempt to beat the 95+ degree heat yesterday, we headed out to do some returning (of goods purchased) and movie watching at the massive and massively-busy Garden State Plaza. The theater was packed as well, though I must say the stadium seating and large seats were quite nice. I hadn’t heard anything about Inception, but Adrienne wanted to see it. She seemed to rather enjoy it, but I came off thinking it was too long and lacked originality – just another rip-off of The Matrix and going back farther, Flatliners.

After the movie we headed to Mario’s in Clifton. David had read a review that piqued his interest, so we wanted to check out what this very-flat Emma pizza was all about. The atmosphere of this decades-old, family-run Jersey business was just what you’d expect, and what I’d prefer any day over a meal at any of the restaurants whose decor philosophy is putting up garage sale items on the walls. After a starter salad (that had all iceberg lettuce as greens – not great but about what I’d expect), our large 10-slice Emma pizza came out, with half spinach and garlic and half meatball (sliced). This pizza was thin! It was also very good. Perhaps not an everyday slice for me, I like more crust, but worth going back for. One drawback or advantage, is you can eat a lot of it! We walked out with just two slices in the doggy bag. I will say I was very hungry, having skipped lunch. Check out the photo below, where the the meatball slices are about twice the thickness of the rest of the pie. And there are more photos and history at the above link.

This vacation narrative begins a few days before the vacation… Monday night I noticed our ice cream in the freezer was soft, and our sorbet was all liquid. I guessed the door may have been left ajar due to a towel around the handle, and made sure the door was closed before going to bed. Tuesday morning things still didn’t seem cool enough, and quickly enough I deduced the refrigerator was not working. I put in a call to Sears Service (for our Kenmore fridge), and was told the first appointment available was 8 days out! Did some research and learned the overload relay on the compressor often fails, so I pulled the fridge apart and sure enough, the relay exhibits the symptoms. Made some calls to learn no one stocks this part (which again, the internets seems to think fails often on these models). So I ordered the part for next day shipping, and bought a whole bunch of ice and a cooler…

Part comes next day (Wednesday), only to find the connectors are not the same, sheesh. Have to do some light electrical work, and get the thing running. It’s Wednesday night and I’m not convinced this thing is running properly (other possibility is the compressor could be giving up the ghost). We had planned on leaving Thursday morning, but all preparations got derailed due to the fridge. I’m still not convinced it’s working (temp hasn’t fallen quickly enough to my thinking), but we leave the house about noon.

With just a stop for lunch at Panera at a town that I don’t recall at the moment, we made it up to the cabin in West Addison, VT by about 6:30pm. The countryside is just beautiful. Full of farms (and their smells…), but drive a couple more minutes and there’s Lake Champlain. Grabbed some dinner and breakfast fixings at nearby Vergennes, a town heavily influenced by its French heritage. Spent the next day and a half just relaxing, checking out the area, a little kayaking (we’re terrible), etc. Spent some time in Middlebury, a very quintessential Vermont town. Left a couple bucks at the Bixby Free Library in Vergennes, but walked out with a couple used books. The Library is in a bit of a budget crunch – they’re $58,000 behind on their yearly budget of just $178,000. Yikes!

We could only secure 2 nights at the cabin, so Saturday morning we packed up and made our way to Burlington, figuring we’d spend the day and night exploring, then head back home Sunday. Despite a very nice farmer’s market, Burlington didn’t seem to grab us (“too many hippies” according to Adrienne!), so we decided to drive north to the Champlain Islands to hopefully find a place to stay the night and explore. After a little trouble finding something, we secured a room at an Inn in North Hero, complete with small beach and cool places to bike. These island towns have a personality all their own, resort-like in a way but far more relaxed. Hung out by the water, did some biking, got some rest, watched part of the very-crappy Scary Movie 4. After breakfast Sunday we took the ferry across to New York, and decided to explore a little into the Adirondacks. Eventually made our way to Lake Placid, where David was able to show Adrienne some of the things he remembered from his earlier visit long long ago.

Our last goal was to get a hike in before making our way home. We found on a map a medium-difficulty 2.2 mile hike that we thought would suit us, ensuring we didn’t get home too late. But it didn’t find us, who knows where it was. We spotted another trailhead as we were driving, so I pulled a U-ee and checked it out. 5.2 miles round trip, rated difficult. Goes to the summit of Hurricane Mountain, a 2000 ft ascent. Adrienne says sure, let’s do it. Just as we’re starting a father-son duo exit the trail, we ask them how long it took them. An hour and 45 minutes to go up, they say. For 2.6 miles, yikes!

There’s an immediate ascent that has us pretty quickly questioning ourselves. It’s in the low 80s or cooler in the shade, but we’re already feeling hot and tired. Having no scale of how much we’d gone up (absolutely no distance markers, just the dang red dots on trees marking the way), we ask a solo hiker on his way down if there’s much more climbing ahead. He says, well, yes…We push on. David brought his small Canon camera. Adrienne’s got 20oz of water. We’re wearing tennis shoes. We stop often and question each other if we should go on. The few other hikers we pass (all coming down) look far more prepared – good hiking boots, fannie packs, some even have a real hiking pole in each hand. Feeling exhausted but trying not to show it, we come across another hiker and ask if we’re getting close. His reply? Less than an hour to the top…

By this point we’re probably halfway up the second ascent. You look up, and there’s just more up. It’s more rock climbing than hiking. Adrienne says it’s the hardest hike she’s ever done. David grew up among corn fields, what does he know? We’re pretty much out of water when it starts to rain. Heh, go figure. It feels good, shirts are soaked with sweat. We keep asking if we should just give up, but the answer is always, “we’ve come this far…”

And so we push on to the top. David was hoping to beat the father-son time, and I think we may have just barely. Bugs are bothersome at the top, but the view is beautiful. There’s a reason they put a fire watchtower up here, though it’s no longer used. Rain continues lightly, and soon enough we decide we better start on our way down. David finds going down to be more taxing on his quads (or is it just because they’re already so tired?), Adrienne thinks it’s more work for the calf muscles. It feels like slow going, especially with wet rocks that we’re extra-careful on.

We eventually make it down, still very warm and very thirsty. I guess all I can say is I’m glad to have done it and be able to tell you, without having any sprained ankles or worse!

It’s past 6pm, and we still have many hours of driving ahead of us, so we hit the road. We stop briefly to take a photo of where we went. Here’s the zoomed in view, note the fire watchtower for reference; and here’s the view from the car window.  There are actually still two vacation traditions left unfilled – Pizza Hut and fudge. We stop at Glens Falls, NY and cross off the Pizza Hut stop. Why is it a tradition? Who knows – it always seemed like Pizza Hut on family vacations was a treat when growing up, since it was an upgrade from the normal Saturday-night Little Caesars. We get a thin crust with sausage, peppers and olives, and bring the remainder of the 2-liter Dr. Pepper (just $4 more, with breadsticks!) in the car for the way home.

We eventually get home a bit past midnight, a bit late due to some map reading that should have happened but didn’t. Cest la vie. Nice to be home, nice to see the furballs. And still two vacation days before going back to work Wednesday! Better get working on that Fudge!

So now, enjoy the photos:

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It was just about 8 years ago I was asked – as part of a job interview, no less! – if I was a teetotaler. Well, I wasn’t and I’m not…I was hired (thanks for the vote of confidence Lu, despite your question :), and I quickly established myself as the local curmudgeon. So perhaps this post comes as no surprise to most of you, but I hope you’ll read on!

When we bought our car last year, high gas prices were still in the conscience of the news media, and thus we were seemingly always hearing of ways to improve your fuel economy. One of the ways is to drive slower. There’s lots of varying opinions on this, but the general fact is that most cars get the best fuel economy somewhere between 40 and 65 mph. Faster than that, and you’re expending more energy (fuel) to overcome the aerodynamics of the car than it is worth it in the mph increase.

So I decided at the time I would hold myself to 65mph on highways, unless I HAD to pass or for some reason it was unsafe at that speed. Of course, we haven’t really done much driving in the past year (about 4,000 miles), so I haven’t had much of a chance to exercise this practice. Segue to our first official road trip these past few days…

I did indeed hold to 65mph the last four days, almost up to Canada and back. (More on that coming soonish.) And here’s what I learned:

1. You really do get better gas mileage (duh)
2. It’s very easy to drive in the right lane – you just set the cruise control, and let everyone pass you (assuming you’re in somewhat heavy traffic). None of this constant pushing the accel to pass or tapping the brakes because there’s some slowpoke ahead of you – you are the slowpoke!
3. Your significant other gets over it – after announcing you are officially old – and then starts to appreciate your eco-sense and cheers as others stay out of your way (zooming past you) so they don’t ruin your non-touching-a-gas-or-brake-pedal mojo
4. You really don’t get to your destination that much later – especially if you fail to look at a map and get lost on your way home – but hey, lesson learned ok?!

So this is probably something you dear readers already know and practice, but if not, give the right lane a chance. You may like it!