Summer Vacation

[jamiebk]

Heading out tommorw AM for the annual backpacking trip to the high Sierra. We'll be around Ebbett's Pass following a bit of the Pacific Crest Trail in some spots. We'll be fishing, hiking, and generally "laying back" until nest Sat. when we return. We'll be at Mosquito Lakes Campground for the fist day or two and will backpack from there. A great time ahead. No phone, laptops or city noise/commute. I can't wait. See y'all

[monkeymd2b]

Well, having recovered from my 50 mosquito bites, I'm getting ready to head off for more camping fun. This time no backpacking to a campsite though. We're camping with my fiance's parents at Jack Creek (sort of near Sisters). Regular camping so I bought a queen sized inflatable mattress for the larger tent we're borrowing from my coworker. He is sure his parents will laugh at him but the way I figure it, if we're driving to a campsite and not hiking to it, bring as many luxuries as possible. They have an RV and depending on how things go, we may be showering with the solar shower or in the RV. His dad thinks it will be easier to just shower in the RV. I really could care less...okay well maybe not having to wear a bathing suit to shower will be nice. I've decided to make my birthday a work holiday for me so this is how we're celebrating! Japanese tradition has this concept called the Yakudoshi and women hit it at age 33 (based on the traditional method of counting age when kids are born at age 1 so on our calendar, it's the woman's 32nd birthday). Men hit it at age 42 (41 on our calendar). Women have theirs sooner because we mature faster and our bodies undergo more changes. So what does this mean? Well, it's my year of misery. It's apparently the worst year of health as it symbolizes the start of decline of health. Why is it the worst then is what I want to know! I was supposed to be done with childbearing by now so celebrating my birthday well is important so that any kids (which would be all my kids) born after this birthday aren't messed up. I told my fiance this and then said, "no pressure or anything but if our kids are born abnormal, he clearly didn't make my birthday special enough!"
well, time to hit REI for some small camping toys...I mean supplies.

[Schmeelkie]

Well, I had Bella at 34 (so I'm hitting my late 30's this year!! Yikes!) and she turned out fine. Was worried I'd be at the hospital again early this am as she had a minor reactive asthma attack last night and seemed to be breathing fast again at 5am. Inhaler took care of it and she was running around with her brother by 7am.

Our vacation this summer is going to consist of a few day trips inbetween finding a house to buy and the start of major packing/school starting. Poor Pumpkin loves staying at hotels and has been complaining that we're not going on a big trip this summer. I floated the idea of visiting mom-in-law over Columbus day and she proposed maybe meeting us in NYC and going to the American Museum of Natural History as her husband and Pumpkin are big dinosaur fans... we'll see. Got a bunch of friends in the area, so might get to see them too...and possibly a place to crash...

[Trumpetmaster]

Men hit it at age 42 (41 on our calendar). Women have theirs sooner because we mature faster and our bodies undergo more changes. So what does this mean? Well, it's my year of misery. It's apparently the worst year of health as it symbolizes the start of decline of health.

Oh my... I am so far over the hill

[barfle]

Oh my... I am so far over the hill

Hill? What hill? I don't remember any hill!

[piqaboo]

Yakadoshi, huh? Camping? I'd go for 5* hotels myself... oh wait, been there, didnt do that. Never mind! Happy birthday soon, MMD2B!

Poor Pumpkin loves staying at hotels and has been complaining that we're not going on a big trip this summer.

Altoid is losing her fondness for hotels/motels, I think.

[Schmeelkie]

So, it's Happy Birthday to me, and I decided to take the afternoon off work....except that I had a meeting that ran until after 1, and there's a bunch of stuff for an amendment to the human subjects folks that I have to take care of as our study coordinator's mom put her passport and visa in the wash while vacationing in Spain, so they're illegible, so she's back in her native Bulgaria trying to get new forms so she can come back here to work. Fun. I'll be lucky if I don't end up leaving late today. So much for using up some vacation time. Might be able to get out tomorrow afternoon, but it won't be the same....

[Trumpetmaster]

So, it's Happy Birthday to me, and I decided to take the afternoon off work....except that I had a meeting that ran until after 1, and there's a bunch of stuff for an amendment to the human subjects folks that I have to take care of as our study coordinator's mom put her passport and visa in the wash while vacationing in Spain, so they're illegible, so she's back in her native Bulgaria trying to get new forms so she can come back here to work. Fun. I'll be lucky if I don't end up leaving late today. So much for using up some vacation time. Might be able to get out tomorrow afternoon, but it won't be the same....

Happy Birthday!!!!!

[Schmeelkie]

Thanks TM!
Did get cake and cards and presents at home, so the day finally improved. Did end up getting out of work late, then a traffic jam (overturned semi) on the way home...We'll see about getting out early today...

[analog]

Well --
Fair Anne and I are enroute to Bellingham Washington to catch a ferryboat bound for Haines, Alaska.
From there we'll drive a few hundred miles further to Girdwood (near Anchorage) for three week visit with daughter.

Crossed the Rockies at Rocky Mtn Park. Trail Ridge Road is spectacular to this Florida boy!

"Faithful Old Truck" has got us to Seattle thus far - with luck will have some photos to post in October...


Cheers, all!

a.

[Shapley]

Have a safe trip! Enjoy the mountains. You'll probably feel inclined to call the Ozarks 'hills' when you get back...

[Trumpetmaster]

Well --
Fair Anne and I are enroute to Bellingham Washington to catch a ferryboat bound for Haines, Alaska.
From there we'll drive a few hundred miles further to Girdwood (near Anchorage) for three week visit with daughter.

Crossed the Rockies at Rocky Mtn Park. Trail Ridge Road is spectacular to this Florida boy!

"Faithful Old Truck" has got us to Seattle thus far - with luck will have some photos to post in October...


Cheers, all!

a.

Analog,
I was in Haines, Alaska. There is a fantastic Eagle Preserve there!
Enjoy your vacation!!
TM

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

The Ozarks are hills. Biggish, I grant you, but hills nonetheless. The Rockies, or even the Sierra Nevada, give you a whole new reference standard for "mountain". There are some large mountains, even by the Rockies' standard in Alaska so there's more to be seen ahead. Enjoy!

[Shapley]

The Ozarks are mountains, at least by definition. To us swamp-dwellers, they certainly seem mountainous, although Alaskans and Nevadans may argue the point. It's all relative, I suppose. Being a Mississippi River Valley dweller, I have a hard time calling those ditches they have in California 'rivers' as well...

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

River. That's a wide, sandy place with a damp line down the middle of it. Right? I always get excited when I cross one of those geographical features with water in 'em. This amuses the locals.

When I was a smallish child, my dad took me on a visit to his folks in Tennessee. At my grannie's house, there was a crick in the back yard and I was aghast! Horrified! I was heading upstream, right smartish, as fast as my little four-year-old legs could carry me to find that faucet and TURN IT OFF! before it wasted any more water!

Like I said, this sort of thing amuses the locals...

[Schmeelkie]

I feel the same way about lakes. Where I went to college they had Sunset Lake. As you could walk around it in about 15 min, I reclassified it as a pond. Grew up (and still live) next to a great lake - can't see across it.... then have the Finger Lakes to the south - takes at least an hour to drive around even the small ones. THOSE are lakes. Some are deep enough they had submarines on test runs in them. We call the Adirondaks mountains, but I think you can climb most of those in a day, so probably doesn't qualify by west coast standards. Did have a conference in Boulder, CO once - yup, those were MOUNTAINS!

[Shapley]

I remember there being a Hugh Grant film called "The Englishman Who Climbed a Hill But Came Down a Mountain". The premise was that a Welsh or Scottish (I don't remember which) community was at risk of losing their 'mountain' when the surveyor came to town to determine it's actual height. I believe it had to be 1000 ft. high to be a mountain, and the survey placed it at 990 ft. If I recall the movie correctly, the villagers conspired to keep the surveyor in the village while they hauled dirt and stone up the hill to riase the elevation to the requisite 1000 ft. It was not a bad movie.

[piqaboo]

Happy trails, analog and Fair Anne!

[DavidS]

Grew up (and still live) next to a great lake - can't see across it....

As a child I used to be taken to a resort called Westcliff-on-Sea, a suburb of Southend-on-Sea in the county of Essex, some 40 miles east of London.
From the beach you can just about see land on the horizon (on a clear day): When I was tiny, I thought that was "America and Australia"; when I got older I thought it was France; now I know it is the Kent coast on the other side of the Thames Estuary...

[Giant Communist Robot]

Grew up (and still live) next to a great lake - can't see across it....

As a child I used to be taken to a resort called Westcliff-on-Sea, a suburb of Southend-on-Sea in the county of Essex, some 40 miles east of London.
From the beach you can just about see land on the horizon (on a clear day): When I was tiny, I thought that was "America and Australia"; when I got older I thought it was France; now I know it is the Kent coast on the other side of the Thames Estuary...

But you should be able to see France across the straights of Dover, yes?