Trip to TN to visit the Grandparents!

Well, I had a birthday this past week. I hit the big 35. Seems like a nice round number. Maybe it means I'm all grown up.... Naw, couldn't possibly. Well, for my birthday, my parents bought us round trip tickets to TN. So we loaded up the duffel bag with an impossible amount of crap and jumped on the 2 hour flight to Nashville. From there is was a 2 hour drive to the mountain. Much better than a 10 hour drive from Naptown. Jamie was a little angel for the flight and not too bad on the car ride.

One of the points of our visit was to get a four generation photograph with Jamie, Dad, Grandpa and great Grandpa, so on Friday we went to Sears to get our pictures taken. Jamie thought the photographer lady was crazy. She kept making obnoxious silly faces and loud noises, none of which Jamie much appreciated.





Yeah, that was about the best we could do. Pretty sad, huh?

Back home, Jamie was all smiles.

Here he is in his "Sunday, go to church" kilt:




with Ma's horses Cherokee "Cheeky" and Cino






Saturday, Christine and I did a nice long hike at Frozen Head State Park. No pictures, but here's a map:



Sunday Shawn came up for a visit and we hiked to the top of the mountain and descended via a new oil pipeline right of way. It was quite steep.

Monthly update

Seems like all I can manage these days is a monthly update of ye ol' blog. Alas! I've been super busy lately. First I went to a tribology (the study of friction) conference in San Diego, CA, then a funding review meeting in Gainesville, FL. It's always a major crunch to get a years worth of data analyzed, condensed, and thrown into a 30 minute PowerPoint presentation. After that was over, we packed up and went to TN to visit the grandparents. So basically, I've been going somewhere or getting ready to go somewhere nonstop for the last month. I did manage to take lots of pictures everywhere I went, so let the fun begin...

We'll start in San Diego: Due to a stroke of luck, I was there for the big fires. The city was filled with smoke and haze so thick that you couldn't breath and when you blew your nose, you were left with black boogers. Nice.

In no particular order, sights from San Diego:

Wrought Iron:


The old hotel on Coronado


The old hotel on Coronado


Panorama showing the smoke. (Click for Full Resolution version)


Night Skyline from Coronado



Now onto Gainesville: Okay I didn't actually take any pictures of Gainesville. As far as I could tell, it was a godforsaken place. But I did go to San Augustine, the oldest settlement in North America. I was a little disappointed in what I found there, like most everything in FL, it had been, for lack of a better word, Disneyfied. All the old buildings had been converted to shops selling the fudge, ice cream, and stupid hats so typical of a tourist town. You really had to look pretty close and peel back the layers to find any true old world charm. Here's what I came up with:













Some color, just 'cause:

2 More Rides

Well, we've been putting the bike trailer to good use. We took two nice long rides on consecutive weekends. Both rides were roughly 25 miles long.

The first weekend we went to the Eastern Shore and road from Easton, MD to Oxford, MD, took a ferry from Oxford to Bellevue and then headed back to Easton. The ferry passage was authorized in 1683 and has been operating on and off since then. It is believed to be the oldest continually operating ferry service in the United States.


View Larger Map

A few pictures:

Jamie's Copassenger:


Taking a break in Oxford:


Leaves are tasty!


Daddy tired. Pulling trailer against bay breeze hard work.


Waiting for the next ferry to arrive:


The Ferry Departs!


********************************************************

This past weekend we went to the C&O canal towpath and rode from Sharpsburg, MD, famous of course, for the battle of Antietam, the single bloodiest day of battle in the Civil War, to Harper's Ferry, WV famous for the John Brown's rebellion against slavery. A lesser known fact is that Harper's Ferry served as the supply depot for the Lewis & Clark expedition. Meriwether Lewis is of course Jamie's namesake and long lost cousin.

We made it!


Gnats were prevalent.


Gotta crawl after being strapped in the trailer!


Visiting long-lost relatives:


Future hiker:


Back at the truck!

Not to be left out...

Poor Cousin Dan, he came to visit back in June and we never posted any pictures from his visit. Well it was for a good reason, Christine's camera was messed up at the time and all the pictures turned out all blurry lookin'. We'll we finally got a decent picture from Aunt Mary. So here's Cousin Dan feeding Jamie a bottle.



The funny thing here is that Christine used to be Dan's Nanny when he was Jamie's age and now here's Ol' Dan feedin' her boy. Time apparently flies.

Odds and Ends

I've gotten behind on my posting. Here are some random odds and ends.

Christine's Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim did a quick visit couple weeks ago. We went out to breakfast, Jamie stole Jim's homestyle potatos and choked on cheerios. A good time was had by all.



We got a bike trailer. Unfortunately the great pictures of Jamie in the trailer with his little helmet on are on Christine's camera and I forgot to get copies.



We went to watch a cyclocross race this weekend. Cyclocross is a weird sport started in Belgium where you ride around on a bike that is not quite a mountain bike but not quite a road bike. You ride over different obstacles and sometimes have to hop off the bike and run and jump over hurtles while carrying your bike. Looks like fun. Both Christine and I are convinced we need to start racing.

Here are two skinny Italian pros riding through a sand trap (actually it's a beach volley ball court):



The race course went through a city park in Downtown Baltimore. They had swings. As you can see, Jamie LOVES swinging!!!

Recent visit

Jamie's "fairy godcousins" Dylan and Tristan visited from Asheville this past weekend. Dylan (14) and Tristan (just turned 12) are Christine's two godsons, though Tristan has always referred to Christine as his "fairy godmother", and it follows that he would refer to Jamie similarly. The boys brought Jamie a skunk suit. Dylan wanted Jamie to match him, because Dylan has his hair dyed black with a white streak.

Recent aquisition...

A kilt for the part-Scottish laddie. And remember, "if it's not Scottish, it's crrrap"!





Somebody get the boy some lederhausen please!