A year ago this week, we were in Grand Canyon National Park.
Selfies are hard. This is one of our better ones.
We stayed right in Grand Canyon Village. This was taken just outside our hotel—Thunderbird Lodge.
Shoshone Point—a wild and gorgeous spot in Grand Canyon National Park
Shoshone Point
We even took a helicopter tour—scary at first, but spectacular and worth the price.
This trip was motivated by the death of my close friend Carla who loved the Grand Canyon and whose ashes are spread there. (Carla is the person who set me up with my husband more than 33 years ago.) I would consider it my first “bucket list” trip of retirement, even though I didn’t retire until six months later.
I’m lucky to have a kind and hardworking husband who is willing to travel with me (within reason). He doesn’t love it like I do, but he usually ends up liking the trip a lot more than he thought he would.
Thirty-one years of marriage—that’s a whole lot of time together!
The Grand Canyon lives up to the hype. Go, if you can.
I’ve posted in the past about how I started getting flowers delivered monthly during the pandemic. They’re not cheap, but if I renew around Black Friday, I get a huge discount on the annual subscription from BloomsyBox.
I really like having fresh flowers in the house. It brings me joy. (Guys, I’m telling you, this is a winner for your anniversary or her birthday or Christmas.)
And now, I will subject you to more photos of flower arrangements.
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I don’t like cold weather. I especially dislike snow. We have so many places in the Northeast that are spectacularly beautiful—in the summer. The Finger Lakes region (aka the Southern Tier) of upstate New York is one of them.
This area is a very long drive from Boston (about 6 hours), so I made this weekend’s graduation trip to Ithaca a “bucket list” sort of trip. I have enjoyed my many visits up here, but I doubt I’ll be back again.
Stunning glass sculpture at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY
Corning Museum of Glass
The city of Ithaca, NY is on Lake Cayuga and I’ve seen it many times. This trip, I wanted to see the next Finger Lake over—Lake Seneca. It is equally beautiful and has the cute town of Watkins Glen at the bottom.
The harbor area in Watkins Glen on Lake Seneca
Watkins Glen is also home to one of New York’s most beautiful state parks.
Watkins Glen State Park
There are many wineries in the area, but I had never been to a cidery, so we stopped at South Hill Cider after graduation for a glass of hard cider and a charcuterie board. Lovely spot and their dry, sparkling Baldwin cider was great. I bought a bottle to take home.
The view at South Hill Cider in Ithaca, NY
There’s an expression you may have heard—Ithaca is Gorges. Its deep gorges and their accompanying waterfalls are truly gorgeous, and there are dozens of them all over the region. I had seen the showstopper—Taughannock Falls—on a previous trip, but wanted to check out a couple of others before we left.
I broke a toe once, really badly. I don’t even like to think about it. It hurt SO much. (I stubbed it on a futon leg while barefoot.) It was wildly out of alignment. My husband had to pop it back into place. OUCH! Doctors can’t really do anything about toes. They just taped it to the one next to it and I limped around until it healed.
Fortunately no bones were broken during our Friday night “bucket list” excursion in Ithaca. The take-off was much wilder than I thought it would be. I was holding on to the basket for dear life. But once we were floating, it was quite magical. I’ve been in a helicopter before, but this was different. It’s as close as you can imagine to being a bird. So very many shades of green. The bottom of the basket occasionally scraped on some tree tops. “No problem,” said our pilot Dar. “Basket cleaners,” he called them. And then handed us some leaves. 🍃
My husband and son got put to work on both takeoff and landing. I took pictures and videos.
Three people were already pre-loaded in the basket at this point. The rest of us scrambled in over the sides, once “Captain America” was upright. Up we go, with Dar’s hand on the “flame throwers” (which were a bit loud, when in use)We floated over some waterfalls in Ithaca’s Robert H. Treman State Park
The magic of floating in the air and Dar thanking his ground crew.I really did not want to drop my phone, but eventually I relaxed enough to hand it to a fellow passenger from Pennsylvania. He took this nice pic. Group selfie with DarFarms and fields and Lake Cayuga in the distance
I think we were all a bit nervous about the landing. Once he found a good spot, Dar had the heavier people, including my very strong husband, move to one side of the basket. We all crouched down with all body parts inside the basket. We dragged on the ground for a bit. My husband got out and helped hold us down, which he said was hard. (He got a rather large bruise as we attempted to “jump” the basket up and over a small ditch. Inside the basket, we actually jumped up and down.)
When instructed, I did not waste any time grabbing the bars and vaulting myself out of the basket in a move that my son described as “wildly athletic.”
My son was instructed to run out into the field and help the ground crew pull down Captain America.
The landingMy son and the ground crew pulling Captain America back to earth Everyone helped put Captain America back in his bag.
We celebrated with a roadside champagne toast and then the ground crew drove us back to our car!
I’ve got a WEK “big easy” shirt that’s at least 20 years old, possibly 25. I’m pretty sure my mother gave it to me. Judging from the comments in the reviews, other people love it as much as me and have had theirs just as long.
It was originally a light lilac/periwinkle color. The sleeves now have a few holes. I have no idea why they have holes. It’s not made of wool (therefore the holes are not moth-made). I guess it’s just old.
I wear it on a daily basis as a sort of a house coat. It’s the perfect weight for a layer. I try not to wear it out (other than to the mailbox), but sometimes I end up wearing it to do a local errand.
#1) ME! I pay attention to my instincts and tend to value my own wisdom. I’ve got 58 years worth of life experience. Sometimes great revelations hit me late at night, frequently after smoking marijuana. Weed and writing both help me gain clarity.
I was recently honored to be nominated for my church’s Standing Committee. It’s the 6-member executive team that is responsible for all of the organization’s business affairs, including the annual budget and managing the staff. It’s validating, because it shows that other people respect my wisdom and judgment too.
#2) MY HUSBAND. He’s smart and he doesn’t panic. He’s very good at giving advice on medical concerns (i.e. it’s fine; you’ll be fine; I’ve had that; it’s nothing, etc) and occasionally gives good input on fashion (i.e. I like the red one better). It took him awhile to learn this, but he usually knows when the best advice is just to listen and not give any advice. IF I wanted advice on how to get physically stronger, I would ask him, because he knows a lot about it, but I’m way too lazy for lifting weights. He’s also a reader. In my opinion, people who read books tend to give good advice.
Some years ago, I would’ve put my parents on this list, but I don’t typically seek their advice these days.
My kids are getting better at advice-giving as they get older, especially my daughter who is basically a professional advice-giver through her astrology business.
My son is good for one-off tech tips like “try turning it off and on.”
The Standing Committee is also responsible for managing our beautiful, historic church building, erected in 1841.
Inside is an absolutely stunning, classic New England sanctuary in the Greek Revival architectural style. Services are online every Sunday at 10am (EST) here. Check us out, especially if you’re not “religious” and think traditional church is not for you. Atheists welcomed. We are a member congregation of the UUA. 🌈 ☮️ 💓 🌎 🎶
I like the build-up to Christmas. The lights, the presents, the anticipation. Also, the music, of course. I like listening to it and I love singing it.
We had a good eclipse! We headed out to the back yard about 2:15pm with some wine, weed, and snacks. We put Alexa in the window and asked her to play “eclipse songs” which she did.
We could clearly see the eclipse with our special glasses on, but we discovered that it was very difficult to get a picture of it, even with the glasses covering the camera lens, but we tried.
Failed attempt, but weirdly you can kind of see the reflection of the eclipse in that tiny green dot to the left of the sun
The temperature dropped noticeably as the sky darkened more and more. It was strange.
We could still clearly see our shadows, but the light was eerie. A sunset from above.
We decided to shut off Alexa at the point of maximum coverage (about 94%, I think). The last song she played was “Walking on the Moon” by The Police, which was perfect (a GenX classic). The animals got really quiet too. But then suddenly, a Barred Owl hooted really loudly. It startled us. And then another owl answered. It was pretty wild. I pointed my video camera towards the woods and I caughtthe sound when it happened again. Listen:
The owls really added to our eclipse experience, making it quite magical and mystical. I thought about how this is a time of transition for us.
All in all, a fun afternoon. Something different. It was also fun getting pics from the rest of the family in various locations and seeing all the posts online.
My daughter and her boyfriend managed to get this nice pic about an hour southwest of us:
About an hour after the eclipse, our woodchuck appeared for the first time this season. He’s been living under our shed for several years now. Hello friend.
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