Our fall vacation
galacticvoyeur and I just returned from a rather wonderful fly/drive trip out east. We began on a Saturday by flying to Cleveland, a short and simple hop. From there we drove to Akron to see my very kind, sweet, and extremely funny Aunt and Uncle, the last of the breed on my Mom's side. My cousin and her hubby were also there and we had a wonderful visit. I was inspired at the early age of three to move to the Midwest as soon as I could. The smells and colors of Ohio mesmerized me then and still do. I wanted to have cardinals, thunderstorms and fireflies in my life. And seasons - I had (gardening) zone envy even as a child, while I tried to pretend that our back yard in Pacoima, CA was actually a forest. I was not very successful, considering the temperature never fell below 80 or so. The highlight of my day in Akron was driving over to my grandparents' old house at 85 Mount View to walk around the block. I remembered so many things, and, lo and behold, their house looks surprisingly similar to the house I bought here in NE Mpls in 1997. Full circle completed, we drove off to Pittsburgh to see galacticvoyeur's family and former stomping grounds.
I have never travelled in the mountains of PA, and it was a marvelous sight with all the fall colors emerging. I enjoyed our drive immensely, and we spent about 3 days visiting, Jeff moving some boxes for mom and fixing a few things here and there. Of course, even though she asks him to do this when he is in town, she feels bad making him work, so it was a fairly typical family comedy. We also visited the Carnegie Museum (most notably the Scaife Gallery of fine art - mmmmmmm) and the Phipps Conservatory. (Picture the Como multiplied by a factor of 8). Hubby brought a "real" camera and a wide angle lens, so I took as many pictures as I could and really enjoyed tapping into that old talent. Haven't used a real camera body since 1982 when I whacked my 2 year old daughter in the head with my Canon AE-1 by accident. Since then it has been point-and-shoot or more recently, digital. I love the sound that the lens makes when you shoot a real camera, and the heft of it, and even the smell. Makes a person really think before shooting. Nice results, too, since we got the pix back right away.
From there, it was off to Ithaca in our shiny red rental car. It was another 6-7 hour drive, just long enough to wonder if you're there yet. More beautiful mountains and fields of corn (I was channeling Van Gogh through the lens) and into the very crowded college town where my wee daughter, tigrr_lily is going to grad school. It is a wondrous place - tiny, hilly, curvy, and full of adorable young minds and too many cars. Lillian lives in a 200 year old house that appears to have been a barn originally. It is nicely tucked into a gorge and she has two waterfalls out her window. Pretty wonderful, I'd say. It is a town in which all the available housing has been made over for students, and there are only about 6 garages in the whole place. Those have also been made into student housing. I really enjoy hanging out with students, and grad students are just about the most interesting. Here are these two women, in a farm-like kitchen, wearing home-made aprons and talking about canning and just having the best time. It takes a leap of imagination to realize that they are bona fide scientists when they are at work. I love it all.
Jeff got a great opportunity to visit with his friend, Josh, from his days with the War Pigs (and other transmogrifications that bands tend to make). He came up for a visit from Binghampton, NY and Jeff went back with him to spend the evening jamming and having a generally great rocking time. His eyes got kinda misty telling about it; he needs to do lots more of this. Life is too short to not do what makes you the happiest, which, in his case, is play drums as loud and well as possible.
On the second Saturday, we hopped into the car and returned to Cleveland right on time; the airlines informed us that our flight had been cancelled, and would we mind taking an earlier flight that left RIGHT NOW? We were thrilled, and ended up getting home earlier than we would have by about 2 hours. That made up for the fact that I was "personally selected for our special treatment" by the NSA drones. I only got hassled for my nasal spray, and tsk-tsked for not filling out a manifest for it. I said, "Oh, you can toss that," which seemed to make them even more suspicious. Go figure.
So we are back home now, and barring any hotel stays in relation to FallCon, will be staying put for a while and hunkering down for winter, which they Do Not Have where I come from. I love it here.
I have never travelled in the mountains of PA, and it was a marvelous sight with all the fall colors emerging. I enjoyed our drive immensely, and we spent about 3 days visiting, Jeff moving some boxes for mom and fixing a few things here and there. Of course, even though she asks him to do this when he is in town, she feels bad making him work, so it was a fairly typical family comedy. We also visited the Carnegie Museum (most notably the Scaife Gallery of fine art - mmmmmmm) and the Phipps Conservatory. (Picture the Como multiplied by a factor of 8). Hubby brought a "real" camera and a wide angle lens, so I took as many pictures as I could and really enjoyed tapping into that old talent. Haven't used a real camera body since 1982 when I whacked my 2 year old daughter in the head with my Canon AE-1 by accident. Since then it has been point-and-shoot or more recently, digital. I love the sound that the lens makes when you shoot a real camera, and the heft of it, and even the smell. Makes a person really think before shooting. Nice results, too, since we got the pix back right away.
From there, it was off to Ithaca in our shiny red rental car. It was another 6-7 hour drive, just long enough to wonder if you're there yet. More beautiful mountains and fields of corn (I was channeling Van Gogh through the lens) and into the very crowded college town where my wee daughter, tigrr_lily is going to grad school. It is a wondrous place - tiny, hilly, curvy, and full of adorable young minds and too many cars. Lillian lives in a 200 year old house that appears to have been a barn originally. It is nicely tucked into a gorge and she has two waterfalls out her window. Pretty wonderful, I'd say. It is a town in which all the available housing has been made over for students, and there are only about 6 garages in the whole place. Those have also been made into student housing. I really enjoy hanging out with students, and grad students are just about the most interesting. Here are these two women, in a farm-like kitchen, wearing home-made aprons and talking about canning and just having the best time. It takes a leap of imagination to realize that they are bona fide scientists when they are at work. I love it all.
Jeff got a great opportunity to visit with his friend, Josh, from his days with the War Pigs (and other transmogrifications that bands tend to make). He came up for a visit from Binghampton, NY and Jeff went back with him to spend the evening jamming and having a generally great rocking time. His eyes got kinda misty telling about it; he needs to do lots more of this. Life is too short to not do what makes you the happiest, which, in his case, is play drums as loud and well as possible.
On the second Saturday, we hopped into the car and returned to Cleveland right on time; the airlines informed us that our flight had been cancelled, and would we mind taking an earlier flight that left RIGHT NOW? We were thrilled, and ended up getting home earlier than we would have by about 2 hours. That made up for the fact that I was "personally selected for our special treatment" by the NSA drones. I only got hassled for my nasal spray, and tsk-tsked for not filling out a manifest for it. I said, "Oh, you can toss that," which seemed to make them even more suspicious. Go figure.
So we are back home now, and barring any hotel stays in relation to FallCon, will be staying put for a while and hunkering down for winter, which they Do Not Have where I come from. I love it here.