Visit with my mom

My mom has been spending the past week or so with us. We have had a lovely time, and have, in usual Lance style, stayed extremely busy! Unfortunately, we haven't documented everything through photos, but these have captured a few things.


We spent an afternoon in Central Park. Nice picture of the boys:



One highlight for us was finding this amazing Alice and Wonderland sculpture.




Mr. Serious:

And Kristal and I:

And Kristal and Mom:



We took mom to the Chelsea Market in the Meatpacking District, and explored bakeries, food shops, and a maze of other shops.


Mom digging in to a HUGE (typical!) pastrami sandwich at Carnegie Deli:


I'm hope she still calls me a son despite the fact that I posted that... :-)

Kristal, Mom, and the gang perusing the menu one of our favorite restaurants in Greenwich Village, Garage:


And finally, we made a trip to the visitors center at the George Washington Bridge, where we had a picnic dinner and played for a good hour:



In addition to all this stuff, we have:

• Gotten stuck trying to get into the Lincoln Tunnel for two hours and nearly got run over by a truck!
• Spent the whole day in Greenwich Village shopping and touring around
• Spent the day in SOHO doing what else -- shopping!
  

Tomorrow we are taking a road trip out to the Hamptons for some celebrity spotting and beach time! Hopefully pics soon!

After tonight's DNC speech, just three words

VOTE FOR OBAMA

3 Miles!

I have catching up to do, documenting my mom's visit to New York. But before I do, just wanted to post my 3 mile run accomplishment this morning! I don't think I've run three miles since high school! Pretty cool running along the Hudson River in the morning too.

Rzewski and piano

I ran across this image, and was reminded of the fabulous concert we went to where we had the immense privilege of seeing Frederic Rzewski perform his own piece, as well as Stephen Drury play piano with him.


I have been going through another phase where I listen to The People United Will Never Be Defeated, a gargantuan, 50 minute piano piece by Rzewski. The piece goes down without a doubt as my favorite slice of music of 2008.

Fiercely difficult, I have been playing the piano more, and use parts of this piece as warm up and a break from the main piece I have been practicing, Chopin's "Ocean" Etude, op. 25 no. 12. I continue making very slow progress on The People United -- more a passing interest than something I'm actively working on. But one of the days, when my chops are a little higher, it will be tackled.

Kristal can post blogs also??!!

Andrew has been bugging me to post on this blog almost as long as I've been bugging him to remember to update!
With summer coming to a close the kids and I are rushing to get to all the things we had planned done. One of those being to visit all the aquariums and zoos in the New York area. As you see from Andrews last post we hit the Bronx Zoo last weekend and earlier in the summer the boys and I went to the Central Park Zoo. Today it was the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn!
I had been to Prospect Park once before with my Mom and Kebra to visit the Botanical Gardens. The Zoo is just right across the entrance to the Botanical Gardens and very close to the subway stop. If only I had remembered that this morning! Damion, Miles, and I spent a good half hour walking through the park in heat and humidity only to end up back where we started and nearly at the entrance to the zoo.
Prospect Park Zoo was a lot like the Central Park Zoo. Very small but nice and clean and a good place to walk around for an hour or so.

Here are the boys standing in front of a big tree on our trek to find the zoo.



We also walked by the duck pond and found it covered in a green slime.



Only to find out it wasn't slime at all but a huge plant that grows over the entire pond. It's duckweed!



And finally we made it to the zoo.
At the entrance there are huge metal sculptures of animals. The kids took these next few photos.
This is an octopus in front of the entrance that Miles photographed.

And Damion took this photo of me and Miles in front of a frog getting eaten by a snake!
(You'll notice we are carrying umbrellas in nearly every picture. We came prepared for the rain that was predicted all day and of course other than sweat we were dry as a bone the entire time!)


The first exhibit we came to were the prairie dogs. They were not there but I spied wacky looking creatures in the bubble.



Miles went back into the bubble and took this picture of me and Damion standing outside of the exhibit shielding ourselves from the blazing hot sun.


Here is Damion looking exceptionally handsome watching the turtles.


Next we went onto have a little snack and watch the sea lion.

It took Miles forever to get a picture of the sea lions head out of the water. He was very patient though and ended up getting his shot.



There were of course other animals that we saw and between Damion and Miles we did get pictures of nearly every one but I will spare you for now.
Next up is the Queens Zoo!!

The End.

Bronx Zoo

Hi gang,

We went to the Bronx Zoo last weekend. First thing's first -- this zoo is HUGE. We managed to get through only half of it. We had a good time though. First, we took the subway out. Not all of us were thrilled to be going, however:


I then asked Miles for his best frowny face:


But we rallied for smiles around:


It was interesting, because the subways in Manhattan are, of course, all underground. But once they get outside to the other boroughs, they are above ground. This afforded us a very compelling look at The Bronx, a place that I am still too nervous to travel to...

Actually, let me do a quick aside here. I have wanted to see the Bronx, and have researched different areas and the history of the area. Problem is, it is still so rough in most places, that it makes me extremely nervous, both to go alone, or to do a family drive through. So basically, we just resolved to leave the Bronx alone. We did, however, get a great view of many parts of central Bronx from the subway. It truly is a rough and beat-down place. Many of the areas we saw were in shambles, there is graffiti everywhere, and we weren't even in the worst parts. Very eye-opening.

Anyways, the weird thing is that when you take the subway to the Bronx, you basically get off a normal subway station right in the middle of...well, the Bronx. There are very few signs, the area you get dropped off in is questionable, and basically, you have to make a bee-line three blocks one direction to reach the safe haven of the zoo. Which we did:


I'm not going to post pictures of all the animals we saw, but it really was cool. One of the most striking parts of the zoo was that it wasn't "big" like, say, the San Diego zoo is. I don't mean size-wise, but rather, new, commercial, refined, bright, etc. The Bronx zoo has a grit to it, old signs, old paths, an edge. Very, very different than the Portland zoo, which is "new", clean, pristine in many places, friendly, inviting, warm. This was not like that. It had the New York edge we have come to expect with most things.

A few pictures:


After the zoo, we took the subway back into Midtown, and when we got off the subway, it started raining! We frantically ducked under an awning so I could find the address of the Bubba Gumps we were looking for. I am furiously engaged with my blackberry!

We scored a good table, looking over Times Square:


And one last departing shot, courtesy of Damion:

Trip to Portland

As the fine readers of this blog know, we recently took a vacation. Hawaii? No. Europe? Naw. South America? Nope. We went to a most unsuspecting, discrete location. A place to certainly rival even the most exotic locale across the globe. None other than: Portland, OR.

Yes, we did find ourselves questioning why we would spend a vacations worth of money going "home" as opposed to anyplace else. But we knew it would be worth it, we owed it to the boys to get them back together with their friends, and we knew that the little jaunt to the Northern California coast would be heaven.

Seeing as this post has nearly double the amount of pictures any other post has ever had on this blog, I'm sure I'll be working it all night. And it promises to keep you reading for a while, for better or for worse. So let's get to it!


Leaving our building, the boys are strapped with their messenger bags as carry ons, and their suitcases. We left with 8 bags, we'd come back with 11. Ugh. BUT -- isn't it the sign of any good vacation when you come back with significantly more than you left with?

Miles, patiently waiting in the airport:


Andrew, seriously discussing our flight arrangements with the attendant:


Now, this is when I have to apologize. Because somehow, the fact that our flight in Newark got delayed an hour didn't get captured by photos. The fact that they finally boarded our plane, only to sit on the tarmac for four hours didn't get captured. No pictures were taken of the fact that after 4 hours of waiting on the plane, our pilot decided to turn the mug around and pull us back into the gate. Additionally, no pics of the fact that our pilot told us that despite the fact that we had nearly no food, no beverages, no ice, hardly any water, he still wanted to get the plane to Salt Lake City so we could "stay onboard" if we wanted to and finally get to Salt Lake, our connection city. Somehow, we missed taking pictures of the fact that we didn't make our connection in Salt Lake (obviously) and got to stay in a hotel for 2 hours that night, courtesy of Delta, before we had to get back to the airport, didn't get seats on the first flight out to Portland that next day, and finally made it on seats to Portland later that day (after 1.5 hours delay due to mechanical failures in the arriving plane).

So, sorry for that.

We finally made it to Portland to find out that our rental car company had given away our car because of the delays (even though we called them three times to make sure everything was still good), that our hotel jacked the price up by $10 a day because we didn't stay the first night, and, after all that, were "turned away" by our hotel because we were an hour before checkin and they had no rooms available for us. ARGHH!!

But after that great adventure, we finally dropped our bags into our two-room suite in Embassy Suites in Downtown Portland, nearly 18 hours later than anticipated, and breathed a sigh of relief. Let the vacationing begin!

But not the pictures. Because you see, even though we spent the next four days visiting with our best friends, hanging out in our old hang outs, and seeing the boys play with friends they have been talking to every day on the phone for months, somehow those "routine" things just seemed to comfortable and refreshing we never really thought to capture them on the camera. So while we kind of regret not having pictures of the great times we had with our friends, somehow it just would have been awkward acting so tourist around our friends. Plus, the fact that I'm sharing nearly 50 pictures of about 3 days of trip to you, you're probably glad we didn't take pictures at that rate for the other nine days!!

Kris did capture this picture of the boys at a Max station:



SO -- we spent 4 days in Portland, then split. Damion stayed in PDX with his great friend Adrien, and Kristal, Miles, and I left town and drove down to Redding, CA to visit my family. So Monday, we drive the 7 hours down south. It was a fine drive, everytime we take a road trip like this it blows my mind how well Miles (and Damion) travel. The road trip was no big deal at all. We arrived, and had arranged to have a dinner at my parents house with some of my family. We had a great time visiting Mark and Tracy, Sandy and Doug, Kate, Eric, Cassie, my Grandpa Art, Barbara, and of course, my mom, dad, Betsy, and Pete. We swam in the pool, had great BBQ, and enjoyed visiting with everybody!

The next day, (and honestly, the part Kristal and I were really looking forward to!) Kristal and I drove 299 West to the coast. After suffering through a grueling 150 miles of curvy, mountain road, we made it to our hotel:





Our "room" consisted of nearly the entire bottom floor, including a large entryway, sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom, all in a classic style of rich wood, old-world furnishings, hardwood floors; oh, and ear-plugs because the floor above us and the walls were paper-thin. Oh well, it was still an amazing surprise for us, seeing as we figured this would just be a "room":

Our sitting room, which I think we spent about 10 minutes in:


The rest of the place:





Eureka, CA is a crappy coastal town with a couple things going for it that really draw tourists like us. One, Lost Coast Brewery, a great, staple Northern CA micro brewery. The other is the charming Victorian architecture of some of the buildings and the quaint "Old Town" of antique stores, used bookstores, shoe shops, and decent coffee.

This is the famous Carson Mansion -- perhaps the most iconic representation of this victorian style:




But here's another, some office building:


And us:


The next morning, we went to the Samoa Cookhouse for breakfast. This is an old logging house and does a logging camp style all-you-can-eat breakfast of the basics: decent coffee, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and potatoes. They also have a "daily special" which we were lucky enough to score biscuits and gravy. Samoa Cookhouse also has a logging museum. As I told the general manager that morning, the greatest thing about the place is that I hadn't been there in about 20 years, and it's just the same as I remember!

I remember hassling my dad about getting me a pair of corked "logging boots" like these when I was a kid. Still think it would be pretty cool to rock those... :-)




Moving right along:



We manage to spot some Elk:


Counting in there, I think there were at least 15 of them in this field!

We then drove another 45 minutes north, through the Redwood National Forest until we reached our destination, Trees of Mystery. This is an awesome, almost indescribable, better-than-roadside-attraction, "park" that takes you through a tour of weird tree formations, huge trees, and weird chainsaw carvings. It's nearly impossible to describe, but so very cool. Hopefully these pics help:

Here's the entrance parking lot with a gigantic Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.



Just like I remember, 20 years ago at least, they still have a guy that "speaks" through the Paul Bunyon at people in the parking lot. There must be a camera or something, and he's hooked up to a mic and talks to you as you enter and exit the park. Sounds weird, it IS weird. But hey, this is a better-than-roadside-attraction.


Me climbing through a "hole" in the root system of a huge redwood:


Yes, that really says that:


Couple pics of Kris in front of crazy Trees of Mystery:



I told Kris if she took another "say cheese" type picture of me, I was going to strike a pose just for the camera. So I did. In front of a ginormous Redwood:


Few other shots:






We then took a gondola up the side of the mountain, above the redwoods, with an amazing view:





What can I say, we were having a great time...


Few more shots:





We then hiked the "advanced" hike down the mountain we had just ridden up:





Yes, by this time, I was pretty tired of the pics.

So we went shopping. :-) Kris found some great shoes:




And so Kristal donned her shoes for dinner, and we ate an incredible 6 course meal at the award-winning restaurant in our Inn. Boasting one of the largest wine cellars in the nation (over 3800 vintages, several thousand more bottles), it was a real treat (and a real pain on the wallet) to eat there. Overall, however, it's nice to spend 2.5 hours over dinner sometimes -- without kids. :-)

We also hiked some trails by the Trinidad coast, eventually making it to the beach. We rolled our blanket out, settled in to relax, and realized that we don't "do" relaxing on the beach. We do playing in the ocean, making sand creations, digging. Playing "get as close to the ocean as possible but don't let it get you!" with the boys, and collecting rocks. So we lasted about 15 minutes on the blanket:


And pretty much called it good. Not before grabbing this though...


Because, after all, we were having a great time.

On the way back to Redding, we hit a highlight for me, the Bigfoot Museum in Willow Creek, CA. Having had an armchair interest in Bigfoot for, oh, all my life, I was absolutely insistent that we stop here. I chatted with the old lady running the place and got her views of why the Bigfoot in the Patterson Video is real, some of the local Bigfoot spots, and actually scored an invite to join their board of directors of the Bigfoot Museum when we move back from Jersey.



Kristal compared to a Bigfoot print:


Pic says it all, got a pic of the actual cast made by Titmus at the site of the Patterson video. Pretty sweet.


And of course, the epic shot of Bigfoot from the Patterson video:


So, with that, Kris and I returned back to Redding. And we picked up Miles, and cruised back up to Portland where we enjoyed a BBQ with our great friends Chad and Kimberly, and spent the last night in Portland in a hotel by the airport (prepped for a 6am flight). No pics of that. :-)

All in all, we couldn't have picked a better place for our summer vacation. Kinda makes us ready to go back home. :-)