Secret Life of Bloggers: Memorial Day Weekend 2014

BLOG PARTY 2014 POST!

http://companyqdispatches.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-blog-party.html

http://companyqdispatches.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-mighty-adirondacks.html

So....where to begin.  Picking up where I left off a year ago....

I am once again in the mighty Adirondacks, staying over for Memorial Day weekend in my Grandma's house, which now is 100% ours.  We own it!!  My parents have chosen to retire up here in another five years or so; and until then this will be our brief vacation home. I'm quietly excited.  I've had dreams ever since I was a kid about bringing my own family up here to see "Grandma & Grandpa"...time to start making that happen I guess.

So much has changed in the last year, and yet I come back here and everything is the same. Exactly how we left it. It feels like closing a favorite book and putting it back on the shelf, then taking it down a year later and opening it up again.  All the memories come rushing back, and it's like we never left at all.


5-23-14

For the first time, my brother and I decided to drive up to New York on our own. We rode up in his car and followed our parents, on our own time and finding our own way.  I must admit, it feels like being an adult for once in my life.

In spite of the weather, we made good time; traffic moved very fast all the way.  It rained almost the whole way here though, and it got foggy and visibility was poor.  The drive was long and tedious, but we made it bearable discovering new music through Pandora radio on our iPods.  We took a wrong turn and somehow didn't get on the right road, and ended up going about 30 miles farther than we had to. But, thanks to the wonders of the 4G network, I was able to get on Google Maps and guide us to a town called Norwich, that the road we needed to be on went straight up through.

This is the only interesting thing we passed by in or around the town of Norwich, NY.

A Civil War monument to some local infantry regiment.

We passed it quickly and the rain made it hard to see, but I could make out that whoever they were saw action at Fredericksburg and Gettysburg.  I'm guessing the soldier on top isn't a specific person and just a generic Union soldier, but I could be wrong.  My Dad said, "Ah, that must be the town war hero, Jubilation T. Cornpone!"  (We suspect such a man never existed)  Every old town has a local hero, right?

As we pulled into the last rest stop before the house, I had to fight the urge to call ahead and tell Grandma we were coming like I always used to, as nobody was at the house.  That was a sad realization.  Some nights when I'm in at home in Delaware, I still get the late night "what the heck" urge to pick up the phone and try calling the empty house, just to see if Grandma will answer from beyond. It just rings. :(

Anyway, we arrived at the house about an hour later, and it really started to pour just as we had to unload both the cars.  Sorry I didn't get more pictures, but the weather wasn't cooperating.

We certainly hope the rain stops, because we have a lot we want to do this weekend.

5-24-14 (Saturday)

I didn't sleep hardly at all. The emptiness of the house gives me the creeps at night. I don't know why. Also, I think I need to stop looking up creepypasta on my laptop past midnight. It makes me paranoid.

There was no sunrise today; it was very cloudy. Normally I get a superb view out the front kitchen window. Not today.  We had to wait until almost noon for the sun to come out and dry everything so we could work in the yard.

We started out with putting together a box spring for the downstairs bedroom. Yes, I mean we built it. I never saw one like this.  I guess it is much easier to deliver and move in and out of rooms though.  The wood sections fit together and then a big fabric cover goes over it. The fabric is made tight with a drawstring.  It reminded me of the time I bought a folding futon bed from Ikea.  I guess it can't be called a box spring anymore; now these are called "foundations". They hold the bed off the floor and that's it.

Finally, the sun came out and I ventured out for my first DSLR pic of the weekend.  This is morning dew on the grass in the yard. I kind of like this photo a lot.

New phone background. Definitely.

Everything is very much as we left it last spring. The maple we freed from the clutches of the evil honeysuckle is doing well. You'd never know it, but this view was completely obscured by pine trees in the 1990's which surrounded the house and the wood pile. There's so much open space now to run around in.  The house still looks way better with a fresh coat of paint.

Though weeds have taken over the garden I think it looks nice. Wild and untamed but still attractive. The Forget-me-nots are everywhere. This is the well on the other side of the garage, it's covered by the stone cap.

A dandelion reaches for the sun.

Epic tree fungus.

Listen to the sound of silence.

In 2001, I built a teepee-style hut around this tree. I kept it up for seven or eight years, and now it's since vanished and now the tree is dead and falling down.  It's odd that when I pass by this on the trail, it reminds me of that summer thirteen years ago. When I was a teenager...before 9/11 happened.

The clouds were scary looking around dinner time. It grew darker, and a very cold wind started to blow. You can't tell from this picture below how scary that cloud looked. It was like a big, heavy curtain suspended over us and it gave me the uneasy feeling of a big foot coming down to squash us. This is how funnel clouds form.  

...But luckily it passed us by. There were some spectacular flashes of lightning and deafening claps of thunder though. It sounded like explosions.

But it passed us by, and then we were treated to an astounding rainbow.  My mother grew up here, and even she said she could never see one from the house like this.


To be continued...