Well not really, but I did manage to curate more of my photos (through the end of last year), and upload all the keepers onto Flickr. Last Halloween, last Christmas… Go check it out!
- Category Archives day by day
This is the category closest to just being a plain diary. Places I go, things I do, people I see, what’s happening in my life.
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Sandy, Ten Years On
Here’s a link to what I wrote on this date, ten years ago. Emmi was visiting that week; here’s a photo of her with her nemesis: Alanthus.
We were without power for about a week after Sandy, maybe even a little longer, and there was a lot of tree damage in the area, but we personally had no tree, or roof, or any other property damage — we got off lucky.
Here in the present it’s a bit cloudy and drizzly, and we just got back from a morning of routine doctor visits.
Meantime, we’ve had an ant infestation over the past few days, probably as a response to the changing weather. I tried using a commercial anti-ant product on them but no luck, so yesterday I put together some internet/DIY ant bait (sugar water with borax on strategically-placed cotton balls), and it wiped them out in a day.
And one final bit of news: I am temporarily without a cello — it’s in the shop getting some bridge work done, and while it’s there I’m also getting both my bows re-haired. (Everything should be done by tomorrow.)
It’s a quiet autumn day, but things are moving along…
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Trick Or Treat!
Our Halloween Ride started at CAT and, since there were no kids on the ride, we made a stop at Sherman Street Brewing (featuring the lobster roll food truck) before heading to Broad Street to watch the parade.
The CAT Crew We ended the day by walking over to Bonn Place for dinner (which we got from El Jefe), with Jenn C and Donna & John. An awesome day!
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Ain’t She Sweet?
I just can’t help myself, here are a bunch of photos of my new granddaughter, Iris:
Baby Iris 
Baby Iris 
Baby Iris 
Baby Iris 
Iris Does Yoga 
More Iris Yoga 
Iris And Emmi 
Iris You can see she’s already getting bigger and stronger, here are a few with her eyes open:
Iris 
Iris And finally some photos with Emmi and Anne:
Proud Mama 
Iris And Oma I got these via text, so the quality isn’t the highest but they’ll do for now — I know I’ll get more soon, and I’ll get some of Kyle with his little girl as well. Meantime, enjoy these!
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Kinda Sad Like the Autumn I Found, You See An Old Part Of Me’s Not Around
Happy Fall, everybody!
I went out for a ride on Tuesday, heading west/north along the towpath but only going as far as the Taylor House brewpub in Catasauqua — I wanted to check out the new section of improved trail.
This was one of the few sections of trail left that had been open but unimproved (there is/was another one immediately north of this section, between Catty and Northampton, that also got fixed up recently), passable but still fun on a mountain bike. Much of the Lehigh Towpath was like this when I first started riding it, lo those many years ago. The trail is a pleasure to ride now, sure, but I miss those old days and the rougher, more “singletrack-ey” towpath. I only started riding this section north of Allentown maybe two years ago, and really enjoyed the feeling of being on “real trails” again, but hey that’s progress, and the new sections are actually pretty sweet. I believe the official ribbon cutting is today.
Meanwhile, same as it ever was: my bottom bracket developed a creak again (this is the Santa Cruz), and so I took a look and found that both the crank bolt and the right bearing housing had loosened. I cleaned and greased and tightened them down pretty hard yesterday and did another towpath ride (towards Easton this time), and I think I got it solved. For now.
When Daniel Boone goes by, at night,
The phantom deer arise
And all lost, wild America
Is burning in their eyes.
Stephen Vincent Benét, “Daniel Boone”
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Marie Felker
Anne’s mom passed away last week. The past two weeks have been pretty rough, and feelings are a bit too raw right now to say much more about this, so I’ll just link to her obituary here and post one of my favorite pictures, Anne and her siblings with their mom:
The Felker Clan Rest in peace, Marie, we love you.
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Over The Moon
I can’t believe I didn’t post anything about this yet — I’m a grandpa! Baby Iris came into the world just the other day, 7 lbs 4 oz and 21″ long. Emmi, Kyle and Iris are all doing great. More on this in the coming days and years…
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Labor Day Weekend
We spent a big chunk of the last week preparing, cleaning etc, and on Saturday we had a Labor Day BBQ with Anne’s family: siblings and their kids (and their kids), Ben, Anne’s mom, and even her Uncle Joe. We fired up the oven and made pizza, had burgers and hot dogs, and corn on the cob and all kinds of summer salads. All in all a perfect way to end the summer.
Sunday was recovery day: Ben had stayed over, and he and we cleaned the yard, and the kitchen, and made a nice (huge) breakfast. We hung out until mid afternoon, when we drove him home to Philly and checked out his new apartment. (We took Kelly Drive, which meant we drove right past one of the locations I’ve been studying recently, where there was a river crossing on the Schuylkill at the end of what is now Ferry Street, part of the native path between Philly and Harrisburg.) When we got home we visited with our neighbors Matt and Diet, and Matt’s dad who was in town for a few days.
Yesterday was a CAT group ride down Cherry Valley, sort of the “second half” of our Blue Mountain ride the week before. It’s also one of the Road Scholar routes, so I invited my boss and co-ride-leader Andrea along, and some people from the D&L were there as well — one person at least, and some of her friends — it was a pretty nice crowd. We rode from outside Wind Gap to lunch at the Apple Pie Store in Delaware Water Gap, then retraced our steps back to the cars. Not a bad ride, about 26 miles in all, and we finished just before the rain started…
It’s been raining ever since, a nice mild soaking rain, something we really need right now. Today I’m just hanging out, doing some more post-party straightening and getting ready for cello duets with my friend Donna.
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Updates and Milestones
Just a few things that have come and gone in the past week:
- I finished the final book in the “Expanse” series, Leviathian Falls. I was pretty sure I knew the ending just from the title (and I was mostly right), but I still had a great time reading it. There’s plenty that can still be written in the universe of “The Expanse,” but the writers made a real point of bringing the book series to a definitive conclusion — there is no “the end …or is it?” for this one. No spoilers!
- I finished Phase One of my native paths project: all the path descriptions, all the start and end points, and all the road routes approximating the paths are in the database. (There are a few more paths listed in appendices in the Indian Paths book, but they are part of colonial history. I may expand the project to add them at some other time, but they’re not really part of what I’m doing right now.) This all happened more quickly than I was expecting, so I’ve been caught a bit flat-footed when it comes to Phase Two. I am now looking at raster storage for the map photographs, and studying the first route in the book, to start adding its foot path.
- Our Alberta trip is really over now, I just posted my last post about our trip.
- Our fridge is up and running, and the parts are now here to get the ice maker fixed. The kitchen is (mostly) clean and back to normal, though we’re cleaning some of our other cabinets in an excess of anti-wheat-moth caution.
Today is a cleaning day (again). I’ll probably get in a long ride tomorrow.
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Disentanglement
This is the thirteenth (and last) in a series of posts about our bicycling trip from Jasper to Canmore, via the Icefields and Bow Valley Parkways, through Jasper and Banff National Parks in Alberta, Canada. The full series can be found here.
We stayed at the hostel again for our last night in Canmore. By this time I felt like an old hand, a hostel regular… In the morning we packed up and, since the driveway was under construction (thus inaccessible to taxis), we got a lift down the hill in the little hostel vehicle, or at least our bags did.
Our Luggage Goes Down The Hill At the bottom of the hill we found that no taxis were available anyway, but we got a lift from yet another kind stranger with a pickup truck. Our benefactor dropped us off at the bike shop, where our bikes had been boxed and where they let us stash our bags for a few hours while we waited for the shuttle. We got one last walk around town before we left.
Three Sisters And Anne 
The Ice Cream Bus 
Canmore Downtown 
Non-Glacial Stream The bike store owner got us to the shuttle stop, the shuttle got us to the Calgary Airport, and the hotel shuttle (barely) got us to the hotel — barely, because their big vehicle was in for service, and we could hardly fit with all our stuff into the minivan they showed up with.
The hotel was busy, because everything was busy with the Calgary Stampede in town (it’s the biggest rodeo in North America), but even so, it was an airport hotel in the middle of nowhere, and there wasn’t much going on. A short walk to a nearby brewpub, and an early night, and an early morning flight for me (Anne’s flight would be the following day). Once again, the flight had some difficulties and delays, but the bike and I both made it to JFK in one piece.
Bike Back On The Ground Julie picked me up from the airport, and let me know about the cell phone lot where she’d waited for my flight to arrive. This came in handy the next day, when I drove to JFK and picked Anne up…
…and then we were home. We took a few days to rebuild the bikes, clean and stow our gear, and get rid of those bike boxes, but now it’s in the past. All in all, this was one of the best trips we’ve ever done, “ten out of ten, would do again,” in a heartbeat. I really enjoyed reminiscing, I hope you all enjoyed following along!
