2006
- Help
- Up
- Down
- Please
- Keys
- Credit Card
- Water
- Ball
- Hi
- Bye
- Mom
- Dad
- Shoe
- Sock
- Book
- Lion
- Kitty
- Dog
- Duck
- “All Done”
- Okay
- “Oh Jhez”
- “I know”
- No
- Bra
- Nose
- Mouth
- Eyes
- Meow
- Roof
- Keys
- Towel
- Blanket
- Fish
- Bee
- One of the memory sticks in my MacBook seems to have died. I isolated the bad DIMM and I’m back up and running on the single good DIMM. I had to head to Radio Shack for a very tiny screwdriver. I’ve already files for an RMA. Luckily I have multiple laptops along so it was all fine.
- Mazie has learned lots of new words. She’s learned “please” although it sounds like “plea” and she now appends it to everything she says – which is very cute.
- This tiny 2-bedroom apartment is actually starting to feel like where we live. Scary.. I miss our house.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 34
We spent Wednesday in Charleston. The real newsflash is that we *didn't
drive* anywhere the entire day! Amazing! We had a relaxing morning and
then took the [water taxi](http://www.charlestonwatertaxi.com/) to
Charleston. We had great barbecue for lunch at [Jim n'
Nicks](http://www.jimnnicks.com/) and in the afternoon we went to the
[South Carolina Aquarium](http://www.scaquarium.org/).
Mazie didn’t dig the water taxi in the morning. It was her very first time on a boat and when we got going she got scared. She overcame her concerns quickly though and on the ride back over in the afternoon she sat in her stroller on her own the whole way over like a champ.
The aquarium was nice. They have the tallest glass wall in the country in their huge reef tank. It’s a full two stories tall. At the bottom of it, it looks pretty immense. The picture on the right shows the wall. For scale, that is 20 feet tall. I’m excited to see the aquarium in Atlanta on our way home. It’s wall isn’t as high, but it’s 60 feet wide.
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 33
On Tuesday we loaded up in the van and headed for a short drive to Savannah, Georgia. Drive more? Absolutely! Why not… we just can’t get enough driving. Savannah is such a notable city and we thought since we were so close we should check it out. It took about 2 hours to get there.
Savannah is a really nice city. It’s smaller than the others we’ve been to. We didn’t have a ton of time so we drove through many of the parkways and then headed into the historic area of downtown.
We had lunch at The Lady & Sons restaurant. This is the restaurant that Paula Deen started before becoming the celebrity chef on Food TV. The Lady & Sons is best described as a Temple to Butter. The food is incredibly rich. As you sit there with biscuits immediately delivered to your table, you can envision truckloads of butter being constantly delivered to the loading dock to keep the cooks going. At one point while we are eating lunch one of the waitresses breaks out into song to praise frying! “I don’t want no grilled fish” went the lyrics, finishing with “give me my fried chicken and fried gravy”.
We spent the afternoon in Forsyth Park and took a bunch of pictures before heading out and returning to Charleston.
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 31
Let me get caught up first. On Friday we left Asheville and headed to Charlotte to spend the weekend with Tammy’s biological father Ed and his wife Nancy. We had a very nice time with great company, amazing food and wonderful accommodations. We got to meet Ed & Nancy’s son, and Tammy’s half-brother, Christopher. Christoper is a little over 3 and is all boy. What a great kid! We also spent the weekend with Tammy’s aunts, Betty Lou and Sandi, as well as Sandi’s husband Bob. (Whew, got the whole role call there.) It was very nice to get some home cooked meals after being on the road so long (31 days!) and to spend some time just relaxing. I think the highlight for me was just sitting on the deck in the back on Friday night chatting and looking at the stars.
On Sunday we headed out and continued the great adventure to Charleston, SC. We arrived in Charleston right around 5:00 pm and got checked into the Belvidere Club Resort. This place is pretty great. We have an entire two bedroom “cottage” to ourselves. It’s very comfortable.
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
Mazie's Words
Over the last couple of months Mazie has really started to develop a lot more language skills. It’s so fun to watch her pickup new words. Tammy and I were curious how many words she knew. Not just words she would mimick, but words that she actually uses on her own. Here they are in no particular order.
The list gets longer everyday, so this will be instantly out-of-date.
MacBook, Parallels and Windows Vista
Just because I’m on vacation doesn’t mean that “geeking on the ‘puter” stops. I’m happy to report that I was able to successfully install Windows Vista RC 1 (Build 5600) on my MacBook using Parallels (Release Candidate, Build 1898). This is the first time I’ve been able to make this work. There was no magic involved, the latest release of Parallels offers Vista as an “experimental” option in the drop downs. I mounted the ISO image in the virtual machine, booted and installed.
It works just fine. You don’t get Aero Glass, but you do get Aero. Haven’t played with it much, don’t expect I will until I return from vacation. However, I’m glad this configuration finally works.
Fender Bender
Here’s a big bummer.
Last night while driving back to the hotel getting ready to put Mazie down a car was trying to run the light as it turned red. The other car was turning left onto my street, I was going straight. I honked and the other driver slowed, but did not come to a complete stop. Luckily the other driver slowed to probably less than 5 mph. Very unluckily, the other driver was uninsured and I’m probably going to get stuck with the repair costs or face my insurance going up since I actually used it. [Insert rant here about the scam that the insurance industry is.]
The damage is to the rear lower panel on the passenger side. It’s totally drivable, thankfully. The other car hit the wheel and then scraped the crap out of the panel.
The even bigger bummer is that the panel that got dinged up is the entire rear bumper. I imagine they are going to have to replace the whole thing which will add up quickly.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 28
Today we ventured out of Asheville again and went to Chimney Rock Park. The park was pretty cool. We did a short hike to the base of a 400 foot waterfall. Mazie did really good in the carrier, although we failed her by not bringing warm enough clothes. We had to bug out pretty quickly since Mazie was cold.
We also went to the North Carolina Arboretum in the afternoon. It was nice. They had a great bonsai exhibit that I really enjoyed. Mazie enjoyed running around for an extended period of time.
We have moved to a different hotel for this last night in Asheville. This hotel is much better equipped for Mazie and we are hoping she gets a good nights sleep. I didn’t need to put tinfoil on the windows here. 🙂
Lastly, I updated the Google Earth file with our Asheville adventures. Load the Great Adventure KMZ file to check out where we’ve been.
Add link.
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 27 - AT
Today we left Asheville and headed into the mountains. We drove about 30 miles northwest of Asheville to Hot Springs, NC. Hot Springs is one of the cities that the Appalachian Trail goes right through the middle of. The sidewalk that is on the main street of Hot Springs has “AT” trail blazes embedded right into the cement. Our visit was more to the AT than to Hot Springs, so Mazie loaded up into the kid carrier and we headed out for the trail.
I knew we weren’t going to get much of a hike in. I figured Mazie would make it an hour in the carrier and she did just about that. She did a great job walking by herself on the flats. She navigated the roots like a star and looked smashing in her bright green fury jacket.
It was fun to be on the AT and hiking with the white “blazes” of the AT in sight. Honestly the trail was no different than any other hiking trail we could have been on. However, this one could take you all the way to Maine if you just kept on walking. How cool is that?
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
Crazy, Sleep Deprived Dad!
Ever since we’ve arrived in Asheville, Mazie has had a horrible time sleeping. She’s just screamed all the time in her crib and for the first time ever she has been waking up in the middle of the night and we’ve had to bring her to bed with us where she proceeds to kick us and wake up constantly making everyone unhappy.
The sleep issues have driven her father to the brink. I left the grocery store tonight with two 50 foot rolls of tinfoil. You bet, tinfoil! I’m determined to get this kid to sleep better. The room she was trying to sleep in was too bright. So there I was at 7:00pm tonight slapping tinfoil on all the windows to black out the room. I have to admit that I felt a little crazy while doing it.
So far it’s worked. She went down on her own (first time in Asheville!) and is still asleep. I only hope that she makes it the whole night. Oh please, oh please…
Update: While the blacking out of the windows did get Mazie to go to sleep on her own, it didn’t solve the problem of sleeping through the night. She woke up at 3:30am and would not get back in her crib. After 30 minutes of attempting to calm her I brought her back to bed with us.
Traveling With a One Year Old
It’s now the 25th day that we’ve been “on the road”. For me, this now marks the longest I’ve ever been away from home. While it’s not a huge deal, I do miss the creature comforts and the simple familiarity of your own domicile. Traveling is always a bit stressful. Yes it is fun and all, but I find that I never really relax. Even now, sitting in the hotel unwinding and tapping on this laptop it’s not like if I were at home doing the same thing.
However hard the travel may be for me though, it’s peanuts to what it’s like for Mazie. We are still just getting going on the vacation part of our trip but Mazie is taking a while to get used to it. The biggest problem by far is sleep. She just isn’t getting enough of it. And as anyone with kids knows, a lack of sleep results in a very unhappy baby, and equally unhappy Mom’s and Dad’s.
At home Mazie is a great sleeper. You put her in her crib at bedtime and she just goes to sleep. On the road, she screams. And screams. And screams. Getting her to sleep is an accomplishment of it’s own. Tonight we let her cry for 10 minutes (blood curdling, shaking the other hotel rooms kind of crying) and after that I went in and held her in the bed while she fell asleep and then moved her to her crib. Last night she woke up at 2:00am, ready to go. Wide awake. Oh, and screaming. I brought her to bed and she finally went back to sleep in our bed, but it was a long night for everyone.
She has refused to take a nap anywhere other than her car seat since we left Minnesota. This issue highlights one of my pet peeves on toll roads. While driving on the toll roads Mazie would be sleeping away, ever so happy, then we’d have to stop for a toll. As soon as the van came to a complete stop she’d wake up and it took some extra special quiet to get her to go to sleep again. Usually she was then up and ready to complain about the car seat. Toll roads and sleeping babies do not mix!
The hotel we are staying in has three rooms, but unfortunately the only door is to the bedroom. Tonight we put her in our bedroom to see if that works better. I sure hope it does, the meltdown that took place at 3:00pm today doesn’t need to be repeated. This afternoon’s meltdown included a full on screaming festival followed by rubbing food into her hair. Tammy’s looking at other hotel options now, just in case.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 24
We have arrived in Asheville! We got going quickly this morning and clicked off the last 4 hours of the drive pretty fast. Mazie was kind enough to sleep for nearly two hours, so it all went pretty fast. We arrived in Asheville around noon and decided to head straight to the Biltmore Estate before getting into the hotel.
The Biltmore Estate is pretty amazing. Imagine 8,000 acres of lush landscape with the largest private residence in the United States hidden away in it. We toured the estate itself, which took about 45 minutes at a fast clip and spent a couple of hours walking the grounds. There is a hotel on the estate and at first thought the idea of spending a few days there sounded kind of boring, but after visiting I would be up for that trip with no reservations. If you are in the area, you should definitely try to take it in. The amount of wealth necessary to create something like that, and even more, to keep it in the family still, is simply astounding.
After our afternoon at the Biltmore we checked into our hotel. We are staying at the Princess Anne Hotel. We are in #207 if you look at the floor plan. This is a very old-world hotel that is listed in the national register of historic places. It only has about 25 rooms, but each room is spacious with a living space, separate bedroom, and small kitchen. The elevator is a trip, it will fit me and about two suitcases as it creeks up. We are in a good location, with a number of things within walking distance.
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
Reflections on the Northeast Corridor
We’ve ended our three weeks in the New Jersey/New York area. I find myself pretty eager to get away. We are going on vacation. It’s the next step to going back home. But mostly, there are just too many people around here! I’ve never really thought of myself as a “country mouse”. I enjoy the city. However, after three weeks of dealing with lines at every checkout line and jammed traffic all over I’m happy to get away from it.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 23
Today is a driving day! I’m catching up on the Big Adventure from our hotel room in Roanoke, Virginia. We drove a little over 6 hours but I feel like we put in a lot more hours than that. The first 3 hours were in very busy traffic along the eastern corridor. Six lanes going each way with ridiculous traffic wears on you quickly. Add to that that Mazie had a pretty horrible day in the car, spending at least 3 hours of it crying. Oh, and one more thing, Tammy has an ear infection that is causing her a lot of pain. She went to the urgent care on Friday and got a prescription for some anti-biotics. She’s feeling a little better, but not much.
While we were driving I saw a road sign for Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. I knew about this road from A Walk in the Woods. Bryson’s book highlights this as a bit of a travesty. The national park is amazing, and the Appalachian Trail goes right through the park. The 105 miles of Skyline Drive were more than we could explore with our time, but we could do a part of it. Now, you could argue that with a screaming baby and a wife with an ear infection, taking an unplanned detour through a drive at elevation was not a smart idea. You could argue that, and you would be right, but I still took the detour.
Bryson makes the point in his book, and this is the travesty, that something like 95% of the visitors to this amazing national park never even leave their cars. They simply drive through it on Skyline Drive. I’m happy to say that we at least stopped at one lookout point. But, with the conditions being what they were, we quickly boogied down the road and resumed our path on the Interstate as soon as we could.
We made it to Roanoke, Virginia and had dinner at Macado’s (truly, everyone does have a website now). We are going to get an early start tomorrow to finish the drive into Asheville and hopefully see the Biltmore Estate.
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 22
This was the last week in New Jersey and we began preparation for the last two weeks of vacation. Grandma Kaye and Aunt Angie were out through Wednesday which was great. They were all able to do stuff during the day while I was at the office and everyone had a lot of fun. Angie took something like 230 pictures just to prove the point!
This final week was the most “normal” of the weeks. I didn’t have any all day meetings, or any business dinners. It was nice to rev down just a little bit and Tammy was happy to see me in the evenings a bit earlier. The week wrapped up at work and we are leaving our 800 square feet two bedroom and heading on vacation now.
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
Great Adventure in Google Earth
So you have been following along with update from the Great Adventure but your confused about where all this stuff is? Well, now you can explore the Great Adventure in Google Earth. Make sure you have Google Earth installed and then you can open our Great Adventure map and explore!
First Two Weeks
I just put up a bunch of pictures from the first two weeks of the Great Adventure. These were edited down by Tammy, which is far superior to me and means you actually get pictures of people instead of just things.
Other updates from the first two weeks:
Also, happy to say that I’ve been sticking to my weight loss program with good diligence and I’ve lost 5 pounds in the last two weeks. Yeah!
Day 17 of the Great Adventure is starting with Grandma Kaye and Aunt Angie visiting. We are heading to the Bronx Zoo this morning!
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 17
Today we extended the Great Adventure both North and South. The day started very early when Mazie woke up at 5:15am and decided that she was going to be awake. We didn’t get to sleep until very late so it was a tired morning. We took a drive this morning and went to the Bronx Zoo. Mazie, Tammy and I along with Grandma Kaye and Aunt Angie had a great time. The Bronx Zoo was really impressive. We had seen a special on their new Congo Gorilla Forest exhibit and it was pretty great.
We then headed back down to the apartment and left Mazie with the relatives and headed to Philadelphia for dinner. I’d never been to Philly and I was really impressed. It seemed like a really nice city. We visited the store we have some furniture in our house from, American Pie. We had an awesome dinner at El Vez. If your in Philly – go to El Vez. Great food, great atmosphere; just a lot of fun all around!
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 16
Day 16 of the Great East Coast Adventure was a lot of fun. Mazie got us all up at the normal time and we decided to go into Princeton to have breakfast at PJ’s Pancake House. I’m stunned that they actually own pancakes.com. What an awesome URL. I can almost guarantee that some “with it” student at Princeton gave it to them. We had a stunning breakfast that could not be beat and started the day out right. If you find yourself in PJ’s – I highly recommend the Buckwheat Pancakes.
After that we met my boss and his wife and we all headed to the New Jersey Grounds for Sculpture (Sculpture Garden). This place was really impressive and a lot of fun. Perfect outdoor activity for Mazie as well. It’s much bigger than I expected, and the sculpture is very well done. As a bonus, they have done an incredible job of getting the landscape that surrounds the sculpture just right. A+ and a great time with kids.
Tammy, Mazie and I headed to dinner at the Main Street Bistro after that and had some really good food. I’ve wanted to take Tammy to the places that I typically go to when I’m here on business. That way when I call home and say “I went here” she actually knows where I went. I’ve probably been to this restuarant more than any other in Princeton.
We had a relaxed evening and at 10:00pm I drove to Newark airport to pickup Grandma Kaye and Aunt Angie who are staying with us for the next couple of days.
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 12
On Day 12 of the Great Adventure I pretended like I was an average east coast commuter. I had a 9:00am meeting in New York City so I took the trains into the city. I got to Princeton Junction when I should, managed to avoid the local train and take the express that came a little later but got me in earlier. The ride was actually a pretty pleasant hour.
I always hear stories about how people are working away on the train into the city. My observation is that sleeping is the #1 favorite activity. I managed my way through Penn Station in NYC to get to the E train and make my way to where my meeting was. It took me 3 hours to make it to my meeting, and I was 15 minutes late. Crazy.
I took a few wrong turns and I’m sure I could have shaved 30 minutes off of that easy, but it’s pretty crazy to me that people out here do a 2 hour commute without even blinking. 4 hours every day spent just moving your person from one location to another.
I didn’t take the train home, but didn’t leave the city until 7:00pm so I got back to the apartment around 9:00pm.
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 10
It’s Sunday morning and the beginning of Day 10 of the Great Adventure. We are in Washington DC beginning our second day of sightseeing. Grandma Chrest and Aunt Alona arrived on their flight last night just before the bad weather really settled in from Hurricane Earnesto. It was very windy with lots of rain. Their flight was almost diverted to Philadelphia, and the next flight into DC wasn’t going to land. They arrived on time and made it to downtown on the metro.
Yesterday we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to see the sites:
The White House
We didn’t go in the grounds or anything – that requires security clearance from your state senator (really!). Just took the usual pictures from in front, etc.
Washington Monument
Several comments about the phalic nature of this national monument followed by me saying “But I really like it” and then Tammy saying “Go figure.”
National Holocaust History Museum
This museum leaves you awe struck at the horror and misery of what happened during the holocaust. It was pretty hard with Mazie. She wasn’t too excited about sitting in her stroller that long and with subject matter like the holocaust you really don’t want your kid disturbing everyone else. Not a great place to go with kids, but if you can go, go. It’s a must see.
World War II Monument
This is one of the newest monuments on the mall. It is at the opposite end of the reflecting pool from the Lincoln Monument. It is also a really good monument. There was a group of WW II veterans there when we were there that made the monument more impactful. Seeing three vets with a picture of one of there friends that didn’t make it taking a picture of themselves at the location of their state makes it all much more powerful.
Korean Monument
I hadn’t seen this monument before and I really liked it. I wasn’t able to see it at night, and this one would strike me as amazing at night. There are scenes engraved into rock that appear to float in the dark at night. There are also a number of statues of soldiers on patrol in the monument. It feels like you are on patrol with them.
Lincoln Memorial
I hadn’t visited this before, so it was nice to spend some time here. Lincoln was such an amazing president. Reading the excerpts from his addresses makes me sad at the state of political discourse in the country these days which essentially boils down to “terrorism, scary!”
Vietnam Memorial
The Vietnam Memorial struck me more on this visit than the previous times I had seen it. I’m sure because my Mom was with me and she actually knew someone who’s name was on the wall. What an amazing monument really. No other monument actually engages the visitor in an activity. Mom got a rubbing of the name off the wall. Powerful stuff really.
We had dinner at the Capitol Grill (not the steakhouse) in downtown and then took it easy in the evening.
Still making our plans for our final full day in DC. Hopefully the weather is better. We are probably heading to the Smithsonian for part of the day.
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.