Opening Camp

Greg's friend's brother works at a summer family camp. Families come to this camp for a week or so to enjoy the outdoors. There are cabins with fire places, meals in the dining hall, and all sorts of activities. Greg and I went up to Fairlee, Vermont, for a work weekend to prepare the camp for the summer. This was our cabin.

Riding in the back of a truck as we collected piles of leaves that had been raked from the grounds. We took them to a compost pile at the bottom of the property.
A bat box!
Lake Fairlee; Greg and the rest of the guys put the docks in the water.

Clearing the trail

I got that Boston sweatshirt when I was working on my first cruise ship, shortly after 9/11. I don't normally wear it out, being in Boston most of the time, but I figured it was a great work sweatshirt for Vermont.
To keep deer away, sprinkle coyote urine granules around!
We played Pictionary in the dining hall Saturday night.
Then we climbed a climbing wall in the friend's brother's cabin.



One of my jobs was to help clear out a cabin that had been used as a storage shed for years, and make it livable for staff. We had a lot of work to do.
A lot of the furniture was brought to another cabin that also hadn't been lived in. Some of it was stored elsewhere, and some of it was put on the side of the road with a Free sign. All of that stuff was gone to new homes before we left Sunday.


This vacuum looks enough like a proton pack that we were singing, "Bustin' makes me feel good!" Good thing we had it; mice had been living in the drawers, pillows, and wall insulation for a looong time.
Thankfully, there were only going to be college students living here for the summer, who hopefully aren't used to fancy living. Even though it's not the Ritz, can you believe this is the same cabin?




There were around 40 people for this work weekend. It was fun to feel useful. The people who run the camp were very grateful for our contributions. Back in the day, this camp used to be like the one in Dirty Dancing. It had fallen into disrepair and the current managers came on only about five years ago. There will be needed repairs for awhile to come, but it's definitely already a great place to stay again.

Spring Happenings

I love perennials. These bulbs and bushes bloom year after year with seemingly no regular maintenance. And each bloom comes out in turn. The crocuses are first, then the daffodils and tulips. The ornamental fruit trees blossom, and now it's time for the azaleas (above). In San Diego, the jacaranda trees blend in until they bloom bright lavender flowers. It's the same here, except many more trees and bushes bloom.
Greg and I saw John Williams conduct the Boston Pops again (we went last year, too). This year, we were joined by Greg's parents, aunt, and our friends Britt and Lauren. John Williams composed the scores for Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and so much more. It was awesome. See if you can get this one: dum dum dum/dum da-dum/dum da-dum (it's the Imperial March - Storm Troopers).
Billy in a bag. If you're looking for a great reusable shopping bag, I recommend RuMe bags (thanks, Mom). http://www.rumebags.com/index.php These bags fold up small enough to keep with you all the time, and they can hold a lot of goodies.
The lilacs were blooming a couple of weeks ago.

The roads here are lined with tall, thick, green trees.

Hiking and the Schuss House

A friend in Greg's running club also belongs to a cool, old skiing club, which has a ski lodge/farm house in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. We've gone up there a few times to go hiking, and there are usually around 20 of us. Last fall, we hiked Mt. Washington, and it was an epic adventure. This time, there were three hiking groups instead of two, and Greg and I went with the middle group. It was a refreshing change not to end the day limping with sore knees.
My Pat the Patriot hat
New growth



We hiked to the top of Mt. Kearsarge, which has an old fire lookout at the top. It rained most of the day, so there wasn't a view, but it was still a great day and a great hike.



We ended the day with cold beer, a warm fire, and friends. Another great Schuss trip.

My First Red Sox Game!

Greg surprised me with tickets to a Red Sox game (my first). It was really fun, and they won!
The stadium is usually near capacity, even on a weeknight.
In the background, you can see the John Hancock Tower and the Prudential Tower.
Greg's brother Mark and sister-in-law Shaney also came to the game.

A Few Green Things

People here revel in warm weather. These people are laying on the grass on their lunch breaks from work and medical school.

It's Snowing Pink!

"Into each life, some rain must fall." But if you live in New England, some petals will fall on you too. All of the leaves on the trees pushed the flowers out, and the petals were everywhere.

You may be able to see that a street sign is engulfed in the tree.

Can you see the petals blowing from the tree?

Boston Marathon (with pictures)

Greg and his friend Logan engineered a device that would track Greg as he ran the Boston Marathon in real time on a Google map. It would have been really cool - if it had worked. Logan and I drove out to the 10k mark (6.2 miles) so Greg could get rid of the device if it wasn't working. A marathon is 26.2 miles, so Greg didn't want to have the thing strapped to his arm if it wasn't necessary. The thing didn't work, so we did the hand off. That's my main excuse for not having running pictures of Greg. (Development on the device continues...)

Greg's family and a bunch of our coworkers came out to watch Greg run past the 25-mile mark, which is just a mile from our office.


The trees weren't very leafy yet, but many of them were flowering.

Greg was pretty wiped out after the race. Yay Greg!

There are blooming tulips everywhere.

I love how much this tree (below) leans. I'm sure when the leaves fill out, it will lean even more. One leaf isn't very heavy, but hundreds of leaves must be heavy enough, because I've seen branches hanging lower than they had been.