Abbey's Road

The picture content is pretty weak with this entry. I should clarify that the number of pictures is not up to par. The subject of the 2 pictures, of course, is extraordinary. I didn't want to insult anyone. I got lazy and had trouble remembering to bring my camera along. I was going to download some pictures of Niagara Falls off the internet and pretend that I took them, but I figured if someone really wanted to see them, they will surely find plenty of pictures of the falls on the internet. I was also waiting for some people (who will remain nameless!) to email me the pictures they took, but finally gave up. I kind of figured that I would never get them judging by these persons past history, but I tried to keep an open mind and give them the benefit of the doubt.

On Saturday morning I managed to drag myself out of bed at a decent hour and Abbey and I took off for Buffalo. We stayed with Mary Jo and Mike Tomasik for 3 days. Mary Jo was a good friend of Mary Beth's and her college roommate for 4 years. It also happens that Mary Jo's uncle is a priest in Buffalo and my uncle, Fr. Jim Ruddick, knows him. If you know my uncle, that shouldn't come as a surprise. Anyways, Mary Jo got Fr. Jim's cellphone number from her uncle and invited him over for dinner Sat. night. Her parents came over also as her father, Tony Lorenzetti, used to work with my uncle at Canisius college many years ago. So we had a nice little reunion and Fr. Jim and Tony spent quite a while catching up on the whereabouts of old acquaintances. I think they both thoroughly enjoyed it.

On Sunday afternoon, Mary Jo, Mike, Abbey and I went for a hike to a place known as Gas Light Falls. There are no signs for it but it is near their house and they've been there several times. You hike down into this little gorge and follow a creek to a pretty cool waterfall. On one side of the waterfall is a crack in the rocks where there is natural gas leaking out of the rocks. It's not from a pipe, but just from a natural gas deposit down in the earth. It is usually lit so there's almost always a flame burning, but the waterfall was really running as they've had a lot of rain. There's a sign at the trailhead that even suggests relighting it if it's out, but it was way too wet. It was still a nice walk and Abbey was glad to get out. She played in the creek the whole way. It started raining again so we headed back to the house and kept dry inside and watched the Bills get killed by Oakland on TV.

On Monday Mike and I and their youngest son, Luke (3), took a drive up to Niagara Falls. I hadn't seen it in more than 30 years so I didn't remember much about it. It is pretty impressive but not as big as I remembered. What struck me too was that it felt like it was part of the city and not out in the wilderness. We went to the Canadian side as they seem to have kept it nicer than the American side. The Canadians, though, have shown that they can do touristy tackiness just as well as Americans with everything from a wax museum to the Guinness Book of Records exhibit. After we got drenched, not from rain, but just from the mist of the falls we drove up to Niagara-on-the-Lake which is a nice little resort town. We walked around town, but there's not too much to do there on a cold, rainy day.

On Tuesday I stopped to see my Aunt Helen and Uncle Arnold, now living in an assisted living residence in Elmira, NY before heading on to my cousin, Pat Dailey's outside of Syracuse. I hadn't seen my aunt and uncle for a number of years so it was nice to spend some time with them and have dinner. Unfortunately, they both have some health problems so they sold their house earlier this year and moved into this residence. All things considered they appear to be doing pretty well, and I can attest to the food being pretty good. On the way to Syracuse, Marcellus actually, I ran into some wet snow. I was hoping to avoid the snow for a while, but I guess winter is coming out east too. At higher elevations they got several inches but luckily where Pat and Mary live in Marcellus it was only raining. Unfortunately, it has rained everyday since last Thursday in Columbus. Now I really feel like I am back in NY. Abbey and I spent a few nights with Pat, Mary, their 3 kids and their dog, Jessie. Abbey has gotten much better around other dogs. Jessie is a skittish dog, but the two of them got along fine after a short while as long as Abbey didn't go in Jessie's crate.

An old work friend, Omar Rahim, lives in nearby Manlius so on Thursday I moved on to see he and his wife, Marcia, and their 3 boys. Every time I see these guys the boys have grown another few sizes. The weather had improved greatly by the middle of the week so Omar, Marcia, Abbey and I went for a nice walk at a lake nearby. The leaves aren't spectacular this year, but they're hanging around a lot longer than usual and they aren't bad by most standards. On Saturday we took another short hike at Chittenango Falls State Park before Abbey and I drove to Amsterdam. Mary Beth's mom, Elsie, passed away in June, but her brother, Bob, still lives in the house. He had the kids this weekend so it was good timing. He was having a garage sale so I'm sure he thought it was good timing for me to come too. I'll be sticking around this area for a few weeks or so catching up with friends, spending time with Bob and the kids, and catching up on dentist, vet, chiropractor, etc. appointments.
Omar and Marcia
Omar and I

Posted by Ed at 1:34 PM | Permalink

For years I had heard stories about my wild cousin, Tommy, and this was reinforced recently by his storytelling on our WV rafting weekend. So I decided to stop in for a visit with him in Columbus, and I hoped to catch up with another college friend, Jim Colvin who, it turns out, lives just 5 minutes from Tommy. I had also lived with an Ohio State grad after college for a few years and never heard the end of how great Columbus and the Buckeyes are. Unfortunately, Ohio State is playing an away game this weekend so I didn't get to experience the infamous Hineygate, but I did get a chance to go inside the hallowed grounds of Ohio Stadium, aka the 'shoe, and ride my bike on Woody Hays Dr. - Woody Hays being the immortal coach (some disenchanted fans might say 'god') of the once-dominant Buckeyes of years past. It wasn't a life-altering experience, nor did I feel the ghost of Woody, but it was a great day for a ride around the campus.

On Tuesday Abbey and I drove down to Hocking Hills State Park south of Columbus. It's actually five parks grouped into one. It took me a while to figure out where to go, but I finally found a nice gorge with a few hiking trails. It was another beautiful day with temps in the 70s. Fall seems to be late this year. Ever since I left Montana it's been warm most of the time and the leaves have been turning pretty slowly. There have been some colorful trees, but there has been still a fair amount of green ones most places I've been. I think that's starting to change though and I have a feeling the color won't last too much longer. So Abbey and I did a nice hike along the creek which still had enough water in spots where she could swim. It was our first hike in several weeks so it felt good to get out. Abbey really seemed to enjoy being in the woods again. Tommy has been working so I've only seen him at night for dinner and some beers. So far he's been pretty tame leading me to believe that he's slowing down in his old age. It also shocked me to find out that he lives in a pretty respectable neighborhood.

Yesterday I visited with Jim and Andrea Colvin and their five kids. Anyone with kids can just imagine what their schedule is like. All five kids play soccer among other things. I got to see Jim 'coach' the team of their youngest who is only in kindergarten. Jim was right on when he said it was like herding cats. He's definitely got more patience than I. Of course, I did coach Mary Beth's softball team for 4 years, so maybe I have more than I give myself credit for. It was nice to catch up with the Colvin's but there schedule is way too crazy for me. Andrea started describing where she had to take everyone the following day and then asked if they would see me. I was thinking to myself, 'When would you possibly have time' Their kids are wonderful, though, and I haven't seen a whole lot of them so it was real nice to see them again.

Tommy talked me into staying 'til Saturday morning so I could experience a Columbus Blue Jackets hockey game and he could prove he's not getting too old after all. Yes, they are in the NHL. If you haven't heard of them it probably means you haven't followed the NHL recently as they were an expansion team 4 or 5 years ago. Tommy was one of the early season ticket holders so he has great seats, 2 rows from the glass and 10 ft. from the bench. Unfortunately, there weren't any good fights in the game so we didn't get any blood spattered on us or anything exciting like that. But the game was a great one for the Blue Jackets. They played real aggressive and beat the San Jose Sharks (if you haven't heard of them it's been a LONG since you've followed the NHL) 4-1. We started off the night with a real nice dinner with one of Tommy's customers and his wife at Gordon Biersch, a brew pub in the very nice and lively arena district. We, of course, had to celebrate the win by tipping a few back at O-Shaughnessy's Pub next door to the arena and Tommy topped off the big night by taking me to his neighborhood pub, O'Manny's. It doesn't get much better than that. It was a great night all around.
Old Man's Cave Trail
Rose Lake

Posted by Ed at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've covered a lot of ground since I last wrote. After I left South Dakota, I drove through Minnesota on my way to Milwaukee. I met up with John Horky and Bob Beres, two friends from college, and Bob's wife for dinner. John was gracious enough to let me stay at his lake house for three nights. One day I took Abbey into Madison, where U. of Wisconsin is. The city is squashed between two lakes so it's pretty picturesque. You hardly know you're in the Midwest. Actually, Madison is a real nice town. Abbey and I took a long walk along one of the lakes, and then I took a walk through the campus. A bunch of friends I know went there so it was interesting to see what the campus was like. Looks like a pretty nice place to go to school. The next day I went in to Milwaukee and saw the Milwaukee art museum, which John's firm helped design. The building is pretty impressive, despite the enormous price tag it came with. It kind of looks like a huge bird and my timing was just right in being able to see the "wings" shut and open back up at noon. Quite exhilarating! That afternoon I drove down to my brother, Michael's, in Des Plaines north of Chicago. I spent about a week there catching up on some errands and going to my niece Rachel's soccer and volleyball games. Last time I was there I only got to see Krista play volleyball so Rachel made sure I saw her games this time.

On another day we went for a bike ride at the local forest preserve and we also did some geocaching. If you don't know what this is, check out www.geocaching.com. It's a new 'sport' that is quickly gaining in popularity across the country. You go to the website and look up the location of caches in your area. The trick is that they give you a description, but the exact location is given in longitude and latitude coordinates, so a GPS is very helpful. A cache can be any kind of container and it usually contains a log book so you can log when you found it. People leave small trinkets inside and you can take stuff out and leave your stuff. It's kind of the same theory as a flea market. You get rid of your junk and there's always someone else who thinks your junk is cool so they take it. At least that's the way I look at it. Chris had brought a GPS unit to Yellowstone with him and he left it with me to play around with. The kids, especially Alex, have been getting interested in geocaching but had never had a GPS unit so it was kind of tough for them. So needless to say Alex was pretty excited that it would be easier to find the caches now. On Saturday we decided to take a trip into Chicago to see the aquarium. A French friend of Michael's was in town to run in the Chicago Marathon and wanted to meet up with us. We never ended up catching up with him, but the aquarium was pretty cool. There was also a geocache there, but unfortunately we never found it. To make ourselves feel better, we decided someone must have stolen it.

Bob Beres got a hold of extra tickets to the ND-USC game in South Bend on the 15th so a bunch of us headed there for the weekend. Michael's wife Sandra also went to ND and Bob had enough tickets for them to go as well. The last time the 3 of us went to a game was when ND played USC 20 years ago and the two of them got engaged that weekend.
I took advantage of being near some great stores - Trader Joe's and a local store named Caputo's which has the cheapest produce I've even seen '? and did some food shopping before I left for South Bend. I decided to park the RV at the field and have a tailgater before the game. Excitement over the game was pretty high so I got there a little after 7AM to make sure I got a good spot and there were quite a few people there already. A bunch of my college friends, Dan, Mark, Bob and John came with their wives, and even a high school friend, Mike Schiavi, who was at the game with his father and brothers, made it there. I had Krista make me a great sign to put on the RV so everyone could find me in the sea of RVs. We weren't the wildest or most well-stocked tailgater around, but we had a great time and not bad for my first one in the RV.

Abbey wasn't quite so thrilled about all the commotion. She even got 'lost' at one point when she slipped away without being noticed. I got a call on my cellphone from the people who 'found' her, which turned out to be the people at the RV right next door. They said that she was real playful at first but then all of a sudden got a panicked look on her face when she didn't recognize anyone. She was pretty excited when she saw me even though she was only 10 ft. away and gone for less than 5 minutes.

Most of you probably know the outcome of the game by now, but even though ND lost on the last play of the game it was a great game to go to. It was a gorgeous fall day, perfect for college football. I don't know if ND stadium has ever been that pumped up for a game.

There were thousands of people who were in the area who didn't even have tickets. Some people were getting over $1500 for tickets. It was insane, but we had a blast at the game. I think ND is back on the national football scene. After the game, we ate and drank more while we waited for the parking lot to finally clear out a few hours later. A few people asked me for the recipe to a green bean salad I made so I thought I'd just add it in here:

Green Bean Salad

2 pounds thin green beans cut into 2-inch pieces (about 4 cups)
' cup olive oil
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar (I used rice wine vinegar mixed with balsamic)
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
' teaspoon salt
' pound cherry or grape tomatoes, halved (about 2 cups)
2 ounces fresh goat cheese, crumbled
' cup of toasted pine nuts
Freshly ground black pepper

In a large saucepan of lightly salted boiling water, cook the green beans uncovered for 7 to 9 minutes or until tender. Drain and rinse in cold water. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and salt. Pour the dressing over the green beans and toss well. Fold in the tomatoes, pine nuts and goat cheese, then add pepper to taste. Serve chilled.

On Sunday I went with Michael, Sandra and the kids to Fernwood Botanical Gardens where they had a fall festival and, as luck would have it, there was a picnic for the Michigan Geocaching Society. We found 6 more caches, usually with someone right on our tail looking for the same one. We also found out that people do this stuff in groups and have group and codenames. One group even gave us their card. So, we had to make up a name on the spot '? the Agents of Dow. You'll have to ask Alex and the girls the meaning of 'Dow' as I still don't get it after they've tried to explain it to me for years now. After all the geocaching excitement I hit the sack early (couldn't have been from the all-day tailgating the day before), and then got up and drove to Columbus, OH on Monday.

Posted by Ed at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

On Thursday I left Montana and finally entered South Dakota for the first time in my life. The first thing I did Friday morning was to go and get my driver's license. If I had a shady past, I think I would pick SD as the place to get my new license. It was the easiest thing I ever did. I did have to give them 2 forms of ID, including my NY license, and the paltry sum of $8 and 5 minutes later I had a new license. I was thinking of blowing out of town as fast as I blew in, but my brother Michael told me I had to stick around and check out the Black Hills. So I headed for Mt. Rushmore. On the way I saw Keystone, which has to be the tackiest tourist town I have ever seen. Without Mt. Rushmore, the place would have no reason to exist. I did get some ice cream there, but it wasn't that good. I should've known better. Before going to Mt. Rushmore I stopped at Cosmos, which is a difficult place to explain. The only reason I stopped was again because Michael insisted that it was a cool place to experience. For the same amount of money that I paid to get a SD driver's license valid for 5 years (and coincidentally that same sum that I would soon pay to park at the Mt. Rushmore National Monument), I was entitled to go on a tour complete with live demonstrations of the awe and mystery of Cosmos. The complex consists mainly of the requisite gift shop and this very oddly shaped, unevenly built cabin. The tour guide proceeds to demonstrate seemingly apparent contradictions to the laws of nature and gravity that exists in this 'special' place. I must admit though, that what we saw sure didn't appear to be optical illusions (isn't that why they call them illusions you might ask?) and there wasn't a real good rational explanation for any of the strange contradictions that were demonstrated. I also have to admit that as soon as I walked into the cabin I started to get nauseous, like motion sickness. Are you dying to check it out yet? Well, I don't think I'm doing a very good job of explaining it, but if you're ever near Mt. Rushmore, you have to check out Cosmos. At least then I won't be the only sucker to fork over $8 for a 20 minute tour. Of course, you could save the $8 and get a SD license instead.

I was somewhat hesitant, after Cosmos, to pay to see Mt. Rushmore as well. I thought, 'What's the big deal about giant heads on a mountain' It seemed like it would be super touristy and a waste of time. But, I decided to throw away another $8 and check it out. I was actually pleasantly surprised. Yes, there were busloads of overweight senior citizens, but I was still impressed with it. Mostly because I was amazed not by the patriotism represented, or the grandeur of it all, but by the mere fact that what was once a mountain is now 4 giant sculptures. The sheer enormity of the job and what they had to overcome really amazed me, not to mention the quality of the sculptures is pretty incredible.

I then moved on to Custer State Park, which is pretty large and nice for a state park. Unfortunately, this weekend is also the big Buffalo Roundup and Arts Festival. Luckily, the roundup itself is on Monday and is much more popular than the Arts Festival otherwise I might not have been able to find a campsite for Friday and Saturday night. I think I'll bug out before the roundup on Monday. In case you're wondering, they round up the bison herd that resides in the park for auction every fall. Someone told me that it is the next biggest thing around here after the Sturgis Bike Week which any Harley fans out there should know about. Anyways, on Saturday morning Abbey and I forsook the free pancake breakfast and started out early for Sylvan Lake.

We hiked up Little Devil's Tower first which gave us some beautiful views of the various rock formations around including the Cathedral Spires. The area is quite rocky with these 'spires' jutting up out of the forest in all directions. It was a tough climb, especially for Abbey, but luckily it wasn't too long.



Next we headed for Harney Peak which is actually the highest point east of the Rockies at 7242ft. It was one of the easiest mountains I've climbed, but with the temperature in the 80's it was hard enough. Once again the views from the top were impressive, though Abbey didn't seem to care a whole lot. She was more interested in going back to Sylvan Lake for a swim. As if that wasn't enough for one day, I decided to again listen to my brother's advice and go to Wind Cave National Park. I was a bit skeptical yet again because I had never even heard of the place. I thought it was probably made a park in the last few years, but was quite surprised to find out that it has actually been a national park since 1903 and it was the seventh park to be dedicated. I figured I've been to Innerspace Caverns near Austin so how much better could this be. Well, it turns out that this is the 5th longest cave system in the world and is known for it's incomparable boxwork. Sorry, but this is too hard for me to explain so I'll leave that up to you to research what that is. As an added bonus, we had the most vivacious guide who really seems to get excited about caves and her job. She gave a pretty emotional speech at the end regarding the need for national parks and why we should patronize them. I was convinced. Needless to say, it was a good way to finish off the day.

Posted by Ed at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)