Halloween 2006

We are having some unusually cool weather for October. The leaves are still bright green with very little evidence of fall color. The cool air is quite a relief after the very hot and humid summer we had. There were numerous days with temperatures over 90 degrees, but only a few days over 95 degrees and none over 100 degrees. The only other notable “environmental event” occurred on September 10th when our area experienced some shaking from a magnitude 6 earthquake. This one was centered in the Gulf of Mexico.

2006 was a very tough year to be a Braves fan, especially during the month of June when they lost 21 games. Not only did their fourteen year run as division champions end, the Braves finished the season below .500. Can’t wait for next season!

Kristin is 25 and is nearing the end of her graduate school career at SCAD. Much of her time has been devoted to writing her thesis. The academic life must agree with Kristin as she has earned straight As in all of her course work. On her academic breaks Kristin continues to work at Walt Disney World as a seasonal employee, performing a variety of character roles. She has no classes between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, so she will return to Orlando to work for three weeks of the six week holiday break.

This was a big year for Eric. He turned 23 on March 29th. He graduated magna cum laude from the Georgia Institute of Technology on May 6th with a degree in Computer Science. The ceremony started promptly at 9:00 a.m. and lasted for four hours because every graduate from PhDs, Masters and Bachelors was announced as he or she walked on stage to be congratulated. Even though the weather was picture perfect, the graduation was held indoors at the Georgia Dome. The keynote speaker was Home Depot chairman emeritus, Bernie Marcus. We particularly enjoyed his address to the graduates for it’s very down to earth, nuts and bolts quality, rather than a speech filled with pie in the sky platitudes.

After Eric moved out of his room at the fraternity, he and some friends went on a Caribbean cruise. He had a wonderful time. As soon as Eric returned, he set to work packing up his belongings to take to Charlottesville, VA. He took a job there as a consultant doing custom software development. Charlottesville is a lovely “college town”, being home to UVA, founded by Thomas Jefferson in March of 1825 with 123 students. Jefferson died the following year on July 4th.

I guess it is a good thing that things remain the same for Mike and me. We had a busy spring starting with Eric’s birthday, Easter, Eric’s graduation, our wedding anniversary, Mother’s Day, Mike’s birthday, Eric’s departure for VA, Kristin’s birthday and Father’s Day. We made numerous trips to western NC to look at property and even made an offer on one piece of land, not once but twice. The first buyer backed out which made the same piece of land available for a second time. But each time the
owner sold to acquaintances, which begs the question – why did the landowner list through MLS when evidently he had no intention of selling to an outsider? This activity wasted a lot of our time. Even though we have continued to look at land in the same area, there is nothing that we have seen since which appeals to us. We also hired a local contractor to remove our 26 year old retaining wall in the back yard and to build a new one. The work was to be done the first week of June, yet less than half of the work had been completed by Labor Day. The contractor wanted money in excess of what was stated in the contract. At that point we told the contractor to do the work or walk away so we could hire someone else to finish the work, which is what we ended up doing. The experience was very frustrating, although not unusual, and it also prevented us from some of the traveling we wanted to do over the summer. We had hoped to spend a week to ten days at the beach along the GA and FL coasts.

We did make a driving trip to NY in the middle of June to attend a family event – the wedding reception for my cousin’s son and his wife. At that time it was hotter and more humid in NY, NJ and PA than it was in GA!! The first stop was in Charlottesville to drop off a lot of Eric’s bulky items that he was unable to take with him in May. We had a great, but brief, visit with him. Then we resumed the drive to NJ. We re-visited my home town, the places where Mike and I had lived, worked and gotten married. We also went to the Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Chester, NJ to visit the graves of my parents and sister. From there we drove to the Garden City/Uniondale area of Long Island for the wedding reception. It was wonderful seeing my only two cousins again and also sad to learn that their mother (my aunt) had suffered a stroke the week before. We had allowed for a few days there, so one day we drove to the end of Long Island’s north fork at Orient Point. Along the way we visited a number of wineries, did the wine tastings and ended the day with a wonderful meal at The Frisky Oyster in Greenport. When we left Uniondale, we were surprised at the relative ease with which we made the drive through Brooklyn on the Belt Parkway, crossed the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and crossed Staten Island into north Jersey as we headed for Philadelphia. The first real traffic problems arose on the NJ Turnpike near Philadelphia. We spent a day there to see points of interest in the historic district. We saw the Liberty Bell, but we could not get tickets for Independence Hall. It was also 94 degrees that day. We had a very enjoyable meal at The City Tavern which was founded in 1773. The final stop was at Harrah’s Hotel and Casino in Cherokee, NC. Harrah’s is on an Indian reservation, so the casino experience is quite different from that in Las Vegas. For one thing, the machines in Las Vegas are a lot looser! Even so, we still had a great time.

We just returned from a wonderful trip to NM and CO. We flew from Atlanta to Albuquerque. We were fortunate to have had ideal weather until we got to Durango, CO, which was the last part of our trip. The hotel accommodations were fine and we enjoyed many wonderful meals. The only hassles we had were related to packing in order to comply with the ever stricter TSA rules and with airport security in Albuquerque when we flew back home. Our carry-ons were opened – mine twice. When we returned home Mike discovered a note from TSA stating that his checked luggage had been searched. It has never taken me so long to pack half of what I normally bring. This latest experience has been good incentive to re-think just how much air travel we are willing to undertake in the future.

We began our trip by riding the double reversible jigback aerial tramway/cable car to the top of Sandia Peak. The lower terminal is at 6559 feet and the top terminal is at 10,378 feet. It traverses four climatic life zones: Sonoran, Transition, Canadian and Hudsonian. From there we went to Santa Fe. In addition to being the state capital, it is the state’s cultural capital. We have never seen so many museums and art galleries in such a relatively small area. Opera is also quite popular there. We particularly liked the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. After she left New York City following the death of her husband, noted photographer Alfred Stieglitz, she relocated to the Santa Fe area at Espanola and was a major factor in the local art scene. We made a day trip to Los Alamos and toured the Bradbury Museum. This is where the story of the Manhattan Project is recounted. We saw some cliff dwellings at the nearby Bandelier National Monument. After four days in Santa Fe, we drove about 60 miles north to Taos. Taos is smaller than Santa Fe, but every bit as “artsy”. We stayed at the historic Taos Inn. Our room was an original adobe of the 1800s era. One of our most enjoyable and interesting side trips was the day we went to the Taos Pueblo. This is a world heritage site where descendants of the ancestral Puebloan people still live their culture in adobe dwellings with no running water or electricity. It is considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited community in the USA. We met many of the Native Americans who create their jewelry there. Taos Pueblo has the distinction of being the first WHS to honor a civilization rather than a geographic feature like the Grand Canyon. From Taos we did the 86 mile Enchanted Circle scenic drive. There is a lot to see along the route, but two stops stood out. Lobo Mountain in San Cristobal preserves the D. H. Lawrence ranch through a legacy of the University of New Mexico. And in Angel Fire we visited the Vietnam Veterans National Memorial.

Next, we drove into southern CO. We stayed in Durango for a few days. The weather was not good, but we managed to avoid rain the day we rode the narrow gauge railroad from Durango to Silverton. Most of the ride is in the San Juan National Forest. At one point the train goes over a mountain pass at 11,000 feet. The scenery is spectacular. We had missed the peak of fall color, but the vast expanse of wilderness scenery is still breathtaking. A railroad forest ranger rode along to point out features of the area. The San Juan National Forest is the only one with organized transportation running through it. Silverton is a small town with only a few streets and not all of them are paved. It survives from the railroad visitors in the warmer weather and from skiing in the winter.

The final stop in CO was at Mesa Verde National Park. It is about 50 miles west of Durango. We had a long full day there. It was raining heavily when we left Durango, but it had let up by the time we entered the park. It is not very scenic or very “verde” because of recent extensive fire damage. The focus of Mesa Verde is not the scenery as much as it is the human history of the ancestral Puebloan people who settled there around 1000 A. D. and lived in the cliff dwellings. You can only see the park’s significant features like the Cliff Palace or the Balcony House if you pay for a ranger guided tour. These fill up fast. Even though we had purchased our tickets in the morning, our tour time for the Balcony House was not until 3:00 p.m. We turned in those tickets and only did the Cliff Palace at 1:00 p.m. The tours can get pretty treacherous and involve a lot of walking on the edge of mesas with no guard rails and climbing ladders to exit the sites. MVNP has earned a place on my list of least favorite parks. However, it was not bad enough to overtake the position held by my all-time least favorite park – Denali in Alaska.

So, as of this latest trip, the only state that we have not visited is Kansas. We are planning another trip to Orlando for some time in December.

We hope that all is well with you. Happy Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Holidays.