Where have the days gone?

We spent a relaxing Memorial Day weekend in the woods along the Allegheny River just north of Kennerdell. The map above shows our hike in on Saturday morning in yellow (about 2 miles), and a red X around where we decided to camp. We were on a little bluff overlooking the River Trail, with a nice view of the river through the trees, but not very visible from the trail. I think only one of the passersby spotted our camp all weekend.

We spent a little time down at the river Saturday, but the riverbank just there was pretty muddy, so no really good place to sit and read. Did spot a yellow frog where a little stream emptied into the river. We mostly just relaxed Saturday afternoon and evening, and made up our own call for the Pens/Canes playoff game, since there was no cell service down in the river valley. The foil dinners were especially good this time... portabellas, fresh asparagus, onion, fresh tomato, prosciutto. Oh, and a bottle of homemade Cabernet Sauvignon. Excellent! There was a lot of foxfire right near our campfire later that night, but I couldn't get my camera to take a picture of it, just too dark.

 

There was a pretty heavy thunderstorm Sunday morning around sunrise, and our new tent fared very well; not a single leak! It stopped raining in time for breakfast, and then was nice all weekend after that. We brought along our Italian stovetop coffee maker, so we were able to have espresso with our pop tarts :-)  I found this pretty little orchid in the undergrowth back of our campsite, still moist from the rain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here's an early morning video from our campsite. There were many many birds singing, which unfortunately you can't hear very well, but you get an idea of our site, anyway. 

Later in the morning, we took a hike (marked in green on the map). As usual in this part of the world, we passed lots of old oil paraphernalia, relics of the oil heyday (for those who may not know, the first oil well was drilled in Titusville PA, just north of where we were, and the woods all around there and Oil City were full of oil wells for years; there still are a good many small ones running).

 

 

We scoped out a good campsite near Witherup Island, so we're going to keep that in mind for the big campout we're trying to organize for the end of June. It featured lots of flat area under hemlocks, and a steep descent to a nice pebbly riverbank, so we could do some wading. After we climbed to the top of the hill, I was able to check my cell messages, and learned from the kids' texts that the Penguins had won handily, and that part of our make-believe call had come true (I had allowed the Canes to score first, but I thought the Pens would then win 3-2; that was the score at one point, but then the Pens scored 3 more after that; must've been fun to watch!). We saw this tree growing around a rock along the Fisherman Cove Trail.

Dinner Sunday was tuna-noodles with leftover portabellas and canned peas, which worked pretty well, and I tried something new with a cheesy-garlic biscuit mix formed into one large biscuit and cooked in the skillet. It worked pretty well, though needed to be flatter. After dinner, we saw an osprey catch a fish from the river, which was very cool!

 

Monday morning we packed up after breakfast, and decided to hike back the long way (the pink line on the map, about 5 miles total), because we wanted to see more of the river, and also wanted to hike along the ridge on the Window Trail. Also, every bit of hiking is good training for the Rachel Carson Trail Challenge, which is less than 4 weeks away now! We had to finish putting out two campfires as we passed empty campsites along the trail, which is just ridiculous, a whole river-ful of water being right at hand they could have easily used...I guess that's what happens when sites are too accessible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part of the Rock Oak Trail goes past a deer exclosure, which is kind of interesting, so I took a picture. I think it's areas that have either been logged or had burned, and the State Forestry Dept fences it in to keep deer from overbrowsing the new little trees and undergrowth. To the right is the exclosure, to the left is where the deer have been allowed to browse.

 

Other than all this, we just mostly sat around and looked at the river (and I read "Night and Day" by Virginia Woolf, which I really liked, despite its un-Woolf-iness; I really enjoyed the characters). It being the holiday weekend, there were LOTS of motor boats and canoe flotillas, and lots of groups of campers making a good deal of noise downriver, but otherwise very relaxing. No decisions needed to be made, no work needed to be done...

Ah, the joys of having a sister (or two) in Germany! I picked up a package at the post office Saturday morning*, and stuff just kept coming out of it...

Food-wise, there were 3 packs of Mini-Zwieback (simply because I said I liked them!  Coconut, milk chocolate, and bitter chocolate, mmm!), a package of chocolate swirl knusper-brot, a boxed cake mix (Donau Welle), a box of lacy chocolate cake decorations (which I love), 2 dinner mixes, 2 boxes of caramel candies, 2 Lindt chocolate easter eggs, and a Lindt golden bunny full of treats.

Other goodies, totally unexpected (and above and beyond the call of sisterhood!): a lovely light blue cotton shirt (just my style), sport pants, and a cute striped cami set; a card that includes arugula seeds (my favorite!), a beautiful china teacup with strainer and lid, a very pretty ceramic easter egg, a CD of some sort that I haven't tried out yet, a Lindt magazine including chocolate recipes, and for Al a catalog of Mini accessories and a Bimmer magazine.

Such fun!

* This box did not come easily... I got the slip from the post office on April 7, but it said I needed to sign for it, and I knew I wouldn't be able to get to the post office during their (short) business hours till the 18th, so I took the slip with me to the office the next day to call to ask them to hold it till then. Unfortunately, I left the slip in my car, so later that morning I ran out to get it. I guess because it was cold and I didn't throw my coat on, I was literally running back in, with my arms folded around me, when my shoe fell off, and I wasn't able to catch myself well enough before splitting my chin open on the concrete sidewalk. When I realized there was blood gushing out of my face, I tried to catch it with the only thing I had, the post office slip, as I ran into the office and to the restroom to get cleaned up and assess the damage. Several people tried to get me to go get stitches, but I had a SharePoint trainer coming in about 45 minutes, and I didn't think I would have time, so I just went with wound closure thingies and bandaids (changing every so often throughout the afternoon). Later in the day, since it was still bleeding by 8:00, I did stop at MedExpress on the way home, and they checked and cleaned out the wound and put steri-strips on it to leave on for a week or so. So it's not too bad now, though sort of a lump in addition to the scab, so we'll see how it ends up. But anyway, the post office slip was pretty gross, so I hoped I wouldn't have to show the clerk, but I did, and then had to explain the whole story and show her my chin, so she wouldn't think something worse than it was.

 

Wow. Just wow. Those guys are SO good, and SO much fun!

When I found out that FoTC were touring the US this spring, and that they were doing a show in DC the day after Easter, when we were going to be there visiting anyway, I was pretty excited! We don't get HBO, but Nikki had told us about the show last winter, and we watched the 1st season DVD with her when she was home, and pretty much were hooked. Then when we went to New Zealand in November, it somehow helped me "get" them even more... The whole country seems to me gentle and understated, and slightly offbeat (and I mean that in a very good way).

Unfortunately, the tickets I got were way the heck up in the back corner of the venue (DAR / Constitution Hall), but we were still able to see well, and the sound was fine. There were a few times when a light was shining right in our faces, but there were video monitors mounted high beside the stage, so that was good for seeing facial expressions and so on. And I think my camera zoomed fairly well, considering the darkness and distance.

 

 

I bought a Band Meeting t-shirt before the show...

 

 

To the left is the graphic that was displayed on the video monitor before the concert began.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kristen Schaal (aka Mel) opened for the guys, and she was hilarious! Here, she was performing a one-act play, a sort of love triangle among the pot, spoon, and lid. She "practiced" a number of different styles of jokes on us, from self-deprecating, to political.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are my best photos, not all that great, but you get the idea...

I neglected to take a photo of Nigel (the NZ Symphony Orchestra), but he was also very good, and even got to speak once or twice.

They really did a lot of songs; they explained that if they stop singing and talked for a while, not to worry, they would sing another song soon. Or, if you came for the talking, you'd have to wait till the song was over. I would have actually liked a little more talking (in those adorable kiwi accents), like about the "Issues", saving the whales, etc, but it may partly have been because of the time they had to take to shush stupid people in the audience who were calling out song names.

They came out in robot suits, and started with "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor", very disco-y with lights and smoke and dancing, lots of fun. They admonished DC to do a better job of keeping in touch, just so they wouldn't worry about how everyone is doing... Then (not in order), they also did "Hurt Feelings" (video below - not mine, but from this show), "The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room", "Business Time", "If You're Into It", "Motha 'Uckas" (that was the one with Bret on drums), "Hiphopapotamus vs Rhymnocerus", "Bowie" (nipple antennae and all), "Busdriver song", "Ex-Girlfriends" (with the women in the audience doing the oooo's as directed by Bret), "Humans are Dead" (WITH the binary solo!), "I'm not Crying", "Sugalumps" (involving an a capella final refrain with dancing - see mstresbabette's video from the show), "You Don't Have to be a Prostitute", "Jenny" (old video below - I couldn't take any video, being so far away, but this is one of my favorites...), and a new ballad about Stana, very funny!  So that's a lot of singing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excellent, excellent show! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

We decided on Saturday evening to not try to get everyone up and going in time for 8:00 church Sunday, but rather to wait till the 4:00 Evensong service, which sounded kind of like something different anyway. So we planned instead to have a little earlier brunch with one of Alex's former roommates and his family who were in town for the weekend, and we left it up to the boys to arrange when and where (not easy for 9 people at the last minute for Easter Sunday brunch in the city...). Nik and I got up early enough for a light breakfast at the B&B; we had told our hostess Kristin the day before that we would not be having breakfast since we thought we were going to early church, but then when we decided not to do church, but rather brunch, we figured we still didn't want her to cook for us, but we did go down to the dining room for some excellent coffee, mango-orange juice, and cereal. We also got to meet our housemates, a couple from Connecticut (though really from Georgia), and a family from Washington state.

 

The boys decided on Cafe Deluxe in the Cleveland Park area, because we didn't need reservations for brunch, and we met Phil and his family there at 11:00. There was only a wait of a few minutes, very surprising, and the brunch was really very good! I had a mimosa and brioche french toast. A lot of the others had egg/omelet dishes; everyone liked what they had. We really enjoyed meeting Phil's family, and celebrating his mom's birthday. We talked a lot with his aunt about the school where she works, which sounded really interesting!

 

 

 

 

After lunch, we took Alex back to his place so he could work on his speech for class Monday night, and we went back to the B&B. Then we decided to take a little walk before it was time for church; we just looked on the map near our B&B, and found a little park about 7 blocks away, called Meridian Hill Park. It turned out to be a pretty interesting little city park, with lots of exposed aggregate balustrades and obelisks, a bronze statue of James Buchanan, and a very cool cascading fountain down the steep hillside (though the water wasn't running yet for the season. so people were climbing on it). There was a historical marker nearby that explained that 18th St got so steep in this area that the original DC city plan stopped here because horse-drawn carriages couldn't make the grade.

 

 

 

The various ornamental trees were in bloom, too, and the weather was just gorgeous, though cool and windy in the shade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After we walked through the whole park, we headed back toward the B&B, but took a detour down U St to pick up some stuff we needed at the drug store. We also stopped for coffees at Love Cafe, which was a very cool (and apparently popular) place, affiliated with the CakeLove bakery across the street. I had a piece of lemon cake with my cappuccino, because I just had to try one of those delectable pieces of cake sitting there in the case!

 

 

Then it was time to get dressed back up, and pick Alex up for church. The Evensong service at the National Cathedral was a much different service than the early morning Festival services we've attended the past two years, mostly choral, and much more subdued. I was a little concerned when I saw in the program that we were all supposed to sing the creed and Lord's Prayer, but it turned out they were sung in monotone. After the service, we took a little walk around the Bishop's garden, which was very pretty, though the flowers weren't quite ready yet. If you've never been to the National Cathedral, you really owe it to yourself, it's quite an impressive edifice!

 

 

 

 

 

And then we went out for a traditional (haha) Easter sushi dinner at Murasaki in Tenleytown, very good! At Alex's suggestion, we had steamed edamame as an appetizer; also we had some very large Japanese beers (Asahi), and this was our shared plate (avocado maki, California roll, Crisp spicy tuna roll, Screaming spicy roll, Alaskan roll, and Spicy salmon roll):

The roll with the cilantro and red sauce was extremely hot, but they were all excellent!

A great end to a nice day!

 

We got a good start Saturday morning, got out the door by 6:30, stopped for our coffees at 7:00 in Cranberry, and headed out the turnpike with our new friend Lori (the TomTom One) guiding us. Of course, we already knew where we were going, but she's new, and we just wanted to put her through her paces. She said we would arrive at 11:40, which eventually was revised to 11:20 once she realized the speed at which some of us drive :-)    Unfortunately, it started to rain after about a half an hour, and it never let up till we got to DC.

 

Best part of the trip: seeing and hugging our two kiddos for the first time since January! After we all met up, we went to 2Amys near Tenleytown for lunch. Excellent, excellent! We ordered 3 pizze: Etna (eggplant/olive/caper), Vongole (cockles/capers), and Norcia (salami/grilled peppers). All the pizze are baked in the wood-fired oven, and had delicious crusts!

We also had some good beers: Moretti, and Weihenstephan. And dessert: I had the marsala custard, which was really tasty (very wine-y and unusual); we ordered a cookie/biscotti platter; and of course espressos all around.

After lunch, we followed Lori's instructions to Akwaaba to check in (more on the B&B later, but it's great!), and then we relaxed there for the rest of the afternoon. Meanwhile, the weather turned very nice and sunny (though still fairly cool), so we decided to walk the mile to dinner in Adams Morgan. We left a little early, and stopped at Idle Time Books to pick up some reading material for the rest of the weekend. It's a really cool bookshop, with lots of used and unusual books to rummage through. I bought two in German (Pride & Prejudice, and a collection of folk tales), and something for my sister. Alex found some sort of esoteric economics book, and Nik got Utopia and some really cool cards.

Another highlight of the day was meeting Emjay and her husband "in real life" for dinner at Meskerem, an Ethopian restaurant. Great food (lots involving lamb, various sauces, lentils, potatoes, etc), all served on a big round piece of teff bread, with more bread to scoop it up with. Take a trip over to Emjay's blog - she has lots more information about the food! We had eaten here in the summer of '05, when we doing the college tour thing, and we had really liked it a lot, so I thought it was time to try it again. I really enjoyed meeting Emjay, we learned a lot about telescopes and such from her hubby, and she & Alex talked about Australia.

It's always fun to put a face with a name, especially when you've already learned so much about someone from their blog... 

Went to pull a carrot out of the bag... And found it WAS the bag!

 

I hadn't realized Earth Hour began in Sydney...

I participated last year, and although I consider myself an environmentalist, unplugging everything really made me think about the energy we still use. Some of those appliances have not been plugged back in all year long, and I haven't missed them!

ImageChef is a fun site (thanks Lori!)... here's my creation...

 

 

Here are some camera pix I took while on my 6-mile walk today. I did the loop that goes down our side of the creek, crosses a bridge, and up the other side, crosses another bridge, and back down our street to our house.

 

I took a little detour from the normal route, to go down the little dead end road directly across the creek from our house, because I don't think I've ever actually been on it. As I suspected, there are a number of houses along there that were never rebuilt from the flood of '04, though some looked inhabited. There was one family I talked to briefly, who were working on dismantling their house and burning it bit by bit. I learned from them that there were quad trails I could take from the dead end that would lead up to the train tracks, and then to the main road; it turned out to be a little muddy, but not a bad shortcut, good to know.

It took me just under 2 hours at what felt like a pretty good clip, including some jogging now and then (well, except for taking pictures and sending them...), so I really need some more long-distance practices before June 20! My legs and feet hurt more than I think they should.

Toward the end, about a mile from home, I came across a bunch of needles and syringes, and a vial of Testosterone (according to the label). I picked them all up and put them in a handy Big Gulp cup (part of the roadside litter, good grief), because I didn't want some little kid getting hold of them; a couple of the needles were used. As I walked back home, I thought actually maybe I should call the police about it, since the only reason I could think of for them to be along the road is if someone threw them out of their car for fear of being caught with them. So I did, and the policeman just left the house after taking it all with him in a bag. He said they've had some reports of some of the kids at the school across the street using that for sports. I think he was just going to dispose of them, not try to catch anyone, but I'd rather not have used needles in my garbage bag for the garbage man to get stuck with. So that was my excitement for the day.

We went to see Cellofourte, Pittsburgh's cello rock band, at Duquesne University's Red Ring last night. We had first heard of them when they won a Battle of the Bands competition a year or more ago, and I've been hoping for an opportunity to see them play since then, so I was happy to find out about this show on Facebook the other week.

 

The Red Ring is a new restaurant/club in Duquesne's Power Center on Forbes Avenue. We were pleasantly surprised at its size, ambience, and food (both selection and quality). I tried the Mac 'n Cheese, just because I was so intrigued. It was gemelli with 7 kinds of cheese, roasted tomatoes, and a gratin topping. The menu said pancetta, too, but I realized later that seemed to be missing. But it was still very good, and lots of it. The salads were also good, and we especially liked the cool dishes they came in. For dessert, I had a hot apple crisp with ice cream, which was a little underdone, but otherwise very good, and no nuts!

Here are a couple video clips from the concert, but you really need to go to their website and listen to the music there. They're truly astounding... they play everything from Bach to the Beatles to U2 to Evanescence. They also did a cover of an Apocalyptica song, which I had never heard of, but I see now they're a Finnish cello rock band. But most of their music is of their own composition, written for their own style of playing. After the concert, we asked one of the band members about the different sounds of each of their instruments, and he said it's mostly to do with the age and construction of the cello; two of them have newer instruments, but his was made in the 1700's!

 

I never knew you could get sounds like these from a cello! We bought their new CD, Combustion, which is very very good.

Cellofourte will be at Your Inner Vagabond in Lawrenceville on Friday March 27 - highly recommended!