planetpayne

it’s been a while since i’ve written a posting as i have been slaving away at a new design for planetpayne. to those asking when i will be posting pictures, the answer is i don’t know.

this week we are in stowe vermont and it has been a lovely change from the adirondacks. the adirondacks are nice and all, but the place its such a horrid tourist trap that you can’t seem to look at a tree without some jackass charging you $9 for it.

vermont on the other hand has been great. we came here mainly to visit one of my dear old friend from high school, laura peer, and her husband jim and lovely little monsters astrid and lucinda. as much as i consider laura a dear friend, i must admit was horrible at keeping up with her…even when she lived in chicago when i did! however the magic of facebook has brought us back in touch and it has been wonderful seeing her. the girls get along great and ingrid has had a ton of fun playing with astrid. we first went over to laura’s house for some dinner and had a great time just chatting and catching up. the girls played so well together it was nice to have a evening of adult conversation.

on laura’s recommendation we checked out the shelbourne museum, which is absolutely amazing. founded by Electra Havemeyer Webb it is an awesome collection of american folk, decorative and fine art. in addition to just objects the museum broken down into a whole mini town of old buildings, many of which were bought and moved to the facility. including an old jail, schoolhouse, lighthouse, covered bridge and several 19th and 18th century homes. various collections include a massive collection of bird decoys, toys, dolls, woodworking tools, this huge exhibit of over 3500 hand carved circus figurines and much much more. you could spend a week at this place and not see everything. one of this years annual exhibits was nice collection of lamps, windows, furniture and jewelry by Louis Comfort Tiffany. it sounds dumb to get excited over lamps, but it was amazing.

the only downside to vermont so far is that the weather turned south and we’re stuck with lots of rain. at least our belly’s have been kept full and warm with a great selection of restaurants. we’ve been out three times so far and each one has been awesome. silvia was just exited to get breakfast at a place that served -real- maple syrup instead of colored corn syrup.

yummy!

It’s our last night in the Adirondacks. We’ve been staying in a town called North Pole, which is fun for Ingrid. There’s Santa’s Workshop nearby, but unfortunately, it’s closed during the week. Too bad because they have live reindeer! Our campground has the best playground yet, in my opinion; they have an intricate wooden 4×4 truck and pirate ship, a plane that rocks seven kids side to side, and even a train. It’s kind of fun to see the candy canes and Merry Christmas signs. The only thing I don’t like (and I really don’t like this) is that the showers are push button and they turn off automatically after just 2 minutes!

Yesterday we drove up Whiteface mountain. Near the peak you can get into an elevator that will take you the rest of the way. It was mostly a bummer because there was zero visibility, still it was our day to see Whiteface mountain so we paid our $14 entrance fee and plodded on. Ingrid had asked me earlier this month what it feels like to be in a cloud, so I told her we were going to a castle in the clouds! She perked up quite a bit and we all got into the game. There were some beautiful views along the way but near the top we were truly covered by the clouds and couldn’t see anything. No matter to Ingrid who was excited to enter the “castle” at the top. It really did look and feel like a castle. Inside was a restaurant and gift shop. Inside the tower at the very top of the mountain we saw photos of the famous people who had been there, like the Kennedys. I think at times it’s a popular ski resort; at this time of the year though, we had it all to ourselves.

Today we wanted to see some of the other sights but quickly lost our excitement. It seems like most of the land here is privately owned, and so for every attraction there is an outrageous entrance fee. There’s a gorge close by that seemed interesting, but then we found out it costs $16 per person ($9 for kids) just to hike to it! There’s also a chasm which you have to pay for, a gondola ride up Whiteface mountain (we were willing to pay for this one, but it was closed today). Ingrid is constantly asking if we can have a picnic so we packed up a cooler and headed out with the dogs. We drove toward Placid Lake and had a hard time finding an ideal spot. Finally we just stopped close to the lake and spread out the blanket and ate our sandwiches and chips. The dogs whined constantly because they were tied up. Ingrid danced around enjoying the picnic, and Andrew and I talked about how cool it would be to live on a lake for a month or so. After lunch Andrew took us back to a hidden road he’d seen earlier, an unpaved path along the railroad tracks. We weren’t sure if we should, it seems pretty off-road unfriendly in the Adirondacks. But we did and we’re glad we did! We drove a short distance and found a big open field for the dogs to run. They were beyond thrilled! On a little hill adjacent, Andrew found abandoned playground. That was kind of erie, seeing all the trees overgrown on the swing set, and the monkey bar buried in weeds. We had a grand time playing and then drove back through the narrow path with tree branches brushing us like we were in a car wash. Just as we came to the real road, we saw a police car parked across the street, monitoring with a radar gun. Fortunately for us, s/he did not see us coming out of the woods.

Tomorrow we hit the road for Montpelier, Vermont where we’ll visit Andrew’s school friend Laura. Laura has children so I’m excited for Ingrid; it’s been a kid-less kind of a trip lately with everyone going back to school. We’ll stay in Vermont for about a week and then drive to Syracuse, where Ingrid and I will fly from to California. Andrew will meet us there after a week and we’ll go to Sarah’s wedding together. When we get back to NY we’ll stay with Andrew’s uncle, visit Ingrid’s great-grandma, and even spend a few nights in New York city. Beyond that is only loosely planned and totally open. I love it!

It’s been a real home projects kind of a day. Cleaning, laundry, stuff like that. But also I’m making good on my promise to make Ingrid some strawberry ice cream. Since we don’t tolerate salicylates very well, I substituted rhubarb for strawberries. They taste very similar if you add lots of sugar, but while berries are very high in sals, rhubarb is pretty low. Very convenient for me!

Right now Ingrid is making pumpkins, Crater Lake, and Niagara Falls with the playdough we made. Andrew is out riding his bike on his lunch break, and Ginger is watching for falling scraps of playdough. The house smells amazing since we are baking some bread. I just peeked and it’s ready, but my half-whole wheat experiment didn’t rise like the all-white version. Too bad. I’ll have to keep looking for a better recipe.

We got the idea from reading Little House in the Big Woods. First I made a little pancake boy and Ingrid was so delighted that she ran to show daddy… Unfortunately the dogs were sitting next to him and they thought Ingrid was offering it to them. There were lots of tears over that one! I had to quickly make one that was even better- a girl. Ingrid dipped her finger in some yogurt and decorated her.

that’s a chipmunk, acorn, and the sun.

The house is furnished inside with a rug (maple leaf), bed of grass, soft dirt, a bottle cap full of amaranth seeds, and a nice big pine cone.

I’m a little behind. After Yellow Springs, we drove a few hours north to Cleveland. There we stopped for a few hours at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. I have mixed feelings about the museum. On the one hand, it was awesome to be in a place that was all about music; I loved hearing the songs playing, loved seeing the artists displayed; loved the kiosk where you could listen to the 500 most influential songs; loved learning about the progression from blues to rock and how it grew in different cities. Unfortunately though, for an amazingly cool subject, the museum flopped in its presentation. Sure they had lots of cool memorabilia, but the films they showed were shockingly amateur. We’re talking photos of musicians with different floating fonts over them, on three screens. It made my head hurt to watch but the memories it brought back kept me watching. Overall I’m very happy that we went, because it made me remember how much I love music, and what a wealth of music is out there for us to enjoy. I want badly for Ingrid to grow up loving music, and she did show some interest and ask questions. She was happy that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun was one of the songs in the top 500, although Cyndi Lauper was not one of the inductees (yet). I told her a bit about each exhibit and she listened politely; she made it through four hours of the museum before asking to go, and I give her lots of credit for that.

After our brief stop in Cleveland, we headed East again and North, to Niagara Falls. We stayed at Four Mile Creek State Park, which kicked ass. We arrived at night and were lucky to get a site- the place was packed! I had called earlier and was told there was only one spot left, and it was first come first served, but we were still four hours away at that point. I called again when we were two hours away and the lady told me she’d let me have the spot they have reserved for emergencies. When we got there I realized there were more than 300 sites at this park, so we really lucked out. The energy there was fun, there were lots of families and everyone was happy to be there. An awesome and huge playground, beautiful woods, friendly people all around- I wished we were staying longer. We drove to the falls in the morning, crossing the border to Canada. That was pretty cool and a good learning opportunity for Ingrid. The guard almost confiscated Andrew’s pocket knife but in the end he let him keep it since he could tell it was an expensive one. Andrew promised to leave it in the car during our stay and he did. The falls were huge, of course, and the border city was very colorful and touristy. Ingrid wants to remember how shiny the water was, and that it rained mist heavily; also the incredible rainbow across the water. We walked along the river and looked at the falls (exceptional people watching), checked out the city a bit, and spent a nice lazy day this way. On the way back, we rode an inclined railway down to our car and drove back to our lovely campsite. We cooked ourselves some big juicy burgers and went to bed happy.

We’re in the Adirondacks now, in the northernmost part of New York state. It’s very very scenic here, with dense woods and tons of ponds that are so still, you can see the reflection of the woods in them like a mirror. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen and I’m excited to go out and explore. We think we’ll be here five days or so.