Silver Lake Mountain – 7/23/16

Location: Peru, NY

So far, this has been the greatest summer for getting in some awesome hikes. I always love hiking while I’m up in the Adirondacks, but being at my lowest weight in my adult life has made them so much more enjoyable, and doable. I may be in my best shape ever right now.

Yesterday we did our most challenging hike ever, but before I get to that one, I have another hike from last weekend to profile – Silver Lake Mountain, our shortest hike of the season at just a little less than 2 miles. We had another hike in mind, but there was a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon, so we decided to do a short and quick one.

 

Silver Lake is short but it’s pretty intense. It climbs at a steady and somewhat steep incline the whole time.

 

 

I tried to get some shots with people in the distance as it’s the easiest way to show the changing elevation.

 

 

The best part about the hike was being able to recreate a shot from many years ago. Eight years ago, in June 2008, just six months after Harry and I first met, we came up to visit my mother and did our first hike together up Silver Lake Mountain. So we made sure when we got to that spot to get another picture of the two of us on the same rock. We are both in much better shape now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a snack at the top, with a great view to enjoy, it was a quick hike down to the car. A little under two hours and a great way to spend a Saturday morning.

Hurricane Mountain Birthday Hike – 7/20/2016

Location: Peru, NY

I know it’s not convention to tell a lady’s age, but I can’t do justice to the purpose of this hike without revealing that last week my mother celebrated her 70th birthday. She has a group of hiking friends that she hikes with frequently, and last week she chose Hurricane Mountain for her birthday hike.

 

It was a gorgeous day, and in all there were 13 of us that headed out on the 3.4 mile hike to the summit of Hurricane.

 

 

 

We found an interesting place to make a pit stop…

 

 

nicely modeled by one of our fellow hikers…

 

 

 

As is the case with the majority of the Adirondack hikes, once you get above the tree line, the views are frequent and wonderful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hurricane is one of the easier ones as far as the last little bit. Nice big rocks to climb up like steps.

 

 

At the top, everyone pulled out their contribution to the birthday feast…

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we all shared a toast to another year and a great hike to celebrate my mother’s birthday!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another gorgeous hike!

Today we have been getting our stuff together for our biggest hike yet. We will be leaving tomorrow at 3:30, YES 3:30 in  the MORNING, for a 12.5 mile hike up one of the high peaks – Hough Mountain. It will be my first high peak in some time, and Harry’s first high peak ever, so we are hoping for a good hiking experience!

Poke-O-Moonshine Hike 7/16/16

Location: Peru, NY

We were headed north to the Adirondacks when I got a text from a friend of ours asking if we were interested in doing a short hike the next day. We had our niece with us and had planned on going to AuSable Chasm on Saturday, but changed our plans as a hike sounded like more fun (and we didn’t have to pay for it either).

 

Saturday morning we drove to AuSable to meet with the rest of the hiking group and then to the trailhead where we parked our cars. We were taking one route up and another back down, so Hannah and I waited at the trailhead while they took a car over to leave for us at our exit point.

 

‘Hikes in the Adirondacks usually consist of a lot of hopping around big rocks, and this one was no exception. They weren’t any challenge for my niece though, who was often more than a few steps ahead of us!

 

 

Once we started getting above the treeline, we had a lot of nice outlook points and picture taking spots!

 

 

I never get tired of taking pictures of all the awesome landscapes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the summit we all took a break and enjoyed our lunches while taking in all the majestic views!

 

 

 

 

 

Hannah and I were here!!

 

 

 

Then it was time to head back down. Stopped here to take in the quiet and check out the beaver dam. No beaver in sight though.

 

 

 

Selfie at the beaver dam pond!

 

 

 

It was a fun way to spend our day with Hannah, and a great first hike to kick off our few weeks here in the Adirondacks!

Lots of Time with Company!

Location: Peru, NY

This has been the first summer that we’ve actually had company for an extended period of time. Last summer our grandson Schaun came and stayed with us for a few days, but this year he came to stay with us for two and a half weeks. We ordered a twin size memory foam mattress which folded up into a mini-couch and it worked so great!

While Schaun was with us, we did lots of fun activities…

Went to the fourth of July festivities in Albany…

 

 

 

 

The kids passed the time on their kindle…

 

The fireworks were worth it!

 

 

We also took a trip to Zoom Flume water park…

 

 

We went to Howes Caverns and took their underground cave tour…

 

We enjoyed a couple campfire nights, made s’mores and told spooky stories…

 

 

 

 

 

We also took a weekend trip to Stamford CT for a very nice visit with Harry’s son Andrew and his fiancé Amanda.

 

After Schaun left we had one day to get ourselves ready for traveling, and then it was off to our next stop – the Adirondacks!

 

 

My niece came north with us, and stayed with us for the weekend, so we got some more use out of that couch/mattress. I have a feeling it’s going to come in very handy!

 

 

We are staying in our usual stopping point when visiting my mother – at Iroquois Campground in Peru.

 

We have already been here a week and have been on three hikes so far. I have tons of awesome hike pictures but this post is pretty picture intensive already, so I will just put one teaser photo – this is from our hike on Hurricane Mountain.

 

It’s been a great summer so far and we still have two great months to go before we head back to Amazon for the fall.

Longest Break Ever!

Location: Earlton, NY (High 83, Low 56)

It sure has been a long time since my last blog post. I’ve read where other bloggers talk about losing their blog momentum and I guess the same has gradually been happening to me. We are very busy and loving our fulltime life, but still, most days are just normal kinds of activities and not the touristy kinds of things that many other people do. I still plan to keep the blog going but I haven’t yet figured out the best way that works for me.

So to catch up…we are back in NY. We are staying at the Earlton Hill Family Campground in Earlton NY. It’s the one that we found last year that only had the water and electric hookups, and the pumpout truck that comes once a week. We’ve gotten pretty good at managing our water, although we’ve used the blue boy we bought last year twice so far.

We’ve been having our normal appointments, including our physicals. We are both in great shape, and I was very happy with my results. My blood pressure was lower than last year, and perfectly normal. I used to be on blood pressure medicine so I am always happy to hear that it is not on the high side. I also have lost 32 pounds since last summer’s appointment! Summer is my hardest time to maintain weight, so I am trying to keep on top of it and not backtrack over the next few months.

We’ve also been busy with family, and helping out at my sister’s workplace. Harry has been doing a couple fix-it projects around the office, while I’ve been continuing my effort to get all of their office records scanned. This is the third summer that I’ve worked on this project, and we are SO close to the end! I am hoping by the end of the month to have all the files scanned!

 

The most exciting part of our summer so far took place this past weekend. For the past three months we’ve been training for a half marathon in Plymouth MA. Well, the race was this past weekend! The weather didn’t really cooperate, but we had a good time.

 

It was a hot and hilly course, and I didn’t beat my previous time, which was my goal. But I finished! 13.1 miles!!

 

Glad to be done!

 

 

 

 

The brewery gave a free beer to each participant. I literally never drink beer, but I made an exception this time! Nothing like a hot and hilly half marathon to make even a beer taste good! 

 

 

 

 

Harry finished his half marathon in 2:31!!

 

So that was this past weekend, and now we can start to think about our next one. We have found one in Sarasota next March that looks really nice, so we will probably register for that.

We have just one month left here. But lots packed into that one month! I will really try to get back into blogging form and be better about posting on a more regular basis.

Family Time!

Location: Garrettsville, OH (High 55, Low 39)

I still plan to blog about our other cruise days, but decided to do a blog post to catch everyone up on where we are currently. We have been enjoying a great month here in Ohio having some quality time with our grandsons (and their parents).

 

We were so happy when Gretchen and family moved to Ohio last year because it is a much more RV friendly location to visit than MA was. We have planned two month-long stops here this year, and the first one has been going by so fast!

 

I’ve said it before, but I’m going to say it again now…for me, one of the very best things about fulltime rv’ing is the ability to spend lots of quality time with family while having our own home there to go back to at night. If Harry and I were still working, or even retired with a house, we would only see our little guys for maybe a week at a time. And we would either be staying near them at a hotel, or having them at our house. But instead, we are able to be right nearby for weeks at a time, picking the boys up from daycare and school…being here for things like First Communion and school concerts, being able to form a real relationship based on time spent together…there’s nothing better.

 

It’s been a pretty cool and rainy spring so far, but I’ve been happy with the number of runs we’ve managed to get in. It’s a little less than our plan calls for, but still, three runs a week isn’t bad. And we’ve done all our long runs – last weekend we ran ten miles! We are now just a month away from our half marathon in Plymouth, MA.

 

This area is also very nice because of the number of walking trails there are around here. We have four different trails to choose from for our training runs. So far we have checked out three of them. Two are firm packed nature-type trails and the other is paved. One of the trails is more like a dirt road. There are A LOT of Amish in this area, and even though there is a sign saying ‘no buggies’ near the trailhead, it is obvious that the trail is used more like a road. I feel like I’ve gone back in time running down a road with obvious signs of horse and buggy traffic, old fashioned homes with farm animals grazing in the small fenced pastures on either side. (And having to watch where I step, if you know what I mean.)

It’s been a great and fun few weeks here in Ohio, with one more to go! It will be hard to say goodbye to our little guys, but we’re also looking forward to more family time up in NY.