Quilt #63

I just finished this quilt, made to go with the walls in the guest room.

Back to New Jersey

We are back home from Florida.  The return train ride was uneventful.  That means I didn't get much sleep again, but that was expected.  We paid for priority unloading of the car in each direction so we didn't have to wait around very long to get on the road.

But I do have another issue that may mean I'll never do the auto-train again.  My unsteadiness when we got to Florida was solved by one Bonine tablet and I didn't think about it again.  But I'm much worse on this end.  If all that jerking movement on the train overnight loosened some of those crystals in my inner ear, I'm going to be very unhappy.  I've never had any issue with dizziness before.

So between the no-see-ums and not wanting the long drive to Florida, we may not be going again.

Sanibel Days 7-10

Not much to report but figured I should post something.  We are walking on the beach and bike riding.  The winds have really picked up this week so we won't be doing any more paddling.  And the no-see-ums are awful.  We are covered with incredibly itchy bites, making sleep very difficult.  We have stopped walking on the beach at sunset because that is when they really come out.  And we haven't found any repellant that works or any anti-itch cream that works either.  We may be rethinking this annual Florida trip.  Sigh.

Sanibel Day 6 - Corkscrew Swamp

Today was supposed to be cloudy so we hoped it wouldn't be too dreadfully hot in the interior and drove to Corkscrew Swamp.  We had a nice walk as usual.  I tried not to take too many photos, since most would be ones I had taken before.

But I did get a young raccoon digging for goodies next to the boardwalk.


The flower of the alligator flag plant, that I am surprised I never noticed before. 

And an alligator, a great egret and a snake.
 

Sanibel Days 4-5

We picked up rental bikes yesterday morning but didn't go for a ride.  It has been so hot, we have been spending a lot of time in the air conditioning.  We did take our daily walk on the beach at sunset.

Today first thing we took a nice long bike ride.  We rode up to the Bailey Tract and had planned to ride all the trails there.  But a couple had very soft sand that we had to walk the bikes through so we rode out to Indian Inn Road and took that back to West Gulf then rode west to the end of that bike path then up the nice path west of Rabbit Road all the way up to Sanibel-Captiva Road.  We've decided we will take that route up to the Ding Darling Road one of these days and bike the entire loop. We had a nice lunch at Blue Giraffe and shopped for new sunglasses at a shop nearby.  This evening we walked the beach again to watch the sunset.  It has not been very spectacular the last couple of days.  Glad we got a good photo of one the day we arrived.

Sanibel Day 3

Since the tide was low this morning we headed for the wildlife drive at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge.  We saw most of the usual birds, only missing roseate spoonbills.  And we saw a peregrine falcon, though from such a distance we didn't get a good photo.  Here are just a few of the birds we saw, taken by W with his new camera.

Reddish egret


Pied-billed grebe


Green heron


Anhinga


Lots of magnificent frigate birds flying overhead.


Great egret


And of course lots of pelicans, both brown


and white

Sanibel Day 2

We headed out first thing this morning, before the winds got too strong, to kayak in Tarpon Bay.  We took a tandem boat just in case W had trouble paddling after his pacemaker surgery, but he did just fine.  The water was very shallow and the tide was coming in so we got a nice ride going into the canoe trail, and had to work on the way back out.  We didn't see as many birds as usual.  But W took his good camera and got good photos of a tricolor heron


and two yellow-crowned night herons.

Sanibel Day 1

First thing was to go to the Sunday morning farmers' market.  It was not nearly as crowded as it is in January but all our favorite vendors were there.  Then off for a nice walk on the beach.  We've already seen most of our favorite birds, including a frigate bird that flew overhead.  It was nice to see these ibis at the water's edge.

Sanibel

We finally arrived and in time to see the Sanibel sunset.  Then off to bed for some much-needed sleep.  We are staying in Unit 3 in Sandy Bend again.

Chihuly Collection in St Petersburg, FL

We stopped at the Chihuly Collection in St Petersburg on our way to Sanibel from the train station at Sanford.  It was a great place to take a break in the middle of the 4 hour drive.  Here are just a few of the photos I took of the marvelous glass pieces.  We also got to see a glass blowing demonstration in a nearby studio.

Sanibel Vacation - Auto Train

We left home yesterday morning starting at 8:30 and drove to Lorton, VA to catch the auto train.  We took it to Sanford, FL on our way to Sanibel.  We had gotten a range of reviews regarding the train, everything from "never again" to "it sure beats driving."  So we decided to try it ourselves.  I unfortunately was correct in thinking I would not be able to sleep.  The beds are quite comfortable, and W even managed to fit himself in the upper bunk, but the motion of the train is incredibly rough.  I could have dealt with the forward motion, but there was lots of side-to-side which invariably woke me and then finally made it so I couldn't sleep at all.  We have paid for the return trip so we will try it again, but then I'm not sure what my vote will be.  But there are three things I wanted to remember in case we do decide to take it in the future.

• DON'T take the express lanes on Rt 95 south of the 495 beltway around D.C.  We did and ended up missing the turn to the station, since you can only get to it from the local lanes.  Also, since we really don't like the 95 corridor around Baltimore towards D.C. we took 301 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland instead.  It was a breeze with very little traffic; then Rt 50 across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
• Take a spare case to put my glasses in while I sleep.
• Take Bonine along so I have it when I get off the train.  After over 16 hours of motion in the train, I had trouble getting my "land legs" back after I got off the train.  

Quilt #62

New Jersey Activities

We have been very busy since we got back home on October 5th.  We've started up our usual activities and finally got to go hiking with the community hiking club today.  We walked about three miles in Cheesequake State Park on a beautiful sunny day.

Summary of 2019 Paddles

We managed to do 12 paddles in our abbreviated season this year.

• Bog River
• Follensby Clear Pond
• Oswegatchie River
• Piercefield Flow
• Raquette Lake to Blue Mountain Lake
• Raquette River from Axton to Crusher
• Rollins to Square Pond
• Second Pond to Lake Flower
• South Creek to Second Pond
• South Creek to Weller
• South Inlet to Raquette Lake
• Upper Osgood

Paddling the Oswegatchie River

We just completed our final paddle of the season.  We head back to NJ on Saturday.  We put in the Oswegatchie at Inlet

and paddled the 3 1/4 miles to campsite 42 on the river where we took a break.  The current was quite fast so it took us 1 1/2 hours to get there paddling upstream.


But then it was an easy paddle back downstream, taking us less than an hour.

Paddling from Second Pond to Lake Flower

We took advantage of having two cars and paddled a bit over 6 miles to where we parked a car in Saranac Lake, then went to Hotel Saranac for lunch before retrieving the other car from Second Pond.  Another beautiful day.

Hiking to Cobble Ledge

Paddling the Bog River

We had another beautiful day today.  We put in at Low's Lower Dam and paddled the 3 miles to the carry at Hitchin's Pond.  There was no wind when we started out so the reflections were perfect.






We had not climbed up to the ridge for many years because of my bum knees.  So we did the climb of a little over a mile to spectacular views.

Hiking Along Fish Creek

We had a nice 3-1/2 mile round-trip hike along a trail from Fish Creek campground.  The weather has been gorgeous with plenty of sun and mid-60's temperatures.  There has been plenty of rain so everything is green and lush.

Raquette Lake to Blue Mountain Lake

We are back in the Adirondacks, having driven up on Saturday.  We had a great but exhausting paddle today from Raquette Lake through the Marion River and Utowana and Eagle Lakes to the beach at Blue Mountain Lake, including a fairly long carry and a big beaver dam, for a total of over 13 miles.  It was a beautiful day with plenty of sunshine, cool temperatures, and not too much wind.  We have done the paddle several times before but this time it seemed exceptionally long.  I guess we are just getting older.




A well-deserved lunch break after the carry.

Audubon's Plainsboro Preserve

We had a nice walk this afternoon at Plainsboro Preserve.  We found huge trees that very ambitious  beavers have been chewing on and in some cases cutting down.




We saw evidence of their dragging branches and finally found a lodge above the water's edge and quite a bit away from the most recent activity.