Back from Oregon

S and I returned from Oregon this morning (at 3 AM thanks to storms on the east coast). This time we took Southwest from Philadelphia to Portland, via Chicago Midway. I paid the extra $10 per person per leg to assure a better seat. This was especially necessary since the Corvallis library did not open until less than 24 hours before yesterday's flight, meaning we would really be behind in printing our boarding passes. We parked the car in the daily garage at Philly, at $20 a day but were thankful when we got in a 1 AM that we didn't have to wait for a bus to take us to our car. Southwest was great about keeping us informed about the delays so it was not too bad, except for lack of sleep. Another thing to keep in mind for the future - the parking garage at the Philly airport had what seemed like a neat system that told you how many spaces were free in each section of the garage. We wondered how it worked, and then discovered it didn't. After driving all over looking for phantom spots, we eventually drove up to the roof where there was plenty of room.

Progress Report

Spackling and sanding are done and the walls are ready for paint. Hooray.

Back to NJ tomorrow so we can sing in the chorus concert on Saturday.

Bad Internet Karma

After such good luck with internet connectivity in Florida, we were disappointed that our luck failed both in NJ and in NY. We finally are up and running again in NJ after replacing the modem and the router. But the new gear is much faster, so we are happy we made the change.

Then we got to camp and had very bad and intermittent connectivity. W discovered that the cable end had corroded. So we decided it was time to ditch Hughesnet in favor of Mi-Fi service from Verizon. We took off some time from home improvement and drove to Saranac Lake to pick up the device, and bought paint, etc while we were there. But the Mi-Fi is a disaster. It barely works. Apparently the Verizon tower near us is old and the service seems to have deteriorated since we moved here. So we are back on Hughesnet. Jack fixed the cable this morning and all is well again.

On the Road Again

We were not in NJ long. Yesterday we drove to camp. The temperature was in the low 50's when we arrived. But we woke to snow this morning. It was mostly gone by the afternoon and the rest of the week looks good. Of course we won't see much of the weather since we will be in the basement spackling.

Home Again

We're back in New Jersey after an uneventful drive. We spent last night at a very nice Fairfield Inn in Elkin, NC. We took a different route home than we took to FL and liked it much better. We drove to Florida on I-95, but more-so than we intended. We had planned to take Rt 301 through Delaware and Maryland and intersect I-95 north of Richmond. But the bridge on 301 was out and we ended up headed for Washington on Rt 50 instead. So we definitely decided to take the alternate route home. We took routes 26, 77, 81 to the PA turnpike and then home and it was very nice. The only problem we encountered was on the NJ turnpike. Figures, right. It was so congested we got off at exit 7 and found our way to I-195.

We really enjoyed our trip. The driving wasn't too painful, especially with books-on-tape to listen to. Though we figure we would not want more than 2 consecutive days of driving, so a cross-country trip is definitely not in our future. It was really great to have high-speed internet everywhere. I have so little time to work on genealogy and the connectivity allowed me to alternate that with our outdoor activities.

Now that we are home, our internet connection is not working, so on top of all the chores awaiting us, we have to trouble-shoot that. What a bummer. Right now I'm connected via "free" wi-fi being provided by an unsuspecting neighbor. Folks really should be more careful.

Florida - Cedar Key

Another gorgeous day. We took a leisurely paddle around high tide, heading north from the condo in among the islands. In addition to the usual assortment of egrets, herons, osprey, kingfisher, we saw a bald eagle and a merganser.

Tomorrow we start the drive north. Between the nice weather and the Easter holiday it is getting crowded around here, so time to go. We hope the traffic is not too bad.

Florida - Cedar Key

We've decided this is a great place to recover from our vacation. We haven't been in the car since we got here. We walk into town for food and to launch the kayak. Today we rolled the kayak to the public dock and paddled out to Atsena Otie Key. Then we came back to the dock at the condo, following the red line on the map. It was a short paddle but nice to be out on such a gorgeous day.Here we are headed out toward the Gulf and the key. Here is a view of the condo at low tide, showing why we cannot just paddle out from here whenever we want to. We paddled by Old Fenimore Mill condos which are nearby and they look really nice too. It is easier to get into the water there since their property borders the Gulf. The units facing inland would be nice and quiet. Maybe next time. This pelican watched us closely as we walked out the pier to check water levels.