Road Trips and Hike Reports

 Sunday around noon or 1 I left Eugene after a lunch with my family there.  I saw grandma again very briefly. The drive over the mountains to Redmond was easy and enjoyable. Unfortunately but totally predictably, my mother hadn't packed a single piece of clothing or toiletries when I arrived in Redmond around 3:30 pm on Sunday.  We had a good Mexican dinner with some of Nick's family that I always am happy to see.  Then, as if by telepathy, one of them asked if we would like to come over for ice cream (well it was probably more about the Peach Cobbler she toiled over but for me...) and we eagerly accepted.  It was a fantastic piece of advanced home baking.  We stopped at WalMart and shopped out the last 20 minutes the store was open getting things my mother had on a little list.  She is good at list making I have to give her that. When we got back to the house it was after 8. Still basically on Eastern time, I was getting tired.  No real packing occurred Sunday night either and

Friday I headed out from Rochester on a Delta airlines flight to Atlanta.  Brian had an appointment at work which necessitated me being at the airport at about 9 am for my 12:30 pm flight.  I actually napped a bit on some of the seats in the atrium area before the concourses but it was kind of a long time to hang out.  The boarding for the flight was tense and took a long time.  Somehow the clown car eventually got loaded all the way.  It was a replacement A321.  I'm not sure what was originally scheduled, probably a 737.  My layover in Atlanta was 4 hours.  I spent some time eating at Friday's and enjoyed a big glass of wine.  It took a while but I eventually found a food court with tall counter top like tables with power outlets.  I spent most of the remainder of my time there since I could do whatever on the computer and be connected. The 2nd flight was, very surprisingly to me, on a Boeing 767.  I've only been on a few wide body flights in my life, mostly just the fligh

Brian had to work Saturday so we crammed a lot into Sunday.  We started with breakfast at home then headed out to film a candy review video with a friend and Target coworker of his at the friend's Antique Store.  It was a fun morning and though the store was so busy when we arrived I didn't think we'd be able to get a video done, it quieted down eventually and the entire video went in one quick take. After the video filming we headed towards Buffalo.  I had tickets reserved on a Teddy Roosevelt Inauguration site (run by the National Park Service) for the last tour of the day (3:30-4:30 pm).  I was hopeful for a moderate but challenging hike on the way but the hike I initially chose from the 50 Trails in Western NY book was a lot farther away than I imagined.  Alltrails helped me find this Como Lake park which wasn't too far away from Buffalo.  Erie county (which Buffalo is in) has an absolutely amazing park system with numerous lovely parks, some of the quite large. Pl

 After a self guided tour of the Capitol building we walked a loop around the perimeter of Capitol Park which lies just across State Street from the Capitol complex. As a trail or a hike it wasn't worth writing up but it was very enjoyable looking at the art installations around the edge and the neat planted rows of trees etc.