A Day in Jim Thorpe with the Family

Last night I went up to my parents house for the night.  It was the first time I've been up to the farm in seemingly a year.  I actually got to sleep in my room to which was nice.  The weather was cool enough that we could have the windows open (which is good because there's no air conditioning on the second floor).  The sounds of the night was great.  I really enjoyed listening to the crickets and bull frogs to fall asleep.

In the morning we leisurely emerged from the house and went over to Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  We decided to go to Jim Thorpe for the day.  We visited the Molly McGuire Prison and took the tour.  It was pretty cool.  After that we went and took the Asa Packer mansion tour.  We finished the day with dinner at the Broadway Grille and Pub before driving back to Numidia.  It was a good day with the family and fun to get everyone out in the new Volvo.

Cycling at Gettysburg with Dan

What a pose

Dan Kordi and I went cycling in Gettysburg this weekend.


Since doing the Gettysburg Heritage Trail with the scouts back in the mid 1990's I remember seeing a lot of people on bicycles.  Ever since then I've had it in the back of my mind to go back and cycle around.  (I saw another troop there doing the trail this weekend and chatted with them for a while too - they had to scouts with them near Eagle).

Picasa Web Album

What wrong turn?

Dan agreed to go with me out there for the trip.  I picked him up at his place at 9am Saturday morning.  We started heading out to Gettysburg and got there around 11:30.  We stopped at Sheetz for a light lunch and went over to the Gettysburg VC to find a picnic table to eat it.

After lunch we decided to drive over to the Pennsylvania memorial to start our ride.  We rode all around Gettysburg and saw most of the park.  It was a great way to see everything.  We didn't stop at too many monuments, but did stop at a few.

Everytrail Tracks

Self portrait

After the ride we got changed and drove over to the Appalachian Brewing Co. of Gettysburg.  I had been to their Harrisburg brewery before and we had a good dinner with some good beers.

Next we drove further west to the campsite at the Caledonia State park (site 21) that I had reserved the day before we left.  The 3 sites around 21 would be great for a group together to use because they're very close together.  There was a big swimming pool inside the park.

After showers, we tried to start a fire, but didn't have any kindling so we gave up in favor of drinking beer.  It was plenty warm anyway.

Dan slept in my 4 person tent.  I slept in my hammock.

I love my hammock

Sunday morning we got up and slowly packed up our stuff.  We left the state park and headed towards Columbia, PA on the susquehanna river to see if there were some relatively flat trails to ride on.  We drove around for a while but didn't see anything that suited us.

Then Dan suggested going back to Valley Forge Park and doing the loop there and then heading out to Collegeville on the Skulykill River trail. We did and it was a great way to end the trip.

All in all we got in two twenty mile days and had a great time.

Thanks Dan for joining me!

My First Trip to Butler

The homestead

Tony and I went down to Butler this weekend.  It was my first weekend at the homestead.

I met Tony at work in Malvern at 1:30 and we drove down to Western Virginia.

Picasa Web Album

Friday night we stopped for dinner in Harrisonburg, VA at Clementine's.  We both got Asian dishes which we think was a mistake.  Tony remembered the place being much better.  I think we should have got the steak.

The homestead was great.  Friday night I slept upstairs inside, but then setup my hammock and tarp for the rest of the weekend down below the parking area.

Chillin' at the Roost

Saturday Tony showed me around the area.  i got to meet a ton of great people while there.  Some I had been hearing about for years and finally got to place a name to a face.  We visited the Roost, Phil's, the swimming hole, the Shultz compound, and a bunch of cave entrances (Aqua cave).

Sunday I went for a bicycle ride by myself because everyone else had plans to go caving and I donated my caving gear to the Philly grotto about a year ago.  We mapped out a ride for me that morning.  When everybody left for their caving trips I spent some time doing some maintenance on my bike.  I brought new tires down with me and installed them.  Instead of the original 700x25 tires I went with the 700x28's.  The guy at REI told me that I would have much better luck with them on cinders.  i didn't really get a chance to test them out on cinders.

98 degrees and 100% humidity

The ride was good - but it was hot and I probably wasn't hydrated enough.  I ended up hitching a ride back with some strangers that stopped to see if I was OK when I was pushing my bike up a big hill.  Here are the tracks.  There are some tips at the end of the tracks post for what I would do differently next time.

Everytrail Tracks

After my ride nobody was out of the caves yet so I took Tony's truck over to the swimming hole to wash off.  When I got back Scott was at the homestead.  We chit chatted.  Nevin Davis and his wife stopped by and we talked to them too.  I made handmade guacamole for everyone while we talked.

Monday we woke up and leisurely packed our things up.  We left the homestead and went over towards Emery spring (near the swimming hole) to wash Tony's caving gear.  Then we drove back to PA.

It was a great weekend for me because I got to hang out with Tony - which I hadn't done in a long time and I got to reconnect with some cavers that I hadn't seen in a while.  I'll be excited to head back down to Butler again soon.

Eddie at the tower

Sitting here for the Eddie Vedder show to start at the Tower in Upper Darby.



The seats are decent for ticketmaster. Couldn't get fan club tix this time around. This is the ukulele songs tour.


-- Posted from the road

Spring Backpacking Trip 2011

The view near the Gunks

On pretty short notice this year James and I decided to take a couple days and head up to NY for a bit of a roadtrip.  The highlights were a backpacking trip in the Catskills and a couple brewery tours further upstate.

Picasa Web Album | Everytrail Track

Tuesday night
After work on Tuesday I hopped in the XC60 and drove up to the Poconos.  I met James at his parent's house and we had a couple beers by the pool.  He was back in town from Costa Rica so he told me a bit about some of his recent adventures (to India and his trekking around Nepal near Everest.

Wednesday
Wednesday morning I start the day with an early conference call and worked from James' folks until 5 o'clock.  Then we hopped back in the car with some gear to get us through a couple days and drove up  to New Paltz, NY to camp for the night.  We put our hammocks up at a vacant site at the climbers camp site near the Gunks.  According to all the signs I think we were breaking the rules because this is only supposed to be for climbers, but we weren't climbing this weekend.  Once we had stuff setup we drove into New Paltz and had some beers at the Guilded Otter Brewing Company.  The beers were actually really good, but on a Wednesday night they closed at 10 so we didn't get to have many before we had to leave.  We had enough time to have a snack too and the food was good enough to come back for.

It was probably for the best anyway because I had to be up for a 7am conference call the following morning anyway (my last responsibility before taking a little time off).

Thursday
In the morning I got up for my conference call and had a beautiful view for it!  I had driven out to the first parking area at the top of the hill.  The call lasted about an hour and 15 minutes and then I went back to the campsite to get James.  He was still sleeping but rustled when he heard me come back.  We loaded up the car a gain and headed down to the Mountain Bistro for some breakfast sandwiches and coffee.

James at Poet's Ledge with the monocular

After noshing down at the picnic table out front James and I started our leisurely drive up to the Catskills.  We picked the Buttermilk Falls trail out of my ADK Catskills hiking guidebook because it boasted great views and a couple waterfalls along the way.  There's a link to the tracks from the hike at the top of this post.  We did have a great time.  We had a very nice campfire (which I'm ashamed to say was not my proudest "leave no trace" moment).  We even enjoyed a couple beers that we brought in with us on the trip.

It did get really cold that night.  We could have probably been a little bit better prepared for cool weather camping.  I know that we both slept cold and we were wearing almost everything we brought  I guess we may have underestimated the cool nights in the Catskills a bit.


Friday
Friday morning, James and I work up and broke down camp.  On the hike out we took the spur trail to the Poet's Ledge view.  it was worth the half mile to get the views.  We thought we were going to get to see the Hudson river from there, but we couldn't  James was disappointed about not being able to see the Hudson.

Ommegang

After we got off the trail, we went to a state park near by to use their shower facilities.  After our shower, We headed further north and had dinner in Troy at Browns Brewery.  The food was ok.  The beer was eh.  After dinner we Went to the movie theater to watch the new (number 4) Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  Then we slept in the car in a state forrest.


Saturday
Saturday we got up and converted the car from sleeping mode to driving mode.  We headed up to Amsterdam, NY to visit James' grandmother.  It was great to get to meet her for the first time.  She was quite the firecracker and graced us with such insightful advice as "Love 'em and Leave 'em" and "Fiend them young, treat them ruff, and tell them nothing".  It was a good visit.  As it turns out, later in August she passed away making this trip all the more timely.  She was 92 I think.  After we left the nursing home we headed over to visit Mary Jane (James' Aunt) at her crafts store for about 2 hours.

After that we visited the Cooperstown Brewery (good beer, bu ta little diacytl in most of them) and Ommegang.  Ommegang was really good!  After we left Ommegang we had only a couple snacks so we were starting to get hungry again.  We were heading south by then so in Oneoneta we stopped at a place called Autumns.  We had intended only to stay long enough for dinner and a beer, but then we noticed that there was going to be live music.  There was a couple that came in and was sitting next to us at the bar that we started chatting with.  By the time we were done eating the band was about ready to start playing so we struck around to see the two different bands.  The music was great and we had a lot of fun.  As it turns out the girl that we had met was a professional photographer so we we even got some cool photos too!

Good times with new friends

At the end of the night James and I crashed in the car for a litte while and then drove back to his folks house early Sunday morning where we then napped a bit more.

Sunday
Sunday morning when we got up and had breakfast we drove back to Drexel Hill.  I dropped James off at his sister's place in Bensalem.  The end of a great trip!

Broad Street Party Run with SaraJane

SarahJane and I ran the Broad Street Party Run this year.  It's a 2 mile run out West River Drive and back, totaling 4 miles.  We ran the race together and she set a great pace.  I guess when I registered I must have accidentally selected "walking" instead of running.  Oh well.  I accidentally got pretty drunk the night before and felt pretty crappy for the run, but SarahJane set a great pace and I was able to stick with her.

Here were my rough splits (from my watch):
Mile 1: 8:30
Mile 2: 9:01
Mile 3: 9:05
Mile 4: 8:45
Total: 35:14 (8:49 pace) - from the website

Here are our tracks:
http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1066080

Here is the timing website:
http://www.midatlantictiming.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=155&Itemid=1

Good stuff.

New 2011 Volvo XC60 R Design

For our 5th anniversary this year Jenn surprised me with a trip to the Cherry Hill Volvo dealership.  When we got there she said that my gift was that I could have permission to buy a new Volvo (what a great wife!).  How excited was I?!  She didn't want a station wagon and it wasn't practical for the trips we take to replace my Jeep Liberty and get a sedan so we decided to go with the XC60.  After test driving both the 3.2 (240 hp) and the T6 (3.0 w/ turbo at 300hp) I decided that it was worth it to step up to the T6.  Considering my Jeep only had 210 hp this was a step up either way.   I decided to splurge because I work from home most days now and don't really put many miles on the car anyway.  At least it will be fun to drive on trips this way!  I also decided to go with the AWD.

Then all I had to do was select the colors and options.  For the most part Jenn and I agreed on these choices.  We wanted something dark.  I liked the R-Design look.

Picasa Web Album (with video)

We decided that we would do Volvo's overseas delivery program where they give you an outstanding price on the car, two free plane tickets to Sweden, a night at a hotel and insurance while you're in Europe.  We ended up not doing for two primary reasons.  First, Volvo was offering 2.9% financing in March and if we did the overseas delivery program we wouldn't have been able to take advantage of that rate.  Plus we wouldn't have been able to lock in a rate until May or June.   The second reason was because in doing some research we found out that Sweden and Norway are really expensive places to visit.  There were one or two other things that were a little bit of a deterrent too - like not getting the car until August.

Ultimately when we went to the dealership on Monday the 14th, we planned on signing up for the program.  After we learned about these terms of the program we started weighing other options.  As it turns out they had just brought a new XC60 in a couple days before and it had just made it's way through the shop.  I had almost all the features we were looking for, was the color I wanted in R-Design and was available.  It did have the convenience package, which I didn't really care about.  It also had the multimedia package which I didn't care about either.

After a lot of negotiating we walked out because I wanted to sleep on it for the night.  The next day I decided what the barriers for me to pull the trigger were and I decided to call them back in the morning.  They were able to meet the terms that I set forth and so I told them I would take it.  We went back on Tuesday night and picked it up.  It was a little sad to trade in the Jeep, but I'm sure I'll get over it.

I've been missing the Volvo brand ever since I got rid of my 1998 V70 - even though it did give me some problems.  I'm very excited to be a proud new owner of the XC60!

Hike to Glen Onoko Falls

Saturday Tony and I went for a hike at Glen Onoko to check out the falls and get in some exercise.  The weather was beautiful and it was good to see Tony after too long an absence.  

Picasa Web Album   |   Everytrail Tracks 

I took my motorcycle with a day pack strapped to it up to the Quakertown park and ride to meet Tony around 9:30.  Then we continued in his truck up to around Jim Thorpe to the trailhead.

We got in about seven miles about 1600' of vertical for the day.  The falls were really running because we just got dumped on with a lot of rain earlier in the week.

We stopped in Jim Thorpe on the way home for a beer and some dinner.

Good stuff.  Thanks Tony!

Tubing with John and Lisa at Big Boulder

John and Lisa invited us up to Lisa's family's house in the Poconos this weekend.  Jenn and I drove up bright and early on Saturday morning and we drove around the area exploring.  We checked out the dam that was nearby on Saturday afternoon after some breakfast.  Then in the afternoon, we all relaxed around the house with a couple drinks.  Eventually the girls fell asleep so John and I took a couple beers and traipsed around in the woods with dogs and very little direction.  It was a nice aimless hike down to the creek and back.

Picasa Web Album

When we got back the girls were making a Lasagne for dinner.  Later in the night we played lots of Wii and had a couple more drinks.  Eventually we made our way down to Da's Pub.  I think the bar tenders name was Robbie.  The place was dead so we only had two drinks and headed back up to the house.  We then continued to play Wii.

The next morning we were all a little slow to rise.  Once we were all up we had some delicious breakfast.  Lisa  made a crescant egg and sausage breakfast which was delicious.  After that and a couple showers we decided that it would a good day for some tubing.   We drove over to Big Boulder and did the 1-4pm tubing session.  It was everyone's first time except Lisa and we all had a good time.

We can't wait to make it back up there again!

Thanks John and Lisa!

2011 Winter Mancation - Adirondacks

One of ten funny sequence photos

For 2011’s winter mancation, we decided to depart from our normal routine of heading up to Vermont and New Hampshire and headed up to the Adirondack’s instead. The primary goal of the trip was to grab Mt. Marcy and see if we could get either Colden or Algonquin while we were up there. The trip was a success in achieving our primary goal, but we decided to change our plans and head to Lake Placid for a little R&R instead.

2011 Picasa Album  (2005 Album)

Thursday, February 3rd

Tom picked me up at my house just before 4pm to depart in the Subaru. We headed north and picked James up in Albany. He and his dad were up in NY visiting their family so we decided to meet in Albany. After a quick beer with James’ dad, we kept heading up the road. We had reservations at the Super 8 motel in Warrensburg and made it up there in about an hour from Albany. After we checked into our room, we noticed that there were giant icicles hanging from outside the window. We decided that they would make for a funny photo so we removed the screen to our window and broke two off.

After a brief ensuing sword fight we left the hotel and went up the road a mile to a local watering hole for a couple beers.  It was there that some guy came over to us to chat us up and he called James "Big Bird" thanks to his brand new bright yellow R3 high loft jacket.  We had a good chuckle and then went back to the hotel for sleep.

Friday, February 4th

Preparing to mount up to "The Rig" for the approach

On Friday morning we got out of the hotel relatively early - probably by 8:30 and headed up the road a little bit.  Our first stop was for breakfast sandwichs a nice little mom & pop operation.  Then we stopped at the Mountaineer and finally ended up at the trailhead around 11am.  Our journey was to begin at Adirondack Loj, but when we got to gate for the place we saw signs indicating that it was $40 to park there for the week!  We decided we weren't willing to pay such a steep fee and instead drove back up the road to the alternative "poor folks" (free) parking area near where Tony, Mike and I had parked in 2005.  Based on where we parked we hadn't really considered that the two miles this added to our trek in would be a big deal.  It really wasn't but all of us were more mentally prepared for a three mile hike to the leanto instead of a the five miler it turned to to be.

Melting snow to make water for dinner

From the trailhead, we headed into the second leanto in the Avalanche camp series - just below (north of) Avalanche pass/lake.  The approach from the road went without issue and we arrived at camp pretty early.  We started with the routine of water making (melting snow), eating dinner, and sitting around doing nothing for a couple hours before our customary 12-14 hours of sleep.  (There's not a whole lot to do in winter camping once your chores are complete.)

This was the same leanto that we stayed in during our 2005 trip.  We had debated heading up further from the trailhead to the leantos past Lake Colden, but we determined that they were really a lot further away than what we we're willing to travel on Friday.  Later in the weekend, a trip up to Avalanche Pass also revealed that with the sled getting up from the Avalanche Camp leantos to Avalanche Pass would be  a pretty sustained haul up an incline that would definitely make for some annoying pulling.  It would definitely be possible, but that mile and a half would be a workout!

Friday night was the coldest night of the trip - going down to about 5 degrees - which was fine for Tom and I in our toasty minus 20 degree down sleeping bags.  Unfortunately for James, he had forgot that on our previous winter trip he rented a suitable down sleeping bag and without that memory he thought that his 20 degree synthetic bag would serve him well on this trip as well.  Unfortunately a 20 degree bag wasn't as warm as he had hoped it would be on that first night, but with a couple extra layers of clothes - he survived.

Saturday, February 5th

Saturday morning we woke up and made breakfast. We all had granola with blueberries  and milk which I think has become one of my favorite camping breakfasts.

On Marcy's summit

Our goal for the day was to summit Mt. Marcy (the highest point in NY state). We decided to take the cutover trail from above (south of) our leanto over toward Arnold lake but vering off before we got that far.  That trail isn't traveled much and since they received 18 inches of fresh powder on Wednesday night.  We (read: Tom) had to break trail for about an hour and fifteen minutes until we connected with the elephant path that headed towards Mt. Marcy's summit.  We were glad to see that we weren't going to need to break trail all the way to the summit because frankly I don't think we would have made it.  James was recovering from a groin injury and wasn't quite a hundred percent and well I suck.  On the ascent we used our methodology of hiking for an hour and then taking a sit down break for 15 minutes with our summit parkas on.  It's a good methodology that RMI uses to get clients to the top of Rainier and it's served us well since then.

Tom and I standing on the summit of Mt. Marcy

On that trail, we continued over and were able to summit Marcy around 3pm.  The wind was howling on the summit - we guessed probably about 40 mph!

James' groin was still bothering him from a jogging injury in December, but it didn't hold us back.  As we started our decent we could definitely see a storm rolling in.  The forecast was calling for about 9" of snow over night and they got every inch of it and then some!  Our decent was pretty swift with the help of some snowshoe glissading on the way down.  It ended up being a pretty big day.  I'm guessing we probably covered around four thousand vertical feet on the way up and round trip it was probably 8-9 miles.  For the trip back to the leanto we decided to go past the turn off where we had to break trail earlier in favor of going down to Marcy Dam and coming back up that trail about a mile to our leanto.  It probably added a mile and a half to our trip but the walking was so much easier it was definitely worth it!

On our way to the top of the mountain we were very surprised by how many Telemark and AT setups we saw go all the way to the summit.  With a pair of skins on people were able to ski right up the mountain.  It seems like it's a popular day trip on a weekend for a lot of locals because they can get in quickly from the Loj.  Going down looked a little sketchy in some spots though - the trail can be very narrow and it takes  a lot of snowplowing during some of the steeper sections.  I think it would be fascinating to try some day, but also pretty risky.

A hit from the nipper to help stay warm ;-)

We got back to the leanto at 5:30 and started our dinner preparations as the snow continued to fall steadily outside.  The weather changed while we were making dinner from snow to sleet for a little while and then ultimately back to snow.  Since we were in a great shelter, it was fun to sit there and watch the weather change and the fresh snow accumulate.  We ended the day with a super cool snow thunder and lightning storm.  Winter lightning is very rare - most people don't get to witness in their lifetime so for us to get to see it while camping in a snow storm was pretty awesome!  I was determined to get some video of it which I've edit down to see the highlight here:



After the storm we went to bed.

Sunday, February 6th

Sunday morning we woke up in the leanto to about 9-10 inches of fresh powder to play in.  We made breakfast and decided that we would pack it up for the weekend and head back to civilization.  Since we summited Marcy the day before some the wind was out of our sails and we were very satisfied with that accomplishment.  So after breakfast we packed our things up and left them at the leanto while I skied (Tom and James snowshoed) up through Avalanche Pass to Avalanche Lake for a glimpse of Trap Dyke.  We took in the views and chatted up with a park ranger who was heading through that way too.

After the short trip back to the leanto, we grabbed our stuff and started the trip out.  We decided to head over to Adirondack Loj since it was closer and all downhill (mostly) and try our luck at either skiing back to the car with no load from there - or trying to find a ride.  We were able to pretty easily find a ride from this nice couple in an Excursion from Toronto.  They dropped me off at Tom's Subaru and I drove back to get them and load up all of our gear.

On the ski out to the Loj, the sled performed very well.  The only challenge is that if you have to stop while going downhill to accommodate for a family coming uphill it can get pretty ugly.  The PVC work pretty well to an extent, but they weren't able to keep the sled behind me entirely at that point.  The sled ended up tipping over and was a hassle to get going again while standing on the side of the hill.  The only other hitch on the way out was when one of the buckles on my bag got caught on a very solid fallen tree and stopped me literally dead in my tracks.  As the entire harness system tightened I stopped suddenly enough that my skis actually went straight out in front of me and I fell down right on my ass.  Fortunately the only thing that was hurt was my pride and dignity.  I suppose the upside is that nobody actually saw it happen because I was a litte way ahead of Tom and James at the time.  The delay gave them time to catch up to me though and poke fun of my sad state.

Trap Dyke

After those issues though the trip went fine.  I got  pretty practiced at descending some pretty narrow, windy descents without any further problems.  Finally once we had all of our things packed up we headed into Lake Placid to the EconoLodge where we stayed for $62.  After some showers and a little lounging we were all pretty tired so we called a cab to pick us up and take us the mile and a half into Lake Placid for food and drinks.

It happened to be Super Bowl Sunday so picked the Lake Placid Brew pub to watch the game at.  It was pretty awesome.  We did the "big boy flight" which is basically where you say screw getting a flight of 4 oz-ers and eventually get a pint of everything they're serving.  Yeah - we were pretty drunk.  Good thing we had the foresight to leave the car at the EconoLodge and take a taxi back and forth - Thanks Bubba!  The Packers beat the Steelers.

While we were waiting for Bubba to pick us up in the taxi we had some time so we played king of the hill on a giant pile of snow.  Tom won.

We make a great bobsled team!

Monday, February 7th

Monday morning we leisurely stirred.  I actually woke up pretty early and went to the hotel office/lobby to sit and use the wifi on my laptop and let the other two sleep in.  Once the woke up we showered, checked out and and grabbed breakfast in Lake Placid at Downtown Diner.  The food was good.  Then we checked out the ski jump training center for the Olympics and the Bobsled and Luge training center also.

We drove back down to Sugarloaf, PA to drop James off and had dinner with his family.  The lasagna was great and it was good to catch up with Jim since we last really hung out on the Alabama Roadtrip in September.  It was also nice to finally meet James' mom Joanne.

After dinner Tommy and I finished off the trip in about 2 hours heading back to Drexel Hill.  Another great mancation!

Lessons Learned

• Parking at the parking area on the road is free, but adds about a mile and a half to the trip.  It might be worth it to fork over the $40 to park at the Adirondack Loj instead.
  
• I should have put on the climbing skins at the car.  I used a lot of energy trying to make my way up some of the slightly steep parts of the trail and sometimes Tom had to push me up from behind (to get the weight of the sled off of me).  The skins on the way out climbed up everything and helped save me a ton of energy!
  
• A lot of people seemed to use the leantos at Marcy Dam to get a more straight shot at Mt. Marcy - might be worth considering.
  
• The sled worked really well again - wouldn't do it differently.  Do need to get double nuts or lock nuts on the u-bolts on the front - I lost two nuts on the trip - but it held together.
  
• I kept thinking that there were three leantos around the avalanche camp area, but when we went up there on Saturday, I didn't see the third one.  Would need to check on that if we were going to plan on staying there in a future trip.  Probably wouldn't want to take the sled up to the higher leanto areas anyway because it does get a little steeper.
• I used a stick anti-perspirant on my feet to help prevent the sweating that typically causes blisters for me and it worked (Thanks Tony!).  I didn't get any blisters under my feet.  The only one was on my middle toe from the decent where it rubbed against my boot.