Week 26

Better late than never, they always say. . .  It was a busy 3-day weekend for us, but not a very social one for Independence Day.  Instead of hanging around for fireworks and barbecues, my wife and I decided to embark on a long-overdue wilderness adventure.  We initially planned on backpacking the 30-mile West Rim Trail along the edge of the 'Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania,'  but it was going to be hotter in the air-conditioner forsaken states of NY and PA than it was in Texas.  The idea of a 30-mile march through a black fly-infested sauna wasn't very appealing.

It turns out that the outfitters who provided shuttle service to the southern terminus of the trail (allowing hikers to trek back to their cars) also rent bikes for use on a different path.  We decided, instead of hiking along the upper edge of the canyon for three days, to cycle the Pine Creek Rail Trail.  Shady, long and flat, we could move along at a good clip and generate our own breeze along the bottom of the gorge.  We decided on going as far as their shuttles would provide service to return us to our cars (about 30 miles) they told us it should take all day.

We started pedaling around 10:00, stopping a few of times to snack, gawk at a bald eagle, or ogle at deer.  The highlight of the trip might have been our stop in Cedar Run Village, where the company store sells ice cream.  They have very generous scoops.  Grasshopper Pie rules!  It's like mint-chocolate chip/cookies and cream with fudge injected.

We rode on from there, and made it to the gas station where the shuttle was to pick us up.  It was 1:30.  The shuttle wasn't arriving until 4:45.  There's no cell phone service out there.  Luckily the gas station had some cool stuff to browse- it's sort of like a bait & tackle/souvenir shop/deli.  It was a long wait, but probably more comfortable there than it would have been out on the trail during the hottest part of the day- we would have been grilled.

The shuttle finally arrived about 5:00.  Our ride back to our car took almost an hour- the roads aren't nearly as direct as the trail.  On board the 16-passenger van was another picked-up passenger.  A stately upper-middle-aged man with a full head of impeccably groomed gray hair.  He was living in a hotel in PA and working in the oil and gas industry.  I got up the guts to introduce myself and catch his name, Larry, as we de-boarded the van.

I should have caught the name of our super cool driver as well, but he got away.  He was a slender young fellow with a surfer-dude accent.  He sounded sort of like Michaelangelo the Ninja Turtle.

The air was cooling off by the time we got back to the car, so we hunted down the West Rim trailhead and trekked a couple of miles in before finding a suitable campsite.  There we gathered wood, cooked a pasta-side for dinner, and spread our sleeping bags out on the forest floor.

It was time for dessert!  We had packed in the key ingredients for making s'mores.  It turned out that leaving those ingredients in our packs, in a black Honda Civic, on a blazing hot day, had been a bad idea.  The treats had just about made themselves.  The chocolate was molten and the marshmallows had formed one massive ultra-sticky puff- it may have even melded with the zip-lock bag.  We did the best we could, spreading marshmallow goo on grahams with a stick and then buttering them with the chocolate syrup.

After a good night's sleep under the stars,  we had breakfast- hot coffee and fruit bars smeared with peanut butter- then trekked back out of the woods.  The rest of the day was spent finding, then hiking another trail to the blue-ridge rocks, climbing around a bit there, hiking back out, and then searching desperately for a state park in the area where we could swindle a shower in the camping area.

I was determined to enjoy a nice dinner out in downtown Wellsboro before we drove home Sunday night, but we were both in desperate need of a shower.  The nice folks back at the outfitters suggested Twin Creeks Campground south of Wellsboro, so we drove about half an hour to take $3 showers.  Yes, they were worth it.  We had dinner at a nice Italian joint, then crossed the street and got tickets to Knight and Day at a little theater there.

We were exhausted by the time the movie was over, and drove on home, seeing a glittering of fireworks above hills and treelines here and there on our  way.

That's right, I only came away with one name last week.

Week 25

If you haven't heard of Freecycle, you should sign up soon.  The movement began as a conglomeration of Yahoo Groups with firm guidelines regarding membership (you had to be local to the group) and posting (formatting, the nature of your dealings, etc.)  If you have something laying around that you don't want, you list it as an 'offer,' and if someone else in the network wants it, they can arrange to pick it up- no money changes hands.  If there's something you would like to have, you can enter a "wanted" post, and some kind soul might just have an extra on hand they're willing to give you for nothing.  Freecycle is gradually graduating from Yahoo Groups to it's own centralized site at http://my.freecycle.org/ . 

All that to say, I put in a request for some 1-gallon glass jugs for a project of mine and a nice, older lady named Elizabeth responded.  She was from just south of us, across the border in the backwoods of PA.  We exchanged emails for several days trying to coordinate the logistics (she apparently only checks her inbox once a day.)  She was feeling under the weather, so she postponed delivery, but offered to bring them all the way up to Elmira.

So I stopped at a gas station on the fringe of the city and waited for 20 minutes on my way home from work on Friday.  Elizabeth, true to her word, showed up in her Escape.  She was a petite backwoods granny in a sun-dress with two of the longest sandy-grey pigtails I've ever seen in my life.  She seemed tough as nails and sweet has honey.  I accepted the goods, thanked her kindly, and we parted ways- as is the beauty of freecycle.

Earlier in the week I happened to meet a gentleman I thought I already knew.  A guy from sales, who I'd been dealing with off and on and I assumed to be a sales manager named Joe.  He came into my office and said such-and-such about a particular job I was working on.  I told him that the take-off was all screwed up and that the guy that took it off had emailed me explaining how he planned to fix it.  "I took it off." he said. . . . . It turns out that the guy I thought was Joe the sales manager, was actually Scott the estimator.  I played off that blunder pretty well, but that case of mistaken identity was quite a shocker.

Week 24

On Sunday after church we did the buffet thing.  Buffets have to be one of the greatest exercises in self-discipline to exist in the modern world.  It's a world of food- countless bins full of everything you can imagine from cold, crispy veggies at the salad bar, to steaming chicken Alfredo nestled right between the taco station and egg rolls.  Some of the bigger ones even boast a Meat Bar now- yes, I said a MEAT BAR manned by a professional flesh chopper ready to hack you off some finely roasted muscle at your bidding.

The establishments tend to charge you so that you'd have to eat 8 pounds of steak to get your money's worth, and I am a big fan of getting my money's worth.  My strategy is to usually start with the salad bar to give myself the illusion of a healthy meal- and to pad my gullet a bit.  By the time I drown all of that baby spinach, broccoli, and cauliflower in ranch dressing and bacon bits, the American Heart Association probably wouldn't approve.

Round two usually consists of meat and pasta, they really have options when it comes to cold pasta and potato salads that make you feel like you swallowed a cinder block.  By the time that plate's cleaned, my eyes are rolling back in my head as I purvey the acre of various cookies, brownies, soft-serve toppings, and more available at the dessert bar.  It takes both hands to get a cube of that heavy bread pudding onto my plate.  I cover it with ice-cream so my wife doesn't see it and get jealous.

With no crafty segue to connect my previous exercise in exaggeration to the two names that legitimize this post, over a hearty meal at the Old Country Buffet I had the privilege of meeting a couple named Bob and Alicia.  Nice folks, indeed!
 

Week 23

Okay, last week's extensive description of skull-loving Brian the boat-renter will have to take up the slack for this week's pitiful post.  On Sunday we were treated to lunch by Reverend Jon and at Beijing Garden- a nice place to get your China-food fix, by the way. I formally met their kiddos, which included William and Grace.  (Not named after the TV show Will & Grace). 

We all had fun scorching our wontons and eggrolls in the flame centered on the Pu-Pu platter.  Grace, missing several upper front teeth, said the tooth fairy had been giving her a fair shake.  William didn't say a whole lot, but seemed quite the gentleman.

Later in the week I finally ventured down the hallway of the sales department where I work and met a guy named Jim for the first time, a pretty nice guy- helpful for a salesman.