Nik turns 10 and we decided to spend the day outdoors. Head to Cunningham falls for a hike instead of Shenandoah. The falls by itself wasn’t any impressive. Took less than 30 minutes to reach the tiny cascade standing all of probably 80ft. Was expecting Maryland’s highest falls to be much higher than this! Looped back to the parking lot on a slightly longer trail. Miss shey totally killed it! This 2 year old hiked the whole stretch with absolutely no complaints! ...
Seward Johnson’s - Return visit A quick weekend trip to Chicago to meet Neeraj and Kanu. Took this opportunity to explore Chicago a bit. Chicago downtown felt like an eclectic mix of Boston and NYC. Spent some time walking around the city on Saturday covering the regular spots leading up to Navy pier and back. Totally mesmerized by the greenish-blue waters of Lake Michigan! Headed over to Native foods cafe (finally!) for dinner. Elizabeth joins us and later we decide to head to Hopewell Brewing company. Grab some drinks and dive into some interesting board games with live music in the background. Played a slew of bananagram rounds and decide to head back to the hotel. ...
Torn between the Baldface trail and the Ferry crossing beach State Park, we decided to head to the latter. Proximity to water made it an easy decision. A short 2 hour drive from home and we reached the state park around 09:00am. The trails turned out to be much shorter than anticipated. Covered the whole state park in about an hour. Pretty well maintained. Humid conditions were a great recipe for the bugs though! Having covered the trails we head out to the beach. Pretty calm with just the morning walkers. ...
It felt like we climbed up a beast deep in slumber and got down much before it even realized anything. All that I had visualized about this supposedly treacherous hike was flipped all over. Most likely due to the weather, which was was way too perfect! It actually made it feel much easier than the Franconia Ridge trail hike we did last weekend! Reached the trailhead and started the hike promptly at 07:00am on Saturday. Hiked up the Ammonoosuc ravine trail that slowly winds up by the Ammonoosuc river. ...
PC&JC gifted Miss Me, little L and me a soaring gift for our birthdays. Four minutes of controlled flight ‘flew’ by incredibly fast. Calls for a return for some more certification dives soon and no, the solid whack at the end was not planned. https://youtu.be/x8pVQDQKvdM
Couldn’t have ended September on a better note! Pounding the hilly terrain in the Adirondacks for 36 hrs, straight through the night with 9 other folks - This has been my best run so far. Though technically that’s a lot of time for 197 miles, I guess it’s the nuances of the event that really gives you the extra kick. ...
Todays’ morning 7 miler took me over the GWB to Fort Lee. Wonderful surprise right in the backyard! Just a couple of miles from the house, yet it took me about 1.2 years to do this. Wonder why! Interestingly, there were barely any people here 7am in the morning. Probably because of the Weekday? Time to get the bikes down here and drive up to the Palisades!
Nothing to beat a great recovery run. Adirondacks 2014 it is!
Yesterday morning, we didn’t quite know what was in store for us. Working towards better utilizing our weekends and trying to visit the lesser known areas of New York; Meena found a great deal for a four hour cruise on Groupon. We were supposed to reach Riis Landing in Queens by 02:30pm. A snow storm was predicted later in the day and we weren’t quite sure if the cruise would happen. However with no change in plans reported from the organizers, we left home for the 1.5hr commute to Riis. But for a couple of missed connections, we were well in time for the cruise. On the way and just before we left Riss landing, we happened to meet quite a few interesting folks from Mercy’s college. Only later would we know that this particular cruise was possible because this online cohort of the teachers college was meeting for an assignment to study the water quality and the American Princess, the team that organizes these tours in the Atlantic was facilitating their work. ...
There is something just so mystic about wandering in the darkness and into the woods. The intermittent gusts of chilled wind, the shadows of the branches meandering round the corner, the winding trail that leads to yet another destination, the high rising hills exacerbating the vastness of the valley ahead, the rustle of the leaves hinting the plausible presence of the rightful owner of the land and the distant sound of a wild animal reclaiming his territory - all accentuated by the spell of darkness. ...