Sunday, June 19, 2005
Thousand Islands picture page is up.
Ryan had to work pretty much all day Friday. I spent that time working out, food shopping, and prepping food for the trip. It rained for most of the drive up and was pouring rain when we arrived at the park. We checked in, found our spot, and watched in disbelief as two of the five college-age males in the site next to ours mudwrestled while the others cheered in what could not possibly be described as library voices. We went back to the park office and requested a change. The campground was less than half full so we got a decent one without any noisy neighbors.
It rained most of Friday evening, though it did stop long enough to have a small campfire once it got dark. For dinner we had a chicken/shrimp/veggie/noodle soup. I slept crappily because of an ornery sleeping pad and a drafty sleeping bag. Then the crows woke me up at 7:00 and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I had breakfast and went for a walk around the campground. After Ryan got up we went hiking for about 4 miles in the trail part of the park. I saw lots of fungi and took pictures for your enjoyment. Luckily the rain held off for most of the day and all we had were a few sprinkles. It was chilly all day long though- probably didn't break 70 degrees all weekend. In the afternoon we drove to a touristy town and walked around. Then we walked around the campground together. All in all, there was a lot of walking on Saturday. I'm estimating that I walked about 10 miles total. For dinner we had chicken stir-fry. We had a 4 hour long campfire that night and popped popcorn over it while drinking hot cocoa. Yum.
I slept much better Saturday night. We got up around 8:30, ate breakfast, and packed up everything. Then we went to another touristy town to catch a boat tour. Our tour guide was a girl currently majoring in EEB at Cornell. It was a nice boat ride, I guess, but a little repetitive and on the long side since there was lots of backtracking. It stopped at Boldt Castle (same Boldt as the halls at Cornell), so we toured the island. The story is that Boldt was building it for his wife, but she died mid-construction, so he stopped and decreed that it should never be finished. So it was disappointing that so much of the inside was unfinished, since the outside looked so fancy. And I was getting cranky and wanted lunch. Once we got back to land we ate and drove back home, returning around 3:00. Ryan had to go into work for a while, then we went out to dinner, then he went back into work. Now he's studying for his Georgia Tech quiz tomorrow. Poor boy works so hard. While he's been working, I worked out (again), went to Wegmans (again), and worked on getting the trip pictures up. If he keeps working all the time I'm going to be in such good shape! And my website will be so detailed and up to date!
Oh yeah, I didn't talk about last week's scuba. I got a perfect score on both my quizzes (not hard), then in the pool we did our first "dive" to the bottom of the pool. We had to demonstrate a few skills like clearing water from a flooded mask and snorkel, breathe underwater for one minute without our mask (easy because they let us pinch our nose), and replacing and clearing a mask that has fallen off. One guy dropped out of the class already because he was going to have to miss multiple classes, so there are just three of us now. Another busy week of sampling, potluck, and scuba coming up. My volleyball serving was much improved last week- hopefully we play again and it keeps getting better. This week's potluck item: brown sugar-pineapple rice.
Ryan had to work pretty much all day Friday. I spent that time working out, food shopping, and prepping food for the trip. It rained for most of the drive up and was pouring rain when we arrived at the park. We checked in, found our spot, and watched in disbelief as two of the five college-age males in the site next to ours mudwrestled while the others cheered in what could not possibly be described as library voices. We went back to the park office and requested a change. The campground was less than half full so we got a decent one without any noisy neighbors.
It rained most of Friday evening, though it did stop long enough to have a small campfire once it got dark. For dinner we had a chicken/shrimp/veggie/noodle soup. I slept crappily because of an ornery sleeping pad and a drafty sleeping bag. Then the crows woke me up at 7:00 and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I had breakfast and went for a walk around the campground. After Ryan got up we went hiking for about 4 miles in the trail part of the park. I saw lots of fungi and took pictures for your enjoyment. Luckily the rain held off for most of the day and all we had were a few sprinkles. It was chilly all day long though- probably didn't break 70 degrees all weekend. In the afternoon we drove to a touristy town and walked around. Then we walked around the campground together. All in all, there was a lot of walking on Saturday. I'm estimating that I walked about 10 miles total. For dinner we had chicken stir-fry. We had a 4 hour long campfire that night and popped popcorn over it while drinking hot cocoa. Yum.
I slept much better Saturday night. We got up around 8:30, ate breakfast, and packed up everything. Then we went to another touristy town to catch a boat tour. Our tour guide was a girl currently majoring in EEB at Cornell. It was a nice boat ride, I guess, but a little repetitive and on the long side since there was lots of backtracking. It stopped at Boldt Castle (same Boldt as the halls at Cornell), so we toured the island. The story is that Boldt was building it for his wife, but she died mid-construction, so he stopped and decreed that it should never be finished. So it was disappointing that so much of the inside was unfinished, since the outside looked so fancy. And I was getting cranky and wanted lunch. Once we got back to land we ate and drove back home, returning around 3:00. Ryan had to go into work for a while, then we went out to dinner, then he went back into work. Now he's studying for his Georgia Tech quiz tomorrow. Poor boy works so hard. While he's been working, I worked out (again), went to Wegmans (again), and worked on getting the trip pictures up. If he keeps working all the time I'm going to be in such good shape! And my website will be so detailed and up to date!
Oh yeah, I didn't talk about last week's scuba. I got a perfect score on both my quizzes (not hard), then in the pool we did our first "dive" to the bottom of the pool. We had to demonstrate a few skills like clearing water from a flooded mask and snorkel, breathe underwater for one minute without our mask (easy because they let us pinch our nose), and replacing and clearing a mask that has fallen off. One guy dropped out of the class already because he was going to have to miss multiple classes, so there are just three of us now. Another busy week of sampling, potluck, and scuba coming up. My volleyball serving was much improved last week- hopefully we play again and it keeps getting better. This week's potluck item: brown sugar-pineapple rice.
