We met Helmers at the 5 Guys Hamburger joint prior to going to see STOMP at the Stanley Theater. I think Eric really enjoyed STOMP. I showed him a YouTube clip on Monday night. On Tuesday he found and displayed a 2nd clip for Kaitlyn when she came to sit and we played volleyball. They did a great 90 minute show and we had great seats in the 1st row of the balcony.
Last night Eric told me I didn’t have to put toothpaste on my brush this morning. He would do me a favor and do it for me. On 1 April? I am not too suspicious. 😉
I started the day by papering Eric’s bedroom door. He was glad that he got pranked.
We held our standard April Fools Day Dinner: crazy clothing, eating courses in reverse order, using bowls and kitchen utensils to slurp puddings and spaghetti. Everyone was a good sport about participating.
After my aborted winter camping trip to Gull Lake I wanted an opportunity to use the Eureka Kaycee 0 degree sleeping bag that had been provided to me. So Monday night while Eric and Kathryn were at piano lessons and swimming I packed up my gear and hiked into the woods across the road to find a campsite and stay overnight.
I took my book and cell phone. I didn’t read, but I had a lengthy conversation with Barbara.
I was hopeful of a good night’s sleep as I turned in at 8:30pm. It was peaceful laying out and listening to the sounds of Canada Geese settling down near my neighbors pond. Unfortunately, I dozed fitfully as my other neighbor had a dog that barked until 1:30am.
Temperatures dipped into the upper teens during the night. Overall the sleeping bag test went well – except the sleeping bag got a little chilly. I had to pull my down vest into the bag for additional insulation.
The next morning I awoke at 6:30, packed up my gear, hiked back to the house, showered and went to work. It was kind of neat sleeping outside during a week night. I will likely try to do it again some night this summer.
Earlier in winter I had been contacted by Ed’s Wilderness Systems to use and review one of his pulks for winter camping. At the beginning of March I was contacted by a representative of Eureka! offering a winter camping sleeping bag for review.
Over the winter I did a lot of snowshoeing but few overnight trips. The weekend of 26 March (right after our return from St John) was a last opportunity to go winter camping with significant snow cover. Skip and I decided to hike into to Gull Pond for an overnight on Saturday. It was my opportunity to pull the pulk and use the sleeping bag.
We had a 2.5 mile trip hike into the Gull Lake lean-to. The 1st portion followed a mostly level road bed used by snowmobilers with compacted snow. We passed tracks left by an otter. Otters often travel overland far from water, but in this case a small stream is visible in the background. The snow clearly shows prints that are ~3″ long with five toes on the front feet and five toes on the hind feet.
When sliding the otter will either coast on its belly with forefeet held along its sides and rear feet held out behind or, as in this case, get a ‘running start’ and slide on its belly across the snow and then continue by pushing itself to reach the end of a slide. Alongside the slide you can see troughs in the snow made by the otter pushing its self with their feet tucked under their bodies. Also in distance so you can see tracks mixed in with the slide.
The range of a typical river otter is fairly large, roughly 10 square miles, with most of that area is within a short distance from a river, lake, or pond.
The 2nd portion of the trail involved ~160’ elevation gain up a rough and eroded trail. This was more akin to bushwhacking as we avoided the gullies formed by erosion and weaved around the trees adjoining the trail. The snow was hard and crusty and initially I was apprehensive about the sled slipping sideways. However, slipping was rarely an issue. The sled tracked straight and the few times that it was unavoidable to traverse a side hill it was not difficult to keep forward motion with the sled.
The difficulty was in going uphill. The combination of a heavily loaded sled (64 lbs) and the hard packed crust made it real work to dig in the crampons on the snowshoes, lean forward and pull. It felt like I was using different leg muscles (calves and sides of my thighs) than I would normally use hiking.
We reached the Gull Lake lean-to and found 3 guys and a German Shepard. They had been there since Thursday and had bountiful gear occupying the space. We took a short rest and considered our options. We could share the crowded lean-to or try and find a place to bivouac or try to hike back out. Counting on staying at the lean-to we did not pack a tent or tarp which made the bivouac not all that attractive. We decided to hike back out. I gulped down 32 oz of water and dumped some of the water I had packed in, to help lighten the load.
We ventured out at 6:30. The snow was so hard packed that we decided to hike out without our snowshoes. It was a quick and easy hike back down to the snowmobile trail and made it back to the cars a little before 8pm as the light was fading.
We stopped off at the Tavern on the Green in Prospect for a beer and wings and watched the NCAA Quarter Finals.
There is a lengthy review of the EWS Snow Clipper pulk on WinterCampers.com.
We went to St John Virgin Islands 12-21 March with our friends Jim & Pam and Skip. We rented a small house – The Treehouse. It felt really reinvigorating being there, as opposed to using a disposable N95 respirator mask every day back home. The Tree House was about the same. It’s for sale, which makes us wonder if it gets sold whether or not it will be available in the future. It is the least expensive, and if it is not available, it automatically ups the cost of the trip $30/night/person, which is a lot for 3 of us. The vacation homes people said that almost everyone wants the more upscale places with pools etc. apparently there are very few of us who do not. Anyway, the driveway was rockier and a challenge to get up. They are asking 700,000 for the Tree House. We asked how much it brought in rentals, and were told “it’s not our hottest property.” apparently everyone wants Allspa hot tubs and pools. She said “I’m not sending her [the owner] any money, but she’s not sending me any either” in other words, it is bringing in just enough to make the maintenance costs. We were aware that there are certainly things that will need to be fixed at some point…the driveway, bathroom tile, painting etc. We figure you could low ball them with a $300,000 bid, expecting it will be rejected and perhaps they would counteroffer, and go from there. 🙂 Of course, it is a good investment! They are not making any more property on St. John! Get a consortium together!
Eric did really well, loved playing in the sand and surf. He saw a ray the second day and freaked out (it is the Crocodile Hunter’s final legacy) but by the end of the vacation he was fine and snorkeling like a pro in deep water.
We saw more turtles than ever seen (we saw 5 at one time in Maho Bay), lots of rays, scads of fishes and corals, of course. I had got my fishing line after finding the best reaction tackle braid review online, but as we were too much indulged having fun together, it didn’t seem right to let the fun stop just so that I could go fishing.
We went on Breath for a day (which by the way, is also for sale). It was the 1st time on the Breath there was sufficient wind to have all the sails out and get the boat really moving.
Skip did a lot of hiking, usually hiking home from wherever we had gone snorkeling! Helmers went hiking some too (although Pam drew the line at hiking up the hill to the Treehouse) as did Jim.
There is more and more development, and roads being paved in preparation for more development, so one wonders how long it will be before the beaches get crowded.
We had a minor accident when someone was not paying strict attention to the yellow lines, and clipped the mirror of our Ford Escape, which admittedly is too big for the roads. The rental place says “It happens a lot. The roads are too narrow and the cars are too big.” True.
Although we ate 3 times at Skinny Legs we visited a couple new restaurants in Coral Bay.
The wild donkeys (including a baby) visited us quite a bit, and kept us up the first couple nights with their braying
We messed up on our flights thinking our flight out was at 2:30 so we shopped and took the 11:00am ferry and got to the airport about 12:10. Jim took Eric into the bathroom while Kathryn looked at the itinerary and realized the flight was at 12:50. We dragged Eric off the toilet (poor child), got our boarding passes, raced to Customs where there was a huge line. As we got up to the customs agent at 12:30 she could see Kathryn was distressed and asked about it (probably thought she was smuggling something) so we explained about the timing and she said “no no you’re good. don’t worry.” We raced to drop off our suitcases (waiting in line again) then to go through security. Jim as always got wanded. Kathryn grabbed Jim’s knapsack and sandals and ran to the gate, leaving Jim without shoes. He ran through the airport, across the tarmac and onto the plane without his shoes on! The pilot greeted us with a “Don’t want to leave the island, huh?” Funny, in retrospect! Then our layover in Newark stretched from the expected 4 hours to 6 hours and we did not get out of there until after 11.
Jim went to work and Kathryn taught class on Tuesday. We let Eric sleep in to 9am and took him to school late. But we did not have to change time zones.
Eric kept a journey of the trip which he read to his class upon his return. Each night he would dictate his entry to Jim.
This winter we re-established our snowshoe & XC ski trails. The enjoyment of snowshoeing is the ability to bushwhack and make new trails. One of the more interesting treks was coming from the top of Kirkland’s Field down through the woods to our road traversing a small gorge.
There was steep slope down to the creek, a steep pitch back up from the stream and a two wire fence to cross.
There was a nice view looking south as I broke out in a pasture.
There were interesting landscapes along the gorge. Definitely worth re-visiting during the spring and also making a trail next winter.
We have been re-creating our snowshoe/ski trails on Pen Bonc. Last week we had a ski party where Kathryn, Skip and Steve skied and Beth, Clint and I snowshoed around our 3.5 mile loop. The trail went from cookout corner across the corn field w/ two stream crossings, up the hill past the recent logging to the old foundation. From the foundation we followed the level logging road to the Pink Property Line Trail to Appliance Alley to Kirkland’s field and down hill to home.
Friday afternoon Skip, Steve and I made a new ski/snowshoe trail connecting Kirkland field to the pink property line trail. Steve brought his GPS and we learned it was .9 mile and 200+ elevation gain from our house to the top of Kirkland’s field. Our new loop added another mile making a nice 2.8 mile ski loop to our existing trails.
Wednesday night I took Eric and one of his buddies to see the Harlem Globetrotters play at the Utica Auditorium. The weather was horrendous. Kathryn was sick and couldn’t go so we invited Eric’s friend, Sawyer. We had great seats, 3rd row on the floor at mid-court. We were close enough that one of the Globetrotters ate some of Sawyer’s popcorn. The Globetrotters put on a good family show. The boys really enjoyed it.
Eric and his buddy Trevor are big fans of the Mantracker show, a reality show in which a search and rescue expert on horseback, armed with a local guide, tries to apprehend two contestants before they achieve a finish line ~20 miles away before 36 hours elapse. The contestants have a map, a compass and a 2k head start.
Eric and Trevor’s version started off more like ‘chase me through the woods’, but with the snow cover we decided to change the game.
The boys and I were equipped with emergency whistles and walkie-talkies. They gave me a 15 minute head start as I left tracks through the our 40 acre wood lot. I doubled back a couple of times and found an observation point where I could view them following my trail. I donned my “secret weapons”; a white Tyvek disposable lab coat and white Tyvek pants. I pulled my cream colored wool hat down low and laid down in a snow drift to watch.
The boys were loud and easy to follow. After about 30 minutes they were nearly on top of me when I rose up from the snow drift behind a stump and shouted “Did you miss me boys?!!”
Eric froze like his heart stopped and Trevor started looking for a tree to climb. After their pulses returned to normal we agreed it was the best Mantracker ever. The boys took off for the mailbox as their ‘finish line’. I was unable to catch them and we went in for hot chocolate and a re-hash of the game.
Eric’s co-ed indoor soccer team has had a successful season. They finished 3rd in a nine team league behind two club teams: Coliseum, who won the league last year and Krajisnik who HP beat, but they finished with the same overall record and moved ahead of HP due to more goals scored.
Eric played middle fielder and took all penalty and corner kicks managing to score in almost every game.
