Well, pretty soon, anyway. I'm working today, off tomorrow to do some stuff around the house and pack the van full of stuff, and then Saturday morning we head out on our road trip up to northern Georgia. Seems like whenever we plan a trip, often as not it falls through for some reason, so I hadn't spared too much thought for this one until the past couple weeks, but I'm fairly excited now.

As is my wont, I drafted a tentative itinerary for each day, which I know sounds a bit anal. But hey, I like to have a plan, even if the day comes and we toss the plan out the window. Putting that together gives me an idea of what options we have in each general area, which things cluster together, which things are higher on my wanna-do list, and forces me to think about the timing of getting from one to the next. So it usually ends up working out pretty well. We're at the cabin for 3 full days, so those days we can sort of wing depending on what we feel like doing each day--or just pick a direction and run with it. But for the drive up I definitely wanted to sketch out an agenda, since we're stopping for a night to do a thing or two around Atlanta, and want to otherwise break up the drive a bit. On the way home, we plan to push through in one day, I expect with a stop or two along the way.

Anyway, I've been looking at which hikes and waterfalls I'd like to do. I'm trying to keep everything to 2 miles or less, round trip. As much as I'd love to hike all day, the girls do have their limits. :) And most days I'm trying to include some non-hiking stuff, like Babyland General Hospital (the home of Cabbage Patch dolls). The girls have never had or cared about those per se, but I think they'll enjoy seeing the place, and I'd be surprised if we don't walk out of there with at least one doll for someone. Maybe my wife!

I think the top thing on my must-do list is the Hurricane Falls trail at Tallulah Gorge State Park. It looks pretty awesome, especially with the suspension bridge and many hundreds of stair steps. Hopefully everyone can keep up! The views look awesome. I've got a number of other waterfall hikes on the list, though I'm sure we won't get to all of those. And speaking of views, I think we'll drive up to the top of Brasstown Bald. Looks like we might have just missed the peak of fall color up there, but there should still be some around. That will be a treat for us all, since Florida isn't too big for fall color!

And the weather looks fantastic, so hopefully everything will be awesome. I just hope the girls will go along with everything with minimal complaint. The younger two especially, they can be quite stubborn when they don't want to do something, so I kinda imagine some episodes of having to drag them along kicking and screaming, literally in Amy's case. We shall see.

So yeah, I'll probably not being paying much attention to LJ until we get back, so keep the major news to a minimum while I'm gone, yeah? For sure don't go electing a megalomaniacal narcissist tangerine-tinted dumpster fire as President while I'm gone. Okay? Promise?

I took Hermione and Amy to Magic Kingdom this past Monday. Hallie didn't come because she's not a roller coaster fan (yet, anyway) and we were planning to ride a couple. Space Mountain (Amy's first time on that one), and I finally scored Fast Passes for the (relatively) new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. It was all of our first time on that one, because I never see available FPs for it, and the standby lines are almost always 60-120 minutes when we go. And we live here, so we're damned if we'll wait that long for anything! Anyway, I was worried how Amy would do on Space Mountain since it's dark and all, but she'd done Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom with me a few weeks ago and loved it, even though it had more dark parts than I remembered. So no worries, her first words when we pulled into the unload station at SM were, "Can we do it again?" Heh. And then we all loved the Mine Train--that may be the smoothest coaster I've ever experienced, very nice indeed. Other than that we did Peter Pan, the Haunted Mansion, and the Mad Hatter's Tea Party to kill time between FPs. I must say, it's kinda nice to be able to pre-book rides with the FP+ system these days. Even so, I suspect when our passes expire next year we may be done with the Disney parks, at least for a while. I tend to get a pass because I occasionally book photo sessions at the parks and it pays for the pass, but as a family I think the girls are starting to grow out of it, and/or just generally be Disney'd out. Yes, it's possible. :) So maybe we'll go for Universal passes next year, unless I hear we're still doing our company event out there. I rather expect not in the post-merger world, but who knows?

What else.. the wife's parents are coming for a visit. They get in Saturday evening, and leave on Wednesday. I'm taking Tuesday and Wednesday off, though I don't think we really have much planned. They're both Trump supporters, so let's just say it should be interesting. I think politics will be off the table as a topic of discussion.

Thinking about my day in NYC coming up in a few weeks! I haven't really planned too much out since it's just one day--I may end up just seeing where my feet take me. Central Park is the one place I know I really want to spend some time, that's really an incredible place in my mind. I hope to find some of the nooks and crannies and historic bits that most people don't see. Other than that, I think maybe the Empire State Building since the girls and I didn't make it there. Perhaps a little time in one or two of the museums around Central Park. I could do the Intrepid Air & Space Museum, I think I get in there free which is nice. We'll see what happens, I guess!

And then we've more or less decided to take a trip in early November, a drive up to northern Georgia to spend a few days in a cabin and do lots of hiking. I've found some really nice cabins in the area where we plan to stay, now I have to pick one! A number of them have pool tables, which is a big attraction for me. When I was a kid our neighbor had a nice pool table, and I'd go over there to play all the time. And then eventually he gave it to me, so we moved it over to our house. But once I moved out it was all apartments for a while, and I wasn't going to haul around a huge slate pool table even if I had room for it, so that was that. Anyway, I never get to play anymore and I'd love to see how the girls take to it so I like the idea of getting a cabin with one! Just need to talk the wife into splurging a few more bucks for that, but I think that will be easy enough, especially if and when the pension payout info comes. Which I hope will be soon!

Okay, enough babbling for now. Almost time to call it a day. I hope you're all doing well out there in LJ-Land!

I know, I've been scarce around here. Not much excuse, really. Can't say work has been especially busy! Though I have been spending a decent amount of time researching and planning for our upcoming road trip. We leave a week from Sunday, yikes! We had to juggle things around a little based on my step-sister's schedule, so we're going to drive up to Savannah and spend 2 nights there, then we'll go up through Columbia to Greenville, and spend the night in Spartanburg. Then on to Charlotte, where we'll stay with my sister for a couple nights. And then we're planning to make the drive home in one day with a stop somewhere (probably Columbia) to break it up, though we could decide to stop for a night somewhere along the way if we like, and get home Saturday instead of Friday. Should be a good time, I hope the weather turns out nice for us!

Otherwise, not much to report. Work is work, home is home. This weekend should be fun enough. Saturday morning is our neighborhood's annual Easter thing, a pancake breakfast and then an egg hunt for the kids. We always enjoy that. Sunday is the annual neighborhood festival in College Park where Heather's band always plays--I take the girls and we roam around the craft booths and whatnot while they play, and grab lunch after. Then that afternoon we're expecting storms, looks like, so it sounds like a good time to stay home and relax. I did have an engagement session at EPCOT last weekend which I need to finish editing, good opportunity for that.

And that's about it for now, I think. Hope you're all doing well too!

Another year-end thing I sometimes do is a recap of the year in photos. And usually there are a metric crap-ton of 'em. But to keep it (more) brief, this year I'm restricting myself to just one photo for each month. So let's see what I come up with, shall we?

January:

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Saturday dawned grey and rainy and windy--pretty ugly on the whole. I expected it to start clearing up later in the day, but to start out it made sense to head to something indoors. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was high on my list of must-do attractions, so we hopped a subway and off we went.

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Thanks for looking, still more to come!

A proper recap will of course have to wait until I get the photos edited--we just got home last night and I'm back at work today, so I haven't even unpacked, let alone gotten to photos. But I thought I'd jot down a few notes while they're fresh in my mind.

-General Impression of New York: Mostly what I expected, I suppose, though I was pleasantly surprised in some ways. I guess I had the impression that the city is busy everywhere, all the time. But really most of it is like any urban center as far as crowd density goes (Times Square excepted, of course), and there were plenty of times when we were the only people on the street. But the tourist attractions were pretty crowded, of course.
-The view from our hotel was awesome, at least to one side. It was a corner room so we had a view in two directions--one was towards the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, the other was just buildings, mostly under construction. But we were high enough (44th floor) that we weren't just looking at the sides of other buildings, so that was cool.
-Central Park is a wonderful place. And I oughta know, having now walked it from one corner to the other and quite a bit in between as well. We loved the terrain, as the girls always have a blast climbing on big rock formations, of which there were scads. And the iconic spots were really cool to see.
-The weather could have been better. The first 2-3 days were generally miserable: chilly and windy and rainy/drizzly. But Saturday things started improving, Sunday was cool and windy but otherwise beautiful, and yesterday was downright glorious. I'm glad the hurricane gave the region a miss, that would have been pretty awful.
-The subway was actually quite nice. I expected it to be on the grungy side for sure, but it really wasn't. I'd almost put it right up there with the DC system, which I prefer mainly due to the general architectural style of the DC stations, and the cool lights along the tracks that flash when a train is coming. :) But the NY system seemed plenty clean, and efficient--we had no issues there at all. The price seemed steep--for the 3 of us it was $8.25 every ride, and that adds up fast!
-Finding and taking taxis was quite convenient, especially with their app (Arro), which was pretty awesome. But it's a pricey way to go, for all but the shortest rides. And the one and only time I felt ripped off on the trip was a cab ride. The guy gave me a shady vibe from jump, acting like our run wasn't worth his time--until he figured out a roundabout path to turn what should have been a short and cheap run into the most expensive ride of the trip. Jerk. The other taxis we took were fine, though. And only one guy drove like he was on the run from the cops, though I thought it was pretty cool. :)
-Speaking of apps, shortly before the trip I found one called CityMapper, which was extremely handy for navigating the subways. Put in a destination, and it gives you options for which trains and stations will get you there and when, plus estimated time and cost for a taxi to compare. Very nice, took a lot of the worry and time out of getting around. For walking around I mainly used Google Maps, which worked well enough, though the GPS fix was often pretty spotty down amongst the tall buildings.
-One of my fears was aggressive panhandlers and street vendors, and I'm happy to say neither was an issue. There were a few panhandlers here and there, but not bad. And the only street vendors I'd call aggressive were the people selling books down by the WTC site, and the carriage-ride hawkers by Central Park. But they all took no for an answer well enough.
-Another fear I had going in was crime and safety, of course. Big city, anything can happen, and I'd read a bit here and there about the NYPD slacking off because they haven't been happy with some of Mayor de Blasio's decisions. But I never once felt unsafe, in the subways or on the streets, and I never felt at all awkward or unsafe for carrying my camera or bag. Indeed, I saw plenty of tourists carrying nice camera gear most everywhere we went. I also saw NYPD presence around most of the tourist-y areas, and quite often pedestrian safety officers helping direct foot traffic. So that was all a big relief.
-Food was expensive, as I expected, but not as bad as I feared. We mostly had lunch at whatever attraction we were at when we got hungry, which was mainly crappy theme-park-style food but convenient. Dinners were pretty good, though. We did a couple Italian places, a cool Mexican place, and the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe (kitschy, I know, but it was there and I knew what to expect from it). Oh, we did do lunch in Chinatown yesterday, which was very yummy.
-The hotel was very nice--my main gripe was that the tv in the room didn't have a USB port, and that's a pretty minor gripe indeed. I'm glad breakfast was included in the rate I got, as it would have been $24 per person otherwise! They did try to tack on some bogus charges, but luckily I spotted and disputed those before we left. And now the pending charge that was on the credit card (which was the wrong price due to the bogus charges) has disappeared. Maybe it won't reappear! Doubtful, I know. But hey, I can dream.
-New Yorkers seemed pretty cool on the whole. I didn't see much rudeness, really. On the subways most people just kept to themselves, but seemed cordial enough. The only bad interaction I had personally was with a guy who decided it was his place to lecture me for not dressing the girls warmly enough for the weather. And okay, look, he was actually right and I already felt bad about it--we were going to a show and they wanted to wear their dresses, and the weather turned out worse than we'd hoped. But you can be right and still be an asshole, and that was that dude.
-So. Much. Walking. To save money and see more stuff, I tried to avoid taxis and subways except for getting between areas of town, so we did a LOT of walking. And that's in addition to the things where the walk was the idea, like Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge. After the first day or two my feet were sore pretty much all the time, and I can see where I actually wore the rubber of my shoes down a bit. On one hand I'm curious as to how much distance we actually covered. On the other hand, I don't even want to know. :)
-I'll save the rundown on what we did and my thoughts on all that for the photo recap. Suffice to say we did a lot, saw some amazing stuff, and had a fine time. That said, I don't know if I'd go back. It's a very impressive city, for sure, and there's no shortage of things to see and do. But it's kind of a hassle too, you know? Our favorite thing by far was Central Park, probably because it felt the least like being in the middle of a big grey city. And there are plenty of places like that which aren't indeed in the middle of a big grey city. :)

So, more to come, sooner or later. But we made it to New York, and we made it back home, and that's good.

Recently returned to the office--I was home watching the older girls while Heather took Amy to the orthopedist to get a cast on her arm. Yep, almost 11 years into the adventure of parenthood, and it's the youngest who finally broke the first bone. Hell, I've never even had a broken bone myself!



She was rollerskating in the house yesterday evening and took a fall. It wasn't a bad fall per se, but her left arm took pretty much the whole impact. She didn't cry all that much, surprisingly, but it clearly hurt her, and Heather was convinced that her arm looked a little.. bent or something. So we all loaded up and went to the urgent care clinic, where they determined she had indeed gotten herself a small fracture. And the doc today said the other bone in her forearm, while not broken, did appear a bit bent, which I guess isn't too unusual for smaller children whose bones are still growing and haven't fully hardened. So he put on pretty much a full-arm cast, to make sure it stays good and immobile. She went with the bright pink, of course. The good news is that she only has to keep it on for 3 weeks, and then she goes to a splint of some sort instead. Fun times. Poor little girl. She's been quite the trooper, though. Her only concern about going to the doctor was that she didn't want any shots, and we assured her that shouldn't be necessary. :) The doctors and nurses were all pretty amazed at how well she bore the pain and followed directions. She can be a terror sometimes, but really all our kids are pretty darn good.

So anyway, that's the big news lately. The weekend up to that point was okay. The girls have suddenly developed an interest in superheroes: we watched the first Avengers movie recently, and they all liked it quite a bit. So I signed them up for a little SHIELD agent training thing Saturday at a big comic shop in the area, and they enjoyed that. Sunday we really didn't do much, worked around the house a bit, cleaned, relaxed, went swimming, broke an arm, that was about it. :)

I am closely watching the government funding nonsense underway in DC. Reading an analysis now that puts the chance of shutdown at 75%. Goddammit. It would be just my luck if the f--king Republicans cause another shutdown, since it would take effect October 1 and we're booked to visit the Statue of Liberty (with crown access!) and Ellis Island--national parks, of course--on the 2nd. Seriously, how do these people keep getting elected when they so regularly prove how completely unfit to govern they are? And several of the shut-er-down! ringleaders are in the running for the GOP Presidential nomination! The mind truly boggles. Can we at least get a continuing resolution for just a few days? Please, you freaking assholes?

Okay, back to work. Hope everyone's week is off to a good start!

So I went into this thinking I'd just pick a few of my favorite photos from last week's trip to share. But ha! Do you even know me at all? Like I can ever do that. So here's a crapload of photos, as per usual. :)

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Okay, got the rest of the trip photos done, so here you go!

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And that was our trip. Could have been better in places, but certainly could have been a lot worse too. :) And since the main (or Maine?) idea was to escape the Florida heat for a week and see some cool stuff, mission definitely accomplished.

Now in a few weeks we head up to Myrtle Beach to hang with the in-laws for a few days, like we did last year. Not an especially interesting area, that. But still, oughta make for some good photos. :)

It's turned out to be a bit of a challenge to plan next week's New England adventure!

I thought I had the itinerary all laid out, and the hotels were all booked, but for some reason I wasn't thrilled. And today I finally realized why. We're flying into and out of Manchester NH, and that's all set. But from there I had us heading over to the coast to go right into Maine and up to Acadia National Park, by way of Porstmouth, Portland and Boothbay. From Acadia I had us looping up a bit to Bangor and Augusta--but then back down to Portland and Portsmouth on the way back to Manchester and home. And that seemed like a waste, to travel through so much of the same territory twice. Plus it meant going nowhere near the Franconia Notch area, which I really wanted to revisit--we didn't spend much time there on our 2013 trip, and I wanted to explore the area a bit more. Plus, waterfalls are quite literally a nature photographer's wet dream. :)

So today I searched and mapped and tinkered and mapped some more, and drafted up an alternate itinerary. I couldn't completely start from scratch, because one of the hotels I booked was a non-refundable advance rate (that'll teach me!). But even with that one restriction, I was able to come up with a new plan, and I think I like it. So now I think we'll head north from Manchester to the White Mountains and Franconia, swing over to Grafton Notch (which was another place I was sad to miss), and then over to Bangor. From there down to Acadia, and then back towards Manchester, down the coast via Boothbay, Portland and Portsmouth.

I was afraid doing a loop like that might add a lot of driving time, and it does make for some longer stretches on the road--but in sum it only adds a couple hours onto the total, which isn't too bad spread over the course of the trip. Especially since it looks like those longer stretches will be in the afternoons, when the girls can nap anyway.

So I haven't cancelled anything yet, but I did go ahead and book the two new hotels for the loop route. I'll show the wife tonight, though she's said she doesn't really care as long as we have places to stay lined up. Everything is free cancellation, so no worries there. But I'm pretty sure we'll go with the loop. I'm certainly more excited about it!