On June 16 we started our big international trip. First time leaving the country for Jess, Heather, and Corinne.
Our original plan was to visit Montreal, but upon investigation (after being unable to find a hotel room for less than $800/night) the Canadian F1 Grand Prix was being held in Montreal that weekend and we wanted nothing to do with that insanity. So I redesigned our trip for Quebec City.
We started by driving up through Vermont and stopping at the Ben & Jerry’s factory. We visited the flavor graveyard and played on the playground. They had just soft-reopened for factory tours, but this information wasn’t available anywhere on line a priori and we didn’t have time to hang around for the next tour. So we grabbed some ice cream before heading on our way. Corinne crunched on something hard in her ice cream which I jokingly suggested was one of her loose teeth–I was right–eep.
Not far down the road we stopped at the Cold Hollow Cider Mill for apple cider donuts and, of course, cider. Grandma and the girls played a game of corn hole.
Then it was back in the van and off to the border. I’ll note that while crossing into Canada we were asked about things like drugs and firearms. When crossing back into the U.S. we were asked about things like fruits and vegetables. Differing priorities….
Having the most familiarity with French I did all the driving in Canada. It started fine, then about 30 minutes in a fierce thunderstorm rolled in. Driving in a downpour with lightning and thunder on unfamiliar roads in an unfamiliar vehicle where all the signs are in French was a rather stressful welcome. But we arrived at Hotel Le President in Sherbrooke successfully for our first night. Mom and I ventured out to a local burger chain, Harvey’s, to pick up dinner and take it back to the hotel.
Between Erin’s Birthday Adventure and our big trip up north was mostly downtime in Cromwell. We celebrated my birthday with pizza, cake, and presents.
As another way to keep kids entertained I ran another treasure-hunt kind of event for Erin’s kids. I took pictures throughout the house and then placed a pirate coin near the location from which the picture was taken. I divided them up into easy (wide angle shots with obvious landmarks), medium (“natural” focal distance shots, less obvious landmarks), and hard (telephoto shots with more obscure landmarks). The most difficult, in my opinion, being the one taken zoomed-in through a mirror.
I had the pictures printed at CVS and bought candy for prizes. Working from the pictures, finding each coin earned you a piece of candy and points (2 for easy, 3 for medium, 4 for hard). Whomever got the most points won a pack of Ferrero Rocher chocolates. This was apparently a big motivator for Sawyer who took the grand prize.
On Saturday (6/11) Jess and the girls arrived to bump the cousin count into overdrive.
On Sunday (6/12) I had old high-school friends over to have lunch and hang out for a bit, but took no pictures. Got to see Chris, Bhupal, Matt, and associated families.
And a trip to the splash pad at Watrous Park:
Heather and Corinne had been asking about revisiting Kid City. We thought perhaps they’d grown out of that environment, but with the addition of cousins to play with it was great success.
And, of course, more time playing around Grandma-and-Grandpa’s house:
Which included a talent show:
After this, Erin’s family returned to Utah and we were geared up for Jess’ first international trip!
Mollie and Eric got married on June 4 on a boat in the Gloucester Harbor. I don’t have any pictures of the actual ceremony as that was the photographer’s job. Instead I have some pictures of the pre-wedding and the reception/party.
I escorted Mom down the aisle as part of the wedding party. A couple of people read some poems Mollie and Eric selected. Will performed guitar and vocals of “Better Together” by Jack Johnson. And then they exchanged vows and rings. Then it was time to party.
After two years of doing mostly nothing due to the pandemic we took a trip this year. The nucleating event was Mollie & Eric’s wedding. So we built a trip around that. I flew out to Massachusetts on June 2. Jess stayed home with the girls to finish out the end of the school year.
After some brief rehearsal time on the boat Mollie & Eric hosted a Dickerson-family bowling and pizza party at a candlepin bowling place. I had never played candlepin bowling previously. It really only exists in Massachusetts on north through eastern Canada.
Back in May things were really looking up. Jess and I had been vaccinated. Infection rates were declining. We were optimistic about being able to take a small vacation over the summer since we’ve done mostly nothing since March 2020. I looked to book a room at the motel we like in Fort Bragg and their first availability was in mid-August. So we booked it.
Then the summer actually happened and we watched as vaccination levels stalled out and infection rates soared with the delta variant. So we became a little hesitant about taking our trip, but our plans were to be outside pretty much the whole time except for our motel room and so we decided to go for it.
We drove out to Fort Bragg on Friday, Aug 13. We made it to Oakland before Jess was feeling really carsick so we got off the highway and stopped so she could get out, recuperate, and take some Dramamine. Then we sat in a lot of traffic all the way through Santa Rosa for some reason. We eventually made it out there, got checked in to the motel, walked along the beach a little, and ordered a pizza to eat in our room for dinner. The county had a mask mandate in place and compliance levels seemed to be fairly good.
The motel wasn’t serving breakfast, so breakfast on Saturday (and every other day) was toaster strudel, cereal, and yogurt that we brought with us (we brought a toaster). Saturday morning we had a reservation to ride the pedal cars on the Skunk Train railroad. I picked up some sandwiches from Subway and packed them for lunch and we rode the rail line up into the woods. The bikes have electric assist-motors so it was quite pleasant to pedal along up into the woods away from the noise of town and not get too worn out while doing so.
The company that runs the tours is building a little event space in the woods that’s really only accessible by rail. We stopped there to eat lunch while they turned our cars around for the return trip. Minus the construction noise, it was a really nice spot. Deep in the woods and shady. We ate our lunch at a picnic table and then walked around for bit until it was time to head back.
Since the rail lines fall under DHS/TSA railroad regulations we were all required to wear masks while on the ride, which is probably a bit silly since we were quite well spaced out, but presumably the railroad regulations were written with passenger cars in mind and not bikes, so, whatever. It really wasn’t a big deal, because wearing a mask isn’t a big deal in the first place.
Once we returned from our ride we walked down to the ice-cream shop for dessert, then back to the train depot to look at the gift shop (once their next train ride left so it wasn’t crowded with people). Then we went back to the motel and down to the beach.
After some time of playing about, Corinne got knocked over by a wave she didn’t see coming and needed to head back to the room to warm up. So Jess took her up and I stayed with Heather for a while longer digging a hole (’cause that’s what one does at the beach, I guess).
Dinner was burgers from Jenny’s Giant Burger eaten hunkered down in our motel room.
On Sunday we went out to the Mendocino Botanical Gardens, which is a regular destination when we go to Fort Bragg. We walked around for a while and then went looking for lunch. Heather continues to successfully grow in her garden.
After bailing on a couple of options due to being crowded with nowhere outside to eat we ended up in the slowest McDonald’s drive-thru lane ever. I think it took over 30 minutes to get through. We took the food back to the motel to eat.
Then it was more beach time for the girls while I napped in the room. We had more pizza for dinner and another trip to the ice-cream shop. Then we walked along the trestle bridge after dark as a novelty for the girls who are rarely up after dark much less out and about.
Monday morning we packed up and checked out. We stopped at Glass Beach to look around. This is an area of beach which use to be a garbage dump. Now timthough by the time we were ready to leave it was about lunch time so we ate our one and only meal in a restaurant. There were only two other customers in the restaurant (which was a “full-size” restaurant, lots of space) and they had signs like this up, which actually made me feel better that they were taking things seriously:
We had our lunch and then drove home. And that was our trip. Our only real vacation for 18 months. And it looks like that’s going to be true through quite some more time now.
School starts on Tuesday–thankfully with a mask requirement in place and vaccination requirements for the teachers/staff. Given how much exposure the girls are likely to get this year since the classrooms will be at regular capacity for full days we bought the girls some new masks that are supposed to help protect themselves from others as well as protecting others from themselves. Finding certified masks is a crap shoot–especially looking for things that fit kids properly, but the masks we bought don’t seem like they can be worse than the ones they’ve been using. They fit more snugly at least.
Hopefully the emergency authorization for the vaccine for kids 6+ gets approved soon and we’ll be able to have the girls vaccinated before too long. Maybe even get to go trick-or-treating for Halloween.
