A Little Traveling Music Please!

Terry drove into New Jersey and NYC on Wednesday. One of her former bosses was retiring and they had a big party for him on Thursday. She stayed at her Mother's in New Jersey and took the train into the Big City just as she had done for 32 years before she retired. (Different route to Path but otherwise the same old same old.)

She says there were quite a few of her former colleagues there and they remembered her fondly--even if she couldn't remember the names of some of the younger folks. Typical of a bureaucratic federal government office, they are being reorganized...again. She says they are going to be going back to the way things were shortly after she joined them back in the early '70s.

Anyway, she had a good time at the party despite the near 100 degree temperatures. Those temps did affect her stay at her Mom's, however. The MIL just won't budge on the air conditioner front. During the winter she keeps the house near 80 degrees and won't put the window AC in during the summer. Heh. She's pretty well up there in age (I think she'll be 87 on July 7th [UPDATE: Terry corrects me in the comments. Mom wil be 89 on the 7th.]) and pretty well set in her ways. (Stubborn as a mule and twice as tough. Try telling her NOT to go out and shovel the snow next December!)

Today she drove out of NJ and back to the Aerie. Good thing, too. Today it's even hotter in The City and New Jersey.

Before Terry left, I put OUR window AC in the bedroom window. A lot of good that did me! The damn thing ran all night and didn't lower the temperature in the room below 78 degrees. And this was one we bought two summers ago. So I switched it out this morning for an older model and that one seems to be working just fine. (Terry says it's in the 60'sin the bedroom this afternoon.)

I will not be enjoying those cool temperatures in our Aerie bedroom, however. I took off for the Bolt Hole around 10 AM. The temperature hit 90 degrees on the NY Thruway near Syracuse but it fell slowly as I turned northward out of Utica. Windier, too. That and the low relative humidity are producing comfortable conditions that will get even better as the sun goes down. Lows tonight are forecast for the upper 50s. It will be hotter tomorrow, by a few degrees but then the highs will fall for early next week.

Anyway, my drive up was uneventful and I found the Bolt Hole to be intact and standing. As soon as I got my food in the fridge, I called to see if Village Motor Sports in Speculator still had the part I needed to fix the ATV. (I hope!) I ordered it in late May and never got around to picking it up what with our travels to Cape Cod and the Pacific Coast, and my knee problems. They assured me it was sitting there waiting for me to pick it up so I hopped in the truck and headed even further north to do so. (Tack another 100 miles onto the 220 I drove from PA to the Bolt Hole.) Tomorrow I see if this was the part I was looking for.

It was a nice leisurely ride during which I got to see a member of the dumbest bird species in North America: a Ruffed Grouse. Standing on the side of the road--on the painted line marking the division between the traffic lane and the bike lane--just watching all the cars of holiday vacationers speed past as though it was greeting each one to its Adirondack domain. On the way back, I had to stop twice to let some hen turkeys shepherd their chicks across the highway. Good thing no one was behind me or coming the other way. The first group was a pair of hens with between 12 and 15 little ones that looked to be three, maybe four, weeks old. If I hadn't stopped I would have had a grill full of the little ones. I was surprised to see that even as young as they were, they were able to get airborne for the short flight to the shoulder of the road. The second group was a solitary hen with about 10 chicks that looked to be only one or two weeks old at the most. They couldn't fly, but man could they waddle! I saw two other solitary turkeys in different spots as well but they seemed to be chickless.

Now I'm sitting here in the Aerie listening to the wind rustle the leaves of the Aspens while there's an evil Red Squirrel chattering nearby. I can also hear the songs of Cedar Waxwings, Robins, Song Sparrows and Chipping Sparrows, a couple of warblers and others as well.

Oh, and I've been reminded that I'll need to put out the mouse traps by the rat-a-tat-tat of tiny paws on the storage  tins on the shelf.

(I was looking for something with Jackie Gleason saying "And away we go!" but it's not on You Tube. This is, however. And it's cute!)