Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Home From the Holiday

Well, we’re back at the Aerie after driving into NJ to visit with my Sister and her family on Christmas Eve and then spend the night and Christmas Day with my Mother-in-Law and daughter. The trip in was actually pretty good as the weather was excellent and the traffic non-existent. If it wasn’t for the distance, time and gasoline involved I would have really enjoyed it.

We got to my Sister’s house really early and had a great little visit before the rest of the company showed up. Even then, things went really well. My nieces have grown into lovely young women and the younger ones boyfriend is a great guy with whom I talked hunting and fishing and diverse topics.

The few hours at my Mother-in-Law’s house were quite nice also. I picked my daughter’s brain about the MAC laptop and left it with her to have the hard drive removed so I can send it out to get the data pulled off. (That’s gonna cost me an arm and a leg but as there are tons of pictures from vacations, fishing trips and the construction of the Aerie o there that I never backed up…well, some lessons are costly.) Jess also made me a pair of woolen mittens and her mom a pair of fingerless gloves that are quite nice. The girl has got skills, let me tell you.

We left Linden, NJ around 2 PM Christmas afternoon and had some traffic on the Garden State Parkway, I-78 and I-80 until we got to the Delaware Water Gap, but once we were in PA there was very little on the road. I was surprised to see some truck traffic but figure it was mostly guys who were caught on the road due to their schedule and, being away from their families/home base, they probably were taking advantage of the lighter holiday traffic to get out of the metropolitan area. We made great time on the trip back and got home shortly before 6 PM. (Traveling 260 miles in under 4 hours with two gas stops and a potty stop along the way…I guess you might say earned my wings. Just ring a bell and call me “Clarence.”)

The cats were quite happy to see us return. They still had water and dry food in their bowl, but they (or at least Julie and Chester) wanted the moist stuff…NOW!

All in all, a pretty nice Christmas.

Anyway, it’s time to relax a little and then think about hitting the Woolrich factory store over in Jersey Shore and Cabela’s down in Hamburg for some after holiday shopping. Terry's looking for some lined jeans and I'd like to have about 3 doz arrows that were identical so I could be a tad more certain about my shot placement. (Right now I've got some arrows with four inch fletching and some with five--sometimes I've got both on the same arrows--and I've got some arrows that are 29 1/2 inches long and some that are 30 inches. Even so, my groupings are pretty good--horizontally. I'm able to keep them within a 2 inch zone--horizontally. Vertically is another matter. Occasionally I'm as much as 8 inches off from 25-30 yards away and that's not good.) I'm also looking for a second set of snow shoes so I won't have to remember to haul them from the Bolt Hole to the Aerie and visa versa.

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