A new kind of multi-tasking

Today I hiked to a farm, attempted to hike up a mountain (it was closed due to inclement weather), learned about triangular navigation, cooked lunch for 20 people with Abbey and Trevor (sweet potato, onion & cheese enchiladas), baked bread, had a meeting, built a wood storage building, designed Christmas cocktails, made egg nog and sang every Christmas carol ever written (No, seriously.).





Yup, feeling pretty good about our decision to move here.

Big Thanks.

Thanksgiving Camp was a lot of work - 120 people, tons of food and a whole bunch of program coordination. What could have been a huge amount of stress was levied by the attendance of our family. Trevor's parents, siblings, nieces and nephew were up here for the whole weekend, giving Trevor a chance to practice some time-honored child-rearing techniques:

Not sure where Pippa got the beer...

Donovan prepares to "pancake" catch the frisbee.

A sunset hike

Today we took advantage of our day off to go on a sunset hike. (Now that the sun sets around 4:45, you have to really plan a day around this kind of thing.). Before we even got to the trail, we'd had a good dose of nature:


And then we headed up the mountain. The best place to see the sunset at camp is from a place called Upper Meadow. As the name conveniently implies, it's the highest point in camp, and the trail that takes you there is a great tour of the land. These days, that land looks a little bit different, since, as many of you know, there was a fairly devastating fire here in September 2007.

Though it looks a bit haunted, in many ways fire is healthy for land,
and the scorched landscape actually provides great learning opportunities for kids.

The fire was started by some trespassers and their campfire in front of a mine below the trail to Upper Meadow. It mostly spread downhill from there, so there's no sign of anything fire damaged once you get to Upper Meadow.




In fact, an unforeseen benefit of the fire is that – now that all those pesky trees are out of the way – you can see the sunrise from the same spot. So that's next. If only sunrises didn't require us to be, you know, up before the sun.

12

The last two weeks have been pretty crazy. 12 days in a row of work at camp! Non-stop action! There was a lot of variety in what each work day looked like (ropes course stuff, polishing wine glasses for camp VIP weekend, working a regular summer camp-style week with kids), which kept it from getting tedious.

Conveniently, the most stressful day of the 12 days just so happened to be Halloween. The weekend was jam-packed and Ashley was the ringmaster of the circus. But it is pretty hard to be stressed out when you are dressed in a lime green fat suit in order to represent a Black Eyed Pea.

The Black-Eyed Peas after doing some dishes

On the Sunday night of the crazy weekend, we somehow managed to make it to LA to go to a Kris Kristofferson concert with the Wilcox fam. We made it back to camp around midnight after the show and the next morning we were back to the grind for our first full week program for sixth-graders. To make things even more adventurous, Ashley and I worked together as a "duad," which was a first. So the two of us were leading around a group of 11-year olds around the forest for 6 days, helping them experience everything from making orange cakes to putting on a one-act play about habitats. I don't think the children knew that we were married to each other, but they knew that we were the best darn nature guides they'd ever met. Full success.

By the time the 12 days were over, it was time to unwind and celebrate the birthdays of Ashley and Abbey. We did a bar crawl of San Diego's North Park area with an all-star group of current and former camp peeps. It was one of the better Monday nights we've been a part of, this is for sure. And we stayed at the W Hotel for the night -- the same place we were stationed the day after our wedding.

A replication of a chalk board we did 2 years ago at the W Hotel in San Diego. That one read: Marriage: Day 1.

So in conclusion, we are glad to be in a place where you can work 12 days in a row and not feel the least bit defeated.

Not as charming at Tom & Jerry

The appearance of a mouse at 7 Vernon Street in Brookline, MA in late 2004 was the reason our cat Sadie came into our lives. The idea was to introduce a natural predator to eradicate the rodent(s). Since that point we had never seen another mouse. But we had also never seen our cat sitting triumphantly over the corpse of one of those little buggers…until now.

Sadie practices predatory behavior.

We were relaxing and watching a movie in our house when suddenly a game of cat-and-mouse developed (in the the most literal way) right at our feet. Sadie stalked and chased the mouse around the house for 15 minutes while Trevor pondered intervention and Ashley danced nervously on our bed. Eventually we looked over and saw the result of the battle: the overturned body of a titmouse in need of disposal. It may have been the greatest moment of Sadie's life, or just the most confusing. Regardless -- Sadie 1, Mice 0.

Off-campus adventures

I'll try not to start every blog entry this year with an explanation about how crazy things have been, but it just doesn't seem possible that we arrived at Camp for our year on winter staff just three weeks ago. (With up to three different groups of camp visitors here each week, each of those weeks seems like 4 weeks in itself!). Amongst the busyness, we've been lucky enough to enjoy the company and setting of camp itself, plus have two days off each week to enjoy our new Southern California location.

A sunset in "Upper Meadow"

Outing #1 took us along a winding Highway 79, through the beer-brewing town of Alpine (beers sampled at Alpine Brewing Company included: Pure Hoppiness, Mandarin Nectar Ale, Nelson New Zealand IPA, Wily Vanilly and Captain Stout) on our way to San Diego, where we spent an evening/morning celebrating the 95th birthday of Ashley's Grandma. After a celebratory bottle of champagne (oh right, and orange juice), we headed to La Mesa, California, where Trevor's brother and his family live. Being close to Nathan and Megan and their three kids, Nolia, Donovan & Pippa, was one of the big draws of relocating to Southern California. These pictures can barely even attest to their sweet adorableness:

Donovan shows us how high he can climb.

Pippa plays with some boats.

Outing #2 was about 18 hours back in the California desert at Ashley's parents' house. Ashley's mom has recently started dog-sitting, and every other week or so, they have some pretty quirky 4-legged visitors (Sample: At Christmas, it was a Chihuaua, Cha-Cha and his Lhasa Apsa pal, Lulu.). This time around it was a beautiful Portuguese Waterdog named Sailor, and a truly ridiculous French Bulldog named Ruby. No, seriously. Truly ridiculous:

Ruby, a snorting, panting, altogether adorable French Bulldog.

We'll be out there even more, now that it's “cooling down” (read: barely cracking 100 degrees each day), and can hardly wait to meet some more of their furry houseguests.

Home sweet home

Our home at camp is St. Catherine's, affectionately known as St. Cat's. It is one of the oldest buildings on camp property, featuring a land line (key since our cell phones don't work), extensive wood paneling, and not one, not two, but three porches. Ashley lived in this house when she was on summer staff in 2001, as did her sister before her, and Trevor's brother and sister-in-law before that. Aside from all the Grahams, Wilcoxes and Graham-Wilcoxes, it's hard to imagine all the other residents this place has held. One from this summer left us Tupperware filled with cultured (pickled & spicy) vegetables, so Trevor's a fan.

We've been at camp now for almost 2 weeks - and eventful ones they've been! With training and a 4-day wedding extravaganza to host, we're not 100% settled in, but our DVDs are in place, Sadie has her favorite spots, and the fridge is stocked with California beers, so we're certainly on our way.

Sadie keeps an eye on the wild turkeys.

Thanks for keeping up with the blog - more pictures and details to follow shortly!

We've got a panter

After a couple weeks off, we loaded Sadie back into the car yesterday for the final leg of our Boston to California trip. We had a feeling she'd be a little antsy again, so I had the camera at the ready to capture her infamous panting face.

As a reminder, this is what our very sane, adorable, not evil cat actually looks like:


And, this is what she looks like when she's telling us how hot she is.

You like beisbol?

Having lived a block from Fenway Park for the last three years, it became easy to forget that baseball is played outside of Red Sox "Nation." While the Red Sox will still own real estate in our hearts (unlike the Celtics, who are dead to us), we are more than ready to transfer our passions completely back to our real teams -- Dodgers for Trevor, Angels for Ashley. So, appropriately, during our free week in California, we were fortunate enough to visit our old friends in their lovely homes.

A Friday night trip to Dodger Stadium is always an automotive challenge (thanks for driving, Dad!), but once you hit your seat and look out to the field and the mountains beyond centerfield, you are reminded that it is worth the trouble. The Dodgers' pitchers combined for a one-hitter as they topped the Cubs, 2-1. So the Blue Crew did not disappoint and neither did the fireworks (!!) after the game.

@ Dodger Stadium

A few days later we met up with Ashley's parents for the Angels v. Tigers at "The Big A." It was perfectly warm and clear as the two division-leading teams faced off at the beautiful Anaheim Stadium.

Doug, Ashley, and Anita at le big A

We had great seats (Thanks Doug!) for a fantastic game, despite it ending as a 3-5 loss for the Halos. A man a couple rows in front of us got kicked out for saying certain visiting baseball professionals "suck!", but we controlled ourselves and stuck around long enough to take some nice action photos.

Bobby Abreu evaluating a pitch

Hopefully, we will continue to become fans of each other's teams. This was a step in the right direction (it's important to have equal representation) - but if it winds up as a Dodgers-Angels World Series, all progress on this matter will be erased.

P.S.: Over the next month we might also investigate the alleged existence of a San Diego major league franchise.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

By leaving Boston behind and moving to Julian, CA, we're making some big life changes. We're trading skyline views from the roof deck for patio views into the forest, the Patriots for the Chargers (the jury's still out on Red Sox fandom), and "spring" for spring. But the biggest update we're making is becoming car owners. After 8+ years of relying on feet, subways, buses and, when necessary, the genius that is car-sharing Zipcar, this is no small change. But life in rural California leaves us no choice: We are now the proud owners of a 1998 Toyota Camry.

Never have we actually considered buying a For Dummies book, but this might be the occasion, because boy do we have questions: Should we have a gas credit card? Where does the windshield wiper fluid go? How, when it looks so much like so many others, are we ever going to find this car in parking lots? Do we have a spare tire? You need to do what every how many miles? Why does the California DMV make license transfer so difficult? Can you install an iPod-friendly auxiliary cable in a 10 year old car? What kind of bumper stickers are worthy?

Our odometer on our first trip behind the wheel

Despite these obstacles and our initial reluctance, these are exciting times. All of a sudden, we're equipped to do things that previously have been the enviable domain of only our car owning friends. I speak, of course, of long weekends at home, and trips to Target, farmers markets and soccer games. There will also be post-swine flu road trips to Mexico. Look out world!

We're definitely in California now.

What with the packing and the preparations and the road trip, it's been a crazy couple of weeks. We're not quite at our destination yet, as we're not due at camp until next Friday, August 28, but once we get there, there will once again be plenty to do. Until then, we don't have many plans: catch up with friends and family, catch up on sleep, run a few errands, maybe hit up Disneyland and, hopefully, a whole lot of this:




This new life of leisure ain't bad.

Day Seven: New Mexico, Arizona & California

Day 7 miles driven: 705 miles
Day 7 time on road: 13 hours and 25 minutes

Our final day of driving would prove to be another long stretch of American road. First, we took scenic Route 60 (a two-lane desert offshoot of the old Route 66) from Albuquerque to Phoenix. Our goal was to stop in Pie Town, NM, a town totally dedicated to the idea of delicious road trip pie diners...but the town is apparently closed on Sundays. Fiddlesticks.

So we settled on an early lunch at a dirty roadside diner in Quemado, NM, where we sat one booth over from the oldest people in North America. The Mexican food was acceptable, but the art on the wall was certainly questionable.


Through the arid landscaped we trekked, eventually crossing over into the green eastern mountains (?) of Arizona. The road took us up through the winding slopes of Salt River Canyon, where we got some intense vistas of this Grand Canyon Jr... We had truly reached the American west.


We then descended into the heart of Arizona, and FINALLY met face-to-face with our first cacti of the trip. This meant that we needed to blast the air conditioning because it was, oh, 110 degrees without a cloud in sight. Unsurprisingly, Sadie was unimpressed with the dramatic change in climate.



Road trip bliss was achieved near Phoenix as we passed one of our final Food Exit signs: Waffle House, Taco Bell and In 'n Out, all together, an immaculate bouquet of fast food roses. We popped into Mesa, AZ, to visit family friend Collette before our final push towards the Golden State. One more stop for gas, and one more regrettable drive-thru dining experience later, we had crossed the Colorado River and entered California. As the sun set over the San Jacinto Mountains, we high-fived and clinked our Carl's Jr. water cups to a beautiful and epic drive from the Massachusetts bay to the California desert.


We enjoyed every minute of this trip (Well, maybe except those first two hours with the baying cat in the back seat.) - looks like we're road trip people after all. We're supremely grateful to the farms we photographed, the towns that fed us and the people who shared their homes with us. Stay tuned for more news from the western front!

Day Six: Colorado & New Mexico

Day 6 miles driven: 478 miles
Day 6 time on road: 9 hours and 45 minutes

** We're posting this a day late, as our lodging last night didn't have internet. Apologies to those who've been waiting with baited breath. **

We've really gotten into this road tripping thing. Case in point: Today, we decided our 7 hour / 1 highway drive just wasn't scenic enough – add in a few local routes, tons of scenic vistas, one black cat themed winery, and here we are in Albequerque.

Unfortunately, the day that we took off from driving didn't coincide with the Longmont Fire Department Parade. Fortunately, it did coincide with a pre-parade party on Tyler & Dulcie's porch that involved donuts. We grabbed a couple for the road, and headed south through Denver.


Before the border to New Mexico, we ran into an adorable Coloradan town, Trinidad, where we ate lunch at a pizzeria on its Main Street, which was paved with bricks. Fruit salad was the special of the day – every ingredient (apples, pears, mandarin oranges, goat cheese, walnuts) was from the town's Farmer's Market that had been earlier that day. Colorado is awesome.



One of the best road trip decisions we've made this week was to detour off Highway 25 today – this would have taken us straight from Trinidad in Colorado to Albequerque in probably 2 fewer hours than what we did, but the route we took, along a windy mountain road, then a few miscellaneous ones South, took us through landscape that is the definition of the American Southwest – wide open plains, backed up along the Rocky Mountains.


On the windy mountain road, the official destination according to the highway signs was Taos, a New Mexico community renowned as an artist and hippie destination. We were actually disappointed in Taos – an elderly vacationer's destination if we've ever seen one – but beyond delighted with Eagle's Nest, a lakefront town about 15 miles north.


After Taos, we stumbled upon a winery, which made for the perfect mid-afternoon break. Then it was a straight shot down to Albequerque, which is just about 40 minutes away from the skyline-free Santa Fe, where we are staying at the empty house of one of Trevor's parents' friends. Despite the fact that all we had seen and read about New Mexico was about its Mexican food, when we went to find some place for dinner, we couldn't find a single Mexican restaurant. We did find a microbrewery (of course), and then a tapas place where we decidedly did not eat tapas (Trevor: Crawfish sandwich. Ashley: Grilled cheese.).

We're calling it an early night to get on the road tomorrow morning for our final day - hard to believe that at this time tomorrow, we'll be at our final destination, at Ashley's parents in Indio, California.

A beer interlude

You might not think a road trip is conducive to beer tasting, but that's where you'd be wrong. Beer samplers – flights of 4-7 beers in 4 ounce tastes – are perfect for a pair of beer lovers traveling the country. You get to taste what the brewery has to offer in 20 minutes or less, without worrying about blindly ordering a bad pint, the cat in the car, or getting back behind the wheel. It's good for the road trip budget too – they typically cost $5 or $6.

Great Lakes Brewing Company (Cleveland, OH)


We stopped at Great Lakes because they're one of the country's most renowned breweries that doesn't distribute on the coasts. On our way to Michigan, we stopped in for a quick sample of 4 to see what all the fuss was about. At their downtown Cleveland location, they've got a full-on complex: Restaurant, brewery, tasting room, pub, patio, beer garden and gift shop. It's definitely a popular place for downtown professionals, for weekday lunch and after-work drinks. Somehow at around 3PM, we ran into both of these crowds. The bar has dark wood paneling, and decorations reminiscing about beers from yesteryear.

Beers tasted:

• Dortmunder Gold
• Commodore Perry IPA
• Edmond Fitzgerald Porter
• Moondog ESB

Trevor's favorite: Dortmunder Gold
Ashley's favorite: Commodore Perry IPA

Overall rating: B+. We would definitely rate this higher if: We had been able to sample more beers, enjoy some of their outdoor seating (the bar area just wasn't our thang), or if they'd had branded bibs in the gift shop (Sorry Tyler & Dulcie!).

Grizzly Peak (Ann Arbor, MI)

We hit up Grizzly Peak primarily for dinner with our friends/hosts, Emily and Nathan. As soon as we heard it was a brewpub, visions of sampler glasses started dancing in our heads. Its one location is a downtown Ann Arbor hotspot. The digs were pretty standard brewpub – same kind of pre-prohibition décor as Great Lakes – with a good amount of space for both eating and drinking. Before we get into the beer, it's important to note that Ashley's mac and cheese was among the best ever tasted – creamy and herby and sharp and delicious.

Beers tasted:

• Bear Paw Porter
• Pale Ale
• Steelhead Red Ale
• Anniversary ESB
• American IPA (On cask)

Trevor's favorite: Steelhead Red Ale
Ashley's favorite: Pale Ale

Overall rating: A-. With their rotating beer list and seasonally appropriate food menu, we would be definite regulars at this bar/restaurant.

Katie & Jason's (Pacific, MO)


Who knew that a residence in Pacific, Missouri was greater St. Louis's official tasting station? Aside from the amazing St. Louis-style, white and traditional pizzas that Katie prepared, we sampled some Missouri-made suds, some of which were brewed on the premises.

Beers tasted:

• Schlafly's Summer Lager
• Schlafly's Raspberry Hefeweizen
• Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat Beer
• Homebrewed Tripel
• Homebrewed English Brown Ale
• O'Fallon 5 Day IPA

Trevor's favorite: Homebrewed Tripel
Ashley's favorite: Schlafly's Raspberry Hefeweizen

Overall rating: A+. We're moving in.

Left Hand Brewing Company (Longmont, CO)


We'd had – and loved – Left Hand's Milk Stout before, so we were anxious to see what else they have to offer. Colorado knows how to make consuming local beer awfully convenient: The tasting room serves as a bar, gift shop and package store. The bar is unpretentious and bright, and the barkeep, friendly and Austrian. We paid for a sampler of 6, but wound up tasting 8, either because it was our first time, she likes the beers so much, or because she was flirting with us. 2 freebies? We're fine with any reason. We were there on the release day of their Oktoberfest – is it that time of year already?

Beers tasted:

• Pro Am Brown
• Pro Am Brown (Cask)
• Juju Ginger
• Deep Cover Brown
• Imperial Stout
• Black Jack Porter
• Oktoberfest
• Jackman's Pale Ale

Trevor's favorite: Juju Ginger
Ashley's favorite: Oktoberfest

Overall rating: A. The fact that Trevor's choosing a spiced beer as his favorite, and that we didn't even miss tasting an IPA, speaks to the non-wavering quality of their catalogue. Translation: We liked it.

Oskar Blues Brewery (Longmont, CO)


We're longtime fans of Oskar Blues's well-distributed offerings, Dale's Pale Ale & Old Chub. You know them – they're the ones in the can. We hesitated to enter the tasting room, because it looked like a door to their factory – and it was. The neat juxtaposition of their brewing and canning facilities with their tasting room made for the hippest atmosphere yet, which made up for the fact that, after the Left Hand tasting and a large lunch of Mexican food, our appetite wasn't quite as fierce as it had been earlier that day.


Beers tasted:

• Dale's Pale Ale
• Gordon (Imperial IPA)
• Old Chub (Scottish Ale)
• Whiskey barrel aged Old Chub
• Doppelbock
• Mama's Little Yella Pils
• Bonus: Oskar Blues Root Beer

Trevor's favorite: Dale's Pale Ale
Ashley's favorite: Gordon

Overall rating: B+. Had we not tasted four of these beers before, we may have been more blown away. As is, we were expecting quality, and they delivered. If we lived in the area, we would frequent the room, because its quirky atmosphere is right up our alley. And Trevor would like a job driving their bus:


In addition to these samplers, we did have a few regular-sized beers, including an Illinois-brewed Goose Island Honkers Ale and three local New Mexico brews (Santa Fe Brewing Company's 94 Rock Dirty Blonde and Chama River's Rio Lodo Brown & Jackelope IPA). Ashley also sampled a new Midwest beer you might not have heard of: Budweiser. The start-up operation is trying, but the quality just isn't there yet. Oh, and we also did a wine tasting. Chilled red dessert wine infused with bittersweet chocolate? Actually very good.

This will likely become a regular feature on the blog – 5 beer samplers in a week, imagine what we could do in a year!