RDU on Busiest Travel Day
Here’s a shot from 7:30 this morning on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It is traditionally known as the busiest travel day of the year, although this year’s predictions were that airline travel would be down about 10% from last year.
Ready to Cruise
Thanks to Trina for this photo of my kids and their mom’s family getting ready to leave on their Alaska cruise. Note the matching t-shirts.
Trip to the Aquarium
Grace reaches for a shark
We finished up our trip to the beach with some time at the hotel pool and a trip to the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher. Check out the pictures from the whole trip, or just start with the ones from the aquarium.
When we got home, I asked the kids some questions about their favorite things from the trip. I had hoped that they would spend some time and draw pictures or create multi-media projects using pictures and video, but in the end they just wrote the answers to the questions.
Favorite Activity:
Grace: the beach
Peter: playing in the waves
Favorite Meal:
Grace: calamari
Peter: Michael’s Seafood Restaurant
Favorite Thing They Saw:
Grace: devil rays
Peter: Grace going under the waves
Most Unusual Thing They Saw:
Grace: sand digger shells
Peter: heat lightning
Favorite Sea Creature:
Grace: shark
Peter: pet fish
Last Day at the Beach
As we start our last day at the beach, here are a couple of photos from yesterday’s fun. Grace, in describing her trip to the beach, said she is having lots and lots and lots of fun. Can’t get a better endorsement from a 7 year old.
A dip in the hotel pool
Peter, chinposing, waiting for dinner
And even on vacation, on the Carolina Beach boardwalk, I managed to find an abandoned building.
Here’s a link to the growing set of photos from this vacation.
Carolina Beach
Our first two days at the beach have been filled with plenty of time in the water playing in the waves, mini-golf, and lots of good food.
Hi from Carolina Beach
Here’s a link to the rest of my photos.
Open Auditions for Hee-Haw
Dig those red cowboy boots
I just returned from Nashville, where I hung out at the Orpyland Hotel. The above photo notwithstanding, the inside of hotel is pretty amazing. There are themed areas (Magnolia, Delta, Cascades) that feature hotel rooms with balconies, water flowing through and lots of restaurants. Don’t try to eat after 9:00pm, because most of the restaurants are closed.
NYC Playgrounds
Reading this NY Times article about New York City playgrounds reminds me of unique experience from last summer. The above picture shows Grace on a climbing structure in a Central Park playground. It happens to be the playground at 72nd just inside the eastside of the park at Fifth Avenue. This is notable since this is the playground I frequented as a kid living in NYC.
When I was 10 years old I moved to the Upper Eastside of Manhattan. We were four long blocks (avenue to avenue) from Central Park. While we certainly did plenty of playing on the sidewalks outside our apartment building, if we wanted a playgound or a grassy field or even wide open space, Central Park was the place we went. A playground still held the interest of a 10 year old in 1975, so this was my playground.
I moved around a fair amount when I was growing up, and my kids have not had much opportunity to visit any of my child haunts. Last summer on trip to New York we spent time in Central Park. We happened by this playground and Grace wanted to play. The rope structure she is on was not there in the 1970s, but the general layout of concrete structures and slides was the same. And it was a pretty unique experience for me to see Grace play on a playground that was mine as a kid.
Day Six and Final at Penland
On our last day we had show and tell to display our work from the week for others. People were interested in how we took such pictures with a variety of cans. We also had music. Here’s our teacher Pinky playing cello.
Here is a link to all my best photos from the week in a slide show. Note that there are 101 photos (and these are culled out from many, many more).
This was a fabulous week for me. It was not restful, but it was energizing. I met a lot of great people. I learned a lot of interesting things that stretched my creativity and taught me how to look at things differently. One really does not have too many opportunities in their life to be totally immersed in something without their normal distractions. I need to keep my eye out for future programs like this.
Night in Asheville
Tonight we went to Asheville to a gallery reception for a friend of Pinky. Here’s a link to the online gallery. It was rainy and I took some cool pictures in the rain.
On our way back to Penland, we stopped at a drugstore because Melanie had been asked Louis all week to cut her hair, and he needed a scissors to do so. Here’s a photo of him convincing her that it is worth it to buy a $20 scissors rather than a $10 one.
