I'm Going to Talk About Canned Peas Instead of What We Did at Our Adirondack Property

Because that's what I feel like talking about.
  

    
Canned Peas.  Have you ever had them?  They're gross.  I admit that.  Even the "best" canned peas (which are, in my opinion, Le Sueur Baby Peas) are still gross.  Yet DH and I LOVE them.  In fact, for dinner tonight I had one crescent roll, a glass of wine (ok, ok TWO glasses of wine) and about half a can of peas.  (I wasn't that hungry because I had McDonald's for lunch, I KNOW I KNOW, bad bad bad!!!!)
 
The only reason we can figure that we like them so much is that they remind us of our childhood - those gross canned peas have become a comfort food for us, you know?

I also LOVE Campbell's crappy split pea soup with ham.  Have you ever had that?  Have you ever SEEN what that looks like when you open the can?  Could it BE any less appetizing?  I started liking split pea soup when we were married and broke living in Binghamton, NY when we were first married.  The place I worked had a cafeteria and you could get a bowl of soup for $1.00.  And all the oyster crackers you wanted.  I used to buy a bowl of split pea soup for $1.00 and take like 5 packages of oyster crackers and that was lunch.

Is there something you like that is kinda gross, but you just like it because you ate it as a kid, or have fond memories of it, or it's a comfort food for you?
 
The end....but not really because I want to hear what you have to say!

P.S.  I'll finish the story of our trip and what we did at our property next week - and yes Jude - we DID collect more pine cones and stuff - I'll have take a pic and show you how much DD collected...  :-O
  
 

What we did After Visiting the Missile Silo

If you missed the missile silo excitement, you can read about it here.

Since we still had the afternoon ahead of us after visiting the missile silo, of course we went...geocaching!  DH had plotted out a route that would loop around a nice scenic drive and head us back in the direction of home, whilst passing some geocaches.

The geocaching was fun for sure, but the beauty of the area is just astonishing and breathtaking.  My eyes were just drinking it in.  We don't often go that far northward, so it was a treat to be where it is even more rugged and wild.  Anyway, here are some pictures we took along the way...
  

 

The Ausable River

   

 

The picture of this vista enables us to claim a find on a virtual geocache!

   

 

The travel stop where we got the map with "SEND HELP" on the back

  

 

Covered bridge in Jay

  

More of the rushing Ausable river

  

 

I asked DH to pull over to take this pic (which doesn't do it justice at all) of this mountain that was just steep, sheer rock.

  

Toward the very end of the afternoon we stopped in at our little property, but that is a whole 'nother story.

  

The end.

 

Wordless Wednesday: This is What's on the Back of the Map we Got at the Adirondack "High Peaks North" Travel Stop

Yes Krissy, We Visited A Missile Silo on Sunday!

 Very good guessing, you win my little contest!

*Big Round of Applause*

*Shiny Gold Star for You*

Kudos to Krissy for guessing the unique place we visited on Sunday.  Krissy, the bragging rights are all yours! :-D

I don't really have a second prize for Rebecca, but how about a shoutout for your technology blog - everyone should go check it out, it's Mrs. Mecomber's Scrapbook.  It's quite a gem!

Anyway, yes we visited the Atlas Missile Silo near Lewis, NY in the Adirondacks.  As you know, we LOVE the Adirondacks and just bought a small piece of property there, so it was a bonus to have a great reason to travel up that way again.  I found out that the missile silo was going to be open to the public in an article at Adirondack Almanac, and then I proceeded to read more in an article in the Press Republican.  I forwarded it to DH who said, "Hey, I'd like to go see this!  Wanna go?"  I figured, why not!  I don't need a big excuse to visit the Adirondacks again.  So we left at 6:30am Sunday morning and traveled up to the site, not really sure what to expect.  Well, we were totally blown away!  It was SO COOL!  The owner of the site was there in a tent where he had us sign releases (in case we got hurt - it is after all, a big hole in the ground!), and he also had drinks and snacks.  There was no charge to visit the silo, which is pretty awesome!  We were given some informative paperwok and then went off to explore.  We took a million pictures, but here's a few to give you an idea of what it was like:

 

The entrance to the living quarters / control room was that grey doorway to the left.

  

 

   

  

  

 

  

 

  

 

If you read the articles linked above, it talks about how the designer has renovated the silo and made living quarters out of part of it.  It's not exactly a cozy or fancy place - no chandeliers hanging from the ceiling here!

  

 

  

 

The original control panel, minus most of its dials and switches.

  

 

  

 

  

 

What better decor for a nice table than a bowl of fruit and...a geiger counter!

   

 

        

If you're interested in reading more about Alexander Michael's amazing project you can go to www.siloboy.com.  Mr. Michael even gave DD a "Siloboy.com" cookie when we signed in.  The whole thing was WAY COOL.

  

Now of course, if you know us at all, our adventure didn't end there, but I'll save that for later in the week.  :-)

  

The end.

 

How Would You Like A Peek?

A Peek, as in...a very cool new mobile device for busy women to check their email on the go?  If you're like me and you don't have a fancy smartphone or Blackberry (I actually have such a plain phone it doesn't even have a camera, it just you know, makes phone calls!), you can actually send and receive emails when you're out and about with this new gadget called a Peek!  Best of all it's easy to use - you totally do not have to be a tech guru to figure out how to use it.  And there are no contracts, just one low monthly fee.

Think about how great it would be to catch up on your emails while sitting on the sidelines of the little league games?  Or while you're hanging around during your child's music lesson?  Or stuck in the dentist's waiting room?  Wouldn't a Peek be good for Grandma to use when she's going on all those bus trips and vacations to keep in touch?  Or are you a businessperson?  With the Peek you'd never have to be out of contact with your email box.

Think how great this would be if you've got a new baby - you know how most babies never want you to put them down - you could hold the baby in one arm and check emails with the other!  Don't laugh, but this is how the inventor of the Peek got his wife using it!

In fact the Peek has been getting rave reviews by the New York Times, Wired, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal and more - they have them up on their website getpeek.com for you to check out.

The Peek is available online at getpeek.com but also at Target stores.  A good thing to put on your Christmas list this year!  Or great to give as a gift.  :-)  It costs about $99.95 for the device and then it's $19.95 per month - no contract.
   
Go peek at the Peek - not only is it a great gadget, but it's very stylin' too!  ;-)
  

Can You Guess Where We Went Yesterday?

Ok, I know we go some wacky and interesting places, but even for us, this was quite remarkable.  Just for fun I'll give a prize to the first person who can guess where we went by midnight tonight - don't worry, I'll give you some hints.  If you're a blogger or have a website I'll give the winner a free 125X125 ad spot for the month of November or a link on my blogroll for the month (must be family friendly link or ad).  If you don't have a website, then I'll just tout your name and give you full bragging rights, fame and glory. 

You must be specific and include the town in your guess.

Here are a few hints:

This place is in the Adirondacks.

This is an extremely unique place.

Yesterday was the first time the public could visit this place.

It had a geiger counter used as decor.

Any ideas?

The end.

So Where Did I Come From, Anyway?

If your family tree doesn't fork, you might be a redneck. - Jeff Foxworthy

Image from www.coplen.org

A few years back I did a little research on my family tree.  I complied a lot of info from relatives but didn't manage to get back very far in the lineage of any of the family names I was researching from additional information I could find online.  I'm hoping that now that a few years have gone by, maybe there is more out there on the web to find.  My fantasy is that I'm going to bump into someone with a relative in common who has already done all the work to fill a branch of our family tree back hundreds of years and I can just "zoop zoop" slap it into my own family tree.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  Heh.

DH's family is primarily from Scotland and Poland, and mine is primarily from Germany, Hungary and Poland also.  The family joke on my side of the family is that we're descended from gypsies.  I could kinda see that.  :-)  Actually, I met someone on a Tres Dias (christian 3 day weekend) whose father actually lived with and wrote a book about the gypsies, so I got the book from my library and read it, as well as looked up information online - it's really absolutely fascinating.

'Course I wouldn't mind finding out the family descended from some great Scottish Clansman either, that would be cool.  (However, the Clan's downfall probably came when the warriors asked for swords and shields and the Chieftan said, "Ye Nay be Needin' That"!)

I took a little time to start searching online the other day, but there seem to be a million websites now for family history - many more than there were 4 or 5 years ago when I last was searching.  I'm not even sure where to begin.  It's kind of weird because I THINK researching your family history is a fairly popular hobby and I KNOW there are lots of books and software on this topic, however, I never seem to see any advertising for it.  I mean, Geico, the Cavemen, the alli diet pill, Magic Putty - I see those ads all the time, where's the genealogy ads?  Maybe I don't look in the right places.

Well I know some of you have done some genealogy research yourselves, so can any of you give me some good starting off points?  Tips?  Advice?

And for those of you that have researched their family trees, has anyone found any surprising or noteworthy relatives in their midst?  Tell me!  :-)

If I find out anything really cool in my family tree, I'll share too!

The end.
    

DH Has Officially Declared War on the Mice in Our Shed

With winter coming on, DH knew the shed was going to be prime real estate for mice.  In fact when he went in there to get the fencing we have to put around our shrubs to protect them from the deer he claimed "he smelled mice".  The next day he set three traps with peanut butter as bait.  When he went out there the next evening to check on them, not only were two of them cleared off of peanut butter but not tripped, one trap was GONE!

He thinks the mice took it back to their lab to analyze it.

Anyway, DH's message to the mice is - GAME ON!
 

Remedy for Technology Overload

I found a cool website for a person like me who wants to keep up on the latest tech news and the coolest new software and gadgets, but who is not exactly a tech geek either - you know, I don't need to know when Bill Gates sneezed or what the price of Intel is today or whatever.  It's called Gadget Advisor.  They seem to sift through the latest technology and they just post the most interesting or coolest or most useful items.  Kind of like "the best of the best".  And I LOVE that their website is so clean and organized - there aren't 50 little sections with headlines and blinking ads and links to who knows what.  It's very easy to read and also to find what you're looking for. 

Gadget Advisor even reviews services, like which is the best online backup service.  Those online backup services really seem to be becoming a popular option these days it seems.  Maybe I should look into that come to think of it.  I'm sure I'm living on borrowed time with this laptop that threatens to melt down at any minute.

I found some other cool stuff as I was browsing around - check this out - they have a list of top extensions for Firefox - some I knew about but some I didn't.  Now that's some info I can use!  And I found a very cool remote control - Logitech universal remote - this thing is amazing it can control up to 15 different devices!  Would you believe we need THREE remotes just to operate one of our tvs?  It's ridiculous - it's the one in our bedroom and we have to actually keep the three remotes on the bedcovers between us at night so if someone wakes up and wants to watch tv, they can.  And it's not always easy finding THREE REMOTES IN THE DARK FLOATING AROUND ON THE COVERS.  Good grief.  I'll have to look into this Logitech one.  There's even something called an H2O iDive 300 Underwater Speaker / iPod Case that you can use while you're scuba diving to listen to your iPod UNDERWATER!   

Who thinks of this stuff?

Well, I don't know who thinks all this stuff up, but if you go over to Gadget Advisor you can at least read about it!

I Love...

FREE REFILLS!

I was at Ruby Tuesday's and they have free refills.  I could drink as much of that poison aka Diet Coke as I wanted.  I love that!  Seems like years ago most restaurants had free refills, now it seems only a few do.  And since lately to save money I've skipped buying my beloved Coke Zero at the grocery store, I was just so happy to have as much Diet Coke as I wanted with my lunch. 

Plus fountain Diet Coke is DA BOMB!  :-P

Sometimes I'm very easy to please.

The end.

P.S.  Yes, I know Diet Coke will kill me.
 

What Should I do With This?

 

Last time when I was up at our little piece of property in the Adirondacks, I picked up these pine cones and pine needles from our lot to take home to kinda, you know, remind me of our little spot.  I wanted to display them somewhere so I could look at them often and have happy thoughts.  Except, I really don't know what to do with them.  I got as far as spreading them onto a paper towel to dry out a bit (the pine cones were quite sappy and sticky).  Which looks nice, don't get me wrong, but I think I can do better than this.  Only, what?

  

Anyone have any suggestions on how I can display this?  I was thinking in a little bowl or dish, but that seems kind of lame.  Anyone have any better ideas for my little "pine cones of happy thoughts"?

 

The end.

   

Wordless Wednesday

Help for my 90 Year Old Lady Hands

It's that time of year for the annual appearance of my freakishly wrinkled old lady hands!  I have chronic dry, irritated, and itchy skin and although I like the winter months, I DO NOT enjoy the dry skin that goes with it!

However, I am in luck this year because I was sent a full size bottle of Gloves in a Bottle to try out, and my hands are finally starting to look their age (a mere 38!).  I'm always trying everything in my elusive search for a hand cream that works well and actually lasts through hand washing (I practically sanitize my hands under scalding hot water with soap about 10 times every time I cook with raw meat or eggs because I am so afraid I'm going to poison my own family with salmonella or ecoli <--- not actually joking here, not to mention all the normal hand washing that I do).  I have been using this and it seems to somehow be magically un-wrinkling my hands, and lasting through hand washing.  I guess it's because it's a shielding lotion - that's what makes it different than most other hand lotions out there.

From their website, an explanation of what the deal with a "shielding lotion" is and why this works so much better than typical hand creams: 

"A shielding lotion is far superior for treating dry, itchy skin because it bonds with the outer layer of the skin and replaces the protective barrier, keeping the irritants out and your own natural oils and moisture in," explains Dr. Helton.

"Shielding lotions don't wash or rub off," agrees Dr. Zogg. "Because a shielding lotion stays on and protects the skin it’s a very effective treatment for the dry skin conditions we see here in the winter months."

 

 

And check out who is using Gloves in a Bottle - I think this is pretty impressive!  List of Notable Customers
I wonder who I need to tell that I am now using Gloves in a Bottle so that I can be added to that list?

Ha ha.

The website is very comprehensive if you'd like to know more - there are clinical studies, a store locator, before and after pics, and testimonials.  The website is simply www.glovesinabottle.com.

So now as my smooth, soft and moistured hands fly over my keyboard (kept pleasantly warm from the searing temperature of my laptop) I can admire their youthful beauty.  I was especially glad to have the Gloves in a Bottle after Sunday - I spent the afternoon cutting down the jungle that my summer garden had become so that DH could put up the fences.  My hands were not only dry but all scratched up especially after the rose bush.  :-(   Gloves in a Bottle was really soothing on them afterward.

Yes, we have to actually erect fences to keep the deer away from our landscaping.  DH pounds metal posts into the ground a few feet away from the shrubbery and then we run nylon fencing along them.  The first year we lived here we didn't know and the deer ate our shrubs down to nubs.  Jerks!!!  Not to mention that DH has hit deer while driving THREE times.  And not to mention they are carriers of DEER TICKS that carry lyme disease.  Remember the time we pulled off 27 ticks?

Well, at least my hands are soft!  I'll focus on that.  :-D

The end.

Whoops!

 Photo from www.notebookreview.com

I have a laptop with a touchpad.  I use it a lot. 

Sometimes my touchpad gets a little sticky, or gets crumbs on it or whatever, so I wipe it off, or scratch off whatever goo is stuck on.

The other day there was something stuck on the touchpad and when that happens it's SO annoying because every time my finger swipes across the pad I can feel it.  So, as I've done a million times before, I scratched it off. 

Except this time when I scratched I made a tiny hole!

Uh oh!  That can't be good.  :-O

I think what I originally felt was a tiny spot where I had worn through the protective coating of the touchpad.  Now I had a tiny hole.  Which felt exponentially more annoying when trying to use the touchpad. 

So it seemed to me the only logical thing to do was to scratch the ENTIRE coating off, so it would be smooth again.  Right?  I mean, wasn't that the sensible thing to do?

So I did.  It took quite awhile.  By golly, that little project was not on my agenda for the day but that's just one of the little twists and turns that makes life interesting.

So once I had the whole thing scratched off and I tested it out, to my dismay, my finger did not glide over it very smoothly at all.  Hmm.    
So I hunted down our roll of clear contact paper to make a NEW protective coating.  I cut it to perfect size but SMART ME tested a part of it on the touchpad first before laying it down.

And to my continued dismay, the contact paper was not really suitable either - again, my finger did not glide nicely over the touchpad.  Hmm.

Not sure what made me try this, but I tuned the contact paper OVER that I had cut to size and just for kicks, tried out the back side, which is a sort of wax-like paper.  Wow, that worked great!  Only, now how do I get the un-sticky side of the contact paper to stick to the touchpad?

Have you ever heard of "Fun Tak"?  It comes in blue or gray, looks like gum? (I used to use this stuff when I was a teen to hang up all my Tiger Beat posters of Rob Lowe, George Micheal and C. Thomas Howell (what ever happened to him anyway?))  I ended up using a tiny ball of fun tack in the four corners of the touchpad to stick the upside down piece of contact paper on.  Not exactly a modification that's going to increase the value of this POS, oops, I mean wonderful Dell Inspiron 6000 that came with the added bonus feature of heating to the temperature of the surface of the sun - saves on heating oil, you know!

Anyway, I certainly did not expect to scratch off the protective coating on the touchpad today.  I didn't even know there was a protective coating.

THAT WAS WEIRD!

The end.
  

This N That and A Question

Just a bunch of miscellany today...

I really enjoyed the comments left on my post about What Two Things Won't YOU Eat - I got a kick out of everyone's answers.  This wasn't meant to be a contest or anything, but I have to give kudos to Thru My Eyes for the item that really made me go "EWWWWWWWWW!" when I read it - one of the foods she won't eat is meat fat.  I just happened to make a corned beef today and, whew, when it was done and I sliced off that big slimey layer of gelatinous fat - whew - that is GROSS!

Our knives have Paul Revere's signature on them.  That seems really silly.

I added the new Blogspot feature of "followers" there in the right sidebar - follow me if you want!  You get the bonus of having your profile pic in microscopic size appear on my page like a mini celebrity!

I like the sound it makes when in Windows you click on "Empty the Recycle Bin".

My latest song that is great to vacuum to is "Burnin' Up" by the Jonas Brothers.  I'm thinking I should make a compilation CD of good tunes to vacuum and mow the lawn to.  So far I have Burnin' Up, Thank God I'm a Country Boy by John Denver, and Merry Christmas by NSYNC.

I scored a free (old) color tv on Freecycle today for DD, woot woot!  DH and I are good "scaffers" - we've been known to stop on the side of the road and pick up stuff with a "free" sign on it.  In fact, we have a big set of low metal shelves we scaffed off the sidewalk in Binghamton, NY when we were first married almost 15 years ago that we STILL have.  It holds all our games in the basement.

What's the best thing you ever "scaffed"/got for free?

The end, but not really because I want to hear what you have to say! :-)

Pumpkin Picking

 

  

Sunday we went to our favorite pumpkin patch.  I've been going to this place since I was a kid.  It was really warm for an October day here in NY. 

  

  

   

There's a hayride that takes you out to the pumpkin patch.  It's not really that far, but who doesn't enjoy a hay ride?

   

   

Still plenty of pumpkins left for picking!

   

 

  
We got two pumpkins, one for us and one for my Dad.
  

 

   

After we paid for our pumpkins  (50 cents a pound, in case you're curious), there was a straw maze DD went in for awhile, and there were also all these fun scenes set up to look at.

  

 

   

I love this time of year.  But it always seems to go by so fast!

  

The end.

   

Our Weekend Geocaching Adventure

Just wanted to let you know that I posted over at my other blog So You Wanna Go Geocaching about our personal best day of geocaching, if you're interested. 

You know, in case my "Wordless Wednesday" just wasn't enough of "Carole" for your day.  Heh.
 
The end.

Wordless Wednesday

A Butterfly Award!

 

Thank you to Karen Zemek from Karen and Gerard Zemek for this very cool award!  I love butterflies, so this is an extra cool award to me.  :-)

Now I get to pass it along to some fellow bloggers!

Now I know Rebecca has a fondness for ladybugs, but how about a butterfly for NY Renovator?

And it might be a little cold in Alaska for butterflies, but I'm sending Glizten one at Saddlepotatoes!

A beautiful butterfly would be at home at the Beauty Denominator, right?

And a butterfly I'm sure, would love to stay a while at Nessa's Place.

Last but not least, I'll be Ivory Soap and Tomato Lady could appreciate a butterfly at their Little House in the Suburbs.

These are all some of my favorite blogs, I have good "blog taste" so go check them out.  :-D

Thanks again Karen for this award, I really appreciate it!

The end.

What Two Things Won't YOU Eat?

 

Noooooooooooooooooo!

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

I am not a picky eater.  I like many kinds of foods and I LOVE to try new foods.  I've eaten snails, bear, deer, alligator, tofu, goat cheese, vegetables and fruits I'd never heard of before, all sorts of stuff, but there are two foods I really really hate and won't eat.

I HATE grapefruit.  Even if it's a little chunk mixed in with a fruit salad, oh I can taste that distinctive taste right away.  It truly makes me gag.

I also HATE water chestnuts.   They don't even seem like food.  They seem like something synthetic, I don't know, is anyone with me on this?  I pick each and every one out of Chinese food.  Oh I hate them!

But that's about it.  I mean, aside from cow eyeballs and weird things they make you eat on Fear Factor and Survivor.

Now, I was trying to think about the depth to which I hate these foods.  Here's my test.  If I was invited to a dinner party, given by someone I really care about, could I choke it down so they wouldn't feel bad?

Water chestnuts, yes.  Grapefruit, no.  On the grapefruit, I could choke down a few pieces, but I know I could not eat more than a third of a grapefruit.  The water chestnuts, I could, if I absolutely had to, choke down.

What about you?  What food could you not choke down even if it meant hurting someone's feelings?

The end, but not really, because I want to know what YOU have to say!
 

Our Weekend in the Adirondacks Part 3

(Part 1 here, Part 2 here)
  
...So we took to the road.  After time, we pulled off the main road onto a small gravel road.  After a bit we stopped and parked.  DH and I hop out of the truck, and MIL and her friend are looking at us in puzzlement.
  
DH announces, "Welcome to our investment!"

 

  

It's been our dream to own a piece of property for a long time, for investment, but somewhere we could "get away" to.  Our search led us to the Adirondacks, and we found this little gem.  It's only a little piece of property, but big enough for us to build a small seasonal house/cabin/cottage.  It's in an association with some other homes.  But the best part is this little lot is only about 500 ft away from this, the shared beach:

 

 

  

We'd been waiting to show my MIL before we told anyone else (my Dad already knew because he gave us financial advice).  It's been killing me keeping this exciting news inside!!!  :-)  We actually bought the property in August.

 
I can hardly believe we are so fortunate to be able to have this.  We have a bottle of champagne in the fridge we've been meaning to "pop" to celebrate, but we still haven't had it - it still doesn't seem real!

So the next step is DH has to figure out how much we can afford to spend to build a little place, then we have to find a builder and pick out a plan.  We need to move fairly quickly because there is already a building permit approved for a structure on the property and we want to break ground before that expires.  It's apparently not the easiest thing to get building permits because of the APA (Adirondack Park Agency) restrictions.

We have looked at some small house plans and were thinking of maybe something like this?  Just a thought so far...

So anyway, MIL was very happy for us and congratulated us, and after showing her and her friend the beach and the docks, we all left to come home.
 
Now it wouldn't be like us to just be boring and drive straight home - so we stopped a few times along the way and found 9 geocaches on the way home!  Woo hoo, it was a red-letter day!  Got home relatively early for us (9pm) and unloaded all our treasures, and collapsed into bed in the afterglow of a really awesome weekend.
 
So that, my friends who have persevered through all three parts of this saga, this concludes all the news that's fit to print from our weekend.  :-)  THANK YOU for reading!

The end!  :-D

Our Weekend in the Adirondacks Part 2

(Part 1 is here)

So we end up driving pretty much all the way through town and ended up parking at the northern end, one block over from Main Street, which was fine really, because we wanted to walk from one end to the other and back anyway.  We parked near my favorite Warrensburg, NY "landmark".  It's "The Ashes".  I don't know why I love this building, but I just love "The Ashes".  I've never been in it, I've never been able to find out anything about it's history in a rudimentary internet search - I just like to see it.  Doesn't seem like "Garage Sale Weekend" unless I get to see "The Ashes".  This year we parked right nearby, so I got my fill of seeing it, but other years my thoughtful DH would go out of our way just to drive by it because he knows I like to see it.  Here's a picture of "The Ashes":

 
So we got out and bundled ourselves up (it's chilly up north in October ya know!).  Loaded our stuff, including DD, in our trusty wagon and set off.  Now although DD is 9 and could certainly walk, we wanted to walk the whole thing and there is just no way she was going to survive that without getting tired and complaining.  So, when she outgrew her stroller we just started bringing this big 'ol wagon we have and since DD is petite, it's still doable and DH and I get to enjoy the entire garage sale, and DD is happy because if she wants to walk she can, and if she gets bored or tired she can ride in the wagon and read a book or listen to music or whatever.  And I figure pulling around a wagon with 50lbs off DD in it helps me burn off whatever "bad" food I partake of during the day.  (Well that's what I tell myself, anyway.)

There were some decent garage sales on the side streets, and then we made it out to the main street.  Here's a pic, but it really doesn't accurately depict the size and scope of this town-wide affair.

 

It's pretty crowded usually, as long as the weather is good.  It's not always easy to get around with the wagon, but I'm pretty good with it.  There's also lots of other people with wagons and strollers and carts, so we all fight our way through as best we can.  DH was wishing, as he does every year, that he had a "suit of knives" so he could get through the crowds easier.  Normally I scold DH when I feel he's not being patient, but I must admit, after a few hours of people stopping right in the middle of the sidewalk, or people stopping to talk to a friend and blocking everyone, or stopping with a stroller in a tight spot instead of "pulling over" where there was room to let others by, even I was getting a little exasperated. 

 

We had a very enjoyable day walking and browsing.  We bought a few things, nothing that exciting except for this really cool hiking stick DH got.  Check it out!

 

 

  

Here's a close up:

  

 

  

I'll try to remember everything I got: white tissue paper - 40 sheets for $1, an old white round Anchor Hocking dish with a blue floral design for $5, a long, coat-like off-white wool sweater for $8 (that was my garage sale bargain of the day!), a candle in a pretty tin from a new "Adirondack" store for $10, a bar of pine scented soap for $2, and a long brown and black cashmere (don't know if it's REALLY cashmere or not, but it is very soft and pretty) scarf for $8.  I was very happy with my purchases.

  

Warrensburg is a nice little town to walk around in.  Except for the hilly part.  When you're pulling 50lbs of DD around.  Here's a shot of a mural on the side of one of the buildings:

  

  

  

There's also a bandstand in the middle of town, though there was no band in it this year!  

(There's a geocache there.  Can you guess where it's hidden?)

Wondering what the heck Geocaching is?  Check out my other blog here.

  

 

There are lots of "dealers" there as well as people with garage sale stuff selling all the usual - socks, towels, tools, etc.  We noticed there seemed to be an awful lot of designer handbag booths, which I commented upon to DH (knock-off purses are pretty common to find at flea markets and such, but I didn't remember in the past them being so prevalent at the Warrensburg one).  I happened to be reading an Adirondack news blog yesterday morning and saw that the police arrested a bunch of the vendors for selling fake purses and got charged with felonies (article here)!  Ha on them!

 

So to give you an idea of how big this "World's Largest Garage Sale" is, we parked at about 9:15am and didn't get back in the truck to leave until 4:30pm.  Yes, we were tired.

 

So we drove back down to Lake George which took awhile because of the traffic.  When we got back to our hotel, DH told me there's a geocache nearby, and suggested we go try to find it since we were still waiting for his Mom and her friend to get back.  The geocache was located in a very picturesque setting.  Nothing like sitting and signing a log with a view like this, huh?

 

 

  

When DH's Mom and friend got back and unpacked their garage sale treasures, we decided to go out to eat.  We decided to try the Barnsider - my SIL had mentioned it in an email - you know, one of those emails where you answer a bunch of questions and then forward it to your friends and family to answer too?  We feared there might be big crowds because of it being Garage Sale Weekend, but we were fortunate and got seated right away.  I had to snap a pic of the funny sign outside the front door of the restaurant though:

  

  

We had a nice dinner and instead of more Uno afterwards at the hotel, we all decided we were very tired (and DH and DD were somewhat under the weather as well) and decided to make it an early night and go to bed.  We agreed to meet the next morning at Hojo's (Howard Johnson's) at 10:30 for their breakfast buffet (this has become somewhat of a tradition).

 

The next morning during breakfast, DH asked his Mom what they were planning on doing after breakfast - because if they weren't in a hurry to leave, he said, we'd like to show you something neat we'd found, and did they want to follow us in their car so we could show them?  Surprisingly, they didn't ask a lot of questions, but I guess by now they know that you never really know what to expect from us, and so after breakfast, with them behind us, we took to the road.

 

To be continued...