Getting Close

We poured over maps at the family reunion.  My uncle Charlie loves traveling and has made a lifetime of visiting different places.  He could almost taste our trip as he sketched out route variations with his finger.  The plan got a bit more solid once we established internet access in the beach house.  We’ve got about two weeks to work with before I’ve got to send the older one back to the younger one in New York.  No hard deadlines, but she’s got more stuff that’s got to get done this summer than I do.

New York to Calgary by plane.  Shuttle to Banff.  Hostel for two nights while we explore and stock up on food.  Cycle south.  250 miles to the border, another 100 miles to Whitefish.  Options abound.  Maybe she’s done with the trip and flies back before the two weeks are done; maybe she’s addicted and we try to make Helena. 
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Bethany Beach … and the Asus android tablet

I’m slowly getting better with the tablet.  This post is coming straight off the beach using the android wordpress app.  Last summer, I took my sweetie cycling along highway 1.  There are wide — and signed — bike lanes on the side and we were cooking along until she ran over something that gave her an instant flat.  Alas, she lost control of the bike, fell, and broke her wrist.  Yikes.  Several pins and some fetching wee scars later, she’s recovered but swore off cycling.  But who could resist cycling at bethany beach?  and with me?!?  Unimaginable.  Here we have it:  photographic proof that we’ve gone cycling together again (with nary a mishap). 

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This photo started in the DSLR, came into the tablet via a flash card, and then got cropped, color washed, and framed in pilxr-o-matic.

shout out to Mary Hayes

My lovely sister Mary read my coffee post with dismay.  She realized that I was struggling to cover the coffee question for the trip and acted quickly.  An oddly wrapped package arrived just a day before the road trip to Delaware and I brought everything to the beach house.

Lo and behold:  a slick coffee grinder with storage space for the beans (about four cups worth) seamlessly integrated with a jar for holding the ground coffee.  The detachable handle provides leverage and the ceramic insides provide a better grind than my electric machine at home.  Mary is my coffee savior.

Even better, I had the wit to fill it with coffee before departing Hastings!  Good thing, as my wife, Dad, and I have very different ideas of what makes a good cup.  Here you see me grinding away.  The joyful results follow.

I enlisted my wife to take photographs but the oddity of the tablet proved too much.  My other lovely daughter, Lia, found it all a giggle and assured me that everything would improve with a better picture of her.  Thus one whimsical picture of us both, over coffee, and a final one of her.  No coffee, no dad.  Just shamelessly upgrading the post with a smile.

Thanks, Mary.  :-)

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