The Mohonk House Preserve

Two weekends ago Patrick and I went for a bike ride in NY. I got the idea from a mountain biking book that ended up being so outdated that the visitors center it told us to go to was closed (10 years ago) and the ride it suggested was now illegal. We had to wing it and we did a fine job. Since our camera was still at Olympus being fixed (we finally got it back last week. YEA!) and the camera phones don't do so well with the landscape shots there aren't many pictures of the great views. The cliffs in the background of this photo are the Shawangunk mountains (there is still some debate as to how you pronounce that. Most of the people I've asked have never heard of these mountains and the few that have say they don't know. I read in the mountain biking book that you are supposed to say it Shongum but I don't really trust that book. We pretty much just say it differently every time). This is where Easterners claim is the best rock climbing in the country.

We biked over to a place called the Mohonk house that you can see in the back ground here. It's this old house built right on this cool lake that is apparently now a 5 star resort. We weren't supposed to be biking down here so we were walking our bikes along hoping to not get yelled at.

Then we saw a trail that was called "The Labyrinth" and couldn't resist checking it out. We threw our bikes behind some trees and hoped an employee didn't see them while we were gone. The trail wound around in the fallen rocks squeezing between and going under and climbing over. Of course the camera phone couldn't handle the low light of the coolest parts of the trail so you'll have to take my word for it. Sometimes there were wooden ladders or bridges to make the trail a bit more managable for the less-adept-than-Meghann-and-Patrick types. It was really fun.


Patrick is perched on the tip of this rock.

At the top there is another trail that takes you along the edge of the cliff and has a number of bridges out to island rocks where they built little sitting areas where you can admire the view.

And of course Patrick had to do some jumping around and wanted me to get a video of it.

Kauai - Deleted Scenes

There were a few things that Meghann left out of her Kauai posts. You may think that is impossible because there were a lot of Kauai posts right after our trip, but just look what didn't get included...consider these the "extras".





We stayed at Polihale Beach all day and all night. I think this is when you have truly accepted the island (am I starting to sound like John Locke?); you can just go out there and chill all day without a care in the world. That is what we are all doing in this picture.

But then things would pick up at night, once the sun went down...

That was Meghann and Jill doing freestyle hula, with Chaz Fu on the Ukulele

We also had a great close encounter with our friends the turtles at our secret turtle spot. I called out to the turtle while both I and the camera are underwater.



This video was taken to mimic a Nature Valley Granola Bar commmercial. I think ours is better than the original.



To see the original commercial we mimicked click here:


http://youtube.com/watch?v=dBiFEOTcas8

So those are the deleted scenes of our Kauai trip.

Remembering a trip to Moab

We took a trip down to Moab a few weeks before Alyssa had her baby. I just found some pictures from when we took a drive out to Gemeni Bridges in Canyonlands. This is me on an overhang. I can't believe Patrick even let me stay out there long enough to take this picture becuase he is a little paranoid about things like this.


Here you can see the big strapping Clyde boys.

This was aparently around the time that Edy decided to buzz his head. It makes his head look rounder than usual, in a good way...

Their picture was so nice we wanted to copy it. And we did.

I'm pretty sure those are the snowy La Sals you can see in the background.

For whatever reason the boys started jumping up on this rock so then we all had to try, except Alyssa with her big belly. I go last because aparently I am the best, the cream on the top of the mousse.

A Yankee Game!

We already knew that Patrick had a really cool job and then he got an email that there were Yankee tickets up for grabs! I guess the company has season tickets which they occationally have up for grabs and Patrick was the fastest. Since our camera died these pictures from our phones are the best we could do.

We didn't notice on the small phone screen that Patrick looks like his right eye is swollen shut. It wasn't really like that, this picture is just a treat for us enjoy, like Cracker Jacks were for Patrick.
This was the closest we could get to having the Yankee Stadium sign in the background. The camera phone wasnt' up to the task from further away.

We got to sing during the 7th inning stretch.

I guess they are building a new Yankee Stadium right next to the old one and it isn't even bigger. Anyway, it was fun to get to go to the old Yankee Staduim before its gone.