Summer Recap in In the Meadow

The kids start school a week from Thursday. Kayla and Timmy will be eleventh graders and Aaron will be an eighth grader.

We did some traveling during the second half of summer. For the past several years, my husband’s family has rented a cabin by a lake in Maine. We spent a few days there. It was very peaceful. We went swimming, hiking, and fishing. There are several lakes in the area. It was a nice vacation.

On the way home we stopped by Mount Washington. We took the steam train up the mountain. I had been on the regular cog railway, but not the steam train. It was fun and relaxing since it goes at a slower pace. On the way up the brake man told us about how people used to ride the cog down the mountain on toboggans. They were going over two hundred miles an hour and got down the mountain in about two minutes. Sadly, many of them did not survive it.

Even though it was eighty degrees at the base train station, it was fifty degrees and foggy at the top. There was not much of a view, but we did take our pictures at the summit. My husband and I hiked up the mountain a few years ago. We were fortunate to get a bright, sunny day. There are not many of those on the mountain. I’m not sure I could make it up in the fog.

We went to visit my aunt and uncle in Central New York. My mom passed away two years ago, and it was nice to see her sister and brother. We went for a lunch at a restaurant and talked. After the visit, we went to Cooperstown. We went to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I had seen Chipper Jones play in the minors in Richmond. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer, so I got to see his plaque. It was cool. They are running out of room for more plaques. Our tour guide was talking about the different options for when they run out of room.

There are a lot of baseball-related shops in Cooperstown. We left with plenty of souvenirs. There is a stadium that amateur teams can pay to play in. We watched part of a game in the stadium.

I went to visit my aunt in New York City. She has lived in the city since the 1970s. For many years she lived in a rent-controlled studio apartment. She finally moved to a Co-Op a few years ago. It was nice to see her. During the day I went to museums. I went to the Guggenheim. There was a Giacometti exhibit in the main atrium. I had seen his works pictured before but never seen them in person. I also went to the Museum of Modern Art. There was an exhibit by Kingelez that I particularly liked. It was sort of model cities. There were lots of geometric shapes.

After I left the MOMA I had kind of a disorienting experience. I went into a store to look around. When I came out of the store, I noticed that the Trump Tower was across the street. My first thought was “this store is right across from the Trump Tower.” Then I realized that the Trump Tower was further north. I was really disoriented for a minute and couldn’t figure out where I was. Then I started walking south, because I knew the subway station was to the south. I had been walking all day and it was hot and sunny. I think my eyes were playing tricks on me. Either that or I was having some kind of hallucination. If it happens again I will have to see someone, because it was an upsetting experience.

That was a long entry. Guess I had not written for a while and had a lot to write about.