The highlight of my day was the afternoon. Though mostly delightful, there was a bit of sadness mixed in. After double-checking what type of tires I have on my car (so I can buy replacements), I was asked over to my neighbor's to watch the boys for a bit. There was an ambulance, fire engine and squad car at Sully's house...something had happened. I went over immediately. I fed the baby the remainder of his bottle, getting two good burbs out and a bit of whining. Then, he entertained himself for almost an hour in his musical toy chair thing. I don't know, there are so many new toys these days. Steve came back and picked up the older of his two sons, J. - he told him that like their dog the year before, Sully had to go to heaven. Frankly, J. turned to me and said, "Sully died." He's 6 1/2 years old and already deals with death better than I do. I brought the news home to my parents. Sully was a sweet man. We're all the saddest for Gloria, his good friend, another neighbor of ours. They are/were both in their 80's, single (widowed? I'm not sure) and practically best friends - eating dinner together daily and breakfasts on the weekends. Steve told me that Sully would bring powdered donuts to Gloria's house on the weekends...in turn, she offered them to Steve, Nicki and the boys, as she was never able to eat them herself. We haven't told my grandmother the news yet, but she will know by tomorrow. She also knew Sully.
I passed the news onto my sister...she said "Ohh" about six times, in that sad way that people do when someone has died or something generally sad has occurred. We'll all mourn for Sully this weekend.
A short while later, I picked up Stacie and drove up to Wahconah Falls. It's wonderful now that we've sprung forward an hour - sunlight until 7:30 pm! First, down a pothole-infused dirt road off of the main road and we were on our way. There was a parking area at the bottom, but I am far too stubborn for that. I challenged the enlarged-gravel-covered path with my little two door VW. Five-speeds are great for going over rough surfaces...shifting down into first and then second, I proceeded up the gritty hill. My sister made a comment that life is always an adventure when she's hanging out with me...or something like that...I think it was more of a comment leaning towards fearing for her life when I decide to take the wheel on an adventure, hahaha. Afterwards, I said that I think I thrive on fear and adventure. (I am not a true adventure-seeker - I do not jump from bridges, ice climb or wrestle with crocs, but I do step outside the box.)
After the gravel, we came to some snow. Mind you that I need two tires replaced (one is worn down even with the bar). I decided to drive through the snow - ha! What a wise idea. Stacie commented on the eerie Spanish music flowing from the radio and us being alone in the woods, driving on a slick, snow-covered trail with a few worn down tires. I just couldn't resist! We got to the point in the path where it thinned out and there was a huge ditch we could get stuck in. Now that is not an adventure that I want any part in! So we had one choice...I threw her in reverse and off we went, back down the trail towards the gravel. We must have gone about 30-40 yards in reverse. Probably more, I wasn't counting. I think Stacie may have been praying under her breath. I was just hoping not to go off into the ditch or creek to the side of us.We made it back to solid land (soil as Jon would say, not dirt as I would), locked up the car, grabbed the camera and started walking. I had hiking boots on with my YakTrax on the outside. Stacie, on the other hand, was wearing chunky high-heeled boots. Those boots are to her like the gnome in all those travelling commercials. They've seen the world...taken her to Italy and Portugal and around the states. And here they were, walking her through a snow-covered trail in the woods with her crazy little sister.
It was gorgeous. There were paw prints everywhere. I knew they were from various dogs, though they darted in and out of the woods, over and path and further, leading us to the question of whether or not they may have belonged to bears? I denied it, but Stacie questioned. It was a wonderful walk. Quiet. A bird here or there in the distance, chirping away. The dull hum of faraway traffic on the main road. The soft whisper of the brook up ahead. And those paw prints leading the way. I kept saying, "I can't believe we were just driving on this!" as we slipped along the snowy path. We had about an hour of daylight to soak up yet. We talked, laughed, vented...did the things that sisters are good at! We stopped for a bit at the babbling brook. It had patches of snow and ice covering the rocks, but was flowing quite well. Past the brook, we went left at the fork. We assumed that the falls had to be that way, as the water was flowing downhill to the right. Thank you Isaac Newtown.
We went as far as the birch tree with four stalks. Perhaps it was four trees closely nestled, but I like to think of it as one tree...they just looked so content with one another. The hill was steep, burning my hamstrings, gluts, ankles and quads. What a feeling. We had both run the day before and were enjoying the lasting burn.
We spun around and were graced with the most gorgeous sky. There were reds, oranges, yellows, purples, blues and soft white clouds. I took a few photos there.
Coming down the hill, we laughed, talked about books, movies and our parents. We reached the babbling brook again and I pulled my sister to the edge of the path. I grabbed her close and told her to close her eyes and listen. She asked, "Do you think a blind person would know the stream was flowing towards them just by listening?" We agreed that this would be so. And on we went....
It was gorgeous. There were paw prints everywhere. I knew they were from various dogs, though they darted in and out of the woods, over and path and further, leading us to the question of whether or not they may have belonged to bears? I denied it, but Stacie questioned. It was a wonderful walk. Quiet. A bird here or there in the distance, chirping away. The dull hum of faraway traffic on the main road. The soft whisper of the brook up ahead. And those paw prints leading the way. I kept saying, "I can't believe we were just driving on this!" as we slipped along the snowy path. We had about an hour of daylight to soak up yet. We talked, laughed, vented...did the things that sisters are good at! We stopped for a bit at the babbling brook. It had patches of snow and ice covering the rocks, but was flowing quite well. Past the brook, we went left at the fork. We assumed that the falls had to be that way, as the water was flowing downhill to the right. Thank you Isaac Newtown.
We went as far as the birch tree with four stalks. Perhaps it was four trees closely nestled, but I like to think of it as one tree...they just looked so content with one another. The hill was steep, burning my hamstrings, gluts, ankles and quads. What a feeling. We had both run the day before and were enjoying the lasting burn.
We spun around and were graced with the most gorgeous sky. There were reds, oranges, yellows, purples, blues and soft white clouds. I took a few photos there.
Coming down the hill, we laughed, talked about books, movies and our parents. We reached the babbling brook again and I pulled my sister to the edge of the path. I grabbed her close and told her to close her eyes and listen. She asked, "Do you think a blind person would know the stream was flowing towards them just by listening?" We agreed that this would be so. And on we went....
At one point, I saw two dogs off in the distance. We hesitated for a moment, watching, to make sure that they were dogs and not small bears. I saw their tails...I know what dogs look like after all! Stacie saw a boy. I saw a man. We kept walking. As we got closer, the boy saw us and started running towards us. It was the strangest thing! The dogs paid absolutely no attention to us, but this young boy was running at us, curious as anything. When he was about eight feet away he stopped, looked at us, waved his hand and yelled, "Hiii!" We laughed. His dad stood in the background with the dogs, watching. The boy turned and we followed, as we were already headed in the same direction. Stacie and I had been talking in our Irish accents to one another while we were walking and when one of the dogs came to her to say hi she said, "Helloo chocolate lab!" in her best Irish accent. Well, the boy thought this was hilarious and ran towards his dad saying, "Chocolate lab, chocolate lab!" trying to imitate the accent. We said hi to the dad and went on our merry way. I think they must live just next to the state park because at one point the dad yelled, "We're here" straight at the hill through the trees.At last, we reached the car, my little two-door VW. We bounced back down the enlarged-gravel-covered path and the pothole-infused dirt road...back home, reeling in the happiness of an afternoon filled with sisterly love, the outdoors and a little adventure. Who could ask for more?
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