Sunday was a very quiet day getting used to the new year and getting used to being home again. We managed to get out for a brisk walk up to the Duxbury window… It’s about a 3 mile up and back with some steep climbs in the sense… My type of hike!

Mason and Sasha came over for dinner and we use that as an opportunity to get to know Sasha better and also to let Mason take a look at the shop project… He’s going to help me with some of the work surfaces… We use the rest of the day to put together some of the new shelving… I’m so excited about this project

Nite all, nite sam

– me

We spent most of New Year’s Day driving back to Vermont… We had a really nice breakfast with ‘Linda and David… It’s been wonderful seeing them and staying with them… They are such wonderful hosts and great friends.

We left there and made a quick stop Stop to leave a couple more gifts at Jože and then headed north… It was a nice drive… Diane drove the whole way which was really nice. We listen to several podcast and watched and waited for snow

As a special treat we went through the automatic car wash before we took off… A very propitious way to start a new year

It was very nice getting back on New Year’s Day… It was just about sunset and there was enough snow with more coming… We’ve been traveling for nearly 3 weeks. I was glad to be home…

Nite all, nite sam

-me

It’s been a “interesting” year For everybody… Covid, loss of several good freinds. political unrest, climate… Lots on our minds… But it’s also been a good year for us in many ways.  We got to see Our kids and extended family again…, I retired from work, And we still have our sanity… More or less.… I hope everyone out there is winding up their year with family and friends…. We need those connections now more than ever.

We spent New Year’s Eve in Endicott with our good friends ‘Linda and David. We also went over to see Diane’s brother Joe and his wife Pat (who’s birthday it was) and their son and daughter-in-law Victor and Tina. We originally were going to spend time with them but Joe Tested positive for Covid… So we could only go and see them breifly from across the driveways with masks on…

We then spent the middle part of the day driving up to Corning to see the wonderful glass museum… I’ve been wanting to see it for months because the hall of innovations is very close to what we need to do at data for our visitors. It was really well done museum…

I particularly enjoyed the hall of innovation where they talked about the manufacture of glass and all the innovations along the way… It was full of interactive displays. A real model of an interactive science experience!

 One of the high points was a live hot glass demonstration… We fell in love with watching hot glass on the show “blown away”… This was really fun to watch

We rhen went through some of the historical collections which were nice… But don’t appeal to me as much as the modern stuff

Bck to the contemporary stuff for me !

on the way out we got to see how high the water had come up in 1972 and the place was flooded

From there we drove back to Endicott… I had a very nice and quiet New Year’s Eve… Linda had made a really wonderful crawdad boil which took me right back to New Orleans… And we sit around the campfire that david had made… And eventually wonder back in and try to find a movie to watch. We tried several classics but ended up on “Austin Powers… The The spy who shagged me” to round out the year.

One thing David and I did was to melt some lead weights and poured into a glass to predict what year was like… It’s an old custom I learned when I lived in Austria. Well here’s our year… What do you think?

A few minutes before midnight we found a TV station from Nashville that was broadcasting the time… He managed to get to midnight toasted everyone kissed everyone and then fell asleep… A nice end to a complicated year.

Happy new year everyone!

Nite all, note sam

-me

Dang and I left early to drive down to Endicott. We took a different way so that we could go through Syracuse to see our friend luke.… Diane drove the whole way while I slept. I felt pretty lucky it was like being in a time machine.. It was great seeing luke… We had a quick Middle Eastern lunch and it was good to see how he was doing. He was Doing well… Which was good to see

We headed from there down to Endicott. Our original plan was to hang out with Diane’s brother Joe and our nephews Victor and his wife Pina and our nephew Vincent his wife Trish and their two-year-old Gabriel… Who we’ve never met. As it happened Joetested positive for Covid. So we never got to hang out with them except across the driveway.

He did have a great time staying with Linda David and their wonderful dog Willow.

It was really great hanging out with them… More on her visit tomorrow

Nite alll, nite sam

-me