Leafy Day

My Favorite Panamanian and I woke up yesterday and started comparing our upcoming calendars. We realized we had forgotten to schedule one of our favorite activities of the year, our annual leaf peeping day. Each year, usually on Columbus Day, we take a day to drive through New England admiring the foliage and generally just wandering the back roads. I made the snap decision that we weren’t going to miss it, told her to pack her gear, and off we went. I was about an hour into the drive when I realized I had made a huge error. Earlier this year, I had promised Great Aunt we would take her along for the trip. This amounted to a huge “whoops” and was only compounded a few minutes later when my Favorite Panamanian reminded me of the promise made. In my defense, I am getting older and if memory serves me correctly (poor choice of standard there) beer was involved when I made the promise. Next year, I pledge.

My Traveling Partner and I Yesterday Atop Greylock

Each year I try to take a different route while still hitting some of our favorite spots. I set a destination of Mount Greylock in Western Massachusetts as our initial objective. The GPS system was getting irritated with me as it kept trying to coax me onto the major highways instead of the small byways I followed. It was a beautiful trip through some places in Massachusetts I had never heard of, much less traveled through. It resembled Appalachia in some places more than Massachusetts. I have a character defect where I genuinely enjoy being places I’ve never been before and yesterday qualified. The drive to the mountain took a lot longer than if I had used the major highways but I engaged the Robert Frost mode, taking that less traveled way, and it made a difference.

Some Views from Those Back Roads

We hadn’t been to Greylock in years and the drive up the mountain remains a true delight. My Favorite Panamanian was a little fearful of the walk up to the summit from the car, but her knee passed the test with flying colors. It was a beautiful day on top of the mountain and we could clearly see Mount Monadnock in the distance. Since it as a non-holiday, weekday there wasn’t much of a crowd either. I was able to climb the narrow staircase in the summit tower without issue. My wife was practicing some new photo posing recommendations she found while surfing the internet during her convalescence. I was mystified as to their efficacy, but she assured me it was the way to go.

View From Greylock

Trying to Up My Selfie Game

Wifely Posing

Me In front of the Tower

Our next stop was one of those aforementioned favorite spots, the Golden Eagle Restaurant. It sits at the famous hairpin turn on Route 20 above North Adams. It offers spectacular views extending into both New York and Vermont. We were late in arriving and had the entire balcony seating area to ourselves. We couldn’t decide if the colors were up to their usual standard. It seemed in some places it was past peak while others were still green. I heard an ominous report recently on the news. The weather lady said that the forests of New England are transitioning to mid-Atlantic versions as the weather gradually warms up and that in a few decades we won’t have the same fabulous foliage. That’s kind of scary and yet another reason to enjoy what we have while we have it.

Overlooking North Adams from Greylock

Tower from the Other Side

Some More Posing

Wife Said there were Too Many Photos of Her Being Taken

She is Much More Photogenic Though

Exhibit A

After our late lunch, we snuck up into Vermont which seemed almost deserted. We were on some of those back roads again. We wandered into Wilmington and then followed Route 9 to the overlook at the Hogback Mountain Gift Shop. Another of those special places, this is where we spread the ashes of my mother, a proud Vermonter, born and bred, despite all her years of New Hampshire residency. There was a lot of nostalgia in play because this was on the route we always took when traveling between Keene and my grandmother’s house in New York when I was growing up. We never stopped at the overlook though. We should have, it is spectacular. After the obligatory shopping this stop entails (I was with my wife, remember), we set out for home. I used the major roads now, as the sun was setting, obscuring whatever foliage was about. It was still a fun day hanging out with the gal I’m married to. It still surprises me we actually enjoy hanging out with each other. Although, she did throw away my favorite slippers without informing me.

View from Hogback

Earlier in the week, on a much more mundane level, I finally tackled a procrastinated task that had been sitting at my feet in the Man Cave office. I’m honest when I say I remove movies from the library if they don’t pass muster in the A-Z review. I had a box under the desk that I was shoving them into. The box became two and finally five without any kind of organization. My Favorite Panamanian, under spousal agreement, has no authority to mandate changes in this one area of the house, but she had been looking at the eyesore it represented each time she walked in. It is a wifely tactic, and it finally worked. It took a lot longer than I anticipated as I’ll eventually sell them but they’re now in three Coors Lite boxes, packed orderly and out of the way, while a new box awaits further ejections.

The Initial Mess

In granddaughter news, the BRS is thriving in First Grade. My son says that she now reads to him each night instead of the other way around. The FBR recently had an adventure in Baltimore. She and Wingman went down there to visit her other grandpa and took in the world famous National Aquarium while there. The FBR has become quite a fan of sharks after seeing the ubiquitous specials bandied about. She says her favorite is the Mako. Her fandom went so far as to tell her abuela she wanted a shark themed birthday cake instead of the earlier choice of Taylor Swift. I’m sure it will change a couple more times before the actual day, which is approaching all too quickly. That damnable calendar again. I’ll say it again. No one warned me about how much faster time passes when you get old.

FBR Loose in Baltimore

Four movies fell in the A-Z watch, all keepers: The Martian, absolutely love this movie, best one Damon has ever made; Mary Poppins, a true classic, still makes you smile; M*A*S*H*, one of best and funniest anti-war movies ever made; The Mask, Carrey with a perfect vehicle for his zaniness and debut role for Cameron Diaz, so sexy.

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RECURRING CHARACTERS:                                

ABFA – Amazing Best Family Athlete - my daughter in law; BR3 – Blog Reader #3 – granddaughter #3; BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel - second granddaughter; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade school who likes to argue about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract women; CRC - Connecticut Riverboat Captain – another close friend from high school, renowned sailor of the big river; Curbside Girls – close friends of my daughter acquired during her single days in Brooklyn; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of course); FBR - First Blog Reader - first granddaughter; First Friday – celebrations to mark the First Friday of the Week; Great Aunt - my elder sister; Keene Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene, NH; Kindergarten Friend – friend since kindergarten whom I reunited with after many years; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two close friends of my wife – her US sisters, my wife is the 3^rd Musquetera (musketeer); Namesake Nephew – son of Great Aunt and Soxfather named after me; Neighborhood Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia member; PanaGals – female relatives /friends of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we have lived & their spouses; PCR - Pittsburgh College Roommate – high school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; PCR+1 - Pittsburgh College Roommate’s wife; Riggins - also known as the Grandpuppy, son's dog; Seis Amigos - two couples from our condo complex and my wife and I; Soxfather – my brother-in-law (whom I miss more than I can ever explain); Tia Loca – wife’s younger sister; Wingman – my son in law; Wingmom – Wingman’s mom, of course