Road Trips and Heat

Part 1: The Road Trip

Although we haven't posted in awhile, we've been busy since Grumpus finished his half-ironman. The days following the ironman involved a lot of hobbling, some painful sun burns and a nice day trip to Cape Cod. Our real adventure started on Thursday when we flew to Washington D.C. Our mission was to see Mumpus' family and move my little sister's stuff from Baltimore to Columbus, Ohio. For some unknown reason, Mumpus thought that this road trip would be fun, so she decided to join me. I thought that she was crazy, but I was happy to have the company, so I didn't say anything.

Judd holding Karis like a football

We spent our first evening in DC visiting our friends Judd and Jana and their small babe, Karis. They both seemed really happy, but exhausted. Mumpus was a true tough and held Karis; I touched her, but was too scared to hold her since she is small and squirmy. After leaving Judd and Jana we had a very relaxing day with Mumpus' family in DC. Her little sister, Becca, was packing for her first overseas adventure on her own to Costa Rica, so we passed a lot of time giving her advice/disagreeing on how much money to bring, how many copies of her passport she needed, etc. It was during these talks that we realized this is the first summer in five years that we haven't embarked on an overseas adventure. Thankfully, we've become domestic adventurers, so we don't need to go to a foreign country to feel the rush of adventure.

The car and trailer in Ohio

Our first adventure was a trip to the zoo with our friend Ashley, where we spent a little too much time looking at the birds. A lot of local herons live in the bird area of the zoo even though they could live anywhere in the area. We thought that this was interesting; Ashley thought we were weird.

After the zoo we headed to Baltimore to help Grumpus' little sister Becky pack up her apartment and drive all of her stuff to Columbus, where she'll be starting Med School in the fall. We helped the movers jam her u-hual trailer full of stuff and hit the road around 11am. The combination of three people and a trailer seemed to overwhelm Becky's Honda Civic, which struggled over the mountains of Maryland and West Virginia. There were times that we were going 40 miles an hour on the highway, which was sad! Our inability to break 60 meant that it was a long, boring drive -- especially because a certain Mumpus spent most of the time sleeping in the back seat. Towards the end things got interesting as a huge storm approached and battered the Honda.

Judd, Jana and Karis

We finally got to Becky's apartment only to find that no one from the management office was in -- the entire team was at a meeting in Dayton, so we had to put all of Becky's stuff in the hall and tool around Columbus in 100 degree heat for a few hours until management returned. We eventually got a hold of management, got her key and put all of her stuff in the apartment. Then we headed to the airport and thanks to our friends at US Air, we got home at 1:30am instead of 10pm.

While it was nice to see everyone, driving the Honda through mountain passes with all of that stuff in 100 degree heat was not fun. We are learning the hard truth: not every adventure is fun all of the time.

Part 2: Boston Heat Wave

The hot Columbus weather followed us to Boston. Last Thursday it was 103, which tied the highest temperature ever recorded in the city. Friday and Saturday were also beastly. Since we only have a small AC unit in our living room, it was uncomfortable to be in the house most of the time.

Mumpus looking cute

We attempted to escape the heat on Saturday by taking a trip to a beach in Medford. The Mystic Lakes are right down the street from us, although we'd never been before. Turns out there is a sweet boathouse with lots of sailboats, a little cafe, and a swimming dock with a water slide and diving platform. This was of course locked to us, as we are not members of the Medford Boat Club, so we went along to the public Sandy Beach, which was packed with families having BBQs. We decided to wander a bit to find a quieter swimming hole, and found a peaceful, un-mucky place to go for a swim. The water was warm but refreshing and we wished we were one of the lucky ones with a lakefront property (none of whom seemed to be enjoying their excellent backyard amenities).

On our way home we made an excellent decision to check out C.B. Scoops, and ice cream shop less than a mile from our house that we'd never been to before. This place has EXCELLENT ice cream and sundae options; something we definitely should have known earlier!

Part 3: Birds

As mean as advertised!

Sunday, which was much cooler, we took a trip up to the Newburyport to the Bird Watcher's Supply and Gift store where the incredibly friendly owner told us all we could ever want to know about binoculars, and we got to try them out. We saw several cool birds at his feeders, and then took his advice and went to the nearby Plum Island to walk around the Federal Wildlife Reserve. We got a "duck pass"- a stamp with 3 ducks on it that gives us unlimited access to all Federal Wildlife Reserves in the US for a year- and braved the Greenheads (seriously mean biting flies) that infest the island during the summer. We thickly coated ourselves in heavy duty deet, but Mumpus still managed to get bit through her shirt!! (editorial note: Grumpus wore pants, so he didn't get bitten that much, but Mumpus was paranoid after the bite through her shirt and applied bug stuff at five minute intervals throughout our two hours on the island)

We visited this same place in the late winter when there was still quite a bit of snow on the dunes, before we started our famous blog, and it was cool to see the marshes and dunes in the summer with all the birds. The highlight was when Grumpus spotted the pair of Cedar Waxwings that were awesome! (and previously shown to us by a serious photographer with a telephoto lens. No, we could not independently ID these birds :(  )

An artistic view of the marsh

The adventure finished with trip to the Topsfield Green to listen to a local and corny band that was supposed to play the blues but actually played honky tonk, and a run through the trails of Bradley Palmer State Park.

PS -- on Monday night we toured the second largest sewage treatment plant in the country. It was awesome!

Grumpus does a Half-Ironman! (And feels sore)

Running for the Finish!

Yesterday, I completed a half-Ironman in Providence, Rhode Island. The race started with a 1.2 mile swim in a pond that was followed by a 56 mile bike ride through most of Rhode Island and a 13.1 mile run through Providence.

The weekend started with a visit from Jeff, our good buddy who was in town for a wedding. Because Delta is stupid, he got in several hours later than expected, so we stayed up drinking and catching up well into the night -- at least well into the night by our standards. After a light jog and brunch with Jeff, we headed down to Providence to check me into the race. After checking into the race, we headed to our motel, a Days Inn. The place was ghetto! It was the kind of place that rents rooms by the hour, and it was located in a shady area of North Attleboro, MA surrounded by liquor stores and used car lots.

Since the motel was a dump, we headed to Attleboro, which was "cute" according to Allie. It was so lame that there wasn't even a coffee shop, so we read in a park and headed to dinner at 5:45. We came home after dinner and went to sleep.

I woke up on race morning at 4am, ate a big breakfast and nudged Allie until she was conscious enough to drive me to the pick-up spot for the race bus at 4:40am. As we got into the car, Mumpus saw a couple in the car next to us that laughed and looked surprised when we appeared next to them.  We suspect that something shady was going on, but we can't be sure.

I got to the pond where we were swimming around 5:20, giving me around 25 minutes to put all of the stuff I wanted next to my bike. Once I got to my bike I realized made a big mistake -- I forgot my gatorade and water bottles in the fridge in the room (it was so terrible that, when Mumpus saw them in the room, she thought that I was going to have to bike the entire way without water and expected to get a call from the medical tent during the morning). Without them, I would have had to bike the first 15 miles without any water, which would leave me cramping during the run. So I thought of a solution: I fished into a dumpter, found a used water bottle with a sports top, and filled it up with water I got from other athletes. It wasn't great, but it would have to do.

After many coats of sun tan lotion it was time to swim. My heat went off at 7:05am and because the pond was in the mid-80s, we were not allowed to wear wetsuits. The start of a triathlon is pure chaos -- body parts flying, people getting pulled under, and everyone flopping around. I eventually got some space and cruised through the swim. I almost made a wrong turn since the rising sun was blinding me, but I was fine. I jumped out of the water after 32 minutes and headed for the transition.

I slowly toweled off, got on my bike and headed off! The bike ride was through rolling hills with a few big climbs and one huge climb at mile 29. I could hear the good cyclists coming since their wheels made a whoosh sound as they flew past me. I was able to pass people on the climbs and hold my own going downhill, but people just hammered me on the straightaways. I'm a very slow cyclist by ironman standards, and I finished in 3 hours and 15 minutes. I'm guessing that upwards of 700 people passed me on the bike. During the ride I decided that I was going to train more seriously on the bike before doing another one of these races because it is no fun to have women in their late 40s and men in their 50s punk you on the bike.

Bike to Run Transition in Providence

After a brief and wonderful stop in the port-a-potty, I was off on the run. Before the race I had said that the only thing that scarred me was the off chance that they would route us up the hill/mountain leads up to Brown. Unfortunately, the race started with a 1.5+ mile trip up that hill. It was in the mid-80s, and with no shade on the hill most of us decided to walk up part, if not all, of the hill. It was very, very terrible. The worst part was realizing that I would have to do it again during mile 7 since the course had two loops. I was agitated.

I turned around, came down the hill and saw Mumpus and Naomi cheering for me. I was
happy to see them, but I was tired. I kept chugging along and eventually finished the run, including my second encounter with that hill and two more passes of Allie and Naomi in just under two hours. My

Done, and Tired

overall time was 5:55, which was under my goal of 6 hours. If I do this race again, I'll need to prepare for the hills on the bike and the run in a more serious way so that I don't get punked on the bike.


After I finished I felt tired, so I sat down in the shade. Then, out of no where, Allie gave me a present she found at the RISD gift shop; a new lunch box. It is wonderful, and I love it. Following lunch with Naomi, we headed home. When I woke up today I was sore, tired and very, very sun burnt on my shoulders despite the four payers of sunscreen I applied before the swim.

My Present! A Penguin lunchbox

I was happy to finish, but I'm looking forward to getting back to some more normal adventures.

Cooking on a Stick

Waterfalls on the Hike

For weeks now, Allie has been dying to go camping, and finally, after attaining our very own tent and sleeping bags, we went for it! On possibly the busiest weekend of the summer to go camping: Fourth of July Weekend. It didn't even cross our minds that this would be a bad weekend to go (side note: Grumpus claims he knew it was a bad idea), but soon after leaving Medford we hit a block of traffic that kept with us for a good 80 miles. It's a good thing JR was driving, because Allie gets highly agitated in traffic.

Despite Mumpus' interest in camping, she didn't really plan out our adventure that well, and our first stop was set to be somewhere in Franconia Notch State Park. The park is a gorge that runs through two mountains and is split down the middle by I-93 (gotta love America -- let's put the highway in the middle of the most beautiful scenery). The park used to house the Old Man in the Mountain, but he fell down in 2003, so we decided not to check out the nothingness where the Old Man used to be.

Mumpus' favorite mossy stump

We chose a hike that followed a large stream up the slopes, which was beautiful. We both got pretty hot hiking so when we got back down we changed into our swim suits and went back to swim in the icy waterfall pools of the stream. It was COLD, but it felt great. Grumpus was the real tough and went all the way under. Mumpus just went in up to her shoulders.

It was getting late so we decided it was definitely time to get to our campsite. Since we didn't plan our adventure all that well, once we got to the campsite Mumpus had selected in the White Mountains National Forest, we discovered that there were no vacancies! It was terrible. We retraced our steps and headed back to a rustic looking campsite that had a few vacancies left. We took a site in the meadow, bought some firewood, and headed off to pitch our tent.

Mumpus did not want to buy firewood -- she wanted to collect it -- so after pitching the tent she headed into the woods to prove that spending $10 on wood was stupid. But, contrary to her expectations, there wasn't much good wood to be found -- and she had to cut branches off of live trees to get cooking sticks. Why did we need cooking sticks, you might ask. Well, the reason was that Mumpus had decided that we were going to cook our dinner over an open fire without any pots, pans, fire pokers or tongs.

Grumpus' self-portrait with the fire

Although we had a tent, sleeping bags, and even camping chairs (serving as our deck chairs), we did not yet have a camping stove, so Grumpus was put in charge of making the fire. After lots blowing, a little anxiety and some luck, he built a raging inferno -- which is great to look at, but not great to cook on, it turns out.

Mumpus thought that we could make do very well with some tinfoil, potatoes, onions, and sausages. We came up with some new rules for camp cooking:

1) If you use foil to cook food, use heavy-duty foil/multiple layers of foil
2) If you use foil to cook food, don't put the foiled food on top of a really, really hot fire. Instead, wait until there are useable coals
3) Corn burns really fast if you put it on the fire.
4) There is a high probability that food cooked on a stick will fall off the stick.

Trying to cook a sausage with a stick

In the end, we had a burnt, although edible dinner of sweet potato, onion and hot Italian sausage, liberally flavored with Trail Spice (code: dirt, sand and bits of grass). It's possible that dinner was only edible because we split a bottle of red wine, swigging from the bottle, and were pretty drunk by the end of dinner. We ended with several rounds of s'mores, perfectly cooked, and deliciously un-spiced.

The wine helped it down

The night was cool and lovely, and being in the meadow away from the drunk, guitar playing folks in the woods was nice. The stars came out but we fell asleep, being the lightweights that we are, until the sky began to lighten around 5 am. Then Mumpus, inspired by the loud bird song, decided it was time to get up, although it was a struggle for the next hour to actually get Grumpus to wake up.

Finally, tired of being harrassed, Grumpus woke up and we packed up the tent, and drove to get some coffee.

Beware of the bathroom!

It was the first coffee shop that ever scared Grumpus shitless (literally), but it did. The outside had a really cute sign with a bear, beaver and chipmunk drinking coffee, which served to mask the true nature of the place. It wasn't until Grumpus went into the bathroom that he saw the pictures. Of naked people -- many old, some young, none attractive -- doing strange things. Some were wind surfing, others were sculpting, and although I could not see their pieces, it was enough to weird me out and scare me shitless. I hated it.

We left the coffee shop and headed to find a hike somewhere, stopping on the way to play a round of mini-golf at Pirate's Cove. Then we hiked for an hour and ran into the ugliest dog in the world. It looked like a gremlin.

ARRRRRRRR!!!!!

We piled back into the car as it started to rain and headed to Mann Farms for lunch. Mumpus had bought a Groupon to Mann Farm months ago, in the winter, imagining it to be a real farm where we could pick fruit and eat homemade pie and fresh bread. We were both very disappointed to discover 1) they didn't serve lunch on the weekends, and 2) there was nothing for us to pick! Somehow we managed to spend the $50 groupon (we bought: chicken pot pie, gazpacho, zucchini bread, blueberry crumble pie, corn on the cob, blah blah lots of other stuff, and a honey stick).

What a face!

All in all, a great trip--- but next time we'll be a little less phumpy.