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!