A Quiet And Boring Sunday On The Lake (No Leah)

The Old Smoothies

Au Revoir Leah

7:30

Up early, of course, at 6:00 but I went to bed anxious for morning to come.  Sometimes, I just cannot wait to get up, to watch the coming of dawn, to enjoy my coffee, to see what's on NPR.  So, today was one of those days.  Our niece, Leah, is flying back to Reno this morning.  She stayed overnight in Buffalo, more on that later, and her plane is on time and she should be in the air at the moment.  It's 24º out, and the ice fishing village is beginning to form.

Leah Jumps

Yesterday, once again, I skipped yoga and I don't seem to miss it.  Scary that it feels so good to not have to drive to Lakewood in the morning.  Instead, we were all up at 7:00, Leah having to reserve a seat on Southwest.  Around 8:30, however, we moved off the couches and I popped the bread I had put together Friday afternoon, into a Dutch Oven, then a 500º oven and forty minutes later, we had a great loaf of healthy bread, with oats, flax, quinoa, and flour. After the bread was done, we decided to go over to Long Point for cross country skiing after, of course, my weekly trip to the Transfer Station. All's well with the guys there.

We decided this time to cross country ski Long Point Park, so we parked at the end of Lakeside Drive.  It was fun to ski in the park, as the trails were well used, either by skiers, hikers or snowmobiles though we only saw one other skier.  We did veer off the trail once, bushwhacking for about 15 minutes before dropping down to the Marina and skiing out to the end of Long Point, then back to our car.  It was our longest day on skis or snow shoes, as we were out close to two hours, having skied just about four miles.  Needless to say, all our plans for the afternoon were put aside, as all we wanted was lunch, then to relax the rest of the afternoon until it was time to drive to Buffalo.  I think we might have overdone it with our morning exercise!

End of The Week

We left for Buffalo at 4:00 because Leah's flight was leaving this morning at 7:00, so we got her a room at a motel across the street from the airport, to make sure she could make her flight on time. Just before we left, there was a winter snow/ice advisory for Western New York, just what I hoped to avoid.  And for once, the forecasters were accurate.  Our drive to Fredonia was through freezing rain and I had to stop a couple of times to scrape the ice off the windows.  Leah wanted a souvenir from the area so we stopped at Mudslingers, local potters, in Fredonia, and she was able to find three bowls to take back as gifts.  We then drove to Buffalo, slowly, through snow and rain, a miserable hour or more on Interstate 90.  We planned to go to the Mall and eat but decided to look for something else nearby and saw a Long Star Steakhouse just off the interstate.  So we fought the snow, parked and found out there was a two and a half hour wait.  What to do?  Next store was a taco shop, so in we went, had cokes and burritos and that was our dinner, not quite what we hoped for.  We dropped Leah off at the motel, made sure her room was decent, she was safe and ready, then said our goodbyes, stopped at Tim Horton's next door for a coffee, and headed home.  It was a white knuckle drive most of the way, snow, sleet, ice, and lots of traffic.  The snow let up some after Fredonia, mostly rain, but from Westfield home it was snow, sleet and ice once again.  It took us two hours to get home and we "kissed the ground" when we arrived.  I am not used to venturing out when the weather is bad.

A Hungry Woodpecker

We changed into comfortable clothes, popped open a couple of beers, put some popcorn in bowls, and we watched some Jon Stewart and another episode of Parenthood before going up to bed.  It was snowing when we went up, and it looks like we had a couple of inches overnight.