Sally Says

Shortest Summer

Sheeeeesh, it's been a busy couple of months.  We've only been back in Albuquerque for 11 weeks, but it seems like we've been running since the moment we arrived.  It's all been great though!  I have no complaints at all.  I sort of feel like I've come out into the sun after a couple of years in the shade.  It's wonderful to see things clearly again, and to be back in my comfort zone.  Plus, it's actually sunny here, so a literal interpretation works too.  I still say "I'm so happy to be home" at least once a day.

We arrived at the house late on Monday, July 2.  We figured that would give us one business day to deal with anything we might need to do before the holiday.  Unfortunately, the lady who was assigned to be our rental manager the last 6 months of our time away was not a very competent replacement for our original guy.  She didn't come by to bring us our keys until July 5, and we were dismayed to discover that she hadn't done any sort of exit inspection when our tenant vacated in June.  By the time she appeared, we had already scrounged up a key to get into the house and started making repairs.  I was NOT HAPPY about the situation.  David's cooler head prevailed in the end, however, and we just let it go.

Although we were unhappy to with the condition of our house, the situation seems to have been a bit of a blessing in disguise.  It was upsetting to find BBs in the walls and ceilings, broken doors and blinds and faucets, windows that won't open, burns and stains on the bedroom carpets, and two year's worth of wear and tear that we didn't cause ourselves.  But it has felt really good to roll up our sleeves and work together to make everything nice again.  I really do mean that.  Plus, tackling all of these things at once put us into a do-it-right mindset that we might not have had if we'd done the same projects slowly over time.  It's been really fun to put our house back together again. We're not completely finished yet, so I'll wait to post a house tour until later. 

Anyway, back to the story of our summer.  We've been working hard on the house, but it hasn't been all work every minute of every day!  We've reconnected with lots of friends, eaten at all of our favorite restaurants, and visited some of our favorite local spots.  The boys only had a six week summer because of the different school schedules, but we've packs a lot of lovely things into those six weeks.  

The first restaurant we had to go to when we arrived back in Albuquerque was Weck's for breakfast.  Chile!  Finally!  

We took time away from painting to set off some small fireworks (legal ones) on July 4th.  It's was very surreal to be sitting comfortably in our own yard again on a cool, dry summer night.

It took a couple of weeks for the movers to deliver our furniture.  We slept on inflatable beds while we waited.  At least they were easy to move around as we moved our painting efforts from room to room.

   

We had some house guests very soon after our furniture and household goods were delivered.  We hadn't unpacked very much yet, but it was so nice to spend some time with this lovely friend and her fantastic kids.  It was a highlight of our summer.

We haven't done a lot of sightseeing this summer.  I think we were kind of saturated with culture and historical sites after two years of active tourism on the East coast.  We did visit a few favorite places when we needed a break from home projects and painting...

But even picking up bagels early on a Saturday morning can provide a beautiful sky full of balloons here.  I guess it's ok for us to just do homey things for one summer.

 

Reconnecting with our friends was one of the best things about our summer.  It's been so great to see everyone again!  Charlie and Tommy both picked up where they left off with their many besties, and I've been having lunch or coffee with a different person about twice a week since we returned.  I very much appreciate all these wonderful people in our lives. 

 
    

(I don't have photos of everyone, so please don't feel left out if you're not pictured!  Also, I don't have any photos of Tommy and David with their friends, because their lives are more independent from mine.)

Speaking of Tommy, he spent the last two and a half weeks of the summer doing Band Camp at the high school.  It's a whole new world for us.  It was from 8 am to 6 pm every day, and he handled it like a champ.  I was very proud of his efforts, and he was very happy to get involved with a fabulous set of friends. 

Both boys were happy and confident and had settled in with a few good friends by the time the first day of school rolled around.  It was the most stress-free first week of school that we've ever had, and that's amazing to me.  Starting high school and middle school is a big deal, but the boys were totally cool about it.  I guess they can handle a lot after the traumatic start at their new schools in Virginia two years ago.  I know this is true for me! 

 First day of school smiles are always good to see!

The Move

The last part of June was busy with our goodbyes.  I don't think I can adequately express how much richer our lives are because of our wonderful friends in the DC/VA area.  We connected with familiar friends who welcomed us to the area, and also built new friendships at school, at work, and in the neighborhood.  It's amazing how quickly and deeply those connections formed for all of us.  We were truly sad to say goodbye to everyone.

The countdown clock to move-out day was ticking though, so we eventually had to slow down on the socializing, and focus on PACKING.  It was so much easier to pack for the move back home than packing for the move out to DC had been.  We knew everything needed to come with us, and that we could only have the movers take the same things that they had brought out, because we had to keep their load under 4000 pounds.  Our U-Haul pile ended up a lot bigger than this early photo shows.    

The movers were supposed to come one day to pack up the kitchen and household goods, and then return the next day to load their truck.  I'm not sure what happened, but there was some sort of communication breakdown.  The end result was that they decided to do everything on the last possible day before we needed to get on the road.  Plus, they didn't have a truck big enough for all of our stuff.  The day was long and a bit nerve-wracking, but it all worked out in the end.  They managed to fit as much stuff as possible into their truck, and we agreed to take the last few items that wouldn't fit in our U-Haul.  They didn't drive away until quite late, so we just set up the inflatable beds and decided to load our U-Haul in the morning.  

Tommy's orthodontist also wanted to wait until the last possible day to remove his Invisalign brackets, so one of us took him in to get his braces removed that same day.  It was truly a busy day!  I think Tommy is very pleased with how nice his teeth look, and I'm very glad they were able to get the entire process finished before we left.

Moving day was another long day for us.  We got up super early and packed the U-Haul as early as we could, but it was still incredibly hot and humid.  At least it wasn't raining!  We were all super sweaty by the time we finished carrying everything down the steep townhouse stairs and tightly packed into the U-Haul.  It was a challenging spatial skills test for David, with the extra bikes, furniture and electronics that the movers didn't have space to take.  We ended up using the back seats of both our vehicles, plus the bed of his truck and the trunk of my car.  We did manage to fit it all in eventually.  I even found a safe space for my plant.  

Our first day of driving was a long one.  We started off with Tommy in my car and Charlie in David's truck, and that worked very well for everyone, so we kept the same driving buddies for the entire trip.  Tommy and I listened to a lot of audiobooks.  I'm not sure what David and Charlie did to pass the time. 

On the first day, we wanted to get from the DC area to the place where the West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky borders intersect.  It was a beautiful drive!  We didn't actually have time to stop very often, and I didn't take any pictures at all this first day, but Charlie snapped a photo of the West Virginia welcome sign.  We all agreed that the mountains of West Virginia were truly spectacular.  Yes, we listened to the John Denver song.  Yes, we talked a lot about how the new Fallout game is going to be set in West Virginia.  No, we didn't see the West Virginian Moth Man.

Day two of driving was across Kentucky, along the Bourbon Trail, through Louisville, through parts of Indiana and Illinois, and all the way to Saint Louis.  We stopped at the Maker's Mark Bourbon distillery along the way, because one of David's co-workers lives in the UK, and he needed someone to pick up his Ambassador bottles at the distillery.  The Maker's Mark Ambassador program allows a person to watch a batch of bourbon enter the cask, and then they are notified when that particular cask is ready for bottling years later.  They can pick up bottles with their name on the labels, and they also get to hand-dip their bottles in the classic Maker's Mark red wax.  Serendipity!  We were headed that direction, and we wanted to tour a distillery anyway, so the timing was perfect. 

We had a great time at the Maker's Mark distillery.  The tour was really interesting.  We got to see every part of the distilling process, and ended our tour by hand-dipping the wax on David's friend's bottles.  Then we had a nice lunch in the distillery restaurant.  We knew that David and I would enjoy it, but the boys had a good time too.  Plus, the weather was so much more comfortable than in DC. 

  

 

We spent that night at the home of our friends Jason, Christina and Claire.  It was wonderful to see them, and we really appreciated their hospitality.  The kids got along really, really well.  I wish we lived closer to all of our college friends who are scattered across the country.  It would be so fun to do another reunion sometime, especially now that all of our kids are older.

 

Day three of driving was much less exhausting than days 1 and 2.  We went from St. Louis to Wichita, and then stayed there for two nights.  It had been FIVE YEARS since we'd been able to fit in a visit to the Epp family farm.  We had a lovely visit with David's parents, and had a picnic lunch out on the farm.  There was a storm the first night, which cleared the air and lowered the temperature, so the weather was as nice as you could possibly want on a summer day in Kansas.

  

We did our last day of driving on Monday, July 1.  We had originally planned to drive to Amarillo, spend the night, and then finish the drive the next morning, but we were too impatient!  We ended up taking the diagonal route across Kansas and New Mexico.  This route was on small highways across a lot of sparsely populated areas, but it felt good to get away from the Interstate.  It was such a relief when the land and sky finally took on the expansive, dry, mountainous characteristics of home.  We pulled up to the house late in the day, (luckily!) found some keys, and we were HOME.

Ready for the move

It's been a rainy day here, and I'm feeling pretty good about the packing situation, so I think I'll catch up with our family photos from May and June.

Before I do that, however, I need to say something.  A friend let me know that something I wrote on this blog a few months ago hurt some people's feelings.  Now that I know this, I feel like I should apologize publicly.  I don't know specifically who was hurt, so I hope that a general apology here will be enough.  I'm sorry that something I wrote hurt people.  Hurting people is never my intention when I write here.  I try to be honest when I write about my feelings, thoughts, actions, and experiences, but I also try to balance honesty with diplomacy and kindness.  Sometimes I fall short of that goal.  I do try though, and I hope my intentions and efforts are enough. 

I hope saying something about this was a better choice than not saying anything.  It's so hard to tell.  I want to do the right thing rather than stir up drama, so I hope this is taken as intended.    

Moving on!

We were quite busy in late May and early June.  This has been a wonderful stretch of weeks, filled with lots of quality time spent with family and friends.  I want to be sure to record all of it so that we can look back and remember our last few weeks here in DC and VA. 

Mother's Day was the first big event in this time period.  The boys and David are always wonderful to me on Mother's Day.  They took me out to see the new Wes Anderson movie (Isle of Dogs) and then we had an extravagant tapas dinner at Jaleo.  I'm glad I got to experience Jaleo before leaving DC.  It's been a famous DC restaurant since I was in college.  I remember reading about it in Food & Wine Magazine when we were living in the married student apartments at the University of Oklahoma! 

 

Charlie had his end-of-year band and chorus concert in May.  I'm so glad he's been at a school with a robust music and arts program for his last two years of elementary school.  His Albuquerque elementary school alternated between music and art every-other year, and band was an after school activity.  His school here has art, choir, and (optional) band every week during school.  It's been great for Charlie to dabble in all three.  I suspect he might choose chorus instead of band next year for his middle school elective.  He learns new instruments really quickly, and enjoyed playing the flute this year, but he really loved singing with a group.  I'm very interested to see what he will choose when we register him.

 

 Sheesh, this is a bad, fuzzy photo.  I really need a new camera.  (Hint, hint.)

Tommy had an interesting spring too.  He started shaving, after we bought him an electric razor.  He also started wearing the jean jacket that his Grandpa Mel and David both wore as young men.  I'm not sure how I feel about these developments. He was definitely the tallest person in his jazz band concert at the end of the month. 

   

We spent Memorial Day weekend with David's brother and family.  It was our nephew's birthday weekend, and he wanted to celebrate with his cousins at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.  We had no idea that Terry, Amy and Riley would also be living in Virginia when we moved here, but it's been very nice to be in the same state for a few months.  David is going to miss being near his brother.

We started our weekend with a visit to the Jamestown settlement.  I was very impressed with this historical site  It's one of the best ones we've visited during our time on the East coast.  It's much less commercial and more educational than Colonial Williamsburg.  They've put a lot of thought into modernizing their displays to include the experiences of the Native Americans and enslaved people who were just as much a part of our history as the European colonists.  It was a beautiful day for a visit, and I'm so glad we managed to squeeze this into our weekend.

     

Our second day in Williamsburg was spent at Busch Gardens.  We'd visited BG briefly the first Christmas we were here, but that was for a holiday event,  and most of the big roller coasters weren't running in the below-freezing winter temperatures.  This was a properly hot and sunny amusement park day, with sunscreen and long lines and fair food and dozens of bottles of water.  My Disney friends will be pleased to know that I convinced everyone to show up 45 minutes early, so we were at the front of the crowds after waiting for the gates to open. The boys had a great day.  They really enjoyed riding some of the big coasters with Aunt Amy, and doing gentler things like the spinning swings with Riley.  There was even an international food & wine festival happening in the park, so David got to have some kimchi.  

 
   

On our way home, we stopped to have lunch with our college friends, Chip and Amy.  It's great to know that some people will always be there, even after a couple of decades apart.  Amy is one of those lifelong friends.

The boys still had 3 and a half weeks of school left after Memorial Day weekend.  The school year runs late here!  They had standardized testing and finals well into the beginning of June.  We made it through the hard parts though, and then we made it through the fun (but exhausting!) parts too.  Tommy went to King's Dominion amusement park with the 8th grade class.  Charlie had a pool party with his 5th grade class.  Both boys had big promotions at the end of the year, and we made it through them without too many tears.

   

We spent a lot of time having lunch and coffee and play dates and happy hours with friends in June.  We will all be sad to say goodbye to the friends we've made here.  There are so many wonderful people who have welcomed us into their lives while we've been here.  Some are new friends, some are friends of friends who reached out when we arrived, some are old friends with whom we have reconnected after years apart.  There are a lot of people on the East coast, and I'm happy to say that at least a few of them are now our friends.  Moving to new places gives you a chance to make new friends, so even though this move was one of the hardest things I've ever done, I don't regret it for a moment.  

Some of our friends threw us a going away party, and we had a wonderful time laughing and enjoying each other.  The food was spectacular.  One of the benefits of having friends from around the world is the FOOD.

 

I think Charlie is the one in our family who is going to be the most sad about leaving.  The neighborhood boys here are wonderful.  They all have interesting, quirky personalities, and kind, gentle hearts, just like Charlie.  

David, Tommy, and Charlie have all made good friends at school and work, and many of those people don't show up in my photos.  My photos and blog posts only share part of the story, of course!  I know the boys have a bunch of photos of their school friends on their phones, and I hope they will be able to keep up with these friends after we move.  Being able to text and FaceTime will help.  It's hard being a kid and having to leave your friends behind when your parents make you move.

As for me, I am really going to miss my DC/VA social life.  I've always been outgoing, but never terribly social, if you know what I mean.  I am friendly and make friends easily, but I don't tend to go out with these friends very often.  I'm a homebody!  Since I didn't really like living here, I suppose it was natural that I looked for brightness in people.  My friends here gave me internal sunshine, which made up for the missing environmental sunshine.  (My far away and online friends helped too!)  I'm going to miss all my coffee stops and lunch dates and chats on the sidewalk with the people in my life here.  It's been wonderful. 

I'm especially thankful for my three best neighborhood friends.  I have been telling people that I ended up with three best friends from Greece, India, and Jamaica because I'm a stranger here myself.  The culture shock from New Mexico to Virginia was extreme, and these friends understand what that feels like.  We are all able to sit back and smile at the intense locals, and then laugh over a curry, cupcake or margarita.  I love them.

(It feels a bit awkward to post three photos of myself in a row, but I want to remember the fabulous ladies who have spent so many hours chatting with me over the last two years.  Besides, it's my blog, so I can post what I want, right?)

 Agatha

 Smitha

 Rochelle

So now it's time for us to wrap up our time here in the DC/VA area.  We've seen a few sights in the last few weeks, but I think we've run out of steam for sightseeing.  I keep asking the boys if there's any place they want to revisit, and they can't really think of anywhere they want to go.  We've seen some wonderful things while we've been here, but it's kind of been like one giant vacation.  At the end of a long vacation, you're ready for the comforts of home.  Tommy asked to visit the comic book store, and ate at his favorite Irish restaurant one last time.  Charlie wanted to visit the vintage video game store that he loves.  We also went to our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant.  That's about it.  We're ready to move back home.  It will be nice not to have to drive 40 minutes to get good green chile.  ;-)

Spring

The weather was beautiful in Arlington when we arrived home from our Canadian spring break trip.  It didn't stay beautiful for very many days, but I've finally learned to get outside on the nice days.  The rain clouds will always return, so don't miss the sunshine!

Easter weekend was at the end of spring break.  It was also the weekend of the DC kite festival, and the start of cherry blossom, tulip tree, and magnolia season.  David and I went over to the National Mall to look around on our own.  (The boys were still worn out from traveling.)

        

We had a quiet Easter Sunday.  I baked hot cross buns for our breakfast, and then we went to a nice Greek seafood restaurant for our holiday meal.  

 

My mom came to visit us the weekend after Easter.  It was cold and blustery again by the time she arrived.  The cold weather postponed peak bloom day for the cherry blossoms, so she happened to be here on that exact day.  We took a walk around the tidal basin, but I don't think it was a very nice day for her.  It was way colder near the water than it had been at our house, and we hadn't come prepared with enough layers.  Plus, she was recovering from a nasty chest cold.  The cherry blossom festival made it harder than usual to get an Uber, so she had to walk farther than I'd intended. Poor mom.  It was so cold!  We had lunch with David at the Hamilton after our long walk, so at least there was good food at the end of it.

 
 

On the second day of mom's visit, we all went to the National Portrait Gallery together.  Mom wanted to see the Obamas' portraits.  David and the boys were able to come with us, since this was a Saturday.  We saw as much of the Portrait Gallery as we wanted, and then had an early dinner.  I think our walk the previous day had really exhausted my mom. 

Sadly, she tripped on an uneven brick sidewalk when Tommy was walking her back to her hotel for the night.  It turned out to the be a very bad fall, and she was in a lot of pain and not very mobile for the rest of the visit.  We were all very sad for her.  We went to urgent care on Sunday, and then spent the rest of the day at home.  

The boys didn't have school on Monday, so we decided to try another sightseeing outing with my mom. We took her to the National Gallery of Art.  A little research had indicated that we would be able to use a courtesy wheelchair.  Once we got to the side of the building without stairs (why didn't you drop us on that side, Mr. Uber Driver!?) everything went really well.  We saw most of the museum and had a lovely lunch in the museum cafe.  I don't think the boys remembered their last visit to this museum, so I'm glad they were able to come with us.

  

Mom's visit was over before we could blink, and then we were busy with school and normal life for a couple of weeks.  April is one of those months when things are just busy.  David had a couple of work trips.  Tommy performed a lovely trombone piece for this year's solo & ensemble competition, and got a superior rating.  Charlie spent a lot of time with his friends. 

I've been trying to do the last few things on my DC to-do list, so I spent one morning at the Smithsonian Freer & Sackler Galleries, which focuses on Asian art. 

   

At the end of April, we decided to go up to Gettysburg for the day.  My friend Lynn and her husband met us there, although they had to leave early because of a family emergency.  None of us were particularly excited about going, but it seemed like an important site to visit while we are here, especially since my dad is very interested in Civil War era history.  It was an interesting place to visit, and I'm glad we did it.  David enjoyed the museum in the visitor's center, and the boys were impressed by the large oil painting in the round exhibition hall. 

 
     

I love this photo.

Now that we're getting close to the end of our 2-year stay here, we're all trying to fit in as many visits with friends as possible.  I've had a lot of lovely coffees, lunches and chats over cups of tea in the last few weeks.  If anyone still wants to try to meet up with us before we leave, send me a message!  We're running out of time.  I will probably take a picture of you so I'll remember though.  Fair warning...

 

My buddy Niels turned 2 in April

 

Tea in Annapolis with Sarah and Stephanie

The ladies who lunch

 

Margaritas on Cinco de Mayo

 

A new friend

It has finally warmed up in May.  I know a lot of the April photos were beautiful, but it was cold and rainy for most of the month.  The weather kind of jumped straight to hot and humid, but that's ok.  I'm just glad to see the sun every once in a while.  I do try to get out when it's nice.  I took these photos in DC one sunny day.  

   

The boys come with me whenever they can.  It's very nice to be able to finally sit outside for a nice meal after running some errands.

We will be leaving Arlington in 6 weeks, so I guess I should start packing some boxes!  It feels way less stressful this time around.  Yes, we'll have to manage everyone's expectations for and reactions to the big change, but there's a lot less unknown this time around.  We still have about 5 more weeks of school, but the "for rent" sign is out in front of our house here, so we know that moving day is coming soon.

Toronto

Continuing our Canadian adventures...

We headed to Toronto on the third day of our spring break.  We had a great breakfast at a Flying Saucer themed diner in Niagra Falls first, and then we drove out into the rain toward Toronto.  The drive was super easy, and we were able to arrange for off-site valet parking for David's giant truck at the downtown Hilton I'd chosen for our stay.  Whew!  I hadn't been sure that would work out.

We headed over to the famed CN Tower first.  We always enjoy displays about interesting feats of engineering as well as a good view.  It was super rainy and cloudy though, so my photos aren't the best.  The City Pass booklet I bought gave us tickets to multiple viewing platforms and levels, including the glass floor area.  The boys were a bit disappointed we didn't splurge for the Edge Walk on the outside of the tower.  (shudder)

 

My friend Tracey works in downtown Toronto, and she graciously gave up her lunch hour to meet us for lunch.  It was so great to spend some time with her.  She's visited me a couple of times in DC when she traveled there for work.  I'm sad that we won't be able to meet up again once we leave the East coast.  I so very much appreciate all the people who realized that this two year stay would go by very quickly, and who made an effort to meet up with us during our travels up and down the East coast.  We tried to fit in as many friends as we could, because it will probably be a long time before we are in the part of the world for more than a weekend.  

Tommy had poutine at the lunch restaurant, which was one of the highlights of the trip for him.  He loves poutine.  He had hoped to have poutine multiple times while in Canada, but that didn't end up happening.  This lunch was the only poutine he had all week.

After lunch, we went to the Ripley's Aquarium of Toronto.  We always have to go to any aquarium in any city we visit.  David insists!  This one was particularly good.  The displays and tanks were spectacular, and it was a nice place to spend a rainy afternoon.

After we'd seen all of the aquarium, I surprised the boys with my plan for the rest of the afternoon.  Charlie is very interested in Virtual Reality experiences.  He's been wanting to get a VR setup for our video game consoles for years.  I'd done a bit of research into VR recently, and discovered that one of the newest whole-body immersive VR experiences is called The Void, and there just happens to be a location in Toronto.  (There are also locations at Disney World and Disneyland, which is how I learned about it in the first place.)  The Void in Toronto is right across the street from the aquarium, in a place called The Rec Room.  It's one of those giant, fancy video game arcade places with a restaurant.  We ended up staying for a couple of hours, and burning through a bunch of token.  Yes, we let the boys do The Void.  They were very impressed.  Dinner was just ok, and we were all going into full sensory overload from all the noise by the time we left, but it was worth it to see how excited Charlie was to suit up and experience some real VR.

We finally headed back to the hotel after a very long day.  There was a big mirror at the end of the hallway with this quote etched on it.  It made me smile, so of course I took a picture of it.

Charlie was pleased to discover that the hotel was willing to provide a really comfortable roll-away bed for him.  Tommy was pleased to discover that we could order room service for breakfast.  We spent a long time checking the boxes on the breakfast order form, and then settled in for the night. 

About three hours later, the fire alarm started blaring.  We followed the instructions, got dressed, and prepared to evacuate.  It was very disorienting...exciting...annoying!  Luckily, they contained the problem without requiring that everyone on every floor leave the building.  It was super cold at night, and still very wintry, so I'm glad we didn't have to go outside!

We were relieved to go back to bed after all the excitement.  We managed to get a solid stretch of good sleep, and just barely woke up in time for our breakfast delivery.  I was pleased to discover that hot breakfast tea in Canada is properly British.  It was SO GOOD.

We visited the Royal Ontario Museum after breakfast.  It's a world-class museum, one of the best in North America.  There was no way were were going to be able to see all of it in one morning.  I've discovered that David and the boys much prefer cultural history exhibits over natural history exhibits.  I don't know where I went wrong with their education.  I will always choose a good skeleton over pot shards.  Luckily, we are pretty good at accommodating each other.  We managed to see everything in a special exhibit on vikings, a special exhibit on Dior haute couture, ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, ancient Greece, and European furniture and functional style through the ages.  We also did a quick walk through the galleries for the other parts of the world - Africa, Asia, the Americas.  Charlie and David had a little rest while Tommy and I finally got to see the dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals.  I was afraid we wouldn't get to them!

    

We had a late lunch at a fun little bistro called the Museum Tavern, across the street from the museum.  They had fabulous cocktails.  The boys were the only kids in there, and most people were in business suites.  I think this particular week was very low-season for tourists.  Most Canadians were in school, and most Americans who had spring break went south for their vacations. 

Our afternoon was devoted to Charlie's Scott Pilgrim pilgrimage.  Scott Pilgrim is a series of graphic novels that Charlie loves.  It's set in Toronto.  There was a movie version of the story made in the 90s, and we all enjoy it too.  (The books are better though!)  Charlie has wanted to visit Toronto ever since he discovered Scott Pilgrim.  Visiting Toronto has been a dream for years, and he specifically wanted to see all the important sites from the book and the movie. 

For reference, here is Charlie dressed up as Scott Pilgrim for Halloween way back in third grade!

Our first stop on the Scott Pilgrim pilgrimage was the fabulous Casa Loma.  This mansion has been the setting for many films over the years.  It's most well known as the X-Men castle, but for Charlie it is the scene of the battle between Scott and Lucas Lee, one of Ramona's Seven Evil Exes.  (We did tour the inside of the castle, but it was the outside of the castle that Charlie was so excited to see.) 

       

The Baldwin Steps are behind the castle, and they also feature prominently in the movie.

Sadly, we ran out of steam after our very long day, so we didn't get to visit the Thunk Pole.  I'm not sure that we would have been able to explain to an Uber driver why we wanted to find one particular street light in suburban Toronto, so maybe it good we decided to call it a day after visiting the steps.

After a bit of a rest in our hotel room, we headed out for our "last night of vacation" dinner.  We decided to go to a nice Italian restaurant called Terroni Adelaide.  It was a memorable meal, after a great day of sight seeing.  I highly recommend it if you're ever in Toronto.  I highly recommend Toronto!  It's a beautiful city.

We got to visit one last Scott Pilgrim site before we left Toronto the next morning.  Charlie noticed that there was a Second Cup coffee chain by the hotel.  Scott Pilgrim's sister worked at a Second Cup!  He spent the last of our loonies and twonies on maple lattes for the drive home. 

We decide to take a much longer route home.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, although we were questioning our sanity after about 12 hours.  The longer route through the Finger Lakes region of New York was gorgeous, so I'm glad we decided to do it.

We stopped for lunch in Ithica, NY, and had a fabulous meal at the famous Moosewood Restaurant.  Then we drove by David's parents' old house and did a driving tour of Cornell, just in case Tommy decides to follow in his grandpa's footsteps for college.

 

It was pouring rain by this time, so we didn't get out of the car and walk around.  The driving got very interesting that afternoon as the fog rolled in.

Our final stop was in Scranton, PA, home of The Office TV show.  Once again, Charlie is the fan.  There doesn't seem to be very much to see in Scranton.  I guess enough Office fans wanted photos by the Scranton city sign from the TV credits that they had to move the sign into a shopping mall.  I imagine the city makes a lot of money off of tourists who park in the mall garage just long enough to snap a photo.  Charlie was super happy to be one of them.

 

The background, trees and grass are fake.  There was a group of local teenagers sitting just to the side of the sign, dealing with a very intense drama of the relationship variety.  There were also many empty mall stores.  It seemed fittingly awkward.

We pulled into home after 9 pm, ready to sleep in our own beds.  The end.