Twice as good - September AND October

Well I skipped last month, so now I owe myself twice as much. With one aunt lecturing me to keep up with the wife, I guess it is not yet time to leave my shoes on the blogging mat.

We've had a fun and extremely busy couple of months. As I explained in August, we made the move south to Massachusetts just across the border. The first weekend though, we headed back to Minnesota for our traditional pilgrimage to the Minnesota State Fair. We went on Labor Day Sunday, just one day after attendees set the all-time record for daily attendance of 234,384. Also during the weekend we attended two family functions; an afternoon party with Alise's family and an evening at Outback with mine.

Deep Fried Cheeseburger (and pickles)

Chocolate Covered Bacon

The next weekend it was Alise's company party, and then again we went to Minnesota, this time for a wedding. And what a wedding it was! Not only did we get to see many of our closest friends from college, but we also got to see (likely for the first and last time ever) a trained boar pull a cart fit for the bride and groom. Also that weekend I was able to join my best friend and his girlfriend for my first ever visit to Target Field.

Twins lost, but I made it to Target Field, so win!

All this while we were still settling in, but I took one more trip to the Upper Midwest as I was able to attend the biggest event in dairy in Madison, WI. During my weekend there, I showed some Russian dairy-related visitors (bankers, farm owners, government agriculture officials, etc.) the quality of genetics in Wisconsin and showed them around the Expo grounds.  That was it for September.

My Russian friends with the World Champion Milk Producing cow.

After Expo, I was home for a few days and then I headed east - to Russia. I was afforded the opportunity to attend an agricultural trade exposition for a few days, and was able to visit a farm managed by one of my new friends who visited the U.S. The trade show was for four days in Moscow, but for one evening I was able to make it to the famed Red Square. Otherwise it was all business in a country that has a lot of space, but is still really building its culture and tourism.

Inside a 3-year old freestall barn. Domestic cattle with a little European Holstein genetics mixed in. Herd averages around 6,000 kl/year (10,000 kl = 22,000 lbs).

Apartments like this were everywhere.

Old (really old statue on the right) meets new (Google billboard on the left) at the front of the Exposition grounds.

You can view a complete album of all my pictures from Russia here: 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3042884&id=13926685&l=d5d6cb5f8d

While I was gone, Alise went home for a surprise birthday party for her mother. It wasn't a surprise just that Alise was coming home, it was a surprise to her mother that they were even having a "weekend retreat" at a cabin north of their house. We don't have any pictures to show you, but if you're friends with Em on facebook, you can check them out there. Sorry!

With all my traveling away from my lawfully wedded wife, she/we decided it was a good time for a vacation together. We made the trip one of both fun and learning, heading to the literal beginning of the U.S. of A. We made our way to Provincetown, MA, which - in case you didn't realize (we didn't) is the actually initial landing of the Puritans here in the U.S. After a few weeks near present day Provincetown, MA, they made their way across the bay to what is now Plymouth, MA. On the way out on Saturday, we stopped in Buzzards Bay, the Cape Cod Winery

They tried to grow their own grapes, but after a couple hard winters their crop has been down.

en route to Falmouth, Chatham, and slept in Eastham (all in Massachusetts). Little did we know how many lighthouses we would see, and how related they were. After stopping on a beautiful beach in Chatham, we saw a pretty nice lighthouse that was owned and run by the Coast Guard, and didn't think much of it. 

The Chatham Lighthouse

Beautiful beach, but no swimming today. Red flag is up (and its like 50 degrees)!

Once we got to Eastham, we investigated a free tour put on by a historical society. We learned that this was the lighthouse that was modeled in many movies, cameos, and paintings, and most importantly was on the front of the Cape Cod Potato Chip Company bags. It turns out that pre-rotating lights, instead they built multiple light houses so that everyone knew where they were. The Eastham (Cape Cod potato chip - owned by the local historical society) light originally was called the "three sisters", because there were three short lighthouses next to each other. The cliff there erodes quickly, so instead of basically allowing the Coast Guard to dismantle the lighthouse as the land under it eroded, the locals saved it and now maintain it.  Therefore, it is no longer about to fall off the cliff, like it is on the bag of chips itself.

Look familiar?

CapeCodChips.com

I'll just say we weren't the youngest people on the tour. But everyone was younger than the lighthouse.

The Chatham lighthouse (our first stop on the southeast corner of Cape Cod), originally had two lights - one of which is still standing, and the other now stands as the Eastham "potato chip" lighthouse. Finally after we woke up on Sunday we drove north to the Truro lighthouse. Again, here the coast constantly erodes during winter storms and the lighthouse has needed to be moved back twice. Luckily this one will likely be permanently preserved due to the very nice golf course surrounding it.

Good picture auto-timer and fencepost!

Even better picture, Alise!

We continued north to Provincetown (P-Town as the locals call it) to get to the far reach of the coast and explore more of the Cape Cod National Sea Shore. For those of you who don't know (we really didn't until we moved out here), Province town is at the north tip of Cape Cod. It reminded me exactly of Key West, only colder. Near here is where the Pilgrims actually originally landed - but they didn't settle here. In fact, shots were fired on both sides (bullets on one, arrows on the other) at the first encounter, but no one was injured. So while the big boat continued to explore, eventually it found present day Plymouth, MA, and came back to pick up those on the Cape.

So, around 1900, they built a tower so you could see the entire cape and mainland Massachusetts all in one spot. It was a long climb, but unlike other old climbing attractions (Washington Monument, Statue of Liberty) ramps mostly replaced stairs, making it a very bearable up and down.

This is a view looking northeast out of the tower. Provincetown itself is at the south end of a little curl at the tip of Cape Cod. So in the above picture, the road back to mainland starts in the bottle middle of the picture, and then curls up and to the right, behind the camera man, and then mainland Massachusetts (and the rest of the U.S.) is on the left of the picture taker (obviously not shown in the picture).

After descending from the tower, we decided to go check out the harbor and Cape Cod National Seashore; it looks like what you would see in movies; which is why, I guess they put it in movies.

Alise sells seashells by the sea shore.

If you thought it was time to go home, boy were you wrong. Yes, we headed back north, then east (this is the Lower Cape, the part farthest from mainland - lower means "down wind" in this instance because of maritime directions... nothing to do with north or south. Maine residents are called "Downeasters" for this reason), then south (putting us on the Mid-Cape - the "vertical" standing portion) then southeast, then west (putting us Upper Cape - the southmost and closest to the land), until finally we were back across the Cape Cod Canal.

Cape Cod Canal near Buzzards Bay - we actually stopped here on the way out, not in.

Our next history lesson took place at the most famed book in U.S. history books - Plymouth, or Plimouth Plantation as the tourist trap is called. This was a nice little stop that allowed us to learn quite a bit, take a rest, and talk to both present-day Native People (as they liked to be called) and New Englanders stuck in 1617 (actors). Real authentic place, heavy price, but worth the trip, once.

Leyden St, Plymouth, MA - Oldest Street in America

Plymouth Rock - though they added the "1620" in the 1800s

By this time I had been reacquainted with the Eastern time zone. But I had a few days to head west to Reno. A national conference for dairy farmers on both the policy and promotion side allowed me to meet with friends and business associates I have met during the past year, learn the pulse of the industry, and see where we're going from here. It was a celebrity-filled weekend. On my flight from Las Vegas to Reno, I saw someone who was wearing a bunch of clothing for a certain world-famous brothel. After a quick internet search on my phone, yep, it was him. At the meeting itself, Howie Long gave one keynote, while Gloriana the up-and-coming country band performed. And on the way back from Reno to Las Vegas, I saw the Republican U.S. Senate candidate (who may be the Senator by this time tomorrow) on my flight.

Finally, to round out the month we went to Salem, MA, to learn about witches and more early American history. Evidently, none were burned at the stake or drowned with rocks (though that happened in England, the Puritans - the colonies' Lutherans and other protestants - were purposely different than their Europeon counterparts), only hung and one was pressed. Also, there were less than 20, and it was all done in just over a year. Who knew?

Last standing structure that has anything to do with witch trials - the Sherrif's house.

Yes, that's a person.

I'm not sure what that is.

Before we went to Salem though, our tiny town has a pretty intense scarecrow competition. Check it out.

.

There were all sorts of unique designs

But then we had a Halloween of our own to celebrate back at the ranch, in true Big 10 (11? 12?) style:

Pretty good, don't you think (yes, Alise made one with cheese in it, the M is hers too).

Mine was the football, maybe the least difficulty, but also the least toothpicks (zero!).

Happy Halloween!

Love,
Lucas & Alise

Seas, cheese, and Seattle in August

Well, we did it! Me made the huge move to another state:


Ok, it is only across the state line to Massachusetts, town of Bernardston. Also, it is really only 15 miles south of where we lived in Brattleboro, but it has many perks - while still being a short commute with no traffic to work:

1. Better car and renters insurance rates. We literally saved $100's of dollars, and we didn't even switch to Geico (though, we did already have Geico). I think this is attributed to the fact that in Brattleboro, at least in some areas, crime is high relative to the population. Also, the population in Vermont, in general, is low compared to what it is "actually". You see, "real" Vermonters (not yuppies from Boston, NYC, or another populace that use VT as vacation land) are very conservative, private people. Unlike Midwesterners, "real" Vermonters don't go out of their way to say hi, and generally are a little less pesky into other people's lives - not better or worse, just different. The point I am trying to eventually get to is that it is well known that Vermonters DO NOT return the census. So even if it says there are 621,760 people in Vermont, likely a much lower number returned the census because of privacy concerns. Another reason not to return it is because they think it doesn't matter for Vermont... they aren't going to gain any representation in Washington, D.C., as one example.To back up my theory (which was basically driven into me by other Midwestern-turned-Vermonter residents) the 2010 Census participation rate for VT was 67%, about 37th, beating out MT, MS, NY, Ar, AZ, HI, OK, ME, WV, LA, NM, and AK - down to 62%... not really much difference there. Wisconsin on the other hand, is ranked first at 81%, followed by MN - 80%, IA - 78%, IN - 78%, MI - 77%, NE - 76%, OH - 76%, and PA - 76%. Hmm, that looks a lot like the Big 10/Big11/BigTenwelve states, because it is. Where is Illinois? Just three spots down at 75%. Who says Big10 academics don't have their advantages?
2. We're closer to the airport. This may not seem like a huge deal, but when you come back late at night or, more likely, leave early in the morning, the extra 15 minutes of sleep is really nice.
3. We picked up a female house mate for the move - well, not a hitchhiker, we did plan this out. This means when I'm gone Alise has a friend, and when the house mate is gone (she travels too), we can guard her stuff. 
4. More everything! The consolidation with another person means a bigger house, a big yard (having a yard in the first place would have been enough), and more of everything. Dollars go farther, things are cleaned faster, and everyone as a little more efficiency built into their lives. 
5. Most importantly, a lack of shared walls and more privacy. Yes, we have another person living with us, but we awake to birds chirping and not people recycling their bottles or domestic disputes on the other side of the condominium complex. Life is good!

I am half a month late on this post, but between the move, frustrations with Comcast, and the general pace of life it has been hard to sit down in front of the computer. Sitting down in front of the TV is easy!

Our first weekend in August allowed us to welcome relatives back to New England. Alise's sister and brother-in-law were in Portsmouth, NH, on business, and the conference was kind enough to welcome us as guests for an evening.

So, Alise and I took advantage and dipped our feet in the Atlantic for the first time since being east. The water was COLD, but what do you expect on the under-appreciated ocean beaches of New Hampshire. I'm sure some out there don't realize New Hampshire touches the ocean, but as I said earlier, New England residents don't go out of their way to make sure their states are promoted for tourism.

We started our beautiful 65-degree Saturday with a lunch at Newcastle Commons park, with a nice ocean view and hungry seagulls. We grilled bacon cheeseburgers and sweet corn. I was able to capture my three favorite things in one picture:

Then we headed south towards Rye, NH. Along the coast there are plenty of places to pull off and park if you don't mind wet sand (in the below picture, I think they built a protective dike on what would have otherwise been the dry sand). If you know what you're doing, there are some nice spots with dry white sand, but either way, the water is FREEZING.

Later in the day we had a nice dinner with the conference attendees... but don't have any pictures of being all dressed up, shucks! 

"Business" was done at that point for our relatives, so on Sunday we headed to Weathervane Seafood, which is on a Maine-owned island in-between NH and ME (my first time to Maine, I'm now up to . We had fresh raw oysters (left) and raw tuna (right), which were both terrific.

We also had my new personal favorite, clams. The steamed clams tasted just like crab meat to me, while the fried ones taste like calamari or chicken fingers. Times with family and great food is soooooo so so good.

The very next weekend we headed down to our friend's place in Rhode Island. There we got to experience WARM Atlantic water on another perfect weekend. First on the agenda was going to the coolest park I have ever been to - it is only accessible via boat. As you can see on a Google map (click here), to the south of this beach is civilization; a high-class country club and a state park. The high-class club basically prevents the general public from being able to access the beach, unless it is by boat.  

We brought our kayaks, and rented two more. Although we fought hard against the current, we made it to paradise. Narragansett Beach: the below is not an advertisement, but an actual picture I took with our camera.

The water was about 70 degrees, and the waves were huge. Alise is a big fan of wave-jumping, so she was back in elementary school recess; not a care in the world.

Deep sea night-fishing for stripped bass was next on the docket. It was fun, but could have been a lot more fun had there been some fish to catch. We caught two bluefish between the four of us, but they aren't worth keeping as they taste pretty "fishy". We were caught in changing tides and stagnant water, so basically it was a horrible time to go.

But here's my fish... we thought we were going to catch more as this was 5 minutes in, but we didn't. Alise took the picture and my sleeve is on the left. The guy holding my line worked on the boat. The thing next to his hand was the weight, which was a weight if I have ever seen one.

This is me baiting one of our kind eels. Notice that it wrapped round my hand twice as I am shoving the hook up its throat through the top of its head. No worries though, these things have like 15 lives. As we would pull up to check our bait fish would work from tail-to-head to eat the eel bit by bit. They kept swimming until 2 or less inches of their 15-inch length was gone.

After a weekend of nothing to do but errands (imagine that!) Alise headed out to Seattle, WA, for a volunteer trip to the American Cheese Society Festival/Conference/Extravaganza. She seems to have had a load of fun, but you'll have to ask her or check out her blog (a4kinit.blogspot.com) for details.

Pike's Place Fish Market

 

Cruising Puget Sound

And CHEESE! (supposedly she had to work part of the time)

During that week, I made it to Fenway Park - twice! The first night was a rainout, so we re-did the two-hour drive plus traffic and parking the next night. Such a great stadium. We were lucky to get "bad" seats under the cover, because it sprinkled all night.

The Red Sox lost to the Mariners (Seattle while Alise was in Seattle.. pretty ironic), but who cares?!

In the meantime, two co-workers, the new housemate, and myself spent 5 hours on Friday night moving our entire collection of worldly possessions the 10 miles they needed to go. Besides some back-breaking stairs and plenty of soreness on Saturday and Sunday, it went pretty well. Here's one last look at the old place, including Alise's many many plants to make it look good. They have all been transported, and most survived the huge change in climate.

Well, here's to a great September. Bring on the sweatshirt weather and Twins playoffs wins, Vikings wins (yet to be seen) and Gophers football wins (... no comment).

Cheers, cheese and love,

Lucas & Alise

Fireworks and Rivers and Whales, oh my!

Time for another blog!

As I predicted, July was busy. The weekends looked like this:
2 visitors
2 visitors
2 visitors
Cheese festival
Rest

As you can tell, it was a good five weekend month and we did a lot of exploring to places we had never been before.

We started the month off with friends Beth and Lana coming to town. It was the Fourth of July, of course, so where better to be on the Fourth than where it all began? Boston!

But before that, we decided to enjoy a beautiful July 3rd with a cookout and exploration of Mount Tom State Reservation (which, in the Midwest, would be called Mount Tom State Park, however Massachusetts enjoys being difficult). Following a tough fought game of bocce ball, and losing the Frisbee in some large shrubbery (maybe honeysuckles?), we settled on a lunch of beer brats, baked beans, and chips.

After lunch, we headed to the tower facing south into the Berkshires. After climbing the stairs...

... we had a pretty nice view of western Massachusetts:

After an intense game of Risk that evening (putting yours truly with a 2-0 all time record in this house)

it was time to settle in because the next 36 hours were going to be all Boston all the time. We had a heck of a time. Our Boston Fourth (called "Harborfest" - pretty much the biggest 4th celebration there is) included whale watching, fireworks, cannolis, and morning coffee. It was all fantastic!

(skypainting by 5 jets we could see while waiting for our whale watch catamaran that read "MOHEGAN SUN [an area casino] <3 THE [red] SOX")

Mike's Pastry

(Alise yelled at me for not having enough pictures of here up. She was right, but I thought I was doing it to be nice. Here ya go!)

Waiting for Fireworks in our new hats

Beginning of the grand finale.

And after a 30 minute walk back to the hotel, some well-deserved rest and 11 am coffee on Monday morning.

Fast forward one week, and it was time for round two. This time we stayed in Brattleboro and frequented some fine neighborhood establishments and up to Harpoon Brewery in Windsor, VT. Our outdoor activity for the weekend was kayaking, and this was only the second time we had taken them out this summer. That changed as July went on, but it was a lot of fun for just a little bit of work.

The water was so still on the Connecticut River.

And then we found Brattleboro's water supply - Sunset Lake (man-made) way up in the mountains.

The next weekend we had the younger sisters in town. Again, we stayed local and took out the kayaks. These two couldn't see the fine establishments in Brattleboro, but they were able to have fun for a day and a half in Boston before Alise picked them up.

Oversized Jenga at Wahoo's Eatery

During our kayaking trip we accidentally stumbled onto Brattleboro's famed clothing-optional beach. We knew it was somewhere and respect their privacy, but we didn't know until we were far into it. We don't have any pictures of it either, but the memories will last forever.

The next weekend we attended the 2nd annual Vermont Cheesemakers Festival (as we did last year). It seemed that this year's event was even better organized than last year. I believe they sold more tickets, and thus the cheesemakers sold more cheese.

Again it was held at the beautiful Shelburne Farms.

Again they had free Ben & Jerry's, and good pizza.

And again there were tons of people wanting tons of cheese, beer and wine.

And again the cheese stands alone:

Finally we had a weekend to ourselves. So after the finale of my softball season Friday (I ended up as 2nd-string pitcher by the end of the season. My ERA started at a reasonable 7.0 (in 7 innings) after one game, but exploded to somewhere around 28 after a two inning whalloping (then the real pitcher showed up) followed by a close final game; we lost 25-18, but trailed 23-2 after 3 innings) in a fun, but heart-breaking loss, we had a Saturday of kayaking and grocery shopping.

Again, here's the obligatory picture of Alise.

We also got to see three Bald Eagles very close up... but none of them close enough for award winning pictures. There are two in the below picture, or so I thought, but I couldn't even find them when I zoomed way in on the comptuer. We were actually hoping for moose, but nothing so far.

Finally, we ended the weekend with a little grocery shopping to stock up for the week. One more stab at getting our money's worth for July, Ice Cream Month.

Get ready for next month, we're making a big (well, not THAT big) move.

Best wishes all!
Lucas & Alise