Summer 2023

This summer we cobbled together camps and field trips for the girls. Tessie attended a local day camp except for 2 weeks at her first sleepover camp. Erin trained for high school cross country by running 6 days a week and totaled 245 miles before season start.  She also attended the flute-only Floot Fire camp

Katy and kids came up for some college touring with me, Erin and Caroline. We started with Williams College in western Mass

and Middlebury College in Vermont

Vermont Country Store

Then we spent 2 nights at AMC huts along Franconia Ridge in the Pemigewasset Wilderness area of New Hampshire 

Katy, Lyla, and I hiked at a slower pace behind Caroline, Erin, and Charlie

It would have been easier if our path traced the ridgeline like this

but instead we scrambled over rocks most of the time

Katy supplied MREs for lunch

which were palatable except for Charlie's jalapeno meat patty

Galehead hut had triple-decker bunks

Our last day threatened rain and we bailed on a long hike to escape before the soaking showers came

Tessie learned some cooking skills at home

and on the way up to her sleepaway camp we stopped at a cat cafe

Tessie was a star at drop-off

but even though her good friend was with her, homesickness hit her hard during the 2nd week

and even the horseback riding didn't cheer her up

Meanwhile I took Caroline and Erin down to Maryland where I worked remotely

Brad secured a beach house for us in Lewes, Delaware. This brought my total of states that I've spent the night in to 48

Caroline and I completed the longest run of our lives: 5 miles

and then she had her wisdom teeth removed

The Envirothon team was invited to the State House to meet the governor

Caroline and Governor Maura Healey

Caroline and I tackled another pair of 4,000 foot peaks in NH, Mt Osceola and East Osceola

Osceola was fogged in

and East Osceola's summit is just a rock cairn

This feature is called The Chimney

This year the monarch butterflies never showed up in our neighborhood. We found a few eggs and tagged 13 butterflies, far fewer than previous years. 

Up in the huts Caroline did an extra 2 hours to collect a pair of 4,000 footers and she came back steaming

Katy and Brad's newest rooster is a breed called silkie

Birds in the skylight made Tai-Tai chatty