Spring 2024

Over April break we visited colleges with Caroline. First Heather took her to NY-NJ-PA

They saw Wicked on Broadway

and visited Swarthmore, Princeton, and Yale

Erin watched the Boston Marathon and rooted for her track coaches as well as my cousin Steve

Tessie goofed off

and Grandma Joan and Grampa Ed visited 

Later in the week Dad and Caroline visited Williams for a 2nd time, this time with students in session. On the way we stopped to hike on the New England National Scenic Trail, just promoted to an official NPS unit. The trail is a work in progress and extends from New Haven to the Mass-VT border. Some of it is on dedicated trails but there are many sections on roads as well.

On May 14th we hit 80 degrees for the first time this year

Only Tessie could be rallied for the mandatory ice cream

While out roaming, Tessie found this baby turtle with a cracked shell

Not many people have a poster of hatchling turtles of Massachusetts but thanks to Caroline, we do, and it confirmed what we expected: our hatchling was a common painted turtle. Through mass.gov online we found a volunteer willing to take it and rehabilitate it.

Way back in 1986, with my 6th grade from North Salem NY, I attended an overnight outdoors educational program called Nature's Classroom. All I can recall is that it rained and we learned about ort. Here we are 38 years later and Tessie attended the very same program and they're still teaching about ort! 

Despite separation anxiety going into it, Tessie had a good time

Erin completed her 3rd freshman sports season with Outdoor Track. Another no-cut sport, apparently 250 kids were on the team, but only those who made qualification times/distances competed on Varsity. Erin ran the mile or 2 mile at the Varsity level. It was fun to follow the team at meets and in the coaches recap writeups and the team depth chart.

Erin stayed healthy all-season. She entered the spring with personal bests from the indoor season in the mile of 5:43 and 2-mile at 12:19. 

She dropped her times in both events in the regular season. For these races runners are seeded based on performance times and then start on the track in order of speed. For example there were 4 teams at the race above and Erin, in yellow second from the right, was the fastest Lexington girl and #2 seed in the race. 

At the League Championship meet, Erin was seeded #9 in the 2-mile (she's wearing the number on her leg) and ran a season best 11:57.4 to finish #7

They added her to the 4 x 800 relay team where she ran a respectable 2:28 split

Next she qualified for the 2-mile at the all-state meet, held on a hot Friday before Memorial Day. There she was seeded #21 and finished #16 in 12:00.78.

Then we headed to Somers, where the fish were biting

We continued our invasive phragmites management program

and I completed my goal of running the big hill loop without stopping. My parents live on a mountain and the only way to run is to go up and down and up and down. This route is 3 miles with 450 crappy feet of elevation change but with my Peloton-pumped legs I did it.

Caroline's Envirothon team competed in the state championship

It was the usual setup of 5 different events, each worth 100 pts, with the winner scoring the most total points. But a few minutes into the start of the 5th event rotation, strong thunderstorms came through and the organizers called off the testing and cancelled the rest of the day. 

What to do? Well the organizers tallied scores up until the cancellation horn sounded and concluded that even if another team had scored perfectly on their remaining event, they wouldn't be able to surpass Lexington. So Lexington was declared winner and advances to the National competition, this year held in July in Geneva, New York at Hobart and William Smith colleges.

Caroline went to junior prom with a group of girlfriends

One night my neighbor texted me that the Northern Lights were visible outside our houses. The aurora in Lexington in May - it did not compute. It was as if he told me there was a polar bear in my backyard. My weather feeds only supply terrestrial forecasts, but apparently an unusually large solar flare was warping the ion belts into our middle latitudes. To the naked eye we could faintly see the purple and green colors, but to the wider bandwidth of the iPhone lens the colors were amazing.

At Williams the carillon played Sweet Caroline