A happy day for himself

I ask you my friends .... is that a happy face or what?

Many many (well two, which often feels like many many) months ago, himself,  King Richard, celebrated another birthday, for which we are aways delighted and gleefully doing the "happy dance".

To celebrate said natal day his son Patrick (himself an air traffic controller) hired his friend, a pilot, to fly his Dad to the destination of his choice for lunch.... His highness the King is "all about" all things aeronautical and didn't really care too much about the lunch or the destination, it was all about the getting there, getting there way up high where the birdies fly .... lets just fly fly fly

Not so quick there your highness .... first and most importantly a pre-flight inspection must be done ... check things in the aircraft, check things under the aircraft and check the oil ..... 

then ....

YOU, your highness can pull the plane out of  its hangar .... 

and finally, after all this work is done you will go up up up and away

to Martha's Vineyard for a delightful, delectable, enjoyable, love filled lunch ....

devastation and destruction

Not a particularly pleasant title is it?  It has, however been the tone in these parts for a couple weeks, but it has also been a great motivator for communities to "come together" and do what has to be done ...

I think I may have posted the above photo a few months ago when we first arrived in Quechee, showing just how beautiful the Quechee Gorge is.  The photos below, however, are quite a different view of said Beautiful Gorge .... don't you think!!!

Taken from the same spot on the bridge looking down into the gorge - the first one when the water level was at a "reasonable level" mid-June ... the next two were taken a couple days after Hurricane Irene reeked havoc on this area ~ tearing towns, villages, houses and families apart with wild abandon!  As you can see from the photos the water level was considerably higher through the gorge - the rock cliffs along the side are under water!  The trails (which by the way are maintained by "us", the State Park) and still impassable because of the damage done to them.  The park system has been working to get them "passable" by the coming Columbus Day weekend, which in these parts is a major tourist weekend because of the gorgeous foliage that will surely color the area in a couple weeks (stay tuned, I just may be back in the blog swing of things and post a photo or two).

Above is a photo of the hydroelectric station just down the road from us (in fact across the street from the  Park Rangers house).  I don't have a comparison photo but this link is a terrific video (tab #1 at this link) of what was happening during this chaos, as well as a still shot (tab #2) which is a great comparison.  There is mention during the video of propane tanks .... a store in Woodstock (about seven miles west of us) had several propane tanks lost in the disaster, being close to the flooding river, of course they floated away with several of them bursting, causing the bridge over the gorge to be closed for a while as a precaution ~ as if there wasn't enough going on!!!

Above, just a random shot of a small building that had "floated" off its foundation!

I think the worst of the local (within a one mile radius of us) tragedies was the photo directly above and those below of the Quechee Bridge.  As you can see the bridge is "fine" but there is no longer access to the bridge, making it an island!  Word has it that repairs will not start until sometime in 2013 on this devastation, as there IS other access to this area.  The photo above was taken approaching the bridge from the south, the photos below were taken from the north side .... amazing the force of nature isn't it!  That mother nature was one "pissed off woman" when she came through here that day!

An interesting note to the photo below, as well as one similar above, the building to the right of the bridge is (was) a real estate office - the entire back wall of the building was washed away!  I do expect that any day now the building will be razed - I can't imagine that any insurance carrier would cover it in the future?

With all this said, there is progress being made - a couple of the businesses in this little area known as Quechee Village have reopened, but more surprisingly the main thorough fare from east to west across the state (route 4) at this point has finally been reopened, as of yesterday, with one lane passage.  The closure of that road had a huge impact on the moral of the entire area with many many small towns being totally isolated.

With all this said I will close by saying I have photos loaded for two additional posts, but well ....... we shall see, but please do try to stay tuned ....

just because

The beauty abounds

At the Vermont State Parks.  A while back we took a field trip of sorts to Barnard, VT to visit the Silver Lake State Park.  We thought perhaps Sir Arlo needed some swim and water play time, if not a change of scenery.  We don't have a lake or pond (or any day use area for that matter) here at Quechee (yes we have a gorge, but that's a hike and not always the best choice with a dog who isn't particularly social!

I don't know how big the lake is but it was beautiful and we were able to find plenty of places away from the day use beach area where Sir could frolic!

I turned around to look at our surroundings while Sir was swimming and look who else had been quite active in this particular spot recently!!!  He must have heard us approaching because this sure looked like fresh chewing!

And as the saying goes, I'd say this fella had been "busy as a beaver" for sure!

It's hard for me to believe that we are three months into our five month commitment here in Quechee.  We have been busy busy busy between our volunteering here, travel back to MA, travel to NH and company, lots and lots of company which we have LOVED!  Also, we had the annual "Peck Family Christmas Bar-b-que" (aka PFCBBQ) here at our site a couple weeks back.  Perhaps, just perhaps I'll get around to loading some pictures and doing a blog post about that major event~which was fun fun fun for all (I think, but I am certain it was fun for me!)

I'm thinking that's it for this post, stay tuned and see if another post happens soon .... we shall see .....

decisions decisions decisions

Seriously, how on earth could I possibly chose which photos to post when I took over 300 then "edited" it down to about 180 and am trying to post maybe 15-20?  UGH like I said ... decisions decisions decisions ..

With all that said, who knew that balloons have names?  Certainly not I!  The beauty above is  "Abraxas" owned/piloted (according to the Quechee Balloon Festival insert in the local paper (aka The Valley News) by Mario Di Stefano from Worcester, MA.  

As you may recall from my most recent (yeah yeah yeah) post, the 32nd annual Quechee Hot Air Balloon Festival was held here June 17-19.  One of the benefits of our volunteer positions here at the State Park is that we pretty much "front and center" for the event ~ a first for me, which truly sparked an addition (that I've done nothing towards fulfilling, BTW) to my "bucket list" - being part of a chase team.

"Last Penny" (don't you just love that name ...
Bill Colyer from Fairfield, CT

Abraxas, again, so does this second shot confirm that it MAY be my favorite?

"The calming Effect of Sunshine"
Time Strand, Bloomsbury, NJ

I think a large part of my attraction to these balloons was that they made me think of quilt patterns - big, bright and bold colorful quilts ... now if I could just duplicate them!!

"Uplifted"
Denny Welser, Tallmadge, OH
now is this a quilt pattern just waiting to be created or what!

top and closest is again, "Uplifted" with
"Going My Way" Dick and Mary Beth Young
Parsippany, NJ

Sadly a poor photo of a beauty called "Reflections"
James Regan from Kensington, CT

again, "Going My Way"

"Thunderbuster"
Paul Sena, Worthington, MA
decent shot of the flame ~ yes?

A random, colorless, evening shot of balloons at the field looking from the Quechee covered bridge, with Simon Pearce workshop and restaurant (still haven't been there - seems to be perceived as a bit too "foo foo" for us!!

"Thunderbuster" again

hmmm, I don't know the name and owner of this one, but isn't it great ~
so colorful and one of those that makes me think of a quilt pattern!

Oh geeez this may really be my favorite - "Great Balls of Fire"
Owned by Bill Whidden, Tavares, FL

The last evening of the festival we went to watch the balloons launch and as we had hoped they went right over the gorge ...

There are a couple balloon businesses in Quechee so we do see (and hear) them fairly often either early (6:30 or so) in the morning or around 6:30 in the evening as they are launching.  I thought it would be a fun adventure while we are here, but since it is in the vicinity of $250. per person, I don't think it is realistic for us to fulfill that adventure!

So that's the latest ~ albeit a month or so old from us ... stay tuned for more adventures!

the flora

In what seems to be my usual way of blogging of late, I loaded these pictures a couple weeks ago and am finally adding some text!  For those of you that have followed us since blog day one, you may recall there was a new and hopefully interesting adventure posted nearly everyday - my things have changed haven't they!  I knew when we started our volunteer position that the posts wouldn't be as interesting or as frequent but jeeesh louise, this isn't good!

Anyway, one of our tasks a few weeks back was to walk the trail to and along the gorge and pick up rubbish (hikers and campers in these parts are very very conscientious of litter so there was very little to pick up!).

The gorgeous swimming area at the bottom of the gorge.  Sir Arlo would LOVE to swim down here and the walk down and back would certainly be some good exercise for him (as it was for us).

Along the way, of course we passed lots of mushrooms (since it rarely stops raining here there is a plethora of fungi) and flowers

A "Jack-in-the-pulpit"

And a "lady's slipper"

and a man and his dog!

Last weekend was the annual Quechee Balloon Festival - I got some great photos - even a couple of the balloons over the gorge.  I think that I want to add "balloon chaser" to my bucket list.

Stay tuned ...

oh yes we are

HERE in Kwee Chee (aka Quechee)

Himself even has a golf cart (on occasion) to peruse his digs (as in we have a golf cart to use to do our "tasks" as well as our "rounds" a few nights a week) which concerns me - if we owned one how would we "enhance" it ....  oh what would himself, Mister "Gadget Man" do?

Our site is HUGE and I am trying to make it into one with a couple of enjoyable garden spaces -  we even have a few hummingbirds (such interesting creatures they are to me ...Sir Arlo is in charge of counting them each day)

a poor and dark shot above but trying to show the size of our space ...

as always, stay tuned ... photos for a post loaded a week ago, this one is, however, just to let anyone know we are alive and well in the land of Vermont's "grand canyon" (trust me I did NOT coin that phrase .... it is beautiful and all, but ...)

so, as the saying goes, stay tuned.....