What would Bear Grylls do?

Kids, don't try this at home.

James and I recently watched the television series Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls, a reality show in which ten teams of two people competed to "survive" the wilds on New Zealand. Bear Grylls, former member of the British Special Forces, served as their guide, mentor and judge as the teams competed in a series of strenuous outdoor challenges. Each week, one team would be sent home by Bear with the statement, "You wouldn't get out alive." While the show featured extreme physical tests, teams were judged just as much on their attitudes, problem solving skills and emotional fitness.

We became familiar with Bear several years ago when he appeared on a show called Man vs. Wild. From Wikipedia: "The series features Grylls dropped into inhospitable places, showing viewers how to survive...The show has featured stunts including Grylls climbing cliffs, parachuting from helicopters, balloons, and planes, paragliding, ice climbing, running through a forest fire, wading rapids, eating snakes, wrapping his urine-soaked t-shirt around his head to help stave off the desert heat,"among other even more disgusting things. The show seemed designed to show Bear shirtless (or more) as much as possible.

This morning I returned from an almost one-hour brisk walk around the village to find that while I had a key in my pocket, it was the key to Aidan's treehouse. And since there is no wormhole from the inside of his treehouse to the inside of our house, I was locked out. I was locked out with James at work almost an hour away.

Our neighbors are building an addition on their house and I've met the guys on the crew while checking out the progress (and joking with Bridget, one of the homeowners, about hiding bodies in the newly dug basement. Not that I would, of course, but it's always good to have contingencies, albeit temporary ones, for all of life's circumstances). I walked next door, explained my dilemma, and asked if any of them knew how to jimmy a lock. A man named Dave volunteered to try and while I should be somewhat relieved that he was unsuccessful, the fact remained that I was still locked out.

Then I remembered that the window in the upstairs bathroom was open a small amount. I asked Dave to bring over a ladder; he propped it up against the house and held it steady as I climbed to the window, pushed up the screen, opened the window and wriggled through. Poor man was just being helpful and he was treated to the view of my 50 year old tookus wiggling through a window - I hope he does not have nightmares.

While I was impressed with my ingenuity and survival skills, I will be going to the hardware store today to have a spare key made for us to hide somewhere outside. What would Bear do in the same situation? He might have rigged a zip line from the treehouse to our roof, or climbed onto the garage in order to jump over the open window, or parachuted from an airplane, but I think my solution worked just fine.

Best Scout trip EVER

This past weekend, James and Aidan went camping with the Boy Scout troop to Indian Lake, in the Adirondacks. When they arrived home yesterday, Aidan ran in the house, gave me a big hug and said, "That was the best Scout trip EVER!"

What made it the best Scout trip ever was the exploration of caves on Chimney Mountain. They hiked about a mile to the top of the mountain, where they enjoyed the 360 degree view, which is unusual in the central Adirondacks:

At the top of the mountain, there is a series of caves that the Scouts explored. Aidan loved crawling through the crevices:

 

There was one place that they had to crawl up in order to get out, and Aidan did it with a smile on his face:

They were tired and dirty when they arrived home, but isn't that one of the hallmarks of a fun Scout camping trip?

Connecting with something warm

Several months ago I learned of a community charity project, "Connecting With Something Warm", which is a part of a gallery exhibit titled: Spoken Threads: The Art of Craftivism. Local installation artist Mary Giehl asked knitters and crocheters to make something warm - hats, mittens/gloves, scarves - that she will package in plastic bags and place around the area for people to find; drop-off locations will be in public areas, bus shelters, walkways and on park benches. Included with each item will be a stamped, addressed postcard that details information about the project and an invitation to meet the knitter or crocheter who made the item at the opening reception for the exhibition. The recipient is also asked to mail the postcard back to ArtRage Gallery as a record of the connection.

Ms. Giehl's goal was to collect 500 items. At this morning's meeting of Twisted Stitches of CNY knitting guild, she announced that she has met the goal and then some, not including the items that were collected at the meeting. Today's contributions included the hat that I made for the project.

I decided to make a man's hat; I had a conversation with Ms. Giehl through Facebook and learned that she was receiving more feminine items than masculine items. I chose the Turn a Square pattern by Jared Flood, which is a simple striped beanie but the style of decreases at the crown turns the stripes or "rings" into diminishing square shapes at the crown. The pattern recommends one self-striping yarn and one solid color yarn used in the alternating row pattern, but I went with two different colorways of self-striping yarns, just to see how the two randomly came together:

The yarn is Mochi Plus by Crystal Palace Yarns, and the colorways are Feldspar and Lake Trail. The fiber content is 80% Merino and 20% nylon, and is machine washable. While the yarn felt very soft and comfortable to me as I knitted it, my skin had a reaction to it that caused what looked like burns on my fingers. The patches did not hurt except that they were very dry and rough. I doubt that the fiber itself was the source of the irritation, but rather something in the dye that my hyper-sensitive skin did not tolerate.

Despite the temporary condition of my hands, I really like how the hat turned out:

It is warm and functional but also attractive and interesting. I hope to attend the opening reception for the Spoken Threads exhibition in November, and maybe I will see someone sporting my creation.

Middle school

Yesterday was the first day of school and we were all ready for it. While Aidan put up the expected child facade of dreading the start of the school year, he was actually quite happy about it. Just in the last week did he seem to be bored with everything and everyone, and he was primed to see new faces, renew acquaintances and just do something new and different.

Middle school starts much earlier than elementary school and the scheduled bus pickup time is 7:07 am. Aidan easily got out of bed at 6, dressed and ate breakfast in plenty of time, and even allowed me to take a first day photo:

When he got off the bus in the afternoon, he was all smiles and very excited about his day. Aidan was thrilled to see friends from the first elementary school he attended here, see friends whom he had not seen over the summer and even more thrilled to learn that She Who Shall Not Be Named is not in any of his classes nor riding his bus. Not only did he find his locker, he managed to work the combination lock and get it open, something about which he was concerned. He only got lost once, went to the wrong class once but all in all, had a great day.

We think that Aidan is going to enjoy the challenges of middle school both academically and socially. Elementary school is so last year.

All aboard

Since we moved here, we have wanted to ride the Adirondack Scenic Railroad from Utica to Thendara, which is just outside of Old Forge. We took advantage of a Groupon deal and finally made our railroad trip last Saturday. The deal was for two adults and two children, so we asked one of Aidan's friends to come along.

You can read the history of the ADK Scenic Railroad on their website, but the condensed version is that the railroad tracks were constructed in 1890-91 to take people to the Adirondack great camps, and then later freight service was added. In its heyday, the railroad went all the way from Utica to Lake Placid. Service started decreasing in 1961 and the line was completely abandoned in 1977. In 1992, a group of railroad enthusiasts founded the Adirondack Railway Preservation Society and started rehabilitating the line. The railroad now operates from Utica to Thendara, and between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, and is staffed by volunteers.

It was a drippy grey day in Utica when we boarded the train:

It takes a little over two hours to make the trip to Thendara. Aidan and his friend played Nintendo most of the way (sigh) while I enjoyed the scenery out the window; the rocking motion of the train made knitting impossible for my stomach to handle. James spent most of the trip north in the baggage car, known as an "open air" car because large side doors remain open:

He took all of these photos from the open side:

He even managed to get a photo of a moose:

 

So it was a cutout decoration in the back of someone's yard - it is likely to be the closest we get to a moose!

I really liked how people came out to wave at the train as it passed:

Once in Thendara, we took the shuttle bus to Old Forge to have lunch at Tony Harper's - love those SRQ chips! We then rode the chair lift to the top of McCauley Mountain:

 

Despite the drizzle and mist, the views at the top were beautiful:

 

On the ride down, one of our darling child's sneakers fell off. Of course it was an "accident", which is Aidan-speak for "I was goofing around". James and I were livid, and came very close to making him walk around with just one shoe on. James rode  back up, climbed down to the shoe, climbed back up and then rode the chair lift down while I made the two boys sit down and be silent. It was the only time of the entire trip that they stopped talking. The men who run the chair lift were very nice; they did not charge James for the extra trip and they traded inane boy stories with me.

The rest of the day was, thankfully, uneventful. The skies cleared as we rode back to Utica and we enjoyed the scenery again, this time with the benefit of abundant sunshine. It was a fun day; I adore train travel and we liked seeing the sights that you can only see from a train. If we ever do it again it will be just James and me (and we hope by then to go from Utica to Lake Placid), and there will be no chair lift involved.