Wyoming to Forty Fort

Well, we didn't start in THAT Wyoming. Heavens.

We took our bikes over the river (the Susquehanna) and parked in Wyoming.

The trail is all paved, and runs along the levee that protects the cities from the river if it ever floods. It's a really nice ride, about 14 miles or so round trip. It starts out by the Forty Fort municipal airport.

It winds around following the river, crossing over and around and back. It's very pleasant! There happened to be a biplane at the airport as we were pedaling by, and we watched it as it did some tricks. 

The dike is a nice even path. There are smaller trails that go down to the river, but you can't get too close because of the bushes, etc.  George's property is across the river in Plains, but because of the trees, we couldn't see his house.

We rode for about an hour, then decided to stop in Kingston for lunch. There's a great little deli that George sells chips to, so we stopped there.  

I was laughing because George felt like a goof taking my picture at the deli. I said "it's for the blog!!"

Anyway, we continued on, stopping to check out the flora and fauna. There were lots of geese and my favorite, blue herons.  They were pretty far away, from the top of the dike, I had to use my telephoto to get decent shots of them.

Pizza Bird ;-)

Oh yeah, to prove that I was there, I made George take a picture of me as well. I did ride a bike, but for some reason I never had a picture of myself on it. 

Half way point is Kirby park.

It's a great park in Wilkes-Barre. There is a bandshell there, and they have terrific fireworks on July 4th.

Now we had to leave the green grass of the park, ride through the town of Edwardsville. We rode past this cool little church. George told me that when they built Lowe's, they moved the church back behind it 200 yards. 

Time to head back! 

We started back north and rode through Kingston again,

then to Forty Fort, 

and back to Wyoming.

Now you all know that no adventure of ours is complete with out searching for ice cream. George is from this area that we rode in, but said there were no shops on the route. We settled for a Baskin Robbins that was inside a Dunkin Donuts. Hmm...it'll do. :-)

 

Date Night

Haven't had one of those in awhile! It was such a nice night, little bit of a breeze, low 70's. Perfect night for dinner out! We went to a local place called 'Top of the 80's'..where highway 81 and highway 80 meet. It's actually a Hampton Inn, with a 5 star chef and restaurant.

We sat outside on the patio, where there was a gentleman singing with a guitar. He was pretty good.

I had some fried calimari, and George had nachos. The watermelon and pomegranate martinis were quite good :)

Tomorrow it's time to get the bikes out again. Gotta work off that good food!

Design on a Dime, Part 2

Well we both woke up tired and sore! Our bodies aren't used to all that physical labor. Where are the guys that do all the painting and cleaning up that they show on the home shows? Hmmph!

We took a slight detour today before we started finishing up the basement. After church, my friend Nicki invited us to join her at the Japanese Hibachi restaurant to celebrate her birthday. What, delay working on the lovely space? Definitely :) We had a great time! When we were finished there we stopped at Wal-Mart and purchased 3 inexpensive bar stools, a rug for behind the bar, a new kitty door (so Milo's cat box can be in the furnace room), and a few minor things.

We got home around 3 o'clock and with out delay got going again. We brought down a throw rug that was up in the attic rolled up. Then we decided to bring down an entertainment center & TV that wasn't being used in an extra bedroom.

George went to work hooking up the cable to it.    

       
               Just need a couple comfy chairs!

Hey bartender, fix me somethin!!         

Can't wait to have a few people over. 
I can't believe I lived in this house for 11 years without transforming this. Whoever buys this house has a great area here.        




Oh yeah, we only spent $100 to redecorate that space. Not too bad!                  

Design on a Dime, Part 1

I like watching home shows on HGTV, especially  Design on a Dime. They tranform spaces with little $$.

I have a finished basement, with a bar. It's not bad, but it's one of those spaces that just doesn't look inviting. I have my cat's litter box behind the bar, so it gets a little, well, smelly down there. The floor is red linoleum. Red! Maybe they redid this basement in the 50's. All the walls are an old, brown paneling.

Keeping in mind that we didn't want to put any money into it, we went to work to make this space more inviting. I've lived here 11 years, and never did anything to it.

We started by waxing the bar top with car wax and George buffed it.

George replaced some of the ceiling tiles that had gotten water damaged.

I grabbed a paint brush and started going to town. We used the cream colored paint that was left over from redoing my son Austin's room into a den last year. Cost for paint $.00

George took the low spots, sitting on a garden utility rolling thing :)







We decided to only paint the west side of the basement, making a small area to have a drink, or relax. We painted that whole side in a little over 5 hours.

Looking good already!

It was hot down there too! We had two big fans going to keep us cooler.

We added some nice touches to the bar area, bringing down items from upstairs in the dining room. There is a small refrigerator on the end of the bar, and a cabinet down below the bar.






We hung some cafe curtains on the 4 windows. They are old, so the curtains hide them, but we can still open them to get some air.

We are tired and sore! There are a few more things to do, and we'll finish tomorrow. The finished space will look great! More tomorrow :)

The Eagle has landed!

Despite both of us feeling like crap today with the beginnings of a cold, we couldn't resist taking out the new toy.

We first had to deflate it from its home on the extra bedroom floor (George's man cave!) We carefully followed the instructions, rolled it up, and put it right in the bag it comes with. COOL! It fits! Just like a sleeping bag! FYI, it only takes about 10 minutes total to deflate, roll up, and stow the boat in the bag, when dry.

We left the seats inflated for now, and then loaded all of it in the back of my Honda Fit. We really didn't want to go too far, as we left at 2 pm. We took a look online, and found Nescopeck State Park, where there is a little man-made lake, Lake Frances. It's only 10 minutes from home, so off we went.

We got it to the lake, had to walk about 200 yards to where the beach was, to put it in the water. We took the boat out of the bag, put it on the ground, and proceeded to use the foot pump to pump it up. We got a lot of comments from people, and odd stares.

At this point, we carried it into to water, got in, and with little fanfare, shoved off with the paddles. It's very comfortable, and we're glad we got the 370, there was just enough room for both of us to stretch out our legs.

The lake isn't that big, so we paddled our way around a center island, where there are bird houses.

My view from front of the boat.

Not a real scenic lake, no wildflowers this time of year, but still nice.

It was a bit breezy, which made it a little cooler for us. It was in the 90's today.

A few lily pads around the lake.





Since this was a maiden voyage, we didn't take a long time out there, hour tops. We headed back to the shore, it was easy to get out of the boat there. Lots of questions from people about the boat! We were proud to show it off  :)

We decided to put it on top of a picnic table to dry it off and roll it up.

We bought a large chamois to keep in the bag to ease the dry off.     

From start to finish, including drying off - it took us about 20 minutes is all to get it all packed away. It's amazing to me that the boat, oars, seats, and pump all fit in that bag. We bought a small lingerie bag to store the pump in so that it doesn't come in contact with the sides of the boat. No leaks!!

I can't wait to take it on another adventure! We love it...

A duck out of water...

We are so excited! Our Sea Eagle 370 came via FedEx on Friday.

Wow! How can a 12' kayak fit into two small boxes?

So we opened the boxes, took inventory of all the plastic bags that were included in them.

Still can't believe this will be a kayak. So....step one, open the bags :)

 


                Step two, figure out what the heck everything is!
                                            
 





Ahhh, a pump! Practice round, pump up the seats.                                   
    

                                                                    They're pretty comfy.

                                      

                  Between the two of us we got it all pumped up and ready to go.

It has to sit for 24 hours before deflating it and putting it in its own bag. I can't wait to see that!

Tomorrow we hope to test it out in some water near here. That should be interesting :)

Atlantic City & George's birthday fun

We started off at 8:15 am Wednesday morning on our bus trip.  Now mind you, the trip by car only takes approximately 3 hours, but we didn't pull into the Trump Plaza until 12:15 pm. Long trip. Worth it this time as we didn't have to be the ones driving in all the Philadelphia & 'down the shore' traffic.

We walked down to the Tropicana and checked in to our room. 








From then on it was nothing but fun!! We ate at our favorite lunch stop, Corky's, for BBQ and cole slaw, yum!

Then it was off to the slots - lots of entertainment! By the end of the afternoon, we were ahead! Figured it was time to give it a rest, so we took off outside to walk the boardwalk. It was HOT! Humid! You could cut it with a knife..so..time to stop at the beach bar and cool off with a few frozen drinks :)

Yum, they were good!! More surprises to come!

Unbeknownst to George - his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters were down in AC as well. We arranged to meet them for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.

The kids were great, we had a good time! Little Jillian is 3 years old and a cutie. Jaelyn is 6 months old and a little bug :)

They were as good as gold, and George was thrilled to have us all together.

Thursday morning, we checked out, stowed our bag, then ate breakfast. Since our bus didn't leave until 7 pm that evening, we had a lot of  hours to kill. We decided to see if we could play some more without having the machines take all our money, but....oh well...you know the end of story :)

We went back out onto the boardwalk to walk off our dinner from the night before. It was HOT again. Whew..humidity was oppressive. But of course, no trip is complete without our search for ice cream. There are quite a few shops on the boardwalk, but it seems that when I did a search for them, they were the opposite direction of where we were. It was HOT! Now if you've read my blogs before, you know I can never seem to find an ice cream shop! But...I gave it one more shot. Lo and behold, we found one on the Iphone. Mapped it out..not far now!

Geez...it was in the Tropicana! Right where we were staying. :)

I guess turning 60 isn't so bad, now is it?