Entry 771: Luray Caverns

S has been on this kick of thinking we don't spend enough time together as a family, and since last weekend's trip to the fancy movie theater didn't quite go as planned, she upped the ante and booked a two-day excursion to Luray Caverns and Shenandoah National Park. We actually met our friends there, so it wasn't just the four of us the entire weekend, but it was enough of just the four of us to qualify as quality time together (and then some).

It was a mostly successful endeavor. The kids fought a bit, which led to Lil' S1 embracing the role of martyr and sleeping on the floor, but kids will do that. Them sharing a bed, we've come to learn, is just not tenable. We're not at the point of booking two rooms (yet), but we definitely need a room with an extra sleeper sofa or a roll-away cot or something like that. They've never been good with sharing a bed, and we used to get around it by having S and I split up and each co-sleep with one of them, but I put the kibosh on that one a while ago. S doesn't mind, but it's a hard no from me. Lil' S1 is like 5' 5", 130 lbs now, and it's weird to spoon with your son when he's that big. Lil' S2 isn't quite that size yet, but he moves constantly in his sleep. It's annoying just listening to him jostle, let alone being right next to him.

We drove up Saturday morning and spent the afternoon at some sort of street fair that wasn't actually on a street but rather in a big field in the middle of nowhere. It was seemingly 1000 degrees outside, and there was no air conditioning to be found. We couldn't even sit in the car and cool off that way because we were precariously low on gas, not taking into account that there isn't a gas station on every corner once you get outside the city. Also, we didn't have any cell service, which has nothing to do with the temperature, but did make it much more difficult to navigate. It's ridiculous how reliant we are on smartphones with an internet connection now.

The kids had fun though. There was a nice creek nearby, so they all just hopped in that. I waded in as well, but the jagged rocks hurt my feet, and the ones that were smooth were even worse to walk on because they were hella slippery. I foresaw myself eating it in a very embarrassing manner, so I came back to the safety of dry land after only a few minutes. Lo and behold, not too long after my return, a dad about my age tried to fetch a toy his daughter dropped that was being washed away, and he completely wiped out, hard, soaking (and possibly injuring) himself in the process. I felt for the poor sap, but I also felt good about my own sagacity: Wise move getting out DG, wise move, indeed.   

After that we went horseback riding, which is something the boys had never done, and something I hadn't done in probably 29 years. I remember going with my cousins once when I was an older teenager, and we visited them in 1996,* so I'm guessing that was the last time. It was cool. If you don't spend a lot of time around horses (which I don't), you forget how massive and impressive they can be. But also, they never went faster than a walk (by design), so after a while, it's kinda like, All right, this is getting pretty repetitive, and I'm getting a little sore. The trip got cut short by a few minutes because it started to rain, and I can't say I was all that disappointed. The scenery was definitely interesting, though, including the people. As we were riding, we went past a couple who was driving through the trails in some sort of flatbed mini truck, and both driver (man) and passenger (woman) had a diaper-clad baby on their lap, and they had a half-rack of Busch on the flatbed.

*I remember the year because we watched Michael Johnson and his gold shoes win a bunch of races at the Atlanta Olympics.  

We stayed the night at a lodge in Shenandoah National Park, and then we went to Luray Caverns the next day (this afternoon). I'll have to cut this post short and end with some pics because I have to get ready for a work trip. I fly out tomorrow and return Thursday. Between you and me, I'm not exactly super excited about it, but so it goes.

Until next time... 

 

                                        

Entry 770: Wet Hot DC Summer

We had another huge storm here in DC a few nights ago. This one was not as destructive as last month's because it wasn't very windy. It was mostly just rain, but it was a lot of rain. The weird thing is that precipitation was not even in the forecast until much later in the evening according to my iPhone. I came upstairs around 4:30p and decided to go for a walk (the kids were both out of the house with friends, and S and I got into an argument earlier and weren't ready to make up yet, so I was on my own for the afternoon), touch grass, as they say, and it started raining. I looked at my weather app again, confirmed that it was supposed to be dry for another four hours or so, and waited, figuring it was just a little flurry. But I figured incorrectly, majorly so.

Far from petering out, the heavens opened up and unleashed a torrent the likes of which I do not remember. This probably wasn't literally the most voluminous rainstorm we've had since I've lived hear, but nothing heavier comes to mind. It was the type of rainfall where if you stepped outside for ten seconds, you might as well have jumped into a lake.* And it was the length of it that separated it from most other storms. Usually when the spigot turns on full-blast, it runs dry after twenty minutes or so. This time it went on for hours. Several times it lightened up only to then rage even harder than before. 

 *I've done that once in my life. When I was 15, we were visiting family at Chautauqua Lake, and I wasn't paying attention to where I was on the pier, and I stepped right into the lake, fully clothed. Few things are as disorienting as being suddenly, unexpectedly submerged in water.

Thankfully, the damage seems to be minimal. Some roads had to close temporarily because they amassed pools of water too large for vehicles to safely traverse, and surely a lot of foot trails around Rock Creek will be out of commission for a few days, but I think (hope) that's the worst of it. It was more than a bit scary for me, though. My mind went back to those girls' camps that got washed away in Texas. Lil' S1 was at a friend's house not too far from us, so I knew he would be fine. But Lil' S2 was at the movies with his friend and his friend's grandma, and the thought of a seventy-something-year-old woman driving through flood conditions with two kids is not the most reassuring thing one can imagine.

It also didn't help that Lil' S2's Apple Watch died, so I couldn't tell exactly where he was. If I could have tracked him getting home safely, it would have put my mind at ease. That's one big problem with using technology to keep tabs on your kid, when it goes out -- and it's going to go out because it's being operated by a child -- it makes you more worried than you would be if you just weren't tracking them at all.

In other news, we went to see Superman today. I wanted to see F1, but I got outvoted. In fact, the entire idea to even go to a movie got into people's head because I said I was going to take Lil' S2 to see F1 with me. I figured Lil' S1 and S wouldn't want to come because it's not their type of movie, and I was right, but then they said they would come, so we were all going to go to that, but then somebody suggested we see Superman instead, and then all three of them liked that idea better.

To make matters even worse (for me), they all wanted to go to a fancy theater where you get dinner while you watch, even though it's a half-hour drive from our house instead of five minutes like the regular theater, and I find the dining-while-you-watch experience vastly overrated. Not only do I not want to drive further and pay extra for it, I don't want to do it at all. It's distracting and annoying. I don't even like sitting next to S on the sofa when we're watching something if she's eating a snack. It's one of our ongoing sticking points. She saves food so that she can eat while she watches, and I'm like just eat it and then watch.

I kinda got my way on the theater inadvertently, as S bought tickets for the normal theater on accident. I say "kinda" because we had already driven to the other theater and paid $10 for parking before we noticed it. So, at that point, I would have just preferred to stay. Then we had to rush back to the other theater, and it is on the complete opposite end of the city, so there was no actual rushing involved -- just a steady plod through DC traffic. We got there about 35 minutes after the stated start time, and I would have preferred to just go in and watch -- we probably would have only missed five minutes or so of the movie, given how long the previews are -- but everybody was hungry (because we thought we were getting food while we watch), so we changed the tickets to a later showing. It cost $11, and then the kids still wanted shitty movie theater food, even though we were within walking distance of dozens of decent quick restaurants and had plenty of time to spare. So, we got them each a pizza meal deal, and I got a bag of popcorn, and our total was damn near $75 with the ticket switch. No wonder people don't go to the movies much anymore.

But the movie itself: enjoyable! I liked it. I had a good time watching it. Nothing earth-shattering (although the earth did shatter many times in the film), but it was fun, and Nick Hoult was really good as Lex Luthor. He's really come a long way since I discovered him in About a Boy.

Alright, it's late. I gotta go. Until next time... 

Entry 769: Broader "Vacation"

Last week we went on vacation, but it was a smaller vacation within a broader "vacation." I use quotes because it wasn't a real vacation. It just felt like one. The kids were still at camp this past week (S is getting them now as I type this), so, we were on our own, free to go about our schedules -- work, gym, errands, etc. -- at our own accord, and, I must say, it was pretty awesome. I love my boys and have literally zero regrets about becoming a father -- I don't even have the occasional kid-free daydream -- but a week off from having to plan everything I want to do around the schedules of two other people who can't drive and can't be home alone for extended periods of time? Yeah, I'll take that without compunction.

Actually, Lil' S1 can be home by himself, but we typically try to avoid the all-day nothing-planned summer days for him. For one thing, if I'm working home then he's just around, and it's distracting for me, even though he's not doing anything that has to do with me directly.* Like, when he pours himself some cereal for breakfast, I can I hear the bowls and silverware clanging, and I can tell he spilled some on the floor and didn't clean it up, and then he chews so noisily, because he's 12, and it makes it hard to concentrate on whatever it is I need to concentrate on at the moment. For another thing, he's not a great home-all-day-with-nothing-to-do kid, in the sense that he will just stare at his screens for hours on end. If we prod him to do other things -- call a friend, walk to the store, read a book -- he usually will, but we often can't/don't want to be on him to do things. That's the whole deal of it. 

*S is sequestered in the basement, so she doesn't hear it. During the COVID lockdowns, I tried to work down there too, but she takes so many meetings that it's worse than being upstairs and possibly dealing with the kids. 

On Tuesday, we went out for dinner and drinks with a group of other parents whose kids were also at camp (really fun, by the way), and we were talking about a common subject among Gen-X parents: How different parenting was when we were growing up. Particularly, we were lamenting the fact that we have to spend so much time, money, and energy finding summer camps for our children -- not overnight camp, which is it's own special thing, but the need-something-to-occupy-our-kids day camps they do the rest of the summer. When we were kids, we'd often just be home during the summer, and we had to figure it out ourselves. We might have a few activities here and there (I took drama and swim lessons every summer), but these all-day summer camps weren't the norm like they are today.

It's part of a bigger trend of parents becoming more involved in their children's lives. It's not really acceptable to let your child run free in "the wild" like it was forty years ago. Our neighbor won't let his son, who's going into sixth grade, leave our street on his bike without adult supervision, and he's a responsible kid, and we live in a decent neighborhood. I do think parents on the whole are overprotective now, and society would be better served if we all loosened up a bit, but there definitely are confounding factors. The aforementioned screens is a big one. If running free in the wild actually means watching YouTube shorts on your iPad, while you play on your iPhone all day, then it's not exactly preferable to the overly-structured alternative. It was a blessing in disguise that video games and other screens (basically just TV) weren't that good yet when I was a kid. Playing a season of Baseball Stars on Nintendo for the 100th time or watching another rerun of The Brady Bunch got old fast. We had to go outside and find other kids and be social due to sheer lack of alternatives. But there is no such thing as a lack of alternatives anymore, in this regard, and it seems as if that isn't a great thing.

Speaking of old video games, Lil' S1 has a Nintendo 3DS, and it has Punch-Out!! on it, and I've been playing it again. It's somewhat remarkable that the first time I played it in, like, 30 years, I was able to get all the way to Soda Popinski without being beaten. I still remember most the hacks and still have the muscle memory to implement them. Since then, I've beaten Soda Popinski (and the second Bald Bull and Don Flamenco), and I just beat Mr. Sandman last night, after many attempts, which means Super Macho Man is the only thing that stands between me and Mike Tyson (or "Mr. Dream" as he's called on this version). I've made it a goal to beat the game again. And I was thinking: playing video games like this as a child might actually have been greatly beneficial to me. The reason I say this is that the method that I use to advance in Punch-Out!! is the same one I've used to get good at everything I'm good at: Keep doing it over and over and over, even though you will fail and fail and fail. Don't get frustrated, and chances are eventually you will succeed. It's easy in theory, but it can be hard in practice because it sucks to fail repeatedly, and it takes time, and there is always something else you could be doing with that time (which is why, somewhat contradictorily, I'm a huge fan of quitting -- learning when to bail on something so that you can take up something else that might suit you better is a super valuable, underrated life skill). Maybe, instead of just playing a pointless video game, I was training myself to train, and this would help me immensely when pursuing more "important" things like mathematics.

Wait, did I just make the case for letting my kids play video games all summer? Actually, the truth is, I don't mind so much when the boys just play video games -- like, if they are just doing that one thing, playing one video game on the PS5, I kinda take that as a win. It's all the other garbage they do on screens -- the constantly being plugged in to a stream of bullshit, unhealthy stimuli -- that bothers me.

Alright, I gotta go, S is not that far away with the kids, and it won't be a good look if I'm blogging when they get home, given that she got up early by herself to get them, and I did nothing. Although, to be fair, I do things that she doesn't do. For example, cleaning out a grub-infested compost bin. We had a neighborhood kid bring in our trash bins from the curb while we were on vacation, and I think he moved our compost bin as well, but it hadn't been emptied yet (it gets picked up a few days after trash). So, it sat in the hot sun on our porch for over two weeks and was absolutely putrid when I opened it the other day for the first time since we got back. Despite being sealed, little worms and creepy-crawlies got in somehow (life finds a way!), and laid eggs, and it was like a biology experiment on decomposition when I opened it up -- pure nastiness.

And of course it was just assumed that I would be the one to handle it. The worst part is that they had laid eggs or something in the notches of the lid, and they were stuck on and wouldn't come off even after being blasted with a hose. I had to use an old toothbrush to scrub them off, but even that didn't completely work, so I had to use my fingernail and basically scrape these eggs -- or whatever they were -- out of the notches one by one. It was not the most pleasant activity I've even partaken in. Does this put me even with S? Maybe not, but if you ask people would you rather spend the morning picking up your kids from camp or cleaning up crusted maggot eggs with your bare hands, I suspect many would say the former.

Until next time... 

Entry 768: Four Days In Paradise

It was a weird juxtaposition of a week -- so much terrible news coming out my home country, while I'm off vacationing in a tropical paradise. But I suppose it was only ever thus. There's never been a time in the history of people in which everything was all good, not by a long shot. That's how the human experience works. It's misery and ugliness and death laid right on top of joy and beauty and life. Navigating this conflict is kinda the whole game. It's a game you play as best as you can but never win, or maybe never lose. I guess it depends on your perspective.

S and I went to Turks & Caicos on Monday and returned last night. We had two traveling companions but not our usual ones. We went not with our kids but with our friends FB and SM. And unless I'm forgetting something, it was our first real vacation without children since we've had children. It was nice. It went exactly how you might image it went. We spent a lot of time at the beach, a lot of time at the pool, and a little bit of time doing other things. We ate some good food, had a few sugary cocktails,* and spent too much money. 

*Literally just a few. Our partying days are long gone and none of us are huge drinkers. 

We arrived latish on Monday evening and didn't have much time to do anything other than eat dinner at a restaurant at our resort. When we arrived they asked us if we had a reservation, and we said no, and they said that's okay, but you should make one in the future, and I thought that was strange because it wasn't close to being full, and there were open tables every time I walked by the entire week. In general, I was pleasantly surprised at how not crowded everything was. I've been to resorts before where it's next to impossible to get a decent seat by the pool or at the beach, and that sucks because not only do you not have a good seat, but you're resentful about it because you're usually paying a lot of money to not have a good seat. S asked somebody about it and was told that it was a down period. It was during the week (not the busier weekend), and it was near the 4th of July, which isn't a big international travel time for Americans (by far the most represented guest, if my ear for accents is accurate). We didn't plan it that way. We were just lucky it worked out for us.

The big event the next day was massages all around. Actually, S didn't get one because there was some sort of error, and they only had three booked, but she didn't really want one anyway (or, more accurately, she didn't really want to pay for one -- they were pricey), so it worked out okay. I love a good deep tissue massage. It's a once-every-three-to-five-years guilty pleasure of mine. Although, I don't know if "pleasure" is the correct word here. She was burrowing into my leg muscles in a way that I could barely handle. More than once I had to stifle a yowl. I left with my calves feeling like iron rods had been inserted next to the bones. It was definitely not relaxing. But I'll damned if I didn't wake up the next morning feeling as loose and ache-free as I've felt in years.

On Wednesday, we rented bikes and rode them into town. SM didn't join us because she can't ride a bike very well, and it's probably a good thing she didn't, as the road was bumpy and narrow and the bikes were shot to hell. S, FB, and I made it there and back safely, but it was much more adventurous than a leisurely ride a mile down the road, on a completely flat surface, should be. When we got back, S took a nap, and the rest of us drank the local lite beer at the pool bar. I don't think I've ever sat at a bar stool that is actually in a pool before. It was quite nice. Afterward we at dinner at a place called Hemingway's. It's unclear to me if that's just a name or if Hemingway used to come there or something like that. He did spend a lot of time in the Caribbean. I had the curry shrimp, and it was the best thing I ate while I was there.

The next day, we went on a kayaking excursion. A little motorboat towed us out to some small islands, and then a guide had us paddle around to see the local flora and fauna. It was pretty cool. We saw baby sharks, giant turtles, barracuda, and even an octopus. The latter, we were told, was especially rare. The guide said, he'd never seen one up-close -- it was just chilling in clear, shallow water right by the shore -- in his five years of doing tours. The only thing I didn't love about the excursion is that it was quite long (three hours), and it was hard for me to sit in the kayak for that long. Also, they were two-people kayaks, so S was my partner, and she's not exactly the world's strongest rower. When I needed to take a break for a few seconds we would lag behind the rest of the group. Still, it was fun, and I got a good workout in -- my shoulders were sore the next morning.

Speaking of the next morning, it was our last one on the islands. We had an evening flight, which put us in that awkward limbo of not having enough time to do anything substantial but having too much time to do nothing. We went to the pool for a bit in the morning, and then showered (and tried to dry our wet suits in the sun) just before checkout. Then, after much deliberation, we took a cab into town to a burger joint called Big Al's because we were told it had AC (which it did). We ate there (great burger -- second best thing I had during the trip), and then we went to the airport and flew back home. S and I got to see a bunch of random fireworks from the beltway as we drove back from the airport. It was a nice little impromptu way to celebrate the 4th, honestly. And as I always say: The best part of any trip, no matter how fun, is returning home.

A few other things.

• FB and I both work out regularly, and we were joking that the only people who check out middle-aged men at the beach are other middle-aged men to see how they stack up.
  
  
• I also was keeping tabs on the types of bikinis women were wearing -- not in a lascivious way, but in a more anthropological way. I noticed four basic types of bikini bottoms -- the "full-on Brazilian thong" where all you can see is butt-cheek (only saw one of those); the "flared thong", which is quite skimpy, but does cover a small portion of the booty; the "normal" bikini bottom that covers pretty much the entire butt; and the "hot-pants" bottom, for women who want full-ass coverage, but still want to wear a two-piece -- and it's interesting to see what type of woman wears what type of suit. I saw a lady wearing a very skimpy "flared thong" with her child, which I thought was a bit strange, but then she spoke a language other than English, and it made more sense. Most other western cultures are less prudish about nudity than Americans are.
  
  
• The resort had a complementary breakfast buffet, which was a huge plus. Sure, you just pay for it as part of the overall expense instead of individually, but psychologically it's nice to eat as much as you want "for free". Also, you can work it. You can eat a massive breakfast, and then basically ride that until dinner, so that you are only paying the exorbitant island prices for one meal. That's what I did. Every morning I'd get an omelet with the works and a side of potatoes, all topped with a huge scoop of salsa, and then I'd eat whatever sweet thing they had (waffles, pancakes, or French toast), followed by a mound of fruit. And lots of coffee, of course. One nitpick is that they didn't have iced coffee. That would have really hit the spot in the warm weather. Oh well, it wasn't too hot in the morning, and the breakfast area was in the shade.
  
  
• The drinking water situation was a ecological disaster at the resort. Basically, they just gave out an endless supply of bottled water, so that in order to stay properly hydrated you had to created a load of plastic trash. They should have set up drinking water stations and let people fill up their own water bottles or put out paper cups. They could even sell water bottles or reusable cups, and I'm sure people would buy them. It makes no sense to do it how they do it.
  
  
• As we were waiting in the lobby for our friends to checkout, we were chatting with a couple from San Francisco, and the woman was looking at her phone, and she said, "Oh my gosh, they had a giant flood in Texas, and a bunch of girls at a camp are missing!" That is a truly horrific story. It makes me especially uneasy given that my kids are at sleep-away for the next week, and it's supposed to rain where they are pretty much everyday. There are no flood warnings, but still...   

So as not to end on that grim note, I'll post some pics.

Until next time...