You can see Hourseshoe falls in the distance

Downtown Oregon City

Blue Heron Paper Company in OR City

Mom at the Oregon City "interpretive" elevator

The railroad tressel over to Washington

Hanging with Mom

Mom and I went out today and just kinda did some exploring. We went up towards Vancouver and looked around Jantzen Beach. We found a scary little dead end road at the end of the penensula that had a cool view of a train tressel. It was the one that Jim took a picture of from the amtrak station in Vancouver. We spied some blackberry bushes, and we picked (and ate) until we got freaked out. There were signs of homeless people, and it was an isolated spot. So we left the car running and furiously picked. We then went down to Oregon City and walked the trail that overlooked the city.

Cheddar Ranch Planes

Only in first class... because we ARE special.

It is nice to fly first class... I'll admit it.

The Black River

Creepy

The Black River

I guess it is named as such because the water looks like oil. It is kinda gross.

Little known fact?

I am fascinated with restaurants that have planes stuck in the roof.

A great place to canoe

The Adirondacks

It was really pretty!

Tooling about town

I thought I'd head out to the Adirondacks today. I have never been up in the park. It was nice and sunny when I left at 7am, and it only poured for 5 or 10 minutes at a time once I got up there. It was a beautiful drive over to the park. I decided not to take the interstate, so I went the back way through all the little towns. Almost every town I went through was having some sort of summer festival, and most of the way along rte 20 there were garage sales. I must say... it was a good day for siteseeing, but a bad day for my stomach, my bladder, and my car's stomach. Food (of the vegetarian kind), bathrooms, and gas stations were few and far between. Actually, I had chips and a kitkat for lunch.

I did not know what to expect from the Adirondack Mountains. I guess I always compare everything to the Smoky Mountains, and really nothing compares. Between the tourist spectacle and the georgeous mountains, it is hard to measure up to the Smokies. Don't get me wrong... the Rockies and the Cascades out west are beautiful, but in a different way. I guess the Smokies will always just feel like home... like a comfortable pillow. The Adirondacks would be an awesome place to boat and kyak, but not much on surface tourism. The NY State Park system has the market on the views and cool hang out places along the lakes. at $7 a pop, it takes dedication to stop and look. Outside of the parks, the views are few and far between. And there is almost no where to pull off and just enjoy the area. I did alot of the stopping in the middle of the road to take pictures thing. Speaking of lakes... I can't even count how many lakes there were. After awhile they stopped naming them, and there was Eighth Lake, Sixth Lake, etc.

On the way back to Skaneateles, I came a different way, and I ran across Tug Hill. The guys at work snowmobile up there, and they always told me about the windmills up there. They said there was hundreds of them, and you could get right up to them. Well I stumbled across them. It was AWESOME!!! I snaked around off the main road, onto gravel, then dirt roads (yea for the SUV!) and found a batch of them. Apparently Tug Hill has close to 400 feet of snow a year. It is sort of an anomily, there is naturally lots of wind. There are several farms and dairys up there. The first time I stopped and got out, I was knocked back against the car. It was WINDY! I had a hard time getting my mind around what I was seeing. They were all over the ridge. Apparently they had been building more of the windmills since the guys had been up there in the winter... there were more than a couple of hundred. I counted 185 of them, and then lost count. I saw several dozen under construction. It was similar to cell tower construction. I spent alot of time up there just driving around on the dirt roads and gawking at them. Oh... and the view was pretty. Whatever.

I could see a storm over in the distance... the sky was really black down towards the south. I got on I-81 over next to Lake Ontario to head down to Syracuse. After I got on the highway I heard on the radio that a tornado had just come through Syracuse and was heading south - opposite of where I was. Whew... I dodged another one! I unfortunately did not miss some wicked rain. I was driving... errr... floating down interstate missing my sweet, safe, excellent rain driving car.

And I put 600+ miles on the car today.

The heat has been pretty intense here. And it is weird/scary to see the weather channel saying the humidity is 99%. I really like the 15% we have in Portland.

Paul and I had to change our plans to go to Chicago tomorrow to spend a few days at the office there. He said I could go by myself, but I was happy to bow out. I am READY to go home. I miss James, the dogs, and Mom and Dad.

Another cool house in Cazenovia

Burrows Memorial

This is right in town in Skaneateles.

I loved this sign

Not quite the JFG sign

Montezuma Wildlife Refuge

It was a gorgeous sunset.

Skaneateles Lake early in the morning

One of the houses overlooking the lake

Downtown Skaneateles

The Arbor House Inn

My room was the one in the top right corner.

The doors in the Arbor House

Stained Glass Window

The chapel had awesome windows!

Willard Memorial Chapel

This old church was in Auburn NY.

Seneca Falls

I went west of Skaneateles to Seneca Falls. It is a really cute town. It is home of Seneca Knitting Mills, and home of the national women's rights museum. Which I never could find. There was an amish store that the owner of the bed and breakfast told me about. It was awesome... kind of like an amish walmart. It was wild.

A no parking sign at a church

Why does starbux always take over old Taco Bells?

You can never say starbux did not do anything good for society... what else would we do with all those old taco bells?

Seneca Knitting Mills

Seneca Knitting Mills

The door to the church

Seneca Falls Church

This church was in the coolest location on the river.

Cayuga Lake

It was a beautifu afternoon on the lake.

The See-Saws at Cayuga Lake

It think it is funny that they use tires as "butt bumpers"!

corn mills!

Making more windmills

It is unreal to think how big these really are.

Tug Hill

It is kind of ironic to see a run down old farm among the new windmills.

Friday!

Yesterday was my last day of training class, and today I have a 3 hour exam on the material. It is in the company's best interests to show that they have trained their employees in the FDA regulations. It should not be bad. At least it makes for an early day!

It started raining last night. Well.... storming. I woke up this morning and it was still raining. I am going to Ithica to play with Lynn this afternoon, so I hope the rain stops. Either way, there is no doubt thaty Lynn and I will have tons of fun!

Bucky's Foot

Bucky took this photo, and I just love it! I stole it from his Flickr account.

Snowmobile Crossing

Somehow the snowmobile crossing signs seem funny to me in the summer.

Some of the rolling farmland

This is outside of Marcellus. It is so pretty here this time of year. It isn't flat, but when you get on the right hill you can see rolling hills forever.

My Rental Car

This time I got a Highlander. Whenever I get into Syracuse late at night Hertz gives me a free upgrade. Nice. I really like the Highlander. It actually handles well, and the V6 is nice and smooth.

Is it just Tuesday?

This week is slowly going by. I am drained after my training class. It is so hard to sit quietly and pay attention. There are 55 people in the class, and they are from all over the company. Several of them are from another company too. I am sitting on the back row with some of my friends. And of course I get into trouble. I do pretty well for most of the morning, but by afternoon I am drawing pictures and passing notes. They feed us breakfast, lunch, and snacks. So basically all I have to do is eat. I was being so good, but I have been eating a ton of sugar the past 2 days.

So you know I tell you guys things I'm sure you don't want to know. So here I go again.... I broke my bra. Don't ask me how. But I did, and that is one of those things that I hate searching for and buying. Ack.

Auburn Corn

The corn is high. Somehow the corn seems prettier when it is on rolling hills.

A tile from the fireplace

Look at the detail

The fireplace is Awesome!

Cool desk

There is some nice furniture

Home Sweet Home

It is nice to have a kitchen at my disposal. The innkeepers are really sweet too.

The house has some awesome details