Great days on the bay

After our brief stop in Virginia, we continued our eastward journey into Maryland and in the direction of Chesapeake Bay, where our great friends, Simon, Natalie, Lily and Ben are now living (we essentially took the opportunity to invite ourselves to stay at their place for a few days - and it was so nice to not be living in a hotel room!).

With the promise of a bbq and some aquatic adventures on the bay we made good time and arrived at a special spot on the eastern shore of the bay, right near where Simon now works (and where Christy had spent some of her summers when she was an undergrad). We were treated to a beautiful early summer day too!

After splashing around on various inflatable vessels, we took to Simon's new pride and joy - a boat that he co-owns with his boss. All of the kids were keen to try out some 'tubing' which is a bit like tobogganing behind the boat, but on an inflatable disc. Some of the older kids tried it out first, so Eli, Ben, Lily and her friend Jazz were 'boat kids'.

I'm not sure who enjoyed the first few runs first - the girls on the tube, or the kids on the boat, or the most likely candidate, the man behind the wheel - Simon was loving it! Eli and Ben were the last of the kids to get a go tubing and they were super-keen by the time their go came around - unfortunately I don't have any pics of their turn (since I was on the tube too), but you can tell from these photos how excited Eli was to have a go. Thankfully none of us came off, despite the whipping we got when the driver cut the corner a bit too much, which resulted us being launched into the air... 

After enjoying hour after hour of waterplay, I finally managed to get Eli dry and fed. He upset some of the locals (not in a serious way thankfully) when he found a big pile of very stinky crab shells - which he preceded to move from the shore to the picnic table! - but to his credit, he did move them back again when I pointed out that not everyone was likely to share his enthusiasm for collecting dead and decaying animals. Mercifully he also abandoned his plans to bring these new collectibles home with us too! 

After a spot of lunch Eli and Ben started playing on the grass - I have no idea what sort of concoction they were working on in this photo, but I do like how focused they both were on the job at hand.

For desert Eli had a marshmallow squished in between two chocolate biscuits - thanks to Natalie for finding gluten free ones! - which is a bit like a traditional snack (called smores) that is popular in the US - Eli certainly liked the combination and didn't stop at just one.

The next day we drove to a nearby town called St Michaels and we visited a maritime museum and went on a boat ride on the bay - another beautiful day on the water and the Captain even let each of the kids take the wheel (for a little while!). We had a great time visiting our friends and we were truly spoilt by the weather and hospitality - thanks again to Simon, Natalie, Lily and Ben!

The Battle of Bull Run

After zooming our way through Kentucky and West Virginia, Eli and I finally arrived in Manassas, Virginia, where we caught up with Uncle Charlie and Tanya for dinner. They then drove us out to the Manassas National Battlefield, which is the site of two civil war battles, including the first major land battle in the American Civil War - known as the First Battle of Bull Run.

 Eli had a great time racing around, from canon to canon and pretending that the long blade of grass he carried around was some sort of ballistic weapon. Obviously the magnitude of what had happened at this spot (more than 100 years ago) was lost on him, but I also found it hard to imagine that almost 850 people died in that first battle and there were more than 4000 that were wounded or captured.

Good thing we were then in a more peaceful time - we were even treated to a spectacular sunset!

Going underground in West Virginia

After overnighting in the luxury of the Marriott Hotel in Charleston, West Virginia, we decided our next adventure would be a bit more earthy. Armed again with plenty of travel information, we made a stop at the 'Lost World Caverns'. Eli had never been into a cave system before, so he was pretty excited to grab his torch and start exploring.
















The cavern was pretty impressive, with lots of dripping stalagtites and stalagmites. It was fairly easy to navigate too, with elevated boardwalks etc, although we did see one group of adventurers on a caving tour which had them jump off the boardwalk and venture into the dark depths (apparently on a 4 hour caving excursion - maybe we'll work up to that one day...).

There is one spot on the cave trail where you can  look up to the surface - apparently this is how the cavern was found - the old farmer who used to own the property used to drop all of his garbage (including dead cows) down this hole and it wasn't until new owners arrived and lowered their kids down on a rope (not sure you could get away with that these days!) that the extent of the cavern was discovered.











 Here is Eli, at the end of our successful underground adventure!

Some critters of Kentucky

After spending a week in Louisville, it was time to get some mileage into our rental car, so we headed east towards West Virginia. Grandma Susan had done an amazing job compiling a large dossier of potential site-seeing opportunities for us to enjoy along the way, so we decided to stop at the Salato Wildlife Education Centre to check out some of the locals. This place was great, a bit like a zoo (but with just a coin donation box for entry!) with fish, turtles, snakes, salamanders indoors and lots of larger creatures in nice big enclosures outside.

As soon as we entered Eli got up close and personal with a taxidermied black bear - and he came back to it a couple more times because he said that the fur felt so nice.





I was a bit more excited about the prospect of seeing a live bear, but the one they had in the wildlife centre didn't give us much of a show, although Eli did get a kick out of the fact that the bear was lazily stretching his leg against the wall.




We both enjoyed seeing this little chipmunk - they must surely be the cutest of all rodents!


We also saw a sleeping skunk and didn't notice any smell at all, but neither of us were keen enough to experience the smell by waking this little fella.

Canada geese always know a good thing when they see one and there were hundreds of them around the the Wildlife Center ponds - and yes, I know that they are pretty much everywhere in North America, but they are beautiful, especially when they have goslings around.

We probably spent almost 2 hours at the Wildlife Centre and Eli even enjoyed some of the stranger educational elements - like sitting in this up-scaled quail egg - which was supposed to help you understand the plight of ground-dwelling birds I think! - but then we jumped back into the car and continued our eastward journey.

Conference in Kentucky!

Eli and I have recently returned from what is becoming a bi-annual tradition of a visit to the US for personal (visiting and holidaying) and professional (conferencing) reasons. As per usual, the conference I like to attend - Society for Freshwater Science (SFS) formerly known as the North American Benthological Society (NABS) - no prizes for guessing why they changed the name! - took us to a part of the US that we'd probably not otherwise go to. This year, we started our trip off with 3 flights across about 33 hours of travel to get to Louisville, Kentucky. We planned to arrive a few days before the conference, to acclimatise and have a good look around the place.

We were especially lucky to have Grandma Susan on board both for her child-minding and tour-planning skills and she'd really done her homework prior to our visit. Making the most of her groundwork, we set off for a fossil deposit on the west-side of the river...where we were able to search along the rocky river bank for marine fossils that are between 300-400 million years old. 

 

It was amazing - I've certainly never seen anything like it - and Eli had a lot of fun leading Grandma Susan and I all around the shoreline in search of fossil treasures... some of the sections of shoreline were completely littered with the fossilised remains of corals, shells and other creatures...

The weather in Louisville was hot and humid, so it was always nice to retreat back to the hotel in the middle of the day. Here's a photo I really love of Eli relaxing on the bed with his soft toy collection (which started with just one and grew as the trip went on).

We went for quite a few walks around the city and along the river - there was a really nice park that ran for miles and miles along the river not far from where we were staying - and we were amazed to see heaps of people swimming in a water fountain - especially since it had a sign saying "Do not swim - water contains unnaturally high levels of hydrogen!"

While I was busy at the conference, Eli and Grandma Susan had a lot of fun playing - they also ventured out to visit the Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum - this is the place where most of the baseball bats in the US are made. Eli was pretty happy with that visit and he came home with two small baseball bats as a memento. 

 

Following on from this baseball theme, the conference dinner was held at the Louisville Bats (a nice play on words) home ground. I knew Eli would be keen on coming along, so I sweet talked his entry and he came along with me. Here's Eli down on the field and at the batter's plate...

This photo shows Eli about to smash me into the outfield! He actually did really well and once he hit the ball (on the third pitch!) he decided that he'd just keep running (with no stops at bases and a little short cut around 3rd base!) until he got back home. Fortunately the fielders showed him enough mercy to not run him out, although now he thinks that he's hit a home run and he likes to tell people about it (without the details).

 

I enjoyed having a hit too and for those that care, there was a big gap through what would have been mid-off, so I smashed it through that area of the infield and scampered off. I eventually made it back around to the home base plate too, but not in one big arcing run like Eli!

After our hit of baseball, we then tried our hand at the cornhole or bean bag toss - a 'traditional' game played in this part of the world. The idea is to throw bean bags onto a slightly raised platform with a hole (the cornhole) towards the end. You get points for getting your bag either on the platform or, better still, in the hole. Wikipedia tells me that there is an ongoing debate as to whether or not the game was created in Kentucky - either way, it is simple and pretty good fun - and Eli was very good at it. 

We then had a bit of dinner - classic baseball food - hot dogs, burgers and popcorn - before finishing the evening off with some fielding back on the baseball field. At one stage the infield was completely occupied by Australians and New Zealanders, which I attributed to the fact that there were no baseball mits on offer...

All in all, we had a great time at what I think was one of the best conference dinners ever. We got home at about 11pm, which is a bit later than Eli's normal bedtime, but it was worth it.