Long delayed illustrated post about Wednesday!

[kjpepper]

So of course the usual air of mystery and song and dance involved where no matter what or how we ask Bosslady will not tell us anything about the trip other than letting us know we had to be at the office at a certain time. This time it was 8:30... so after chasing down our garbage guys early Wednesday morning, sundart and I hopped on our bikes and headed down to the office. In the driveway we see:
That's our ride for the day. A stretch Ford Excursion. Really, it was a lot like Bosslady's truck, only more people sat in it and there was a bar.  And bagels. Matt liked it.
There is something really funny about tooling around Holyoke in the limo. The windows were polarized so we could cackle about all the stares we were getting and speculating on how disappointed the people would be if they knew it was a limo full of geeks... Anyway, we end up here. At this gorgeous carousel at Heritage State Park. Which was open early just for us to play in. Nothing like having a carousel pretty much all to yourself to make you feel like you're six. Whee. I got some souvenirs too. :) Anyway, just cause I'm a big nerd, I asked one of the operators to show me the guts of the ride. (hence the odd pics in the second to last row.) The carousel is powered by a huge belt, and then the calliope is this awesome wooden organ that plays off of paper spools. At this point rukasboy joined up with us, and he caught a ride with Bosslady and Deb before we rocked out to location #2. But first, some old train cars...
Nick's Hot Dogs. Oh boy, were these yummy. Relish and ketchup for me. It was here that Rebekah lost her hot dog virginity. I'm still boggled by how someone can grow up in New York City and never have a hot dog once. I mean, even with being a vegetarian, it's just one of those things, like NY pizza. But I digress...
Yet another exercise in "hmm, where's another completely cracked place to drive a limo?" How about a farm in the middle of ass-nowhere for corn maze and minigolf? (I think Matt got a pic of the limo in the cornfield - linky at bottom of post.) Anyway, wow, corn maze! I'd never done one of these before but I always wanted to. This one came with the challenge of finding words hanging off of ears of corn in the maze (amid funfacts and "RESTROOM" signs, which sundart is inspecting) and then finding them in a word search puzzle. sundart and I found the most words, but we were also in there the longest - so long that I got a very slight sunburn in my little tank top (I literally came out of the maze three shades darker than when I went in.) That would be my second one ever. We also got ribbed a bit for being in there so long - everyone else had moved on to either the mini-golf or the lounging about at the picnic tables in the shade.
And here is the minigolf. It was kinda charming how it wound up being the gal's game and then the Testosterone challenge, but then again for the first time in forever none of the guys brought S.O.s. So they really had to entertain each other. Endearing, really. :) We piled back into the limo after a bit, and bid adieu to rukasboy, who unfortunately had a doctor's appointment right then. :(
Here we are at our last stop. We went down to a marina in South Hadley (forgot the name) had drinks and appetizers at the restaurant, and then boarded the Lady Bea for a guided river cruise up the Connecticut River. Somehow between sundart and I we managed to neglect taking a pic of the boat itself, but ah well, aren't the ducks cute?
Pretty river scenery taken from the Lady Bea. The second row of pics are really cool - the first one is of a brook and there was this random heron hanging out at the mouth. Sunny really liked the rocks in the second and third pics. And as for that tree ... well, I doubt you can really see it, even if you do click the thumbnail, unfortunately. But there is an eight foot bald eagle nest up there. Jeez-its. Eight feet. That's room for Big Bird and then some. So yeah. That was our Summer event! Mucho thanks, as always, to Bosslady for the... adventures. Oh! and more pics at http://www.valinet.com/~schembar/summer04/ :)

Comments

[carolatina.livejournal.com]

Lovely pictures! I love the carousel, and you have yourself some cute coworkers! I saw the pictures of where you ate at the marina before I saw the line about where it was, and I said to myself, Hmmmm, that looks familiar...lo and behold, it's the marina (the name of which I can't remember either) in South Hadley! We went there frequently for drinks on Friday afternoons or farewell get-togethers and such when I was working at good ol' South Hadley High School. I've never been out on the boats, though we often saw the MHC crew team row by.

What a nice day planned by Bosslady! I wish I could have one of those...