After the play, we walked through Times Square...
...and then we walked to Rockefeller Center to watch the skaters.
We caught the 8:10 PM bus back to Boston and arrived in Boston a little after midnight. We had a really great time on our little NY adventure.
Really fellows...we had ham for Thanksgiving! Really! (wink, wink!)
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! (...and a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!)
You'll never guess who did this one!
Okay...I guess he just confessed!
...and here's Anne's pumpkin...
...and Steve's pumpkin.
Rebecca wasn't able to be here this time, but she wasn't forgotten during the festivities!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!
One of Erik's gifts was a metal detector. Now all he needs is a pair of bermuda shorts and a bucket hat and he'd fit right in at any beach!
Then a couple of weeks after his actual birthday, Erik and a couple of friends celebrated by visiting the Davis Mega Maze in Sterling, MA. This enormous maze is made up almost entirely of a carved out corn field, with some wooden platforms added in for fun. It's an incredible engineering feat to put this thing together.
Erik and his friends wandered the maze for two hours, playing games inside for clues to where they needed to go. After those two hours, they came out smiling.
So for one last time...HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY ERIK!
After moving in to her new dorm on Thursday, September 2, Rebecca finally started classes on Wednesday, September 8. She was very ready for classes to begin by the time they actually did start. To celebrate the first day of school, Rebecca and a number of other Northeastern students attended the Red Sox game that night, where they got to see the Red Sox beat up on the Tampa Bay Rays by the score of 11-5, including 5 homers for the Red Sox.
We watched our trail map closely and managed to avoid getting lost on our way to the summit. The trails were also well marked.
Once at the top, Steve & Erik pointed out the way to Boston, which was visible in the distance.
Then, before departing the summit, we took a moment to call Rebecca and say "Hi!" She was with us the whole day though, because Steve was wearing his Northeastern Huskies hat.
If anyone would like to send Rebecca a little mail, here's her school address. (Make sure you address it exactly as you see here, as their mail service can be a little odd, so we're told.)
We arrived, parked in the designated area and were loaned this big yellow hopper. It really came in handy and we were able to get most of Rebecca's stuff into it, leaving only a little extra to carry. The four of us got it all in one trip!
After going through the time-consuming process of registering, signing in and all, we finally made our way to Rebecca's new dorm room.
The room isn't huge, but there's enough room for her and her new roommate (Marissa) to fit their things in and have some space. The chests of drawers under the beds are a nice touch. Each of them also has a desk and a closet.
Rebecca and Marissa also have their own sink in their room, but they share a bathroom (toilet and shower) with the two girls in the next room. The bathroom is between their two rooms, accessible from within their room. Four girls and one bathroom? We'll see how this goes! The sink in each room will certainly help.
In a fairly short time, Anne and Rebecca had everything unloaded and put away. Marissa showed up a little after us and she and her family also got her squared away very quickly.
After we got Rebecca all squared away in her room, we walked to the campus bookstore to pick up a couple of little things that Rebecca wanted/needed for the room. After that, we said our goodbyes and headed out into Boston rush hour traffic.
We found that the heat that New England has been having, along with watering bans and such, had left our lawn brown, but we found this critter and another one that looked just like him in the back yard, enjoying some of the vegetation in the woods.
Even though we celebrated Rebecca's birthday on the real day...yesterday...we had a cake for her once we returned home. For the record, she got all of the candles out at one time, even though they were pretty well spaced.
Anyway, we can't believe it, but we're home. In the end, Griswold 2010 saw us venture through at least parts of Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. Of those, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia were new to the family as a whole, so now the family has made it to 47 states. (We're missing Alaska, Hawaii and California.) It took us over 5,000 miles and about 18-1/2 days to add these seven new states, but we had a great time!
Here are three of us...each signaling the state they're in. Anne in Tennessee, Erik in Virginia and Rebecca in Kentucky. (That's a "K" Rebecca??)
Once we finished our hike, we went to an overlook where we were able to look out on a lot of the park, including the place we'd hiked. Then we went to the Visitor Center to see films on the park and on Daniel Boone. Once we were done with the films, we hit the road towards Roanoke, VA, where we're spending the night. On the way, we stopped at a convenience store, so that Rebecca could take advantage of her new age and purchase a lottery scratch ticket. She went to the counter and when she tried to purchase the ticket, she was carded. She finally got out to the car and scratched the ticket. (It wasn't a winner.)
We made our way to Roanoke, checked in to our hotel and then went out for a birthday dinner. After dinner, we picked up an ice cream cake and headed up a Roanoke hillside to the Roanoke Star, which we also visited two years ago when coming through this area.
In front of the star and overlooking Roanoke, we all had cake. Some young children even came over to us to give their own rendition of "Happy Birthday", which was incredibly precious!
Though it was a bit windy, we finally managed to get the candles lit and Rebecca blew them out.
It was a wonderful ending to another terrific day. We've been very lucky on this vacation with most things working out as planned and with the exception of some difficult heat in some places, even the weather mostly cooperated.
Steve got right down under them, but only a little damp from the mist.
Then we headed back to the parks namesake...Chimney Rock. Chimney Rock is a large stone formation that stands out from the hillside. It's a great view of the valley below from the top of the rock.
One of the things we could see well from the top of Chimney Rock was Lake Lure, which is where some of the movie Dirty Dancing was filmed.
These give you a better sense of what Chimney Rock looks like from further away.
From Chimey Rock, we drove up towards eastern Tennessee, specifically the Pigeon Forge area, where we visited Dollywood for a few hours in the afternoon. (If you get your tickets after 3:00 PM, they can also be used for the next day.)
So we enjoyed a few hours before heading into town to check into our hotel.
In the evening, we attended Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, which is a dinner show in an arena with a lot of horse related entertainment. The main thrust of the evening is the Civil War, so they have the audience seated in North and South sections. (We were in the north!) Steve and Anne actually got picked out of the audience to take part in a competition that was one of many pitting the North against the South. We were in a race on Hobby Horses and our team won, so we were awarded medals for our efforts. (We won't talk about Steve's victory lap in the middle of the arena after the race!)
