Thanksgiving Weekend

LOG

Saw my Dad and my sister this weekend , nice turkey dinner , nap and football ... Was sick most of the weekend but for the most part got by

Friday , we knew it was going to rain all day so we went to the casino. It was busier than I expected , I was looking forward to 5 or $10 min. blackjack tables with only a few people per ...no luck...packed with $25 min. Craps -- packed - Roulette - packed... played some machines and video poker which ate all the winnings from the Black Jack Video Dealer game. The black jack game is cool , 6 people sit down to a video screen that shows a smiling , busty , dealer who deals out cards on a digital screen in front of you .. you can then hit / stand / double etc ; Including surrender. Played $5 - $10 hands for an hour , came a head $50 ish ...fed it to the machines.
Sat- Real windy , pretty chilly , we changed hike plans to do a quick 2 mile walk at an old standby , laurel marsh in manchester ... found a geocache , and upon leaving we happened upon an open Chez Ben diner. This is a diner that serves french canadian staples such as meat or salmon pie, creton , and poutine , as well as solid breakfast fare. We thought it closed down due to the poor economy and the fact that there was a for sale sign and it was closed down.....for only three weeks as we came to find out...they went on vacation .....waitress said it was curious to her that business took so long to pick up upon their return ...well duhhhh!!!! It would`ve made some good business sense to put up a sign that they are on vacation from Day A to Day B.... Anyway , happy its open and enjoyed the creton and toast.
Hit the library and picked up like 20 books (lori gets a little nuts in there) and a few car audio lectures for me. DId some laying around and reading until:
We did birthday dinner with lori`s parents to celebrate both of the old peoples birthdays. Lori and her sisters chipped in and got their old man Rock Band II - the beatles for the WII.... He was psyched until he realized he was stuck assembling the bloody thing. We were supposed to go out with Fran and Charlie but they begged off , just as well coz I felt kinda crappy. It turned out that I was unable to sleep ALL NIGHT , possibly due to taking a late day Sudafed ....I ended up on the living room couch to avoid haunting Lori`s sleep with my coughing , sniffling , moaning , tossing and turning etc; I never slept more than an hour at a time. It was amazing that I was not too exhausted to start early Sunday AM with a hike.

Sunday ..went to granby to enders falls (the best falls in Ct IMHO) to retrieve the geocache that got denied due to its close proximity to another cache (which noone can find ,by the way) - saw some beautiful falls , deposited our travel bug into another cache and left for another 1 mile walk near old gate prison. There is a pond in the back ....we left the trail to stand near the water ...it looked peaceful ...thats when I noticed a head duck under the water and the ensuing circular wake was noticed by Lori , who missed the head.
5 breathless minutes later , a full head and behind of an otter in real shallow water near an earthen mound in the middle of the pond , Lori thought it was a beaver as the mound looked similar to an animal made structure but it was not. It was our first view of an otter. It was beautiful and brief.... he ducked below the waterline once again and disappeared , not to return to our sight.
Mostly uneventful weekend but we kept busy enough to avoid the depression that inflicts itself upon me when I don`t plan a good weekend. I need to work on this but the easy solution is to plan my weekends in advance.
We are headed back to NYC in a few weeks for a long weekend.

City Hopping

Spent the last two weekends in boston and nyc ... Visited Lori`s sister in Boston , hung out Friday and Sat night did some barhopping ...other than the 3mile drunken walk home it was a good time.
and on Sunday went to Salem... Next time we`ll go in September and do some of the halloween type stuff....we saw the house of gables ,kinda cool but expensive for a quick tour like that. a
last weekend went to NYC , stayed at the Grand Union Hotel Friday night , ate across the street at the Artisenal ...Fondue and Wine , and some more Wine.
SAt- Saw METALLICA at madison square garden.. A+ concert !!
Did some shopping on 5th ave...and then down St Marks just for the contrast...

went downtown and had a nice lunch in Little Italy on Sunday before heading home. We intended on hitting the tourist offices of Britain , Italy and France for our pending Europe trip but found out they are closed on the weekend ... DUH !!! Ya think I woulda looked up their hours. Oh well , gonna have to book a 3 day weekend in NYC to get that done... Whattya gonna do.