Fun in Connecticut

The empty nesting adventures continue...

Last week we traveled to Connecticut to see our kids and grandkids. Yeah! We arrived at midnight. Yuck!

On Friday we went to Carlisle Cranberry Bogs in Massachusetts.

Molly and Jakob were most interested in playing with the rocks -- collecting them and throwing them in the water.

We learned that there were pools of water on two sides of the cranberry bogs. The plants grow like normal, then when the cranberries are ready to harvest the farmers go across the fields with a machine that loosens the berries from the plants, then they flood the field with the water from the pools so the cranberries float. Then they gather the cranberries. This is called wet-harvesting. These berries are used for drinks.

Cranberries that are dry-harvested are sold whole.

It seemed that we raced the rain clouds all day. It was raining when we left Glastonbury and just overcast when we arrived at the bogs in Massachusetts. By the time we walked around the bogs it started raining again. We drove further north and arrived in Salem about lunch time. Danny had a hankering for some New England Clam Chowder. We went to lunch and had some yummy soup and sandwiches. By the time we were done it was pouring rain. Thank goodness Danny brought some umbrellas.

Salem in October is an interesting place -- with witches and all. What I found most interesting was the visitors center diorama showing that Salem was a major shipping port. It was also the 1600's home of some of our ancestors.

Saturday was the Marathon and Half-Marathon.

Jamie ran 13 miles in 2 hours 10 seconds.

Danny ran 26.2 miles in 3 hours 7 minutes and 8 seconds.

He took 30 minutes off his time from last year's marathon. If he had run this well last year he would have qualified for the 2012 Boston Marathon. The qualifying time last year was 3 hours 10 minutes.

But... this year the qualifying time is 3 hours 5 minutes.

Danny has a cool GPS watch that keeps track of his pace and position. It told him the he actually ran 1/4 further than he needed to because he didn't cut the corners.

He plans to run another marathon in March and hopefully qualify for the 2013 Boston Marathon.

Meanwhile we got to play with the kids. 

Sunday was church and bike riding and dog petting.

Monday we played with Molly while Jamie and Jakob went to preschool and Danny went to work. When they all got home, and after naps we went to Belltown Hill Orchards to pick our own fresh apples for apple pie and find some pumpkins for Halloween.

We were lucky enough to be there when Danny and Jamie had the missionaries over for dinner. It has been a long time since we have been able to have dinner with missionaries. It was pretty fun.