Canton again

Well as usual, it's been a while since I posted anything up here. So, the most recent news I was going to post was our trip to Canton.

This was the first time the veggie mobile had gone this distance in one shot. I did some overestimation and took 5 cubes of oil (about 4.5 gallons each). So the rear end was sitting even lower than usual with all that weight back there, but it drove fine. Though I thought the exhaust was getting a little louder. I rather liked the sound of the turbo, but the exhaust did get a good bit loud when you were accelerating. It seemed to be pretty much completely open by around the time we hit Watertown on the way up. but I didn't notice any scraping sounds. Oh yeah, this is only a week or two after I replaced 2/3 of the exhaust with new parts that came with the car when I bought it. So I drove until a ways north of watertown when I had to stop to refill the veggie tank anyway. Sure enough the exhaust wasn't hanging on the ground, which was very nice. but it was also pretty much completely open after making a turn towards the ground coming out of the turbo. Oh well, we were loud, but we weren't ruining anything else in the process.
Oh yeah, had a nice lunch at the Cracker Barrel in Syracuse on the way up. I had Pecan pancakes for the first time. Pretty good, but I think blueberry are probably better...

So we got up to Cranberry Lake in the Adirondaks where we were staying because Sara told me there had to be a place to stay for around $40 a night after I told her the Best Western where the reception was listed at around $125, and most of the cheaper places were around $75. And of course pets are a big question with a lot of places. So I just went to switchboard and started calling every place within 50 miles of Canton, and came up with the Stone Hollow Motel in Cranberry Lake for $45. Well, it's not a bad place, but it's kind of like a lake cottage. Not exactly fancy by any means, and while not that bad, it had a few noticeable spots that weren't perfectly clean. (: Also, no phone in the room and basically no cell service. But it worked.

So we headed over to Christi and Dave's reception at the Best Western in Canton and it is definitely a ways from Cranberry lake. It took about 45 minutes. but we got there at around 5:30 which turned out to be about the right time as we were assigned a seat at a table with no one we knew, but that table was already filled, so we sat at the next one over which still had a few seats open and was with people from Canton that I knew. Any way, when we first walked in, I noticed a wedding party and glanced at a girl and said to myself "oh, there must be a couple weddings going on here" and went on in. Then Sara says to me "You just walked right past them and ignored them". I was like "huh? that wasn't them", walked back in and sure enough it was Christi and Dave. So we said Hi and headed on in. Got caught up with a few people from Canton and had a nice dinner and Christi and Dave looked quite happy. Although Dave certainly looks awfully serious in some of his wedding photos. (:

As expected, we were a bit uncomfortable. More my fault than anything else. Actually I've gotten rather used to it and am not as uncomfortable as I once was. I just realize that I'm not normal and I'm probably not going to have long chats with people in that situation. Neither one of us are social butterflies. And Sara is lucky if she remembered anyone that she might have met once or twice some 7-10 years ago. I at least knew a few people that I helped out more than a couple times while working in Canton. But it still takes me a bit before I become comfortable with people I have lost touch with. And neither one of us is that comfortable in situations with large numbers of people, let alone large numbers of people we don't know. And of course I only further frustrate Sara by being me and seeming "odd".

I also frustrated her by not taking her up to dance. Though I had somewhat prepared myself for it this time. I have never danced period, so it's a bit of a step for little ol' Levi who doesn't like to be in front of people, especially people he doesn't know. But, like I said, I was thinking I could do a slow song or two this time. Well, they started off by calling up all the married couples which automatically puts up the defenses because the thought is "ok, what's the crazy DJ got in his head that's going to embarrass us..." I was contemplating getting up, but then I got the impression that Sara was not planning on going up so we didn't. And after that there was only one or two other slow songs, and I didn't want to go as I thought we were going to miss Dave or Christi making the rounds.

Of course Dave made it over, but he probably didn't think I seemed very social as I didn't say much. Problem was that it's just so loud and sitting a bit away, it was taking me a few second to figure out what he was saying, I was basically just going "yeah" when he asked a question. Sorry Dave, nothing personal, I just suck at being social in general and worse yet when I'm having trouble understanding what's being said due to lots of background noise.

Christi got cornered before she made it to our table so we went to look at the slideshow and I was almost ready to leave without saying goodbye just because I get uncomfortable and scared in that environment. I'm not good with going up to someone to say goodbye in that situation. And then Christi was across the crowded room which made it even more difficult. Luckily she must have a sixth sense and noticed us floundering on the side and was nice enough to make her own way over to us, so we got to talk a little.

So, Christi or Dave if you're reading this: Congratulations! We had a good time, but yeah it's stressful, but it all rests on our shoulders, not yours! Give us a call and we'll do dinner sometime where we can get a chance to talk a bit more comfortably. Either when you're down here, or we'll come back up again. (: Hope you're having a great honeymoon!


Let's see... So, it's now about 9:00 I think Saturday night. Well Sara wanted some ice cream so we went down to the Dairy Queen. Then she wanted to go past our old house in Russell. Unfortunately I didn't bring maps for where I wasn't going, and it was dark. but she wanted to go so we went. I did at least look at the map I had, and it seemed like we should eventually cross one of the roads we had taken to get into Canton from Cranberry lake the first time. Well, I'm not sure how much had changed, or how much just looked different in the dark, but I remembered very little, and Sara swore that there were new intersections or lights or something was different. but we did eventually make it to the house through the fog. Couldn't really see much, but we were there. and then we eventually found our way back to our Motel. It was about 11:00 by now and I just went to bed. Well, I slept, but kept waking up about every hour. Sara apparently didn't even get to sleep until about 3:00 and was sleeping about as well as I was.

But we made it through the night and headed back down around 7:30am. had a nice breakfast of danish and muffins/doughnuts at the gas station. We were headed to Canaseraga to look at a house so we stopped at the Dutch Hollow Restuarant for lunch around Lima on routes 5 and 20. That was a good lunch. So we made it to the house. Driveway was WAY steep and I forgot I had the cubes of oil in the backend so I scraped even more than normal on the way in, and the driveway curved to boot. I thought the house was nice, but the land wasn't that great, and Sara made mention of the various problems inside the house, so it was a No the same as the rest. So we drove home. Man were we both tired. but we made it and then took a nap. Sara hadn't been feeling well since Saturday night, and started getting a fever Sunday night. That's been on and off since then. It seems the worst has passed, and we hope she'll be feeling herself again very soon!


Oh yeah, a Happy Birthday to Lou last week and a Happy Anniversary to her and Paul today! We're on our way over there this weekend to celebrate, and if the weather's nice we may well stop in to the Cuba garlic festival on the way. It's only the second and I hadn't heard of it, but it looks quite large and potentially fun!


I think that's about it for now, hope everyone is doing well!!
Levi (: