Visiting Meg and Steve

The drive from Fredericksburg to Lexington was short and easy. We hadn't stayed with Meg and Steve at their place in a long time because they had geritatric dogs and we had . . . Stela-the-pup! Now that Lenny, Guiness, and Bushmills are all fond memories, we skipped our Lazy Acres cabin and stayed in town with them. Nice!

We had a whole afternoon and evening to talk and laugh, remember their pups and compare their adventures to Stela's. Steve made a marvelous dinner of black bean cakes and grilled shrimp with a sauce from Susan Spicer's Bayonna recipe.

Labor Day was lazy and relaxing. We walked in the Lexington park, shopped at Cheese to You, and just enjoyed being together. Steve made another great dinner for us. We hated to leave.

The drive home was as good as it could be, but still took from 6:30 am to 6:15 pm. The end, until next time :)

Steve's black-bean cake and grilled shrimp dinner

Walking in the Lexington park 1

Walking in the Lexington park 2

In the kitchen with Steve

Meg harvesting basil for the pasta sauce

Selecting the best pasta

Stela watching the road

Visiting Pam and James

Stela remembered us. She was even glad to see us. The Smiths were so good to her. She didn't gain weight. She is calmer over all. She seems so happy. Harris may be a dog whisperer. We think she still misses him.

After picking her up, we stopped for lunch at Linda and Lenny's. It was good to have a couple of hours with them before heading out of star Lake for another year. With luck, the four of us (maybe Stela too) will get together in Florida when winter sets in in Star Lake and they head south.

It was only a few hours drive to Altmar, our destination for the night. Russ' paternal grandmother is buried in Altmar and we wanted to visit the cemetery. Finding it was not too difficult and now we know that we need to find someone to clean her gravestone and those of other family members before the lichens make them unreadable. It was good to be there.

We stayed at the Tailwater Inn, which was surprisingly upscale for such a small, rural town. Our impression is that the fishing in the Salmon River drives the economy of the region and creates more prosperity than we saw in most other areas. Salmon come upstream from Lake Ontario to spawn and there are also steelhead trout.

Friday we drove to Pam and James' in Fredericksburg, VA. We dreaded the drive, on the first day of Labor Day Weekend, but the traffic was no worse than usual and we arrived before 4:00.Saturday, we walked to the Farmers Market downtown and partied with their kids and grandkids in the afternoon. It was a nice wrap up to the first week of vacation when they were all in Star Lake with us.

After a lovely evening of sitting on the porch together and a wonderful brunch Sunday morning, we headed off to visit Meg and Steve in Lexington.

Walking in the Altmar cemetery

The church from which Russ' grandmother was buried

At the cemetery

Grandmother Frances Hall's gravestone needs some attention

At the Farmers Market

Pam and Tanya

Mackenzie and Anna enjoying the ice cream birthday cake for JJ's 30th!

The brunch James made on Sunday, complete with leftover pupusas

Hailey, Emily, and Stela

Russ and Stela watching the pupusa-making

Mackenzie's pupusa dough stuck to her fingers

Peg and Anna putting finishing touches on a pupusa

James and Ryan, who thought the blue-masa pupusa balls looked like rocks, are being supervised by Hailey and Emily

JJ, Emily, Tanya, Hailey, Peg, Pam, Amanda, and Caroline

Emily, Anna, Erik, Mackenzie, and James

Emily and Caroline looking over the tomatoes they just harvested

James, Tanya, Erik, Pam