Looking Back at 2021

"The best thing about memories...is making them." -Author Unknown

In January we said good-bye to our home and our life in Port Lavaca and moved aboard Texas Pearl. It feels wonderful being free to come and go as we please with less responsibilities.

February was spent enjoying our Texas grand daughters. Most of our weather was wonderful...all but one week when south Texas experienced a true Arctic cold blast. We were lucky to be on our boat and self-sufficient as most of Texas lost electricity and water.

March was a repeat of February, but with better weather.

April was a wonderful month...we were on our way back to the boat and back to a normal life.

In May we reconnect with family and friends. Being in Ithaca is like coming home. We love all the things it has to offer.

June was filled with family visits, water activities and exploring. The weather in upstate NY in June is simply amazing.

July was an extension of June filled with more family outings, catching up with friends and enjoying beautiful days.

August was spent traveling...first to Vermont with family, then to New York City to visit my friend and a week in Pennsylvania to help take care of our grandwonders. Life is never boring while we are here.

September was our last family vacation...we stayed on the Hudson River in a wonderful house and enjoyed going to Legoland.

We were very busy in October. Storing our boat for the winter, keeping our grands while their parents took a much needed vacation and heading west to Colorado.

November was our transitional month. We spent a week in Colorado enjoying the sights before coming back to Texas and settling back on Texas Pearl. It was time to reconnect with our Texas family.

Rockport was a great place to be this December...plenty of sunshine and the temperatures mostly in the 70s. It would be hard to find a better place to spend the winter. We spent the month catching up with family and friends.

Merry Christmas

"Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance." ­–Epicurus

Merry Christmas and Happy New year. After selling our home in January and taking a trip to Pennsylvania to see Kyle and his family we spent a quiet winter in Rockport enjoying Eric and his family. We finally broke loose of our Covid isolation practices when we headed north for the season. We visited with cruising friends and spent time in Charleston. It felt wonderful to be with friends and eat at some of our favorite places again. Things may not be exactly the same, but it's getting there. 

The summer was full of fun, family, hiking, waterfalls and exploring new places and revisiting some of our favorite spots. We truly love being in Ithaca in the summer. What's not to love, there are four state parks in our county and three beautiful gorges. We took getaways with Kyle and his family each month we were in New York. Most were around the lake, but in August we spent a week in Vermont...Bryt's parents joined us and we had a great time. 

We stayed in the northeast until the end of October enjoying a bit of fall before we headed west to Manitou Springs, Colorado and then back to Texas for the beginning of fall in the south. As much as we enjoy Ithaca in the summer we love being in Rockport for the winter. It offers us all the things we look for when we cruise...nice weather, good restaurants, cute shops, a grocery store close by and plenty of activities to keep us busy, but the best part of being here...we’re close to our Texas family. 

We have no idea what the future holds for us, but we feel blessed with the life we are enjoying right now. I hope all our friends and family have a wonderful Christmas and an adventurous New Year.

A Summer of Waterfalls

“There's no better place to find yourself than sitting by a waterfall and listening to its music” ―Roland R Kemler

We spent a lot of time this summer exploring waterfalls. Ithaca and the surrounding Finger Lake region were carved out by glaciers that formed gorges millions of years ago...leaving over 150 waterfalls within 10 miles of Ithaca. The waterfalls are limitless in the Finger Lakes. After it rains they appear everywhere...you can spot them driving down the road or cruising on the lake. Not counting the ones that pop up after it rains, we explored 25 different waterfalls. Many had multiple falls so we actually saw more than 25.

Ithaca Falls is one of six falls on Fall Creek and is 150' tall.

Taughnnock Falls State Park has three waterfalls the tallest being 215' tall.

Cascadilla Gorge is located in the heart of downtown Ithaca. The half-mile trail winds its way through the gorge, passing 8 waterfalls as the gorge drops more than 300 feet.

Robert Treman State Park - The winding trail follows the gorge past 12 waterfalls, including the 115-foot Lucifer Falls.

Williams Brooks is one of a dozen or more waterfalls on the Black Diamond Bike Trail.

Buttermilk Falls State Park features 10 waterfalls, with Buttermilk Falls being the main attraction at 165'. 

Ludlowville Falls on Salmon Creek...it's a very peaceful place where you can even swim below the falls.

Small Ludlowville Falls is just downstream from the main falls.

Great Gully Falls is located about halfway up the east side of Cayuga Lake. A beautiful hike up the gully ends with a great place to swim.

Within two miles along the gorge trail in Watkins Glen State Park, the glen's stream descends 400 feet past 200-foot cliffs and 19 waterfalls.

Aunt Sarah's Falls

Shequega Falls

Deckertown Falls

Wolcott Falls

Enchanted Hollow Falls

Delphi Fall

Tinker's Falls

Fellows Falls

Pratt's Falls

Bucktail Falls

Three Falls Woods...there were a lot more than three falls along this trail.

Chittenango Falls

Weaverly Glen Falls

Pike's Falls in Vermont. We had a great time swimming here with our family.

Helen Hunt Falls in Colorado Springs, CO

x

Manitou Springs Wrap Up

“If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is.” – Angelina Jolie

We had a wonderful time exploring the Pikes Peak region of Colorado. The apartment we had in Manitou Springs was perfectly located to all the things we wanted to do. It's a very touristy town and we knew it would be, but I wouldn't have stayed anywhere else. Everything we needed and wanted to do was only a few miles away. I have a feeling I might think differently during the summer, but fall is a great time to visit.

We could walk to restaurants and shops, although we only ate in MS a few times. We found restaurants we liked better a few miles away in Old Colorado City. We ate lunch out every day and dinner in, it just seemed easier that way. We enjoyed sitting on our little balcony and relaxing in the evening. I'm sure we could have found another week's worth of activities to keep us busy, but fall has really arrived and feels much more like winter to us...so it was time to move south.

The streets of Manitou Springs.

We were in town for Halloween and they really celebrate here. This is just one of the decorated skeletons we saw.

Fountain Creek runs through town. It ran through the park that was across the street from our apartment.

Views from our apartment. It was wonderful at any time of day.

We had a nice dinner at the Cliff House our first night in Manitou Springs. The Cliff House at Pikes Peak was built in the 1873 and has been open to guests longer than Colorado has been a state. We both had the Rocky Mountain Trout and we shared a Grand Marnier Soufflé. It was an excellent meal. 

Old Colorado City offered more diversity shops and restaurants and was only three miles away.

We enjoyed quite a few great meals while in the Colorado Springs area. We had lunch at Monse's Pupuseria one day. It's a El Salvadorian restaurant specializing in pupusas. They were very good. 

Nov. 3 - Red Rock Canyon Open Space

“Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.” – Erol Ozan

Since it was our last day in Manitou Springs and the weather was so wonderful we decided to do a little more exploring and hiking after lunch. We spent the afternoon at Red Rock Canyon Open Space. 

This 1,474-acre city park is located between Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs. It consists of a series of parallel red rock ridges called hogbacks and eroded canyons, a continuation of the same sandstone rocks of the Fountain Formation that make up Garden of the Gods to the north. The most interesting destination in the park is the old Quarry. The quarry trail was actually the easiest to find and it sounded the most interesting...so that's where we decided to begin.

The quarry was established in the 1800s and it was interesting hiking through the remains. The rocks here are among the largest formations in the park, and the quarry work left behind enormous geometric cuts in the rock face. We started our hike on the east side of the quarry, passing a pond that has formed in the deepest part of the quarry. We then spotted the steep “miners’ staircase”, where we crossed the rock formation to the west side of the quarry and back to our car. The park was much prettier than I expected and I would definitely like to explore more of its trails.

I know the park would be beautiful in the summer, but I really like the tall dry grass and fall colors.

A glimpse of Pike's Peak.

A look at the pond from the east side of the quarry.

The park is extremely beautiful. 

The old miner staircase...we actually decide to take the longer way up.

Which was a switch back and a smaller set of stairs.

You can tell in these photos where the blocks were cut from the cliff.

Looking south from the trail we could see the larger formations in the Garden of the Gods. (they are the two formations in the center back)

Looking east across the pond to the trail we were just on.

Another look at part of the trail we were just on from the top of the rock formations.

Looking north to Pike's Peak. Iron Mountain is just below the peak...second lower peak from the left. You can even see the trails that circle the peak.

This area of the trail has a freestyle area for mountain biking.