Saturday we went to Ohiopyle State Park (in Pennsylvania) and stopped by Fort Necessity.

For some reason I’d never been to Ohiopyle before, and I have no idea why.

I have memories of going to Fort Necessity in 2nd or 3rd grade; it was even smaller than I remembered, and my memory was of thinking, “this is it?”

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I don’t even know if that title makes sense, but do I care? Nope.

I didn’t mention it at the time, cuz he was on vacation, but I got to meet fellow UCFer Dave (and his lovely family) a couple weeks ago. They were stopping for the night in Pittsburgh, which is only a hop, skip, and a jump from Morgantown, so we met up for dinner, and then sat around talking while his offspring swam in the hotel pool.

I was very excited to meet another member of the UCF in person. Dave, you and your entire family are wonderful–I can’t wait to meet up again.

Last night I finished a book I enjoyed, but HOLY CARP the cover is HORRIFIC.

Interestingly, I searched online for images, and none of the images I found had the sheer horrificness of fake blood that was on my cover.

My guess is that someone fixed the cover, for later printings. Which makes the current cover bad, but not quite as OMFG YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING horrible.

So, here it is:

Seriously. Click through the Flickr to see larger OMG AWFUL.

Just to prove I didn’t photoshop that horrible blood in there, here is my co-worker Meredith, reacting to the cover.

If you click through to Flickr, you can view full size and still see the horrific blood drips there.

FWIW, I then loaned the book to Meredith to read, because it really is a good book.

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While in Boston, we visited the Arnold Arboretum. The day started rainy, but the skies eventually cleared.

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On the final leg of our trip, we stopped at Hickory Run State Park in Pennsylvania. It was amazing, and I’d love to go back.

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The whale watching was awesome. The aquarium was a bit of a disappointment. Newport Aquarium is still my favorite aquarium so far.

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The second part of our trip was Boston. We stayed with the kind and generous Tom who took us all over the area, and let me walk him into the ground. (We got 30k steps one day.) I particularly liked the USS Constitution.

The area was fascinating, but if we go back, it’ll be during the school year. When school is in session.

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It seems like years ago that we were on vacation, but it was just two weeks ago we returned. Here are some pictures, as an attempted return to normalcy.

We went to Niagara Falls. As a force of nature, the falls were impressive. And we quite enjoyed walking around Goat Island. I might like to see the falls in winter, but otherwise, I can’t say I have any burning desire to return.

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Ricky Martin the Metal Chicken traveled with us on our vacation.

No, really.

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We pass through Thomas, WV on our way to Blackwater Falls, and I always stop.

It’s a very depressed mains street, but they’re slowly rebuilding, and it’s interesting to see these changes over time.

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As previously mentioned, we spent Saturday at Blackwater Falls State Park.

While the toddlers were napping, we got out and took a hike, which was lovely. And we didn’t even go to the main falls this trip.

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“Jules! Give Lily a hug!”
Lily, “No one told me there was going to be hugging. I want no part of this!”
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