This year, my parents took us up to Kutshers for Chol Hamoed Sukkos . While the food there is not Kosher year round, Kutshers brought in the Glatt Boys to provide kosher food for the week.
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On Sunday, Trish quickly discovered the ice rink. It
was a 50' x 100' studio rink. Trish brought her own skates, and
Mechel and I used rental skates. |
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Mechel had a great time skating - he's quite good! |
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That night, I did a little astronomy with my 90mm Meade ETX-90RA
telescope. I took this long exposure of one of the buildings at
Kutshers. |
| Monday started with breakfast in the Sukkah . Kutshers used lots of corn stalks for their Schach. The sukkah was about 100' x 50'. |
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After breakfast, Mechel and I went out to the playground. I
took some pictures while he played on the swings and see-saws.
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On the way back to the room, we spotted a Great Blue Heron by
the lake. He was pretty used to being around people, I guess, because
I was able to get within 50 feet of him to take these pictures. It's
times like these that having a 950mm (equivalent lens really helps.
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After the photo session, I went for a bike ride with Mechel in
the Burley, and Mom and Dad went for a hike. We both passed this
little farm along Old Liberty Turnpike. The route was quite hilly,
and Mechel is getting heavier every day! The route map and terrain
cross-section are below.
At waypoint #8, I started experiencing pretty severe muscle cramps,
and had to walk the bike up almost all the uphill sections. I ended
up missing lunch, but Trish saved some food for Mechel and I from lunch. |
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After lunch, we went for a brief paddle in one of the Kutshers row
boats. We brought our own life preservers, so it made life a little
more comfortable.
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After boating, I took Mechel swimming. Despite having muscle
cramps in the pool from the morning's ride (talk about scary), I was
able to play around with him. He had a great time in his floatation-filled
bathing suit.
Later that night, we went ice skating at night. It was my first time out on the ice, and I was glad to see that I still remembered the Waltz Jump* Trish taught me when we were at Lawrence. *My Waltz Jump may have been slightly smaller than Scott's. |
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On Tuesday we played miniature golf and shuffleboard.
The course was a little worn out, but it was fun nonetheless. Baila
was a great spectator, and Mechel is becoming quite a sportsman! We
also fit in a game of ping pong at some point.
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Tuesday night I took the mountain bike out on the Kutshers off-road
biking trail network. It wasn't as easy as I thought it was going
to be.
That night, I took our neighbor Yehuda (they happened to be there the same week we were at Kutshers) out to do some stargazing. We saw M45 , M31 , M27 , M57 , M13 , epsilon Lyra, the "double double" , and NGC 869 and 884, the "Double Cluster" in Perseus . |
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Wednesday we packed up and got ready to leave. We tried
to play Bocci, but Mechel kept taking the white ball, so I resorted to
juggling.
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Mechel and Zaidy at the Bocci court.
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Before we left, we played a couple games of Tennis. We also
found some LIttle Tykes play structures in one of the buildings, so
Mechel and Baila played around as our vacation came to a close.
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We had a great time at Kutshers! We were sad to see it end so quickly, and we're looking forward to next year!
Return to Ben and Tricia's Journeys and Adventures
