Boston

We took a trip out east for Liza's cousins wedding and decided to do a little visiting while we were there. We started the trip in Boston, Massechusetts.

We stayed in Cambridge at the Hotel Marlow
The hotel, while not in the Harvard part of town, sits right along the Charles and is walking distance from some nice parts of Boston. These images were from our walk back across the bridge to the hotel.

While in Town we had dinner at Kristie's new house with Kristie, her fiance Rob, our friend Samantha and her boyfriend. Rob grilled us a yummy dinner while Kristie gave us tours of her new home.

The next day, before heading north, we had lunch with another friend from college, Rick Johanson and his fiance Laura

Yannie's Building a Fishtank Stand

Finally catching up on some overdue blog posting. Here's what we've been up to since last summer. . .

Yannie started building a fishtank stand in July last year. I'll periodically be posting images as it progresses. Here are the initial stages of construction.

Since we live in a 1400 sq ft condo, we don't have much room for saws and such. The table saw fit on our front porch, but there was a lot of squeezing around tools and piles of wood.

Cyprus Swamps

The cyprus tree swamps of Southern Illinois were one of our favorite parts of our trip.

The swamps were incredibly still and quiet with not one mosquito. The trees have these fuzzy, soft looking needles.

Biking the Tunnel Trail

We did a day of mountain biking in southern illinois. The Tunnel trail runs about 75 miles, so we had Rick from Peddles and Paddles (www.peddlesandpaddlesinc.com) drive us about 34 miles or so from our car so that we could do a one way trip. The trail sits where an old train line once ran, so there are many trestle bridges and a long tunnel in the trail.









The tunnel was a nice cool break from the hot sun. The most amazing part of the tunnel was how deceiving the brightness in the tunnel is. As you can see, we were able to see the light on the far end of the tunnel. When we road into the tunnel, at about 1/4 of the way in it becomes impossible to see anything. There is a spec of light at the far end of the tunnel, but the light doesn't reach you , so it is difficult to keep balance in pitch black. We had to concentrate on the light ahead to make sure we were heading in the right direction While we knew about this before entering, it was hard to imagine until we were actually experiencing the darkness. It makes you wonder how many spiders were lurking around us.

Hiking in Southern Illinois

We did a little hiking in the area around the Cache river. There were some beautiful, green woods. The only downside were lots of ticks. Liza had 3 on her by the end of the day.


The area has some very rocky and hilly areas, a nice contrast from the flat lands of Chicago. That's Yannie in front of the cave.









There were dragon flies everywhere and we discovered that, in the swamps, there were absolutely no mosquitos. Apparently, any that would even get to hatch would be immediately eaten by dragon flies or birds. It was amazing to be in such a lush, swampy area without mosquitos!



This is one of the largest cyprus trees in the area. While it was not the "state champion" cyprus, it was pretty big.

Canoeing in the Cache River

While in southern Illinois, we explored the swamps of the area via canoe. Rick from Peddles and Paddles gave us a tour of the swamps and lots of history and stories of the area.










These were some of the unique swamp plants we found. The little white flowers were completely round with little white "petals" growing from them, giving them a fuzzy appearance.


Yannie paddling through the algae covered swamp. It looked like we were paddle through a grassy field.









The State Champion Cyprus Tree. These trees were close to 1000 years old!











This was the cyprus tree with 209 knees.

Metropolis, Illinois

For the fourth of July weekend, we drove down to the southern tip of Illinois. We stayed in the town of Metropolis, Illinois. It sits on the edge of the Ohio River, across the border from Paducah, Kansas. There's not a whole lot to see in Metropolis other than the Superman museum, but it's near a beautiful part of the country. This area has the most northern cyprus swamp in the country, miles of bike trails, hiking trails and wildlife.