Dinosaur Tracking

Last Monday Maura and I celebrated the remaining time we had together during the summer with a road trip. We headed west to Connecticut, leaving just late enough in the morning for traffic around Boston to clear. Our mission was to track a dinosaur. We knew we wouldn’t find the beast itself. It had been gone for 100 million years. It walked the sandy shores of a Connecticut lake in the early Jurassic and left its tracks set in stone to be seen by humans eons later.

Maura and I did not see the trackway preserved at Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill Connecticut, under a dome erected over the spot where it was found to protect the tracks from the weather. The exhibit was closed, as it is every Monday, a fact I had failed to note when I had visited the park’s web site the night before.

Maura was disappointed but we made the best of our trip. The park itself is open every day and we stopped for a while. We ate a picnic lunch while wishing we had brought bug spray to keep off the mosquitoes. After lunch we took a nature hike. We walked through a red maple swamp and up a traprock ridge. On our way back we spotted dragon flies and watched them for a time. When we returned to our car we saw a taste of what we had come to see. Next to the parking lot was a slap of rock with several clear dinosaur footprints in it.

We took the long way home across Connecticut. We expected we would find something interesting to see along the way. We passed a historic home or two and at least one museum, but all seemed to be closed on Mondays. We still managed to enjoy the day. It was nice to spend time together away from the TV and the computer. We walked and talked together and I taught Maura a bit about geology, one of my favorite subjects. We also beat the heat. During the only real heat wave we’ve had this summer in New England we spent the day in the air-conditioned car not the very warm house.

The Great Road Trip

This year our summer vacation was a visit to my family in Indiana. Because of moderate gas prices this summer we chose to drive. It made for a long and tiring journey in both directions but the vacation was everything I wanted it to be. We enjoyed the company of my parents and my sister Marcia and had a wonderfully fun and relaxing time. Our time in Indiana was divided between my parents’ home in Zionsville, just north of Indianapolis, and their vacation home on Lake Monroe, in the south central part of the state. When Jennifer and I had to head home we left Maura behind to spend an extra week with her grandparents.

We left at eleven o’clock on Saturday night, the end of my shift at Borders. Our plan was to drive overnight, avoiding traffic and as much as possible avoiding having to deal with a bored six-year-old. We figured that driving through the darkness would encourage Maura to sleep for a good part of the trip. The plan worked. Jennifer and I shared the driving, sleeping when we were not behind the wheel, and we all arrived safely in Zionsville tired but with our sanity intact.

Our stay in the Indianapolis area was very enjoyable. We went to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum were we saw the Tutankhamen and the Great Pharaohs of Egypt exhibition. I found it fascinating and could have spent all day in the exhibition but I think Maura enjoyed the time we spent in the permanent collections of the museum more. The Indianapolis Children’s Museum is a wonder and worth a visit for anyone visiting Indianapolis, with our without children.

The other highlight of our time in Zionsville was attending an Indianapolis Indians game. The Indians are Indianapolis’s AAA minor league baseball team. We got rained on and the home team didn’t win but it was still fun to sit in the stands and root for them. Victory Park, where the Indians play, is a great place to catch a game. The stadium is intimate and friendly, the ticket prices are reasonable and the level of play, though not up to major league standards, is still thoroughly professional.

On Thursday we took a side trip down to King's Island, an amusement park in Ohio, not far from Cincinnati. It was a fun trip, though a long day. Maura loves rides and at King’s Island she added roller coasters, which she had been avoiding, to her list of favorites. Maura often has to be coaxed onto rides, but once she’s on them the wilder they are the more fun she has. While we were at King’s Island we were able to see our friend Sean and his family. Sean moved to Ohio two years ago and we don’t often get to see him now. The chance to spend a few hours catching up with an old friend made a fun day even better.

On Friday we drove down to my parents’ house on Lake Monroe. A trip to the lake house is always a highlight of any visit to Indiana. The house is on a wooded hillside overlooking the quiet end of the lake. There are neighbors but they do little to disturb the tranquility of the place. There is nothing more relaxing than sitting on the large porch overlooking the lake watching the hummingbirds buzz around the feeders like feathered bees, then watching the fireflies rise into the treetops once the sun goes down.

The end of the trip was bittersweet. We said goodbye to Maura and my parents before getting in the car for our long drive home. She spent another week with her grandparents. Jennifer and I both missed Maura but it was nice to spend time alone together. The drive home was pleasant though long. We were lucky enough to witness a natural wonder as we made our way through western Pennsylvania. A rain shower in partial sunshine produced a perfect double rainbow to cheer us on our way.