Flashback Friday

The End of the Year and the Start of a Second Wave

Number of cases started to increase, slowly, but it was now apparent that we might face that second wave everyone talked about. Nothing really changed on the countryside though, we hardly interacted with anyone anyway. Although, around Thanksgiving and Christmas the local stores decreased their capacity to 50%. We met fall and I was reminded about those wonderful colors it produces. We had mixed feelings about the coming election, we were unsure how it would end. There are so many trump supporters out there and I am not sure what we would have done if he had won another term. I know people who seriously were looking into options for a move to Canadaland. But then, after much counting Biden and Harris did win. And we were extremely happy about that. Happy but worried since not everyone agreed that the election was fair. We celebrated thanksgiving alone at home, like many other people. Christmas and New Years were treated the same way.

October

I get to work around 7.30 in the morning and often spot the deer roaming around the buildings. We made more pizza, and more baking in general of course. We went hiking and climbed a fire tower. I still have to pinch myself every now and then to make sure this is our new reality. Maybe not too surprisingly that I would enjoy living so close to nature again. I watched beautiful sunrises and sunsets from the porch. We took million walks on the trails around the house and just enjoyed the fall that was progressing fast around us. We went hiking in the Catskills and did yet another visit to Wassaic Lantern Inn. I think we are bound to become regulars in the future.

November

    November came and I started working on the second instrument that has been idle for more than 2 years in our lab. More baking, more pizza, I guess you by now understand that I love to bake and W loves to cook. The election happened and Biden and Kamala won. The morning it was called we were preparing to go and bike the Harlem Valley Rail Trail, but I said lets wait a few minutes and see what they say because I heard rumors that the outcome had been called. Sure enough a few minutes later the official call came and we could ride the rail trail with smiles on our faces. Like so many other people did too. We biked by houses that were blasting music out loud, like Celebration. At Millerton there was a small celebration taking place, and back at Wassaic Lantern Inn we ordered Victory Punch. We went on more hikes, in the Taconic State Park and in the Catskills again. We also went to this cool old estate called Olana.

December

   December and the snow was non existent to start with. We went and got a Christmas tree early December, the earliest I have ever gotten one. This was also our very first Christmas tree together, we went to one of many Christmas tree farms around here and cut it down ourselves. We also had our first bonfire, just the two of us, with our early Christmas gift from W’s parents. I struggled with the instrument at work, and if there is one thing that I always do before I start taking something apart, it is to document it so I know how to put it back together again. I have so many photos of stuff I do in the lab. Middle of December and we finally got that mega snowstorm I have been waiting for since living in Fairbanks and Madison. We got so much snow, and the snow here is so heavy. We went skiing, more than once. As Christmas came the snow rained away and all of Hudson Valley and surrounding areas got flooded. We drove to Hudson and explored that area one day, and another day we finally got to the fire tower in the Catskills that we had tried to get to back in September, but got turned around from due to a mama black bear with her cubs. Overall December brought a lot of good food and a lot of baking. Before New Years came we had already said good bye to Christmas and even reorganized the living room. 2021 was going to be welcomed with a fresh new start!