… no, I’m not talking about when I was a kid… or any of my kids, for that matter… I mean it in the sense that I’ve been running a little behind. I haven’t posted anything in a while… I’ve been on vacation for the past couple of weeks… and I’m not sure if that gives me more time or less! Either way, I’ve been a little tardy… so let me catch you up on things… 
Anyway, these pics are one’s from Aug 23th… 34 swimmers and 64F degrees. Then we literally had to jump into the car right after LOST swimming and hit the road… even had to miss LOST Coffee! And where were we going?… to take Maisey to university! Maisey is in the Honors Program, taking Global Studies at Bryant University in Rhode Island… and is there on a swimming scholarship too!… and she was chomping at the bit to get there! But we decided to make it into a bit of a family road trip… and our first stop was in NYC! Maisey had only been there once on a recruiting trip with another school (where they kept her out until 3:00 am trying to get her to go there… but Bryant won out anyway!)… and Jill had never been to the Big Apple… so it was going to be fun!
However, before we put in the countless hours of shopping and traipsing the streets of Manhattan doing all the touristy stuff, we got to do something dad wanted to do… so I found a race for all 4 or us to go in! There was a 5k (Maisey & Jill) and 10k (Jo & I) in Brooklyn on Sunday morning. It was just a small local race with 250 people or so… nice feel to it though… kind of LOST Race-esque!… and it was just a simple out and back on a path along the Hudson overlooking Manhattan… pretty cool.
All three of the girls placed in the top 3 in their divisions and I put up a respectable (for me at least) 45 min 10k… not bad for 12 hours of driving the day before… and a 32k long run the day before that… I’ll take it. Regardless, it was fun. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to stop by for a swim with the CIBBOWS gang for a swim at Coney Island… we were off to… Canal Street (purses, of course!… although nothing in my style)… Ground Zero… Time Square… Central Park… you get the idea… a bunch of the fun stops in NYC!
Then it was on to Rhode Island… and until Maisey’s recruiting trip, I had never been there, but loved what little I did see on that trip… so did Maisey! But this time we decided to stop in Newport, RI first… and I’d have to say it is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever
been! It was established in 1639!… so a bit of history and gorgeous old cobble-stone streets and buildings… and it is a tucked away sailing community for the very wealthy. In fact, it used to be home to the wealthiest people in the US and has a street with all the mansions along it… you know how the Hampton’s is the big place for the uber-wealthy New Yorker’s to have their second home now… well back around the turn of the century Newport is where the Vanderbilts (literally) and the
like had their ocean-side homes. This was the home of the Great Gatsby and his friends in their day… and the movie was filmed here too! We have some pretty spectacular homes in south-east Oakville, worth millions… and I’d never seen anything like this neighborhood… my jaw was on the ground. Spectacular.
So naturally we shopped the girls around a bit (not for purses this time… for husbands), but without much luck there, we pressed on to Providence and Bryant University. An odd set of coincidences had Dylan driving from Baltimore to Boston for a job interview (which 
he just landed yesterday, btw!!!… one less on dad’s payroll!… cool thing is that Maisey and Dylan will only be about 45 minutes apart from Boston to Providence now too!), so he stopped in to check out Maisey’s new digs too! We spent a couple of days moving Maisey in and after a few tears… we were on the road again… this time to the mental hospital.
No, literally. And no, the trip hadn’t gotten to me, this was for Jill. Not to check her in (yet)… but her big thing lately is she is into all those two-bit TV docu-dramas about the paranormal and ghosts and such (although I do
like watching reruns of X-files with her!)… so remember I said everyone got something on this trip… I got the race, Maisey got University, Jo got shopping in NYC… and Jill… well, she wanted to see some spooky things on the way! What can I tell you. A deal is a deal. So she found a couple of places to go… and one was an abandoned mental hospital on the ocean in Connecticut that had been closed down for disturbing reasons… seemed like a nice place to stop! Then we went to Boston (and up to Salem the next day too… but we didn’t see any witches… although apparently there are about 1000 Wicca’s that live there… but that’s another story… interesting story about the witch hunt there though!) And after some fun in Quincy Market in Boston… and dinner at Cheers… we drove home. Woke up the next morning… and went to LOST Swimming! 28 LOSTie’s and 70F/21C… one of the best swims of the year, incidentally!
This was about the longest story ever about 2 episodes of LOST Swimming and everything in between… and why I was a little delinquent about posting them… but there you go! Cheers, Rob
