These Eager Feet love to travel, whether it’s a day trip to a new hiking trail or a month-long road trip (still the best trip I’ve ever taken). It’s always difficult to decide when to take on new adventures and when to return to comfortable ground. It’s like going to a restaurant — order the tried and true meal or branch out and order the special with the garnish you’ve never heard of?
Each year we weigh this, and we keep coming back to Sanibel Island. We’ve been coming here for years (since before Evie was born), and it’s hard to put into words why we keep coming back. It’s somewhat unique, or at least uncommon, in that most of the island is a natural preserve. Development is controlled; town by-laws prevent chain restaurants from opening, hotels from going above three stories, or buildings a certain distance from the beach. Speed limits are low across the island, and it’s quiet, to the point where some people (I won’t name names, but they’re our own flesh and blood and traveled with us just once) get bored here.
I come here, I drive across the massive bridge, and I immediately begin decompressing. Tradition holds that our first meal on the island is usually at a restaurant called the Island Cow. The Island Cow isn’t an amazing restaurant; it’s loud, crowded, disorganized, and has a massive menu that puts quantity a bit above quality. There’s always a wait, and I always get a drink from the bar and sit out back in the Adirondack chairs and slowly let the warm Florida air begin doing its magic.
This year we splurged and revisited a condo we’ve stayed in before. The views are incredible and you can’t help but be drawn to the windows whenever you’re trapped indoors, trying to spot the telltale splash of a pair of dolphins swimming by.
As well as having Jess’s parents along, we took Evie’s friend with us on this trip, so she would have someone to share the experience with. It’s always easier when they’re entertained and can share their unique childhood perspective with another friend instead of just adults. While the grown-ups shopped for kitchen supplies I accompanied them outside of Jerry’s grocery store to talk to the parrots. Again, these experiences are comfortable and routine to me, and even Evie is beginning to remember them from prior years, but her being able to share them with someone else made them feel new again, for all of us.
I apologize for a lack of pictures in this post; on a trip like this, when relaxation is king, especially when swimming and being by the water is such a big part of it, the phone just doesn’t come out that often, and I just experience the trip rather than photograph it. In the moment it’s the right call but I can’t help but wish I had more snapshots to help summon the memories (especially in the dark days of winter, or the hardest days of work).
On Tuesday, we made our way across the length of Sanibel to its sister island of Captiva. There, Jess, Evie, and Evie’s friend took to the skies on a parasailing adventure with the accurately named Yolo Adventures.
After their trip, we spent some time at a nearby beach, playing, swimming, and collecting shells. For lunch that day, we stopped at RC Otter’s Island Eats, a little casual place on Captiva. We sat outside at a table for six, listened to a guitar player singing Jimmy Buffet and Billy Joel songs, and I enjoyed a couple cans of one of my favorite beers, Jai Alai IPA (not distributed to Massachusetts, I’m afraid). My lunch was a simple blackened fish sandwich, and I honestly could have sat there, in the breeze with the salt drying on my skin, listening to that music and enjoying the moment, all afternoon. It was one of the high points of the trip.
Later in the week the ladies took a speedboat tour around the island (The Sanibel Thriller) while Jess’s father and I fished our way across Ding Darling. We fished a bit almost every day, but this was our day to have some dedicated time to fish. We saw some interesting fish, including a shark that cruised by where we were standing — very exciting. I didn’t pull in much but Steve did — the story of my (fishing) life.
We got some more fishing in on our last full day there, taking a boat out of Tarpon Bay Explorers to fish the inlets and shallow waters of the bay. We caught over 40 fish between the six of us, across a wide variety of species. Everybody had a great time.
And then … as quickly as it began, it was over. The next day we drove north to Tampa (stopping at a tourist trap mini-golf place to play 18 holes, feed the gators, and break up the routine) and then flew home.
It hasn’t even been a month yet and the memories are fading, work is front and center again, and the stress levels are back up. But I can still summon the taste of that ice cold Jai Alai with the breeze in my salt-water-hair, and I know that while my Eager Feet may crave adventure, there is some value in tried and true relaxation.
There’s something about the mountains of Vermont which speaks to me at a deep level. The winding roads, the gentle green slopes, the contrast between the lush mountains and the blue skies … it relaxes me almost immediately. Add to this the excellent local food and beer, and the fact that we can get there without touching the Mass Pike, I-495, or I-95, and you can begin to understand why I keep coming back.
To close out May of this year, we traveled with our friends Sean and Crystal and their daughter Olivia. We’ve traveled with them several times before, in both Vermont and the Berkshires. We have similar relaxed traveling styles when it comes to the outdoors and a love of great food, and our kids get along well too.
The resort itself is beautiful, spacious, and quiet (maybe too quiet for some — it’s certainly a vastly different feel than Smugglers’ Notch). In the photos above you can see the building we stayed in, as well as the views from the rear of the main building, looking out over a small pond and up at the hills. If you look closely you can see a fire pit with firewood stacked near it; we enjoyed some relaxing time around this fire but not nearly enough. There’s something about a fire pit and a good drink that erases weeks of stress per hour spent.
We drove on Saturday up to Windsor for a visit to The Harpoon Riverbend Taps and Beer Garden. The food was great, and the atmosphere a ton of fun. I highly recommend it if you’re in the area.
We enjoyed sampler flights and a good lunch, and then spent some time outside playing as families.
Unfortunately, we didn’t time things well and I missed out on the brewery tour. Next time!
The next day we went up the road a bit further to Quechee Gorge, also known as Vermont’s Grand Canyon. A hundred year old bridge here is 163 feet above the river below, and makes for jaw-dropping views in both directions. The bridge has crosswalks at both ends and wide sidewalks making for excellent, safe exploration (once you get over your fear of heights).
There’s a few hiking trails near here and we did a short hike up the river to the beautiful Dewey’s Pond. Along the way I couldn’t help photograph some of the cool tree bark.
At the end of the trail, we caught tadpoles in the pond and watched kayakers go by the river bend.
After exploring the trails, we stopped at the nearby gift shop and ice cream store.
The next morning, before the rains hit, we did a bit of exploring the property. Little memories sometimes make the most difference; we floated sticks under a small bridge over a nearby stream and watched them go over a little waterfall.
It wasn’t a very long trip, but three nights in the mountains does a world of good.
For the past two years, I’ve wanted to take a kayak or canoe along the Quinebaug River Trail between Lake Siog and the East Brimfield Reservoir. But whenever I’ve had the time, the river’s been too low, whether because of drought (last year) or just general late season low flow. But this spring has seen enough rain to keep all the nearby rivers fat and happy, which made for a great opportunity.
With a solid half-day available to me this past weekend, I got everything ready the night before, so I could roll out of bed and into the car first thing Saturday morning. We’d had a few hot days in a row but the temps had fallen overnight and it was in the upper 40s as I drove to Holland. I again cursed the low clearance and bad angles on my otherwise well-loved Mazda 3; many of the roads to parking areas for trailheads or fishing spots make me wish for something with a bit more room for error (we’ll see what my next car is). After I navigated the potholes and ruts and got to the parking area, I found a few cars and trucks already there at 7:10 AM.
I got to work unpacking the car and loading the boat with fishing equipment. I’m still getting used to my load-out. The kayak can handle a ton of cargo and so I tend to bring a ton of cargo … but sometimes it’s all a bit overwhelming. Either way, I was on the water by 7:30, after waiting a bit for some kids to finish getting their little flat-bottom boat off the ramp.
I paddled my way past a few other fishermen on the water, one of whom was fly-fishing from a rather small kayak. I was impressed with his balance and form; it’s hard enough to fly-fish standing on solid ground, but sitting in a shaky kayak is another story entirely. I was about to ask if he was having any luck when I watched him set his hook and begin fighting a small fish.
Once I cleared everybody I started periodically pausing to cast as I went. This area is very quiet with no major reads nearby. Near the Morse Road bridge I hooked into an aggressive pickerel, who shook the lure out of his mouth just as I was pulling its head out of the water. I love how pickerel attack and fight, but I’ve never been a fan of taking treble hooks out of their jaws. So having one toss the lure that close almost felt like a win, even if it was a bit disappointing.
I fished for a while on both sides of the bridge and didn’t hook into any more fish, so I kept heading downstream. I paused for a moment at the first rest area of the trail, just one mile in. I took off my heavy sweatshirt (the sun was starting to peek out and the paddling was keeping me warm) and considered changing out my terminal tackle, but decided to leave the simple spinner baits on I had been using. I probably should have taken the time to switch one of my rods to a rubber worm, but my scissors were buried somewhere in the milk crate and I was itching to keep moving. (Lesson learned; attach the scissors to the life jacket — or use a snap swivel).
I continued downriver as the course grew much more meandering. I passed rest stops 2 and 3 (fairly close together at 2.0 and 2.4 miles downstream) without stopping, simply pausing in the boat when I grew tired and letting the current drift me slowly downstream. The peace and quiet was amazing; every once in a while I could hear a distant car but never the constant hum of traffic I hear from on the Quaboag and East Brookfield rivers. The other thing I was blown away by was the smell … so early in the season that dead pond-scum smell hadn’t really started to develop yet. The river smelled fresh and alive, and periodically as the river went past a particularly flowery tree I’d be overwhelmed by totally different spring smells. This was exactly what I needed; a quiet, peaceful excursion away from civilization where I could really sink my senses into nature for a few hours.
Of course, as I paused and drifted, I came to the realization that the current was helping me quite a bit … which meant it was going to be fighting me quite a bit on the way back. I looked at the time, made some guesses, and figured if I wanted to be out of the water by noon I had to start focusing more on the paddle and less on the fishing.
I paused frequently to take pictures and occasionally cast my line, but at this point my focus was on keeping moving. I saw several beavers, many Canada geese, more red-winged blackbirds than I could count, and lots of turtles too. I heard a wild turkey calling, watched little fish dart away from my kayak into the reeds, and let the rising sun soak me with warmth.
A bit after 9:30, I approached the bridge tunnel that led to the East Brimfield Reservoir. I paddled under the bridge, fished nearby for a while without any luck, and enjoyed a banana in an attempt to inject some quick energy into my tired arms. Then, I turned around. It had taken me around two hours to get here with the current helping me, and I wanted to get back in about the same time, so I knew I had to push a bit.
The current was rough at first; whether it was just the depth of the water, the peculiarity of the wind, or just my own weak muscles, I felt a little doubt about how this morning was going to turn out. But I pressed on and things got a bit easier. I paused much less frequently, as every rest meant the kayak would start to get turned around by the current (not that the current was particularly strong, but it was certainly noticeable). Forward I paddled, until I made my way back to the third rest stop, where I dragged the kayak out of the water and took a breather, eating a protein bar and measuring my progress while throwing out a few half-hearted casts with the fishing rod. Ten minutes later, I was heading back upstream.
I started to encounter many more paddlers who had started the day later than I had. There were probably twenty different people on kayaks and canoes between the rest stop and the ramp, most in groups, laughing and enjoying the beautiful day. I waved and greeted them all, happily tired and feeling accomplished.
I made it back just before noon, and was back on the road, headed home and back to civilization. I’d definitely be up for taking this trip again, though if I was going to do it round trip I’d try and reserve a bit more time for it.
There’s something calming and almost meditative about solo paddling for a few hours, with nobody to talk to, nobody to listen to, and no routine except what you set as you measure how fast you feel you need to go. It appeals to me in the same way that hiking does, with the added benefit of being able to change up the activity with fishing. I’m already trying to figure out my next chance to get on the water.
I neglected to post in April, as per my goal at the start of the year, but I’ll write up April quickly now that we’re halfway through May…
We like to go camping (or, perhaps, “stay in a cabin”) for Mother’s Day each year, but this year we couldn’t, so we scheduled a trip around April vacation instead. We rented a cabin for two nights in KOA Mystic CT, which used to be called Highland Orchards RV Park. Jess and her family used to camp there when they went to nearby Misquamicut beach. Jess and I camped there when we had only been married a month. We celebrated my thirtieth birthday there, with friends and family and fun. It’s in a nice spot, easy to get to without a long drive, and near interesting destinations for short trips (spend a day in Mystic, spend a day at the beach, etc). There’s a great playground for Evie and a giant bounce pillow, and in season you have a nice pool tool.
As tends to happen to us, it rained for much of our time away (which made us glad we had a cabin and not a tent). We visited Mystic Aquarium our first day down, which is always fun, but due to it being school vacation there was quite a crowd which frustrated Evie. She likes having time to chill out and interact with the beluga whales but with the big crowd they weren’t really that interactive. Still, it was nice to see the various marine animals and the signs of early spring.
That night, we explored the tiny shops in the immediate area of the aquarium.
The next day, we visited Mystic and visited yet more shops, including the always delightful Bank Square Books. We had a delicious lunch at Mezza, a Lebanese restaurant in Mystic which used to be called The Pita Spot and which deserves all the praise it gets on Tripadvisor and Yelp. The food was incredible and the atmosphere unreal. We’re already planning our next trip there.
Our last night, even with it sprinkling a bit, I managed to get a campfire going. As usual, Evie got bored of the campfire after a half hour or so, and eventually even Jess wandered away, leaving me with a peaceful pause before getting back to reality the next day. And that, of course, is why we travel.
At the start of this year, I said I wanted to write more about general experiences with less focus on just the outdoors. In early March, I went on my annual retreat into gaming culture, and I wanted to share some of it here. It’s not fishing or hiking in the mountain air, but it’s something that gives me a break from “real life” and fuels me in much the same way.
I won’t spend time with background about Penny Arcade and PAX; you can easily google it if you’re curious. PAX is a unique convention in that it celebrates all aspects of gaming: board, dice, cards, role-playing, console, retro, PC — everything. It’s loaded with chances to play games, a massive expo hall with every game-related thing you can imagine, panels which discuss game topics, game-themed concerts, and more. PAX East is their east coast convention and I’ve gone to every one since 2011. It’s a chance to reconnect with old friends, try out new games, and generally feel embedded in a culture which was once a major part of my life but which is now more of a footnote. While many people go there to play new titles before they come out, or to listen to famous speakers, my focus is more simple: I want to play board games with my friends, something that used to be a weekly thing, that turned into a monthly thing, that turned into a very rare thing. Life has a way of doing that to you.
This year, as is tradition, I made the trip to Boston mid-day Thursday, the day before PAX began. My friend Clint joined me later in the day, and we grabbed a mediocre dinner at the Whiskey Priest and caught up. Usually, we have a few drinks and play a few games the night before. This year, we stayed at the excellent Seaport Hotel, which had a desk which wasn’t anchored to the floor or wall, and which doubled as a fine gaming table. So, we were able to set up a game of Mage Knight: The Board Game, a massive game which we’ve only played a few times due to its huge time and space investment. Over the course of probably 8 hours that weekend, though, we managed to complete a game.
In the Mage Knight board game, players explore the countryside, revealing a semi-random map as they go. They defeat monsters, take over fortified keeps, hire companions, and learn new abilities which are acquired as cards. These go into the decks from which players’ hands are drawn. Playing the cards in your hand represents a single turn, and a game “day” ends when a player’s deck has been cycled.
We play a co-operative variant where the objective is to explore far enough to reveal three powerful cities and conquer (liberate?) them before three full day/night cycles are played. It requires aggressive exploration so you don’t run out of time. But that leads to injuries (in the form of “dead” cards which accumulate in your deck) and passing up opportunities to increase in power. It’s a tough balance, racing against the clock, and we’d never “won” the game before. We managed it this time, and I’m not sure if the bottle of Irish Whiskey we consumed over the course of the game was a help or a hindrance.
I’ll play Mage Knight every chance I get, but it’s gigantic, complex, and requires a time investment that scales with player count. But it’s well suited to a two-player cooperative game. Since it takes a good chunk of a day to play, times like this are when I get a shot at it. Prior to this PAX, I hadn’t seen the game in two years.
Friday morning, we followed our usual plan of skipping as much of the lines outside the convention as possible. Life is short, and we’d rather play games at the hotel and arrive late than arrive early and stand around in the cold. We immediately made our way to the “tabletop freeplay” area, where we snagged a table and met up with a handful of friends.
While others settled in, Clint and I played a few rounds of 7 Wonders Duel, a two-player game based on the successful 7 Wonders franchise of board games. 7 Wonders is a ton of fun with between three and seven players, but plays awkwardly with only two. Duel captures much of the same fun mechanics of 7 Wonders but was designed from the ground up with a duel in mind. This was my first time playing it and I’ll be looking for excuses to play again; it’s fun, quick, and tightly focused. Choices are important, and randomness is limited to the initial card layout.
While our friends played Space Trucker (a stupidly fun game where you build a spaceship out of tiles in a real-time frenzy of tile-grabbing, then “race” through random events which will likely cause your spaceship to be destroyed due to your poor design choices) we also tried out Hero Realms, a thinly-veiled fantasy reskin of Star Realms. It’s a fairly simple deck-building game with a shared market mechanic. It plays quickly but seems to have a high “swing” factor, i.e. games can quickly get out of hand with one player shifting the advantage quickly and earning a decisive victory in only a couple turns. I like Hero Realms, and Star Realms as well, but I don’t usually seek them out. Still, they’re a great way to introduce players to deckbuilding games with some fun flavor atop them.
After that … time for lunch! We abandoned the overpriced long lines for convention center food in favor of the overpriced long lines for food truck food. The staff in this truck were listening to chiptunes covers and dancing while they served us — they definitely knew their audience.
After lunch, we played some games from the lending library. The lending library is one of my big reasons for coming to PAX — hundreds of games available to borrow, play, and return for free. They list them all online so you can plan a little ahead of time. I had a list of a dozen games I wanted to try and borrow — we didn’t get to all of them, but the initial research meant the ones we did play were great games.
The first one we borrowed was my favorite of the convention, Istanbul. A “board” of 16 cards is laid out, with unique actions available at each card. Players move their merchant (and his assistants) around this board, trading for goods and trying to earn rubies. It looks very complex, but the play is simple and fast-paced, and your options are limited so your turns can’t drag on. The moving mechanic is innovative — you leave a trail of assistants behind you as you go, conducting business in your name. To take an action in a space, you either have to leave an assistant or pick one up. So you have to plan out how to move around such that you are not wasting movements, but constantly dropping off and picking up assistants to get your work done. It played great with either four or five players, and I hope to play it again sometime.
But we weren’t done gaming yet! The next game we borrowed was Clank!, a lightweight deckbuilding dungeon exploring game. Navigate the dungeon, steal treasures, buy ability cards for your deck, and avoid making too much noise — because if you wake the dragon, you might not make it out alive. I loved the mood of this game and it captured several mechanics I really like in a single game. Unfortunately, we made a critical mistake in the rules that made it much too easy, and destroyed the inherent tension in the dragon attack mechanic. As such I can’t give it a really good review. I hope to play it again and correct my rules understanding.
It was getting late by this time, but we found time to play one more game, which my friend Chris had brought to the convention. Lords of Scotland is a card game that feels very card-gamey, for lack of a better description. You pick up cards (that might be either face-up for face-down), play cards (again, either face-up or -down) to attempt to have the strongest play at the end of each round. You win rounds, accumulate points, and a winner is decided after several rounds. You can decide not to try and win a round but instead to play the lowest card and earn some bonus, you get bonuses for matching cards, and so on. It was fun and not overly complex and had a similar feel to playing a few hands of canasta or rummy, but with a cool Braveheart skin.
I won’t bother with play-by-plays of the entire weekend. That was Friday, and Saturday and Sunday followed with similar schedules. We met with other friends (some only able to come for one or two days of the convention) and played plenty of games. Some of the others:
Orleans is a fantastic “bag building” game where you acquire follower tokens which get placed in a bag, and drawn out randomly to determine what you can do each round. It’s big and visually impressive but isn’t that complex to play. It makes me happy in the same way solving a puzzle makes me happy. Just something about figuring out what you can afford to buy each round with your followers “works” for me. I own the deluxe edition with beautiful wooden pieces and I’m always pleased to see it in play.
Imhoptep is a game where players compete to score the most points building structures in ancient Egypt. It’s a game where you can really mess with other players and a strong mix of planning, risk assessment, and knowing when to attack and when to defend are important.
Citadels is a card game where each round you have a different role, chosen in a drafting fashion. You attempt to build up a city by playing cards, but the game play is different every round because the thief might steal all your gold, the assassin make you skip your turn, or the magician might steal your hand. There’s a lot of bluffing and social deduction but it feels more game-like than strict bluffing games like Resistance or Coup. The copy we played (from the library) was well-worn and obviously well-loved, and for good reason.
Kingdom Builder is deceptively simple area-control / route-building game where each round you play 3 tokens according to very strict rules, and accumulate abilities that let you bend those rules in interesting ways. Your choices become important early on, and the strategy gets deep very quickly. It blew us all away, about halfway through the game. “Oh, this is why everyone loves this game!” I wanted to play it again almost immediately, but we didn’t get a chance to.
Sushi Go is a fun, lightweight set-collection/drafting game where you pass around the same hands of cards and try to accumulate the most points in 3 rounds of play. It’s simple and doesn’t hide much depth, which makes it perfect for introducing drafting mechanics to new players. I picked it up recently and everybody I’ve played it with has enjoyed it.
Codenames is always fun; it was a big hit at last year’s con and I brought it again this year. In Codenames, you split into teams and one clue-giver tries to get the guessers to identify which words on the table are indicated by the clues that are given. You try to give a clue that matches multiple words — so you might give “green” for Mint, Bank, and Leprechaun. But you have to be careful — maybe they’ll also guess “House” which is the other team’s word…. It’s easy to teach and encourages creative thought. You always want to play one more round….
… And that was three days of gaming goodness! Mix in some walking around the expo hall looking at some new independent games coming out, eating questionable con food and drinking $3.50 sodas, and having a ton of fun catching up with old friends, and you’ve got my “Christmas” weekend. I begin looking forward to next year’s on the ride back home from Boston.
