Sweet Sunny South... 2010

Finally back home this week. Yesterday was a marathon of overdue contracts, unanswered emails, missing W9s, booking flights and other such glorious details. But I think most of it is sort of under control now. Sure was a crazy trip. Feels like ages ago when we left for Oregon. Things are good though. I've been reading more lately. A couple short books: Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach and Company by Samuel Beckett. Really liked them both. Weird though. Skimmed through Life List by Olivia Gentile and now I'm into a collection of works by John Keats which is terrific. Never read much poetry before. BTW after a slow few months I'm starting to really get excited about birding again. Sarah and I saw a few neat birds down south. Highlights were SWALLOW-TAILED KITE (seen briefly along the highway in SC), Wilson's Plover and Least Terns (Wrightsville Beach, NC), a female RED-COCKADED WOODPECKER, many Red-headed Woodpeckers and Bachman's Sparrows (Green Swamp, NC) and my first warblers of the season: Hooded, Prairie, Palm, Pine, Black-and-white and Northern Parula. Also heard both Whip-poor-will and Chuck-wills-widow. I'm thinking for the month of May I'm going to see how many species I can find just in New York State. There are a handful of lifers and a bunch of potential state birds that I'm missing just because I've never taken the time to look for them. But yeah... back to the trip. Lots of terrific friends, good tunes, dancing. Here are some pics...

Noah got a heart-shaped sticky note make over by Hannah Brooke at Hotel Hagen in Atlanta, GASarah, Bryan and ChelsieLeast TernWilson's PloverWe got to see some really neat courtship behavior with the terns. A male would get a little fish and make a huge racket until he got the attention of a female, then he'd give her the fish and fly off for another! We saw something similar with Arctic Terns on our honeymoon in Maine a couple years agoA dance party in Berea, KYA slug... yep, just a picture of a slug... so, yeah...Howard, Bryce and Nichole... thanks so much for everything you did for us over the weekend!

Adventures in Oregon

What a great week it's been! Last weekend GBT played for Cascade Contras which is this great camp put on by the people at The Eugene Folklore Society. Lots of friends, food, music and dancing. Before camp we played a house concert hosted by Bo and Diane. Wonderful folks; they took very good care of us while we were there.

The view from Sky Camp

Mom doing what she does best

George and Randy cranking out tunes

After camp Noah and I hung out with the Gustafson family for a couple days. Among the many awesome things we did was visit the now infamous salamander pond...

Sooooooo cool...

Our guides... Sage and Tara

Yesterday we decided (fairly spontaneously) to go and visit the coast. What an awesome day...

Whales!

Anemones!

Thanks so much to Pam, Scott (not pictured in case you were wondering), Sage and Tara for a totally amazing day!

Houston airport... 2:00 AM

Contra Prom 2010

Hi there people. Hope you had a great Easter weekend. Saturday night was the 2nd Seventh Annual Syracuse Contra Prom and man did we ever have a great time! Noah and I sat in with our friends Eric MacDonald and Brendan Carey-Block from Matching Orange. Everyone looked terrific and the hall was packed...

Megan and Andy (btw love the shirt man)Kailyn, Libby, Jon and NoahOur friend Zebulon (aka little Johnny Rothwell)
Today Sarah and I are just getting caught up on stuff. Noah and I leave for Oregon on Wednesday I think. I'm looking forward to heading out west again but I sure did enjoy being home for a couple weeks. Hey, personal milestone: I passed 10,000 songs on my iPod! Not sure what the magic song was but my recent favorite musical discovery has got to be Fleetwood Mac...