Welcome to Cheshire

We’re here! Actually we’ve been here for a week, but it has been VERY busy.

I still have some photos from our cross-country trip to post, but I figured I would start with some observations about our home for the next four-ish months.

Chesire, Connecticut is a town of about 30,000 in southern Connecticut. It seems to be highly regarded among towns in the area, and has a reputation for good schools. In fact, it was recently named by Time Magazine as one of the top 50 places to live in the US. Some old friends of ours moved to Cheshire while we lived in Boston, and we visited them many times since (although much less frequently since moving to California).

It was tough trying to find a decent rental in Cheshire for less than a year, but after much hard work by Dan, we finally found one. We wanted to stay in Cheshire because a) our friends are here, b) it has good schools, c) it is close to Dan’s university, and d) elementary school goes through the 6^th grade. A couple of neighboring towns had good schools, but middle school started in 6^th grade. We felt it would be a cruel and unusual punishment for Charlie to start a new school AND middle school at the same time, not to mention the extra aggravation of having the kids at two different schools. So Cheshire it was.

What Dan managed to find was a 3-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a historic house in the middle of downtown Cheshire. We love historic houses, so welcomed the opportunity to live in one again. The bonus was that it was newly renovated inside. The house is called the George Keeler house, and was originally built in about 1875. Apparently it is a well-known house in the town. The story we heard is that the George Keeler house and another old house next to it were in disrepair and belonged to the same owners. The owners and the town came to an agreement where the other house would be torn down since it was unsalvageable, and the George Keeler house would be restored. The owners did a very nice job restoring our house – they must have gutted the entire inside of the house, and the outside is freshly painted with new landscaping. Here’s a photo of the kids and me in front of the house:

Having lived in a historic house before, we are fairly tolerant of old house quirks. For example, the floors are nowhere near level. We haven’t measured it yet, but we’re talking like a ½-inch per foot in some places! Oh well…

The other downside we’ve found is that the owners have started construction on a new building that is attached to the existing building (you can see it to the left in the photo). The hammering and other construction noises have been quite annoying, but the framing seems to be going quickly, and we’re hoping the noise will die down once they’ve finished with the shell of the new building.

Our friends did an amazing job of finding us a huge amount of furnishings for our apartment before we arrived, so when we showed up they had already moved in a queen bed, dining room table and chairs, desk and chair, lots of kitchen stuff including a COFFEE MAKER (very important) and COFFEE (ditto), and a ton of other stuff. They are the best!

Including a futon cushion without the frame:

The kids seem to be liking it just fine!

We have mostly finished furnishing the apartment after visiting several garage sales and an estate sale, three trips to IKEA, one trip to Target, two visits to Goodwill, two trips to Costco, and a visit to a mattress store. It is hard to resist the urge to buy more than the minimum needed for a functional living space, but I keep reminding myself that whatever we buy here we either have to get rid of or ship it cross-country. I have been restraining myself admirably, although for some reason Dan still won’t let me go to IKEA by myself. I wonder why…

Much of the first half of the week was spent getting the kids registered at the neighborhood school. It will probably be a post of its own someday, but suffice it to say that ever since I called the school about 3 months ago to find out about getting the kids registered, Murphy’s law has been highly in play. I tried to get as much done ahead of time as I could, but since we arrived we have made two trips to Urgent Care for school-related issues, made some frantic calls and emails to the kids’ former school, made two trips to the new school, and made many other phone calls and web searches trying to get everything done so they could start school this past Thursday. I lost quite a bit of sleep over it, but I am happy to say that they were able to start school on Thursday along with all the other kids, and even got to meet their teachers the day before. In keeping with the whole Murphy’s Law thing, Alice’s first name and middle name were switched when she was put into the school system, but we were able to clear it up with her teacher so at least the first day she didn’t have everything with the wrong name on it.

Charlie and Alice in front of their new school, Highland Elementary.

Checking out the playground equipment.

First day of school!

I am glad that their school had only two days of school this week – after all the issues getting them enrolled, and then the stress of the first couple days of school (their bus was 40 minutes late the first day! Murphy again...), I think we all are looking forward to the weekend.

Dan and I are slowly regaining our New England driving sensibilities. We are once again getting used to the lanes that suddenly appear and then just as suddenly disappear, roads that change name every few miles, no street grids, major potholes, etc. On the upside, gas is extraordinarily cheap by our standards - we paid $2.42/gal today.

The kids were, for the most part, real troupers while we dragged them around to all the shopping, although I admit at IKEA we did bribe them with the promise of ice cream. Sadly that did not prevent a classic Alice Meltdown^TM in the middle of the lighting area. So we still do not have a lamp for the dining room.

Alice has made a friend at school already (a girl in her class who is also new to the school) and Charlie has been able to play Minecraft and Terraria with his online friends and friends from back home, although the time difference makes things a bit tricky for being able to play at the same time as his friends in SLO. No word yet on whether he has found someone at school to talk about Minecraft with, although I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

We’ve visited the town library twice so far. It is about an 8-minute walk from our house, and is very nice. One of the things I have really missed about the area is their fantastic libraries. Cheshire is smaller than SLO but has a much better library. The teen area alone is about the size of the entire children’s room in SLO. I am definitely looking forward to taking advantage of the library while we’re here!

I’ve been going for runs on the nearby multi-use path that follows the route of an old canal. I’m told the path goes for miles and miles. The path is flat, straight, and shady, making it an ideal running route. I am still figuring out how to cope with the high humidity, which makes it feel like I am inhaling soup when I run. Develop gills maybe?

I think we’ve accomplished a lot in our first week. School, work, and the apartment have mostly fallen into place. More importantly, I think we have settled in enough that instead of feeling strange, most things feel almost normal. After three weeks on the road and a crazy busy first week here, almost normal feels pretty darn good.

An Anniversary

It is August 19^th, and the Jansens are on the move again. We left my Dad’s house in Chelsea, MI this morning after spending 2 days there visiting my family. We are currently in Hamilton, Ontario (Canada, eh?). It seems fitting that we should be traveling today, as this reminds me of another traveling day exactly 19 years ago.

 Just before heading out this morning

On August 19^th, 1996, Dan and I were finishing the process of leaving Evanston, Illinois and moving to Somerville, MA for Dan’s new tenure-track position at Tufts University. It was a Monday. The movers were supposed to have come to pick up our furniture and boxes the previous Friday, but did not show up, and phone calls to their office went unanswered. So unfortunately we spent the weekend living with boxes. 

Fortunately the movers showed up on Monday. It turned out that I stayed at the apartment to oversee the movers while Dan headed back to Northwestern University to officially turn in his PhD thesis. In the afternoon, we cleaned up the apartment (I loved that apartment in South Evanston. It had a brick wall, sun porch and a uniquely-textured living room ceiling which we named “The Funky Planet”) and tried to figure out what to do with the remaining items that did not fit into our 1986 Honda Accord. One item that did make it was the frozen top tier from our wedding cake of the year before. Our plan was to drive the 4 hours to my family’s house in Chelsea that night, a first-day distance which had originally seemed quite reasonable. 

But between one thing and another, we didn’t leave Evanston until that evening. We ended up getting into Chelsea at about 11:30 pm after an exhausting day. Just enough time before midnight to drag ourselves into the house and have some of the now nicely-defrosted wedding cake, for August 19th, 1996, was in fact our first wedding anniversary. If you’re counting, this also makes today our 20^th wedding anniversary.

I don’t remember most of our anniversaries. We tend to be pretty low-key with anniversaries and birthdays as a general rule. During the B.C. (Before Children) era, we would typically go out for a fancy dinner, although the only one I remember with any clarity is the Four Seasons in downtown Boston. But we will always remember our first wedding anniversary because of the uniqueness of that day.

So it is fitting that we will always remember our 20^th wedding anniversary because we are again traveling. In fact, right now we are traversing almost the same route that we took 19 years ago from Chicago to Boston. 

We have gone through a lot of changes in the past 20 years. Kids, pets, jobs, houses, cities, states. Currently we are in the midst of a quite challenging change, uprooting the family to spend the fall semester in Connecticut. 

Yet I am also reminded of the fact that throughout the past twenty years, Dan and I have successfully navigated all of the challenges and changes because we have done so together. And so, while I am uncertain about what lies ahead of us in Connecticut (I hope it is great things, but if you know me you know I am not very good with uncertainty!) I know it will be OK, because Dan and I will be facing it together. Happy 20^th Anniversary to us!

(Obligatory wedding photo)

Yellowstone

Unfortunately we got a late start out of Teton Village on the 11th, so by the time we got up to Yellowstone we only had  few hours to look around. We started out at Old Faithful, of course. Alice was more interested by the many small logs near the boardwalk, so halfway through our walk around Old Faithful, she and Dan ran back so she could have some building time.

Dan and Charlie walking towards a non-erupting Old Faithful

Alice and her log creation. She was not happy when we had to go.

I had this plan to take a bicycle ride to see the Grand Prismatic Spring, so we decided not to stay to see Old Faithful erupt. Next time I guess. So we drove to the Fairy Falls trailhead.

Charlie at the beginning of the trail.

The Grand Prismatic Spring! Third largest hot spring in the world.

We walked up the hillside for a bit for a better view. 

After grabbing a late dinner in the park (worst noodle bowl I have ever had, but that's another story), we followed my Aunt and Uncle’s car to the nearby Ranch where we would spend the next two nights. Or rather, the Ranch that we thought was nearby. Turns out it was not near the park entrance like we thought, but was over 25 miles outside the park. Plus, the directions we had were less than precise, so we spent a while driving in the dark, wondering where the ranch was and hoping we didn’t miss it. We were exhausted but very relieved when we finally found it at 10pm. It was at this point Alice had her epic Cow Skull Meltdown.

As previously described, we all felt better the next morning after a good sleep (helped by my Aunt’s thoughtful offer of use of her jacket to cover the cow skull) and headed back into Yellowstone.

About 30 miles into the park, we were stopped dead in a  traffic jam. Knowing that traffic jams are frequently caused by wildlife gawkers, I decided to leave the minivan (which was not going anywhere) and see what I could find. 

What I found was a bison standing in the road, blocking traffic. Obeying the park regulations to stay at least 100 ft away from bison, this is the best picture I could take:

 

Fortunately a few minutes later the bison finished its slow crossing of the road, and traffic started to flow again. I managed to get a picture out of the window of the nearby bison herd. By pure luck it turned out to be a quintessential Yellowstone bison photo, with steam vents (fumaroles) and everything:

A few miles later there was another slowdown, this time caused by a bison walking right next to the road. I got a good photo of that one too:

  It was only about 8 feet away!

So, Bison In Yellowstone: CHECK. Plus, it gave me a great opportunity to trot out my favorite sentence in the English language: Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo. Yep, it actually makes sense.

Our main stop for the day was the Norris Geyser Basin. It was so neat to walk around all of the geysers, hot springs and fumaroles.

View of the basin. The two large fumaroles on the right were so powerful that they emitted a continuous roaring sound.

The kids and I with the large fumaroles in the background.

Some of the hot springs smelled strongly of sulfur.

It was so hot that Charlie was breathing steam (photo by Dan, who is the good photographer of the family) 

And Alice had steam coming out of her ears! (photo also by Dan)

Later, we visited one of the iconic Yellowstone General Stores:

We passed on the $850 willow rockers, but they were sure comfy!

We managed to get back to the Ranch with plenty of daylight left and even in time for a yummy al fresco BBQ dinner and s’mores! Our Yellowstone adventure thus ended on a positive note. 

Animal tally for day two: LOTS of bison, some elk eating by the side of the road, trumpeter swans in Yellowstone river, and some antelope. The only animal we missed was a bear, which, frankly, I was OK not seeing (Dan: "I'd like to see a bear, as long as it's across the river")

After enduring some more bison slowdowns on our way out (we were totally jaded by then), we summarized our day this way:

Bison Blocking.

Elks Eating.

Swans Swimming.

Unless it's a bear,

We don't care.

 

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