Road Trip to Albany

Dear Blog.  On Monday, June 30, 2014, we got up early, jumped into the truck and drove over to Albany, New York to visit with Dave's brother, Laird, and his beautiful bride, Risa (also known as "Mrs. Scranton"). It took us about 90 minutes to get there.  We built up a powerful hunger, so Laird and Risa took us to their favorite little breakfast joint - Cafe Madison.

After breakfast, we returned to their house to gab and gossip.  After catching up on all things great and small, we retired to the dining room for a traditional game of Chuck Luck.  Here we are getting ready for a game. The object is to be the first to move all four of your marbles around the board from base to home.

Now, this sounds easy, but there are three other players who also want to be first to get their marbles around the board and take great pleasure in "bonking" your marbles and sending them back to base to start all over again.  Now you understand why each player has either beer or wine. You need something to deaden the pain of all that bonking.

Since the games can be very competitive, it is good to have high carb snacks at hand to keep you sharp.  Here is Risa's homemade guacamole.

After the first game, which Laird one, we decided we needed a little something stronger than just the guacamole, so Risa brought out the Five Fruit Pie from Grandma's Kitchen.

We were now ready for round two. The play was fast and furious, but the Philly Scrantons were no match for the Albany Scrantons.  Laird took game two.  Feeling the need to stretch our legs before dinner, we took off for the local party store.  We got to meet one of their neighbors happily munching clover from their front lawn.

We didn't get any photos of the actual shopping, but here is the booty we scored.  Laird and Risa were active participants and might be primarily responsible for some of the noisemak--I mean musical instruments -- and other celebration items we acquired.  What else we acquired is a secret!  We plan to bring all this with us to Toronto to help Little William celebrate the Fourth of July!

We finished our visit with a great dinner at New World Bistro Bar. Before we knew it, it was time to say pre-bye, goodbye and bye bye.  We can't wait to renew the Chuck Luck Challenge and our long, enjoyable chats when we see Laird and Mrs. Scranton again in September!