Daley Ponderings

We bought a "new" minivan last year, and it had the lowest mileage, and highest cost of any car we've owned so far.  It is a 1997 Oldsmobile Silhouette, and it had 107,000 miles on it.  We did a lot of driving (I hit 135,000 today, after a year and a half).  Heather and I both... (More)

We cooked bacon and pancakes (I found a nifty plastic pint jug in Walmart or somewhere that you simply pour water into the jug, shake it up, and pour it on the griddle) for breakfast, and then packed up and planned to meet for lunch at Great Falls, 15 miles away. Heather went back to... (More)

As I looked at the maps for the third day, we were going to be biking near various battlefields and other tourist-type places to visit, and so in the interest of resting a little, I decided we should drive for a ways and then maybe bike in the afternoon. We drove from Williamsport... (More)

I've wanted to bike to DC for a while, but there never seemed like a good opportunity to do so.  Once we purchased the tandem bike, and started thinking about the possibility of biking all over the country, the Washington trip seemed like a good first step. The trip did get... (More)

As Heather mentioned , it did take us a while to get this post written, but I thought it would be good to have a record of it, so here goes... Each year for the last several years, Paul has organized a two day bike trip for the kids of BCF.  This year, we drove to Rockwood, PA... (More)

This is going to be woefully brief.  The bike trip was adventure after adventure, lots of fun, but lots of work.  Among the things you'd normally expect on a bike trip, it included four tire blowouts on the triple-tandem, a torrential downpour, a tent with no stakes, Jonathan riding... (More)

So, after thinking about it for a while, we decided to go ahead and purchase a new bike.  The reason it took some thinking is that it isn't a regular old bike with one seat, but has three seats, with room for three adults, or with the added child conversion kits, Noah and Jonathan can fit... (More)

I bought a Trail-gator for attaching Jonathan's bike to mine, and we went on a couple 10 mile rides last week to test it out, and to build up our strength, but I had been pretty tired after those rides, so I wasn't very optimistic that we would make it to Ohiopyle without calling Heather to... (More)

From Alex: Please forgive me, my fellow peddlers, for the confusion as the right of the 140+ crest. As the journey from Mckeesport to Ohiopyle is 70+ miles, of you traveled with us down and back, you are rightfully a member of the 140+ guild. I currently await the... (More)

So, as most of you know, in March I went on my first ever short-term mission trip to Hato Mayor in the Dominican Republic with college students from Penn State, University of Pittsburgh and a handful from other places. It is almost a month later, and I've been meaning to write down... (More)

Jonathan has been wanting our family to put on a Star Wars play ever since he started reading his Syar Wars book.  I keep telling him, "You write the script first, and then we can figure out more details."  So he finally decided to write the script, based on the movie Star... (More)

In continuing my tv watching and catching up on the news from the last year, I see that Verizon has been doing lots of ads about network speeds and comparing them to AT&T.  And I found out that AT&T rates lowest on consumer satisfaction surveys, etc.  My brother said he has... (More)

Heather remarked at dinner tonight (at the Olive Garden - thanks Wightmans, we've got 7 more dinners at this rate to celebrate our anniversary) that we are a rich family: we now own two cars and two houses.  I did realize that some people spend more on their cars than we spent on our... (More)

I woke up around 6am (with alarm) and got ready to go to Valda's to get my hair done.  I got myself some yummy muesli with yogurt and sat down in the living room to eat, only to see the clock and note that I needed to leave in only a few minutes.   I gulped a few more mouthfuls as I put my... (More)

I felt like going for a walk today, so Jonathan and I headed out, and I let Jonathan decide where we would go at each turn .  We talked some about compass directions, and where the sun was, and sometimes he had an idea which way home was (and then would immediately turn so as to avoid... (More)