May 2020

May Photos and Videos Link here.

by Rob

Like last month, we have been in our apartment in the Hudson Valley most days, with me making weekly trips to the house in Endwell to clean and take care of things between AirBnB guests. Alex is gratefully still allowed to do therapy weekdays from 8 am to 1 pm. We went to the house in Endwell as a family over Memorial Day weekend though for an extended vacation for all of us.

Spring weather and coronavirus lockdown has made going outdoors and to parks almost essential for sanity. Many parks are crowded on the weekends, with a lot of other people with the same idea. You'll see a lot of our visits to parks in the photos; fortunately there are a lot of parks in the Hudson Valley, and we are still discovering more that we haven't been to yet. Here are some places we've been in May:

Orange County Arboretum:  This has many well-maintained gardens (including a rock garden) and a fountain. This place is a regular, and on one of our visits in early May, everything seemed to be in bloom and we got some nice photos. 

Bear Mountain State Park: This is possibly the best state park we've visited in New York -- almost as nice as some National Parks. It has a nice paved trail around a large lake, and some other features like a historical site that you can hike to, a zoo, and a carrousel which are all unfortunately closed right now due to the pandemic. It's large and right next to Harriman State Park that we also visited a bit. Bear Mountain has a segment of the Appalachian Trail. I took Alex up about a mile on that trail just so I can now say that I've hiked the Appalachian Trail. 

Woodbury Park: Another park with a smooth paved trail around a lake, and also has a sandy beach area for swimming with a diving board in the middle of the lake. Unfortunately, it probably won't be open for swimming this summer. Also unfortunately, it is a private park for residents in that area so we probably shouldn't be there anyway.

Goosepond Mountain State Park: We went here a few times this month, and it took a couple tries to find a really nice boardwalk area around a pond. In one video, you'll see Alex running on that boardwalk at full speed. Anything like this that wears him down someplace where he is safe and can't cause any damage is a goldmine.

In other news, I may begin returning to the office one day a week in June, as per the Governor's ok for the Binghamton area. The Hudson Valley area has seen more coronavirus cases, so Becky may not be returning to work so soon. New York in general though has seen a decline for some time now, while cases seem to be on the rise in Utah and Arizona. Meanwhile protests in response to police brutality directed at African Americans  are sweeping the country producing some really terrible images of incidences where things got out of control. One unfortunate outcome of this was that an arsonist burned down a the playground at Recreation Park in Binghamton. It was a really nice park that we enjoyed regularly -- in fact, it was where Alex took his first steps not long after we moved to the area. This happened a couple hours after a peaceful protest in the park ended, and we'll probably never know who was to blame. In any case, as Christians and decent human beings, we are very supportive of equality and black voices being heard in this country.

On my birthday this month, we enjoyed some hiking and river walking on a hot day, and then tried a Mexican restaurant in town that wasn't too bad. Becky got me some sunglasses and a gourmet burger recipe book that will inspire me to try some new things on the grill.

Some things that Alex has been into lately include: throwing rocks in water (as usual), navigating YouTube to find the videos he likes, and clapping for himself and looking at us to make sure we clap too when he does something satisfying (like throwing rocks in water or finding a video he likes). He's also become more curious about his bowel movements, shall we say, and this has created some problems. He continues learning new things from therapy, and some of that is slowly seeping into his natural behavior.