Topsy turvy traffic lights

Another thing we did while in Syracuse this time was to visit one of the city's older landmarks, in the Irish section of the city, Tipperary Hill. There you will find various taverns and such, but the most interesting thing over here is the upside down traffic light. It has been there at least as far back as 1921, and is supposedly the only one in the country. This light is special because the red is on the bottom and green on top, opposite of what we all see everywhere. When the city tried replacing it with a "normal" one, city residents threw rocks and whatever they could to destroy the light until they put the special one back. Clearly it is a source of pride here. If you go on the west side of town, it is on Tompkins Street. I took a couple pictures of it:

Time in Syracuse, part one

Well, we spent the first of our 2 times in Syracuse at my dad's house over the last weekend in July. We had a fairly low key weekend, the weather being pretty nice while we were there. We went out one of the afternoons to Onondaga Lake Park in Liverpool, which is beautiful. There is a nice playground there, as well as the Salt Museum, and a few miles of paved trails for people to skate, ride bikes, walk their dogs, etc. There is also a small yacht club on the lake and we saw sailboats and stuff. Here are a few pictures:

Road trip to NY, second edition

It seemed like before I could blink and adjust to getting back from NY at the beginning of July, that it was time for our bigger road trip. Sadly, Chris doesn't get enough time off from work to be able to take 2 weeks off, so he stayed home while I packed the kids in the car and headed back up north. Since we'd gone to Chicago and Minnesota last year, I'd been looking forward to coming up north this time.

We made a flash of a stop in DC to drop off some stuff at Sara's and continued on our way. I was happy to get in and out of DC with no traffic hassles, but once I got nearer to Baltimore, we hit the first small delay on the road. The bigger ones, of course, greeted us with a devilish smirk when we got into Pennsylvania. Right outside Harrisburg, we lost about 1/2 hour due in part to a tractor trailer fire that shut down an exit and one lane. The other one was in the same unpleasant spot as when we drove up for Mom's party, in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area. I swear, 81 in Pennsylvania has had construction cones and zones since I was a child, and after 30 something years and counting, what else could they possibly need to do to that road after all these years? Ugh! We lost another 30-40 minutes there. If it weren't for the fact that I love Pittsburgh so much, I could easily stay out of PA altogether! hahaha...or at the very least, boycott the interstates there that had an 8 in them.

We crossed 4 state lines to get to Syracuse, which always makes me happy. Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. There is some beautiful scenery along the way, and it reminds me how much I love living where there are hills, mountains and trees.




All in all, it took us 12 hours where I could have taken 11, but the drive was good overall. One of the cool things we saw on the way up was a truck towing a prop plane on a trailer bed. The wings were detached and stowed flat on the trailer under the plane. It was really cool and the kids took a few photos of it.

Party time in Syracuse, part 3!!!

Well, we gathered the next day for some breakfast and last minute visiting with some of the relatives before they headed home again. We kept it simple, just bagels,fruit, juice and coffee. Then we got some last minute pictures. Here are a few of them:

breakfast prep

all us cousins who were here

Mom and 2 of her sisters

Will and Dave...party on, boys!

Us 4 sisters