Montreal Day 6 - A Roller Coaster Day

[Composed 8/18/2019]

The kids were super jazzed about today: we were going to La Ronde, a Six Flags amusement park located in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. Between the kids' various thrill-tolerances and sizes, it would take a bit of luck for us to get through the park with a minimum of frustration. Fortunately, Shira managed to thread the needle perfectly. We started with a group ride on the carousel and then made our way to the 'All Ages' area.

This let T face down, and overcome, a whole heap of ride anxiety. It also let G thrive in a section of the park where she could ride everything.

We closed out the For All area by tackling La Marche Du Mille Pattes, a coaster that was suitable for all three kids. T was worried, but Shira held her close and they did it together. At the end of our day, T would tackle this same ride, only this time with a huge smile on her face and arms raised triumphantly. Watching this transformation was a thing of beauty.

From La Marche, Shira and C tackled some adult coasters and I took the other kids on the train ride through the park. For my part, I did ride the Ferris Wheel, which turned out to be far more enjoyable than I expected it to be.

La Ronde was an ideally sized park. It was big enough to have rides for everyone, but not so large that you felt like you couldn't do everything in one day^*. We also hit the park on a day when it wasn't crazy busy. We almost never waited in line, which was ideal. The park's policy that you can't bring in outside food seemed a bit heavy handed. It wasn't the end of the world that we had to leave the park to eat lunch, but it did seem unnecessary.

The vast majority of the rides and attractions were what I'd expect in any American amusement park. There was one exception to this: the bumper cars. When I've ridden the bumper cars in US parks, the format has been the same: you drive around in a circle trying to bump those in front of you. With little ability to control your car, it's not unusual to wind up wedged in some corner where you're stuck. La Ronde does it right! Each car has two levers: push both forward and you go forward, pull both back and you go backwards. Move one forward and one back and you turn. From there it's a delightful free for all. This was fun! I rode the bumper cars with T who counted: I bumped her 19 times, she bumped me 22. I was so close to winning!

After an exhausting day at the park we should have gone home. But I wanted to overdo it by trying to go out for dinner. We picked a Kosher Restaurant for dinner, but when we got there we realized that the cramped space and 40 minute wait weren't going to work for us. Across the street was Chops, a steakhouse and Asian-fusion place. The problem: I didn't think our rag tag group would do well at an extravagant, white-table cloth establishment. Still, Shira was insistent that I at least check it out. So I peaked my head in and my fears were confirmed: this would be the perfect place to take Shira on a date, but not the best place for a frazzled family of 5 who was looking for a quick meal. Fortunately, one of the staff members caught my eye and in an instant read the situation. He told me to grab the family and he had the perfect place for us.

He then proceeded to take us to a section of a party room off the main dining room. There was a large family gathering going on in the party room, but it was big enough that we weren't in the way. Shira ordered up a feast and we thoroughly enjoyed the meal and service. T was especially impressed that every time her water glass was empty someone quickly came over and refilled it. I can't recall going to a Kosher restaurant where the service and experience in general was so perfect.

As a last full day in Montreal, I couldn't have asked for anything more. Such a fun day!

You'll notice a few solo portraits of the kids below. I didn't take these. Instead, I handed my DSLR around to the kids while we waited in line and they took turns shooting fashion glamour shots. They did a great job as both photographers and models!

*Whoa: according to Wikipedia, La Ronde is 146 acres, while Dollywood is 150 acres. In my mind, Dollywood was much larger than La Rode, but I suppose that's not true.

Montreal Day 5 - To the Summit!

[Composed 8/17/2019]

Shabbat. The day of rest. The one day in our vacation we didn't rush through breakfast to get started on the day's activity. And yet, I doubt the children will remember today as a particularly restful one.

After a chill morning we headed out for an activity I'd been looking forward to: climbing Mount Royal. Our Airbnb was a mere 5 kilometer walk from one of the Mount Royal Belvédères. True to form, the kids had no problem hiking the 3+ miles to the overlook.

The day was a bit overcast, so the views weren't amazing. It was still delightful to explore such a massive green space in an urban area. There seemed to be an endless supply of trails, and while we only hit one of the summits of Mont Royal, there are at least two others we'll have to conquer on another trip.

On our way back to the Airbnb we made our way through Mount Royal cemetery and stopped to pay our respects to a number of monuments. The most impressive of which was a Fireman's monument, dating back to 1867. We also stumbled on Congregation Shaar Hashomayim's Cemetery, which was also established in the 1860's. The children collected up some stones to leave at a grave, and opted to leave them on a child's headstone.

Our epic walk was a great mix of exercise, history and urban exploration.

By the time we made it back to our Airbnb, we were all ready for some low key play time. We'd need our rest, tomorrow was going to be a full day!

Montreal Day 4 - All The Pretty Flowers

[Composed 8/16/2019]

When Shira and I visit a city, we almost always find our way to the local botanic gardens. They tend to be a great mix of beauty, local culture and chill atmosphere. And so when we learned that Montreal had such a garden we were psyched to take the girls.

We accidentally parked on the 'wrong' side of the gardens and ended up touring it essentially backwards. We started with a long walk through the arboretum, which was uninspiring. Then we made it to a play area, which had a variety of paths and structures for the kids to play around, but still didn't include any display of flowers. After an epic game of hide and seek we made our way to the Japanese Garden, where I tried to get the kids excited about a 100+ year old bonsai tree and the rock garden. They were only moderately impressed. And then we moved on to the Chinese Garden, at which point the garden really started to shine as a kid friendly destination. The Chinese Garden has wonderful structures and water features to explore, and finally some really pretty flowers. From there we made it to the Alpine Garden, where the kids loved both the interesting plant life and fun to explore paths. They could have spent hours running around this section of the garden. And finally, as we were leaving, we started to see huge displays of flowers.

In the end, it was a fine experience and the kids enjoyed it. Though, this was definitely one of those times when a little extra planning would have paid dividends.

After the garden we made our way to Jean-Talon Market to pick up fruits and veggies for Shabbat. The kids were skeptical about a trip to the market, but once they saw all the colorful produce and cute stands, they were all in. Each kid was put in charge of picking the vendor for a different item of produce, and they totally got into it.

As had become our habit since the trip started, Shira and the kids looked forward to coming up with some fun hair braids. But before Shira could work her magic, she needed me to comb out tangles. Since the week had started, I'd done a lot of hair brushing! It was G, however, who had deftly turned detangling from a chore to an activity we looked forward to. During our first comb out session she noticed the similarity between the desk chair in one of the kids room and a salon chair. She plopped herself down, draped her hair over the chair and laid back. I asked her if she wanted some spa music, to which she replied absolutely. I then dimmed the lights for effect. And so began spa time! We enjoyed the calm music together, and just like any good hair stylist, I tried to keep the conversation going as we talked about all that was going on in her life. These spa sessions became something I very much looked forward to, and were a highlight of our trip. What a lesson in the power of changing your perspective on a seemingly tedious activity. Thanks G!

9 Miles of Hiking in the Patapsco Stream Valley State Park

This past weekend Shira and I hiked a 9 mile loop in Patapsco Stream Valley State Park. The loop combines the Log, Morning Choice, Lewis and Clark, Cascade Falls, Ridge, Rockburn Branch, Hop the Snake and Belmont trails and was published over at alltrails.com.

On the surface, there's nothing remarkable about this hike. It has no breathtaking views or challenging rock scrambles. However, it strikes me as impressive that you can log 9 miles of forest hiking, with only occasional glimpses of suburbia, so close to Washington, DC. We've hiked Patapsco a number of times, and yet with the exception of a segment of the Cascades Trail, this was all new to me. If you don't mind hours of driving to and from the trail, then by all means, head out to Shenandoah and the like. But if you want to log miles without the schlep, Patapsco is hard to beat.

I could definitely see using these Patapsco trails for training purposes. You could load up a backpack and get an authentic hiking or trail running experience in, in a fraction of the time it would take you to do the same exercise in a remote location.

Saying Goodby to Plantar Fasciitis. For Real.

My pronouncement that I was cured from my first bout of plantar fasciitis turned out to be wishful thinking. I thought for sure I'd kicked this condition, and yet pain in my left foot kept coming back after runs and long walks.

Using the night splint my friend Sue recommended helped, but still the pain refused to abate.

I promised myself that I'd give it one more month of stretching and then I'd return to the podiatrist for a followup. Fortunately, Shira ignored my timeline. She made me an appointment with Antonio at Full Motion Life and Sport, a local chiropractor who she'd talked with at her gym. He suggested he could help alleviate my symptoms.

I won't lie; I wasn't excited about going to a chiropractor. I had silly visions of strange procedures being done on my foot.

After chatting with me and assuring me that my injury could be dealt with, Antonio produced an ultrasound machine and rubbed the wand over my foot. After what seemed like 15 minutes of this, he turned off the machine and switched to messaging my foot. After another 15 minutes, my appointment was over. I'd relished Antonio's optimism, found the ultrasound and message to be pain free, and liked that I was taking active measures against my foot's condition. I was in. Antonio guessed that in 6 weeks I'd be running pain free; I was skeptical to say the least.

For the next five weeks, twice a week, I repeated the above treatment. While I felt my foot was healing, the process was far from linear. During this stretch I avoided running and only did a bit of light walking. Finally, after 5 weeks I cracked and went for a run:

The distance was short (about 3.5 miles) and the pace was glacial (11 min/mile), and yet I couldn't have been happier with the run. For the first time in months, I'd run pain free!

Two days later, I logged a 5 mile run. Again, no pain. And then I logged a 6 mile run the day after that. Still, no pain. I followed these runs with two back to back 8 mile runs.

I've now logged over a 120 pain free miles since that first successful run and can officially declare my plantar fasciitis resolved. Antonio worked his magic one week ahead of schedule.

Curious about the ultrasound technique, I did some poking around and found two studies on the topic: How effective is therapeutic ultrasound in the treatment of heel pain? and Additive Effect of Therapeutic Ultrasound in the Treatment of Plantar Fasciitis: A Randomized Controlled Trial. It appears that in both studies the ultrasound wasn't particularly effective. As the second study concludes:

The addition of therapeutic ultrasound did not improve the efficacy of conservative treatment for plantar fasciitis. Therefore, the authors recommend excluding therapeutic ultrasound from the treatment of plantar fasciitis and agree with results of previous studies that stretching may be an effective treatment for healing plantar fasciitis.

But here's the thing: the process worked. So whether it was the ultrasound, message, rest from running or simply time that corrected the issue I can't say. But after months of being sidelined, I don't much care. I'm just glad to be back to running! If injury strikes again, I'm definitely heading back to Full Motion Life and Sport for relief.

When Life Hands You Gourds | A New Year Wish

As we've done for the last few years, Shira and I returned to Homestead Farm to pick apples for Rosh Hashanah. Homestead continues to impress: they promised a diverse variety of apples, and delivered in terms of both quality and quantity. As we were walking to the checkout area I noticed a table full of ugly distinct looking gourds. Having a vague recollection that gourds, like apples, were a symbolic food eaten on Rosh Hashanah I bought a few.

When I got home and Googled the topic, my memory was confirmed:

Everybody knows about dipping apples in honey to celebrate Rosh Hashanah for a “sweet” year. But in the Syrian tradition, we have an entire seder before the meal. There are actually many symbolic foods we make blessings on for the Jewish New Year.

In one of these prayers, we ask God to tear up any enemies’ decrees against the Jewish people. The Hebrew word for gourd, kara, resembles the word karaa, which means to rip. Before eating the gourd, we say, “May it be your will, Adonai, our God, God of our forefathers, that You tear up the evil edict of our judgment and may our merits be declared before you.”

Instead of eating the gourds, we opted to have kids decorate them. All it took was some hot glue, googly eyes and a healthy does of glitter glue and the kids turned the haphazard collection of fruit into an adorable family:

And so this is my wish for you in the upcoming year: not only should the evil decree be torn up, but when life hands you something ugly, you should rally together with friends and family to make something beautiful out of it!