When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Limoncello: The Traveling Pumpkin

It was late on Halloween night and we were trying to get the girls to go to bed. I heard a sister fight brewing in the bathroom while they were brushing their teeth. I thought I'd try distraction to get out of this one, so leaving the bathroom I pointed out to Ella the glowing pumpkin staring down the hall at us. I said to her, "That's strange. I wonder how the pumpkin got there." The distraction worked because unknown to me Steve had just told Ella about a Halloween a few years ago when a couple of small pumpkins went missing from our porch. Her curiosity was peaked by the idea of a pumpkin being in a new spot without someone putting it there. Success!! The sister fight was over and now while they got their PJs on we were talking about the missing pumpkins from the porch. All was OK. Steve was in the living room and heard the conversation which gave him an idea. He very quietly slid the jack-o-lantern down the hallway up to the girl's room and turned it so its glowing face was just peaking in. Well, it did not get the reaction he expected. When Ella saw it she let out a scream and literally jumped into my arms. They were a wreck. It took some minutes to convince them that Dad had moved the pumpkin and it wasn't coming to get them. Later Steve said he just couldn't imagine that they would actually believe it. In their defense though, if your world still includes the wonder of things such as the tooth fairy and mermaids why would it not on the flip-side include the possibility of a menacing jack-o-lantern that is able to move down hallways. Samantha commented afterwards, "I didn't know how it could move. I mean, it doesn't have feet or toes or anything". After they went to bed, Steve and I joked about moving it into the center of their room. Of course, that would have made us the cruelest parents in the world. Also, we would have been sleeping four to a bed after that.

We left the traveling pumpkin at home today and went to hike the "Valley of the Mills". It is a beautiful stretch from the mountains down through a valley that leads to the town of Amalfi. There are ancient paper mills along this trail and also the ruins of a 13th century iron works shop. All of this is mixed in with the natural beauty of the canyon with its waterfalls and lush, green, landscape.

To get there we first took a boat from Positano to Amalfi. Then we took a bus up from Amalfi to the beautiful, quiet town of Scala. There were a few missteps getting there. First, the bus. It was very late and by the time it arrived there was a huge crowd waiting to get on. Somehow, we ended up being the last ones to board. We considered waiting for the next one, but we had already waited for 40 minutes and then Steve pointed out it was the last one of the day up to the town we were headed for. So we stuffed ourselves in. Ella said to me, "This is even worse than that other bus ride." She was right. I was stuck down in the door well and at the first stop the door opened up and ended up pinning my foot. I couldn't pull it out and I was starting to feel some real pressure. A woman nearby, yelled "Attenzione! Attenzione!" to the bus driver to try and get him to close the doors. Steve and another man nearby were trying to pry my foot out. The door released and my foot was saved by my big, clunky sneaker. I was thankful I didn't have sandals on. We were back moving at that point, swinging around the curves up the mountain. Samantha was now happily sitting on the lap of the woman that called to the bus driver for me.

Our other missteps involved getting off at the wrong town. We should have gotten off at Pontone but instead got off at Scala. We had to take a staircase down to Pontone. When I use the word staircase, I think it really requires a new definition here. This was a very long staircase. Once we found the correct town we then started making our way down the wrong path. We were happily going down when we came across some other American hikers. They described this path they had just walked up with beautiful waterfalls and ruins from medieval times. It sounded a lot like the path we thought we were on! "Oh no", they told us "That trail starts on the other side of Pontone". This meant backtracking up the stairs. You can imagine how well this went over with the girls. After some bribery, we headed back up and finally found the path. In Pontone, it is refered to as "Valle de Ferrieri" (Valley of Ironworks). That little nugget of information would have been a big help if we had it earlier. In the end, the trail was all that we had imagined. It was worth all that effort.

When we returned, I actually found myself checking to see if the pumpkin was in the exact same location as when we left it. These kids had to pickup "crazy" from one of us. I didn't detect any movement.