Cheryl: This morning (Wednesday) we reluctantly bid adieu to Sea Vu and the bold Atlantic. It had rained all night so the whole place looked washed down and sparkling clean in the morning light. Yesterday a young couple came to look at our site because they had their money down on our site for today. We told them what a good spot we’d found it to be and wished them well. Guess we couldn’t have stayed another day even if we’d begged.
Today we rode the big highways and avoided the back roads through the little towns. Toll roads aren’t the most popular with us, but I was tired of twisting and turning through the woods all day long. I prevailed upon Frank to take the big roads, and he cheerfully complied. There were some spectacular views of forests and low mountains as we passed part way through New York State after traversing Massachusetts and Connecticut and finally landing at a place called Plattskill. Frank will elaborate on the town naming conventions around these parts. Right now he’s dressing up the stove top with some white enamel that makes it look just like new. It’s sort of like his bonsai tree exercise, a stress reliever of sorts, macho style.
Other than stopping a couple of times at rest stops, we made good time and landed here in time to fix a nice dinner and get the laundry washed, dried, and put away. Frank bought a movie (DVD) for tonight and some ice for our drinks. I’m in for a shower, and then we’re relaxing for the rest of the evening. I’ll let him tell you about the fire truck here at the KOA and about the nice place this turned out to be tucked away in the woods.
Frank: Yeah, the stove top is my own little fetish. I really like the burners to be bright aluminum and the top cover to be pure enamel white. I feel the cover is supposed to be used to cover up the burners for aesthetic purposes. Cheryl feels that it is supposed to be a work surface for setting pots and pans and whatever else she’s using at any given moment. She’s right of course, it is just a work surface, but I like to keep it as pristine as possible so I keep a small bottle of touch-up paint and regularly fill in all the small nicks and scrapes.
Ah yes, about the fire truck. It’s really nice. It is an old LaFrance unit and it is in great shape. The campground built seats in the back and they give the kids in the park rides all around the camping area.
As Cheryl said, we’re in New York the land of the maximum $75.00 fill up. All the stations in New Hampshire and New York shut off the pumps at $75.00 so I can’t get a full tank of gas. I guess I could use a second credit card (the pumps won’t accept the same card twice) but cutting me off at $75 p’s me off so much I refuse to use the second card just so the stupid station can get more of my money. I just paraphrase the line from the movie “Airplane” over and over in my mind, “Chump don’t want my money, Chump don’t get my money!”
Last year I made a derogatory comment about Cricket cell phones in the blog and the next day I received an email from a Cricket Customer Representative asking me what the problem was. That told me that large companies must monitor blogs for their own names so in hopes that GARMIN is scanning blogs I gotta say that GARMIN needs to add some features to their NUVI GPS units. GARMIN needs to add a vehicle class selection that will allow the user to describe the vehicle they are driving so automobiles and trucks pulling campers (and for goodness sakes, big Class A RV’s) are not assumed to be the same size and all sent down the same small rural highways and back roads. Also, GARMIN needs to add some selections such as “Large Roads Preferred” or “Small Roads Preferred” to the screen where we select “Fasted Time” or “Shortest Distance” because as it is both selections have sent us down small, nasty, windy roads when there were perfectly good mid-sized highways that ran almost perfectly parallel to the roads we were on. Especially in New Hampshire! And for goodness sakes, GARMIN NEEDS to put a Mute Button on the screen so we can shut the BIB up when we decide to pull off for gas or food. It shouldn’t take three screens to shut her up!
Cheryl and I have become KOA fans. I used to swear off them because they are very family oriented and have a lot of kids using a lot of features that we don’t need for ourselves and I didn’t like paying for. The KOA’s do cost about $10.00 more per night but I’ve come to realize it is $10 well spent. The “Kamps” are always neat and clean, the folks running them are professional and friendly, the sites are level with working utilities and the WiFi usually works. I like the consistency of the KOA’s and don’t miss the showing up at an RV Park that looked like God’s gift to RV’ing on the web site and then turns out to be Farkleville when we pulled in. Consistency is good. Farkle is bad. It’s as simple as that.
One last thought: “kill” must mean the same as “burg”, or “ville” when it comes to naming towns up here. We’ve run across “Catskill”, “Peekskill”, “Plattekill”, “Flatskill”, and “Farkleskill”. (OK, I made that last one up.) But no matter what, there are a bunch of “kills” up here so it must have come from somewhere. “Nuff said because I really don’t care one way or another.
Love,
Frank, Cheryl, Peanut and Cleo
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
We visit George & Barbara Bush
Frank: Today’s down day of reading and relaxing in the trailer while listening to the gentle patter of rain on the roof didn’t happen because the expected storm didn’t happen. Apparently they rescheduled it for tonight because the same dire warnings are all over the TV channels and I can hear thunder right now and Peanut just ran into the bathroom and jumped into the tub. That’s his hiding place when loud noises happen.
So instead of relaxing we drove over to Kennebunkport and drove out along Ocean Drive and saw George H. W. Bush’s house which is actually a well secured compound on a peninsula that juts out into the ocean. After taking some photos from a convenient pull-over parking area that is probably just a coincidence (not) we drove past the entrance to the compound which has a stone guardhouse and had a black Chevy Suburban parked across the drive behind the gate.
Later we drove the opposite direction to York, Maine and saw the Nubble Light House, which we were told by an expert on such things (a total stranger in the RV Park) is the most photographed Light House in the world. Or maybe he said, “in America.” Or maybe “Maine”. Whatever, there were a lot of people there with cameras so I took a few shots and then we hit the souvenir shop. Also, while there I saw some seals on some rocks in the distance so I pointed them out to Cheryl and she looked real hard and said “one of your seals just spread his wings.” I looked again and realized the “seals” were actually really ugly big black birds. They may be Puffins as there are a few business in York named the Puffin this, and the Puffin that. Who knows. Who cares.
One last thought for today. As we drove through Wells, and Kennebunkport, and York, in traffic that moved slower than the thousands of pedestrians whose main pleasure is crossing the street, I got to thinking about beach towns. We had walked around in Ogunquit last evening and tried to shop but couldn’t find anything we needed or wanted. The problem is that once you’ve visited a beach town you’ve pretty much visited all beach towns and we’ve visited lots of beach towns over the years. We finally decided that beach towns are where you shop in funky shops for funky stuff that you buy, and display, and treasure, and store, and then sell at a yard sale. So other than our “been there” pins and a few good photos, we have nothing to show for our stay here. (Cheryl: We have memories, you big dummy!) Oh, yeah.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Trolleys, a mansion and sandy feet.
Well, here we are, still firmly ensconced at Sea Vu RV Park. (No sea view, but what the heck). I hate to admit it but I really like this place, and I really like Maine.We took a day today and went to visit the Seashore Trolley Museum here in Wells, (www.TrolleyMuseum.org) and the Victoria Mansion in Portland. The trolley museum is better than you might imagine. They have several dozen trolleys from all over the US and even a dozen or so from other countries dating back to horse drawn and up to modern electric “trackless trolleys” (aka: electric busses). We actually had a good time there and it included a 15 mile ride on a nicely restored open trolley.
The Victoria Mansion (www.VictoriaMansion.org) was both impressive and depressing. It is supposed to be of “Italian” design but to us it felt very Gothic. The dark and foreboding house was built in 1858-60 as a summer home for Mr. Ruggles Sylvester Morse who had made his fortune by building luxury hotels in New Orleans and wanted everyone up here to truly understand how rich he was. He had a lot of features included in the design because they were more expensive than the normal way of doing things. For example he had all the walls painted to look like they were covered with silk because it cost more than covering them with silk.
We had a good “BIB” experience today. The Garmin has a feature where you can ask it to list restaurants near your location. Today it listed “Becky’s Diner” just a few blocks from the mansion so we drove down and around and gave it a try. It struck us as one of those places that when you mention to someone that you were in Portland they would always say, “So, did you eat at Becky’s?” The food was great, the place is strikingly spotless, and the wait staff was friendly as heck. It was so jammed with locals that we ate at the counter and it didn’t detract from the experience at all.
This evening we drove over to Ogunquit Beach and Cheryl got her feet wet and sandy with right coast water. Now I can say I’ve dipped her into both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. We also spent some time walking around the small town visiting funky (expensive) shops. We finally found a souvenir shop that sold cheap Chinese junk and found our Maine “been there” pin. So now I can head south with a feeling of mission accomplished. However we are staying here another day before we strike out south for two reasons: 1. I like it here because there are no Farkles to be found, and 2. it’s supposed to rain tomorrow and the thought of spending a rainy day just sitting around reading and listening to the patter of water on the roof sounds really inviting.
Love to all,
Conductor Cheryl, Brakeman Frank, and passengers Peanut and Cleo
Sunday, July 24, 2011
By the Sea Vu, By the Sea Vu, By the Beautiful Sea Vu
Cheryl: You and me, You and me, Oh, how happy we’ll be. I’m happiest when I’m near water, and this afternoon we pulled in to the lovely Sea Vu RV Resort in Wells, Maine, and snagged their last available RV slot. We’re here for two days, maybe three and this place fronts on a wonderful marsh where you can see all kinds of water fowl, and beyond the marsh is a big harbor full of moored boats that opens on to the big blue Atlantic Ocean! We’ve left the extreme heat, humidity and mosquitoes behind in New York and New Hampshire. Here there is an ocean breeze full of the taste of salt and the temperature isn’t more than 80 degrees. Man, this is da place!
We understand from our friend, Pete, in New Hampshire that the crowd from Boston, MA, uses Maine as their getaway place and from all the Massachusetts license plates here, I believe it. We had to pull into our slot between two big trees and the space was fairly narrow. The people here are so friendly and came running to help us guide the trailer through the trees. Then, two of the guys came into the trailer to take a look at the Norton. I talked to a lady from MA who spends the summers here, and she said she and her husband never run out of things to do around here like driving up Ocean Blvd. to get a look at the Bush’s place or swinging around the corner to eat at one of two great restaurants. Anyway, we are now investigating what else there is to do and see around here to keep us busy for the next two or three days. By the way, we’re very near Kennebunkport.
I forgot to tell you that yesterday we stopped in a little Vermont town called Black River and ate at place called Pot Belly Joe’s where I had the best bruschetta ever! The place was quaint with broad wood beams and big fans on poles blowing the hot air around. We forget that not every place out east has or before this has even needed air conditioning. That’s the second restaurant we’ve found that didn’t have air, the other was in New York, and we didn’t even stay and eat. I’m glad we braved the heat and stayed at Pot Belly Joe’s.
This morning we set off from Sandy Beach RV Park south of Farmington, NH, and headed off to see our friend Pete who lives in a civil war era house, about 150 years old. He and his first wife began the as-yet unfinished restoration of the house, but since then Pete has been occupied with his career as an Air Force KC-135 Tanker pilot among other interests. He used to race Norton motorcycles in his younger days, but now his garage houses a silver Corvette. He is semi-retired like Frank and spends his time making beautiful cases for antique shotguns. Right now he’s building a case for a double Flintlock shotgun that dates to the early 1800s. Anyway, we had an interesting visit with Pete looking at the workmanship on the rifles he owns, his incredible gun safe that weighs at least a ton, his shop, and of course his Corvette. We stayed at Pete’s for a couple of hours and then took off for Maine with a hand-drawn map he made for us. We were a bit tired of following the “BIB” after her false leads yesterday. Oh yes, Pete was telling me about a guy who was on American Idol, David Cook, I think. Anyway, he has some great music out that I’ll try to find on ITunes. One song in particular he said reminded him of me and my little journey in the RV without Frank a few years ago. It goes something like, “When I find me, I’ll come back to you.” On that “note,” I’ll turn you over to Frank for his side of the “story.”
Frank: Pete and I agreed that we need to keep getting together every 20 to 25 years or so. Anyway, this is a very nice RV Park. Quite POSH (Port Out, Starboard Home). Quite Expensive. (Don’t tell Cheryl.) Lots of Class A’s, C’s, and 5th Wheelers. I think we lowered the average value of this little cul-de-sac by half when I pulled in here. I’ve stayed in RV spots that are “pull-throughs”, and I’ve stayed in RV spots that are “back-ins”, but this is the first time I’ve stayed in a “drive-through” spot. It’s sorta like a pull through in that you drive in, unhook the trailer and then drive around and park next to it. The trouble getting in was that I had to make a sharp right turn off a very narrow “street” into the spot and at the same time put the whole rig between two huge trees. Frankly I didn’t swing q-u-i-t-e wide enough and it took me, Cheryl and three neighbors to help be back up, jockey to the side, and then re-swing the turn. The guy who is camping directly across from us said he’s been here long enough to watch three rigs park in this spot and all three had the same trouble, so I’m pleased to be part of a long tradition. Anyway, I signed us in for two days and then thought we might stay a third day but when I went to the office and scarfed up some “local attraction” flyers I’m not sure there’s enough for us to do here for three days, no matter what the lady next door says.
BTW, today, while in Concord I asked a guy, “Where is the Concord Bridge where the Minute Man fired ‘the shot heard ‘round the world.’” He said for me to turn right, go to the end of town, turn left and then drive 65 miles directly south to Concord, Massachusetts, and I can’t miss it. Darn, I woulda SWORN it was in Concord, New Hampshire. Also BTW, I found out that “Concord” is pronounced “Con-kerd” up here. It seems that “Concord” was the name of a supersonic airplane, and Con-kerd is the name of a town. Sorta like “Prescott” and “Preskit” I guess
That’s it I guess. Except that I still have nightmares about turning the rig around that big-ass tree at the bottom of that ^%$*!#* dirt hill yesterday.
Heave Ho Ye Landlubbers,
Captain Hook, Wendy, Peter Pan, and Tinkerbelle.
We understand from our friend, Pete, in New Hampshire that the crowd from Boston, MA, uses Maine as their getaway place and from all the Massachusetts license plates here, I believe it. We had to pull into our slot between two big trees and the space was fairly narrow. The people here are so friendly and came running to help us guide the trailer through the trees. Then, two of the guys came into the trailer to take a look at the Norton. I talked to a lady from MA who spends the summers here, and she said she and her husband never run out of things to do around here like driving up Ocean Blvd. to get a look at the Bush’s place or swinging around the corner to eat at one of two great restaurants. Anyway, we are now investigating what else there is to do and see around here to keep us busy for the next two or three days. By the way, we’re very near Kennebunkport.
I forgot to tell you that yesterday we stopped in a little Vermont town called Black River and ate at place called Pot Belly Joe’s where I had the best bruschetta ever! The place was quaint with broad wood beams and big fans on poles blowing the hot air around. We forget that not every place out east has or before this has even needed air conditioning. That’s the second restaurant we’ve found that didn’t have air, the other was in New York, and we didn’t even stay and eat. I’m glad we braved the heat and stayed at Pot Belly Joe’s.
This morning we set off from Sandy Beach RV Park south of Farmington, NH, and headed off to see our friend Pete who lives in a civil war era house, about 150 years old. He and his first wife began the as-yet unfinished restoration of the house, but since then Pete has been occupied with his career as an Air Force KC-135 Tanker pilot among other interests. He used to race Norton motorcycles in his younger days, but now his garage houses a silver Corvette. He is semi-retired like Frank and spends his time making beautiful cases for antique shotguns. Right now he’s building a case for a double Flintlock shotgun that dates to the early 1800s. Anyway, we had an interesting visit with Pete looking at the workmanship on the rifles he owns, his incredible gun safe that weighs at least a ton, his shop, and of course his Corvette. We stayed at Pete’s for a couple of hours and then took off for Maine with a hand-drawn map he made for us. We were a bit tired of following the “BIB” after her false leads yesterday. Oh yes, Pete was telling me about a guy who was on American Idol, David Cook, I think. Anyway, he has some great music out that I’ll try to find on ITunes. One song in particular he said reminded him of me and my little journey in the RV without Frank a few years ago. It goes something like, “When I find me, I’ll come back to you.” On that “note,” I’ll turn you over to Frank for his side of the “story.”
Frank: Pete and I agreed that we need to keep getting together every 20 to 25 years or so. Anyway, this is a very nice RV Park. Quite POSH (Port Out, Starboard Home). Quite Expensive. (Don’t tell Cheryl.) Lots of Class A’s, C’s, and 5th Wheelers. I think we lowered the average value of this little cul-de-sac by half when I pulled in here. I’ve stayed in RV spots that are “pull-throughs”, and I’ve stayed in RV spots that are “back-ins”, but this is the first time I’ve stayed in a “drive-through” spot. It’s sorta like a pull through in that you drive in, unhook the trailer and then drive around and park next to it. The trouble getting in was that I had to make a sharp right turn off a very narrow “street” into the spot and at the same time put the whole rig between two huge trees. Frankly I didn’t swing q-u-i-t-e wide enough and it took me, Cheryl and three neighbors to help be back up, jockey to the side, and then re-swing the turn. The guy who is camping directly across from us said he’s been here long enough to watch three rigs park in this spot and all three had the same trouble, so I’m pleased to be part of a long tradition. Anyway, I signed us in for two days and then thought we might stay a third day but when I went to the office and scarfed up some “local attraction” flyers I’m not sure there’s enough for us to do here for three days, no matter what the lady next door says.
BTW, today, while in Concord I asked a guy, “Where is the Concord Bridge where the Minute Man fired ‘the shot heard ‘round the world.’” He said for me to turn right, go to the end of town, turn left and then drive 65 miles directly south to Concord, Massachusetts, and I can’t miss it. Darn, I woulda SWORN it was in Concord, New Hampshire. Also BTW, I found out that “Concord” is pronounced “Con-kerd” up here. It seems that “Concord” was the name of a supersonic airplane, and Con-kerd is the name of a town. Sorta like “Prescott” and “Preskit” I guess
That’s it I guess. Except that I still have nightmares about turning the rig around that big-ass tree at the bottom of that ^%$*!#* dirt hill yesterday.
Heave Ho Ye Landlubbers,
Captain Hook, Wendy, Peter Pan, and Tinkerbelle.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
What a day!
What a day we just had! You wouldn’t believe! But first I gotta tell you about last night.
We decided to eat out. We had passed an Italian restaurant each time we rode or drove from the campground to the rally site and we finally decided we needed to try it. First of all it was named ‘Angela’s” and there really was a Momma Angela running the place with an iron Italian hand. We were seated in a large room with a mixture of other patrons when we decided the “music” (an accordion player) was just too loud for us. So I asked if we could be seated in the other dining room. Momma Angela looked us over and thought for a moment and then agreed. The other dining room was apparently reserved for special guests as it was filled with women with big hair sitting with big men wearing shiny suites and see-through socks. Everyone knew everyone else and each time a new guy would enter the room he’d make the rounds of the tables saying, “Hey, how ya doin’”, there were hugs and back-slaps everywhere. I didn’t see any cheek kissing but that might have been going on also. There were three old guys sitting at a table by themselves and EVERYONE went over and said hello before they went to their own table. There was a HUGE guy sitting at the table next to us who I swear was “Bobby” from the “Sopranos” and if Tony himself had walked in I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised. I found myself tawlkin’ with a Joisey accent and gesturing with my hands within just a few minutes of sitting down. Cheryl started calling me Francisco (in Italian, pronounced “Fran-ches-co”). Oh yeah, the food was FANTASTIC! I have never felt so Italian in all my life! I’m so proud I have a tear in my eye.
OK, now about today’s adventures. The BIB strikes again! (BIB = B*tch in the Box. AKA “Jill the Garmin GPS voice”). She took us down a dirt road that supposedly went to a campground but instead dwindled down into a cattle track and then DEAD-ENDED at a lake! Someone had carved out a very small circle around a HUGE tree with a bulldozer and the ground was soft and muddy but I had no choice. I put the truck in 4WD-Low Range and yanked the trailer around that tree. About half way around I saw that I was about to drag the side of the trailer against the tree so I stopped and backed up and gave it a second shot. This time, with four wheels churning and throwing dirt clods all over the front of the trailer I was able to yank her out of there unscathed.
We finally made it to another campground and are warm and safe. BTW, we drove through Vermont (Great Roads!) and into New Hampshire today. Tomorrow we’ll visit with my old friend Pete Kogut and drive into and out of Main far enough to get a “been there” pin. We supposedly have WiFi here at this camp but I am not confident in it, so if this is not posted today (07-23) you’ll know why.
Later.
F, C, P & C.
We decided to eat out. We had passed an Italian restaurant each time we rode or drove from the campground to the rally site and we finally decided we needed to try it. First of all it was named ‘Angela’s” and there really was a Momma Angela running the place with an iron Italian hand. We were seated in a large room with a mixture of other patrons when we decided the “music” (an accordion player) was just too loud for us. So I asked if we could be seated in the other dining room. Momma Angela looked us over and thought for a moment and then agreed. The other dining room was apparently reserved for special guests as it was filled with women with big hair sitting with big men wearing shiny suites and see-through socks. Everyone knew everyone else and each time a new guy would enter the room he’d make the rounds of the tables saying, “Hey, how ya doin’”, there were hugs and back-slaps everywhere. I didn’t see any cheek kissing but that might have been going on also. There were three old guys sitting at a table by themselves and EVERYONE went over and said hello before they went to their own table. There was a HUGE guy sitting at the table next to us who I swear was “Bobby” from the “Sopranos” and if Tony himself had walked in I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised. I found myself tawlkin’ with a Joisey accent and gesturing with my hands within just a few minutes of sitting down. Cheryl started calling me Francisco (in Italian, pronounced “Fran-ches-co”). Oh yeah, the food was FANTASTIC! I have never felt so Italian in all my life! I’m so proud I have a tear in my eye.
OK, now about today’s adventures. The BIB strikes again! (BIB = B*tch in the Box. AKA “Jill the Garmin GPS voice”). She took us down a dirt road that supposedly went to a campground but instead dwindled down into a cattle track and then DEAD-ENDED at a lake! Someone had carved out a very small circle around a HUGE tree with a bulldozer and the ground was soft and muddy but I had no choice. I put the truck in 4WD-Low Range and yanked the trailer around that tree. About half way around I saw that I was about to drag the side of the trailer against the tree so I stopped and backed up and gave it a second shot. This time, with four wheels churning and throwing dirt clods all over the front of the trailer I was able to yank her out of there unscathed.
We finally made it to another campground and are warm and safe. BTW, we drove through Vermont (Great Roads!) and into New Hampshire today. Tomorrow we’ll visit with my old friend Pete Kogut and drive into and out of Main far enough to get a “been there” pin. We supposedly have WiFi here at this camp but I am not confident in it, so if this is not posted today (07-23) you’ll know why.
Later.
F, C, P & C.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Two old hippies finally find their way to Woodstock
Woodstock: Where were you in August, 1969?
Frank: Raising two kids in Sterling, VA.
Cheryl: Just had third child in Ft. Wayne, IN.
Frank: On Thursday, July 21st, 2011, we finally made it to Woodstock, a whole community living off the memory of a three-day high in a big field 42 years ago. An interesting little town whose only problem is no one sells any cheap, Chinese made, tourist junk. All they have is really expensive, exotic,fancy, American made tourist junk. We were looking for a “been there” pin and all we could find were hand-crafted, beautiful, sophisticated, yuppie-puppy, bohemian, flower-children, hippy-dippy, arty stuff. I finally found a little Woodstock coin in an art shop (a hand-crafted Woodstock coin of course) which I have put on our "been there" board in the trailer. Cheryl’s been collecting pictures of beautiful churches of which there are lots everywhere. We tried to get some photos, but the lighting was all wrong. We’ll see if they’re worth publishing.
Cheryl: We stopped in Woodstock at what we thought was a small curio shop that had great parking right outside the door. It turned out to be a lovely art shop selling amazingly beautiful things. (Frank: Expensive.) I indulged myself and bought a pair of expensive earrings made by an artist who lives in Woodstock. They’re made from Liberty dimes, and I really like them. (Frank: They’re not really Liberty dimes.)
We were really on our way to Phoenicia to see the world’s largest kaleidoscope when we discovered Woodstock. This kaleidoscope is housed in a very tall silo and to view the kaleidoscope show you pay $5 (Frank: Out-freaking-rageous) and either lean up against these weird things with headrests or lie on the floor to make looking up easier. We opted to lie on the floor (Frank: In the soil from ten-thousand other tourist’s shoes) to see the show since we had the little round room all to ourselves. We both decided that the kaleidoscope show consisted of projections rather than actual functioning, revolving kaleidoscope action. Oh well, it was an interesting exercise lying on the floor of the tiny round room in the dark with my husband’s head on my tummy while chuckling over the various colorful configurations displayed above us. (Frank: The music was good, though.) Quite a picture of the old folks, heh? At least we had a nice rest before resuming our explorations of the little shop attached to the silo where the proprietors were selling very expensive kaleidoscopes of all shapes, sizes and configurations.
Back at the rally site, we ate dinner in the resort’s dining room where we watched (Frank: Other) bikers accept their awards from the bike show (Frank: Of which I didn’t win any.) That said, you never know who you might run into at a gathering of 400 bikers. We sat across from an interesting lady who lives in Manhattan in a loft apartment close to the spot where the movie Ghost was filmed. She moved to New York years ago with her artist husband and was glad to move into the loft rather than one of the tiny apartments occupied by most people who live in the city. This was her first motorcycle rally ever, and she was there with a friend who owns a Norton. She said she’s retired from the corporate world, so I asked her if she planned to stay in New York and surprisingly she said she would really like to move to New Mexico in a couple of years. She had visited her grandmother there and fell in love with the Southwest. Well, who wouldn’t!
When we leave here on Saturday we’ll head for cooler climes if we can find any in Maine where we want to snag a “been there” pin and then drop down to visit a friend in New Hampshire and maybe take a run through Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts while we’re at it. If we do that we can say we’ve been in every state of the US except Alaska. I know we’re nuts, but we’re happy that way.
Peace and Love,
John, Yoko, Ringo, and Paulette
Frank: Raising two kids in Sterling, VA.
Cheryl: Just had third child in Ft. Wayne, IN.
Frank: On Thursday, July 21st, 2011, we finally made it to Woodstock, a whole community living off the memory of a three-day high in a big field 42 years ago. An interesting little town whose only problem is no one sells any cheap, Chinese made, tourist junk. All they have is really expensive, exotic,fancy, American made tourist junk. We were looking for a “been there” pin and all we could find were hand-crafted, beautiful, sophisticated, yuppie-puppy, bohemian, flower-children, hippy-dippy, arty stuff. I finally found a little Woodstock coin in an art shop (a hand-crafted Woodstock coin of course) which I have put on our "been there" board in the trailer. Cheryl’s been collecting pictures of beautiful churches of which there are lots everywhere. We tried to get some photos, but the lighting was all wrong. We’ll see if they’re worth publishing.
Cheryl: We stopped in Woodstock at what we thought was a small curio shop that had great parking right outside the door. It turned out to be a lovely art shop selling amazingly beautiful things. (Frank: Expensive.) I indulged myself and bought a pair of expensive earrings made by an artist who lives in Woodstock. They’re made from Liberty dimes, and I really like them. (Frank: They’re not really Liberty dimes.)
We were really on our way to Phoenicia to see the world’s largest kaleidoscope when we discovered Woodstock. This kaleidoscope is housed in a very tall silo and to view the kaleidoscope show you pay $5 (Frank: Out-freaking-rageous) and either lean up against these weird things with headrests or lie on the floor to make looking up easier. We opted to lie on the floor (Frank: In the soil from ten-thousand other tourist’s shoes) to see the show since we had the little round room all to ourselves. We both decided that the kaleidoscope show consisted of projections rather than actual functioning, revolving kaleidoscope action. Oh well, it was an interesting exercise lying on the floor of the tiny round room in the dark with my husband’s head on my tummy while chuckling over the various colorful configurations displayed above us. (Frank: The music was good, though.) Quite a picture of the old folks, heh? At least we had a nice rest before resuming our explorations of the little shop attached to the silo where the proprietors were selling very expensive kaleidoscopes of all shapes, sizes and configurations.
Back at the rally site, we ate dinner in the resort’s dining room where we watched (Frank: Other) bikers accept their awards from the bike show (Frank: Of which I didn’t win any.) That said, you never know who you might run into at a gathering of 400 bikers. We sat across from an interesting lady who lives in Manhattan in a loft apartment close to the spot where the movie Ghost was filmed. She moved to New York years ago with her artist husband and was glad to move into the loft rather than one of the tiny apartments occupied by most people who live in the city. This was her first motorcycle rally ever, and she was there with a friend who owns a Norton. She said she’s retired from the corporate world, so I asked her if she planned to stay in New York and surprisingly she said she would really like to move to New Mexico in a couple of years. She had visited her grandmother there and fell in love with the Southwest. Well, who wouldn’t!
When we leave here on Saturday we’ll head for cooler climes if we can find any in Maine where we want to snag a “been there” pin and then drop down to visit a friend in New Hampshire and maybe take a run through Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts while we’re at it. If we do that we can say we’ve been in every state of the US except Alaska. I know we’re nuts, but we’re happy that way.
Peace and Love,
John, Yoko, Ringo, and Paulette
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