Bezabor: HOME! (posted from home on 10/16/05)

Sunday, 10/16/05-
OK, great, it's still the weekend! Weather is good though windy. Winds are to be 15-25 with gusts to 35. So today I went sea-kayaking. Labashi was still wrapped up in whatever and didn't want to go but I was looking forward to a battle with the wind.. I headed over to the local State Park lake and put in on the upper end of the lake where I knew there was an interesting gunkholing area. The little creek that feeds the lake doesn't even appear to be there until you are right on it. I paddled through the hundreds of lilypads approching the area and then made the turn into the creek-- not a soul around. I had scared up a great blue heron along the lilypads and it had lifted off with a fantastic prehistoric "SQUAWK". With the higher water I was able to explore some of the inlets which would otherwise have just been mudflats and hiding in one I saw a duck I've not seen before-- I'll have to look that one up. It looked something like a wood duck but I'm not sure.

As I continued easing upstream a BIG bird left the trees off and followed the stream up and alighted in a tree. I couldn't get a good look at it and assumed it must have been a great blue heron-- but it looked too heavy for that and the wing shape was wrong.

I spent the next hour poking into every little cove and most of the time ended up backing out-- an interesting proposition when you can't see directly behind you. I passed under several partially-fallen trees and finally came to a spot I couldn't get past-- a tree down the whole way across the stream. I hooked up to it with my bow painter (the line on the front of the boat) and tried to pull one end around but it was too much. All I did was jam the knot and then realize I didn't have a knife and if I didn't get the knot unjammed, I was in for some fun. But it finally gave and I was free. Next time I'll have to bring the come-along and a cable.

On the way out, I noticed an old ramshackle beaver lodge I had missed coming upstream. As I looked closer at several branch piles I could see the branches had been cut down by a beaver. I've not seen a beaver back in there but today I did see evidence of recent beaver work on a couple of the trees as I entered the creek. That would be an interesting goal-- get a picture of Mr. Beaver.

Back out on the lake I ran into three kayakers, two in whitewater kayaks and one in a recreational kayak-- apparently a family of mom, dad, and teenage daughter. Good for them!
We talked awhile and I learned that dad had been back in the creek before. He was aware of the beaver marks and asked if I'd seen the big owl--- so THAT's what the big bird was, it had to be a great horned owl. Another goal for a photo expedition!

I then paddled out to mid-lake and I was travelling downwind so it was great--- as the waves built up a little I sped up and felt the lifting and pushing-forward feeling of riding the wave crest. I wouldn't call it surfing but it was definitely giving me a nice boost. I should have brought my new paddle-sail! I had thought about it but it would have been the first time with the sail and I was paddling alone and the winds were supposed to be gusty so I had left the sail back in the van-- I'll try that another time.

After navigating around to another launch ramp area I thought I'd better turn upwind and head back but I was looking at all the different sailboats stored ashore there and decided I'd paddle across to yet another launch ramp and check out the boats there too. That really only took a few minutes but ultimately placed me in a nice little cove out of the wind. I explored that little cove and saw two of the cutest little turtles out on a rock then there was nothing else for it but to begin the long 'uphill' paddle against the wind. As I began that push, I settled down into long, powerful (for me!) strokes that seemed to have me flying along. Part of the sensation, I'm sure, was due to the waves pushing past but I was concentrating on using my trunk muscles rather than just my arms and I felt good. I settled into a rhythm and paddled the whole way back with just one very short rest-- -just a few slower paddle strokes. When the gusts blew their worst, they seemed to stop my forward progress but I think I was just feeling the wind pushing back against my face and chest and against the paddle. ("Aha, THIS is why some kayakers use feathering paddles.... it DOES make a difference to have the out-of-the-water blade feathered into the wind".)

By the time I loaded the kayak on the van, it was mid-afternoon and I headed home to rest--- and I've got to get that blog updated!


Saturday--- 10/15/05--- Finally, the rain has ended... and just in time for the weekend. This retirement stuff was wearing me out so I decided to get in some motorcycling. Labashi was happy to be working away in the house, so I took off early and hit Starbucks, then went to a county park for a long power-walk. I stopped and talked with the folks at the park's hawkwatch and had a great chat about their season so far (one day they had 2600 broadwings go over in one 90-minute period!) but today I only saw one 'sharpie' (a sharp-shinned hawk). I pushed pretty hard on the walk and then ran a few errands by motorcyle so I didn't get home until about 1400. Then after washing Labashi's car and my motorcycle, I did the only sensible thing-- I took ANOTHER motorcycle ride. This one was even better-- it was in the last two hours of the day and I was just zipping around, checking out the local launch ramp along the river, checking out the water level at the state park, and just enjoying the ride.

I did have one little bit of fun on my ride. As I approached the launch ramp area I saw ahead of me a little girl of four or five--- and I believe it was her grandmother-- pushing the little girl's bike across the railroad tracks and going down a small hill. The little girl was just so excited to get on her bike--- I could read it in her body-language. As I came alongside, I slowed down very slow-- walking pace-- and lifted my flip-up helmet. When they looked over, I said to the little girl-- "Bikes are REALLY, REALLY FUN!". Both Grandma and the little girl broke into grins.

Friday, 10/14/05 -
We spent the day getting things back in order. A highlight of the day was getting our cable TV and high-speed modem service back online. We had had our Dishnet service put on a seasonal disconnect ($5 per month) and had kept our email alive by paying $5 a month for a 'MailMe' service from our cable provider which is designed to either let you dial in or to access it from the web. The most reliable thing to do was simply use my cable provider's web-access method (called TWIG) to pick up email. I also had set up email for POP3 mail so we could use Outlook from our laptop but we had a few authentication problems to work through on our trip which seemed to keep changing as we moved from place to place. In preparation for the trip I had set up two email accounts-- one with our high-speed provider and one on Google Mail just to be covered if one or the other would not work. That turned out to be a good decision-- we needed both.

Telephone service on the road proved be no problem. Given our low usage, I decided to go with a pre-pay plan and chose the Simple Freedom setup available at some Wal-Marts because of how their roaming works. A few days later, my brother offered me a Tracfone his son had given up as too expensive for his usage pattern and that caused me to think there might be occasions that we'd want to have a phone for each of us so I took it and bought minutes for it too. As I would reach areas where I thought cell phone service would be a problem I'd check both phones and they were very comparable in coverage area in Maine. The major difference was that I went into roaming on the Tracfone when I left central PA and didn't go into roaming on the Simple Freedom phone until we left the mid-coast of Maine and headed inland.

We did get a few phone calls on our trip and the phones were very useful to make a quick call to check on a campsite or check the answering machine on our landline phone back home. We talked about possibly doing a call-forwarding option with our home phone but decided against it--- we just didn't need to get that fancy and we already had an answering machine that could be queried remotely. We also had a landline calling card and that's a good thing to have but you have to be careful-- in the small print of the calling card it tells you to check with them for current rates on using the calling card from a payphone. Our provider charges a .65 add-on fee for any phone calls you make from a payphone.

Thursday, 10/13/05-- The first thing we did when we walked in the door was to check the automated plant-watering system. As I started talking about taking a two-month vacation during the months leading up to my retirement, we discussed what to do about Labashi's plants. We've had some of them for more than 20 years and the longest we'd been away up to this point was 21 days in one stretch. We didn't want to ask anyone to be a plant-sitter and were more or less resigned to just letting them go and see if any of them made it when we found a relatively low-tech plant watering system via a Google search on the internet. The system consists of a six-gallon container with a battery-operated solenoid which meters small amounts of water into rubber tubing to 'drippers' placed in each pot. The system is called Oasis by manufacturer Claber and sells for about $80. Setting it up is a matter of placing all the plants on the floor (in a sunny or shady spot according to the plant) and then running a loop of rubber tubing around to the pots and back to the water container. The container must be about two feet above the plants. Then you install up to 20 drippers, one for each pot unless you have a plant which requires more water than most. Once everything is connected, you install the nine-volt transistor-radio-style battery, fill the container, bleed the lines of air, and then set the dial to whichever program you want-- up to 40 days.

We had briefly checked the plants when we walked in the door but took a closer look today. We were happy to find that all but one of the plants was OK. One appeared to have way too much water and it took us awhile to figure out that we had installed a few of the drippers backwards. While the instructions said nothing about the drippers' all facing the same way on the rubber-tubing, the plant that had the problem was the first one in the line to change the installation pattern. We were away for 37 days and there was still about an inch-and-a-half of water in the container. If the plants last another two weeks or so after the water stops, that would mean you could be away safely for about 60 days.

We also retrieved the mail and had quite a stack to go through. Our local post office had a first balked at holding mail for more than 30 days but Labashi talked our local guy into it. I don't know if that will be a problem in the future but I don't think so.

I also went through my gas receipts and mileage notations and did some quick calculations. Our van went 3668 miles in the 37 days of our trip for an average of just under 100 miles per day. I bought 245 gallons of gas at an average cost of $2.84 per gallon and averaged just under 15 miles per gallon. Our average per-night camping cost was $9.84 and if you take out the freebie spots, the average cost for the pay-sites came out to $15.50. High water mark for camping cost per night was $28 and of course low-water mark was zero (I haven't yet found anyone will to pay me to camp there-- but I like the idea!). The Maine State Parks consistently charged $13 per night for out-of-state campers (and had consistently wonderful hot showers). Speaking of showers, we took them every two to four days whether we needed them or not!

Wednesday, 10/12/05-
We decided to head for home and today was the day to leave. Our host, Red Retriever, had an early appointment and we didn't want to leave without saying a proper goodbye so we didn't depart until 1100 or so. The decision to go home was made with mixed feelings. On the one hand, we had had a general plan to be away from home for two months. There was no special reason for the two-month figure-- the only thing driving it was needing to be home for a wedding in November. But we felt we had 'done' Maine (though if the weather had been better we would have at least gone down to Rockland to the Farnsworth Museum). We discussed moving on to New Hampshire or Vermont but determined we'd like to save it for another trip. Same for the other parts of Maine we had not been to this trip--- particularly Castine and the peninsulas between Searsport and Bath. And I'd also like to see Millinocket-- we bypassed it going into Baxter State Park from the lumber road. But that's good-- just another excuse to go back.

Our drive home was in rain much of the time but it was generally a light rain. We did hit a few downpours which caused traffic to jam up a bit but only delayed us slightly. We had to make a decision shortly after crossing the Hudson. Having had some problems finding Wal-Marts which allowed parking between Port Jervis/Matamoras and Fishkill, we'd have to decide whether to stop a little early at Fishkill or press on and use the National Park Service campsite at Dingman's Ferry in the Poconos. As we neared Fishkill we remembered that it was the one that had the giant parking lot cleaner truck operating at two in the morning and it was a noisier parking area-- lot's of late-night traffic. So we decided to press on.

At Milford, we saw signs for the Black Bear Film Festival but it was still two days away and we didn't want to wait around--- but that looks like a good one. Then at the NPS campsite, we found the entrance gated and a sign saying it was temporarily closed due to a problem with their well. That was about 1800 in pouring rain and we decided it should only be another four hours or so to home, so opted to have some dinner and then push on for home. An hour later we were in East Stroudsburg and the roads were dry. The rest of the trip was an easy one and we arrived home at 2300.