Two days in Maine; two in Western New York; On to home!
(posted from home)
(This post covers 25 – 30 September, 2010)
-------------------------------
Thursday, 30 September-
This morning I worked on catching up the blog and went through the accumulated mail. I ran a few errands and notified the post office we're back and returned movies to the Blockbuster Express box. The Redbox machines are a bit slicker in operation in that the Blockbuster box sometimes makes you think there's something wrong but it's just a bit slow in spitting out your movies. But I do think it was a great idea for the machine not to need a Blockbuster membership. All you need is a credit card-- just like a Redbox.
That afternoon I did some web research on the Trans-America Trail (the motorcycle one, not the bicycling one), on Sirius satellite radio options (I'd like to be able to listen to CBC Radio while travelling), BMW G650 Xcountry motorcycles, Auto-Locator and Craigslist ads for motorcycles, and, well, any dang thing that came into my head. It was a wonderful day.
That evening we were wondering what movie to watch when I found 'The Thomas Crown Affair' (the original) on MGM/HD. And upon seeing the dune buggy scene I realized I had just today looked through the Auto-Locator listings for a dune buggy, as I do nearly every time I look through its ads. If I ever found one like McQueen's, I don't think I could resist, impractical as they may be.
After 'Thomas Crown', we watched 'Wild Bill' with Jeff Bridges. Oddly, we had never seen that 1995 movie.
And watching the movie led me to read and savor the incredibly interesting entries for Wild Bill Hickock and Charlie Utter on Wikipedia. Loved it!
--------------------------------
Wednesday, 29 September-
We finally headed home today. It seemed like a short drive (it's about 250 miles) and the northern portion of US15 had wonderful color. Labashi estimated about 70 per cent of the trees had turned color and when the sun showed through, they seemed to light up. I don't think I've seen this much color so early in the season before in Pennsylvania. (Northern Maine, of course, had incredible colors that looked lit-up even on the rainy day we came through).
On the way home we stopped in Mansfield to check out the gun case at Cooper's Sporting Goods (as I do each time I come through) and for lunch at Wendy's.
We made it home by 1500. We had everything up and running within an hour in the house and then spent another hour unloading the van and cleaning up.
By 1700 we were watching movies. We had stopped at our local Rutter's gas station's new Blockbuster Express DVD-rental box and picked up two for the evening.
We first watched 'Solitary Man' with Michael Douglas, then 'It's Complicated' with Meryl Streep, Alex Baldwin, and Steve Martin.
I was a bit disappointed in both movies. Both of them seemed full of cliches and plot stretches. I don't mind suspending disbelief a bit when I'm being well-entertained or am enjoying the story-line. But 'Solitary Man' was just too weak and 'It's Complicated' too strained at making their one-idea points. In the former the point is that powerful men oft-times do remarkably stupid things when their power begins to fade. And in the latter, it's BOTH the man and woman who do remarkably stupid things and continue to damage their families, still trying to find out 'who they are'. Give me a break.
---------------------------------
Tuesday, 28 September-
I spent today with Orat and JustJeff. They're in the early stages of building a car for rally-cross racing and needed to drop off an engine block for work at a machine shop near Canandaigua so I went along for the ride to the shop.
We then went over to the hangar where Orat and a buddy keep their planes (!) and motorcycles and I took a ride on a BMW 650 X-Country modified for the knarlier dual-sport rides. Orat's buddy has both a KTM Adventurer 950 and now the X-Country so he's really into the motorcycle adventure-riding thing. He's talking about doing the Trans-America Trail, a cross-country assemblage of forest roads, jeep trails, farm roads, etc, running from Tennessee to Oregon. Hmmmm... interesting! (Can I go? Please??? Pleasaaaseee????)
We also checked out Orat's RV-8 home-built airplane. What an incredible achievement! His workmanship on this all-metal, 200-mile-per-hour, variable-prop, fighter-cockpit design is top-notch and the design and modern technology are very impressive.
We then went back to the house and hung out. Orat pulled a surprise out of the yard-shed-- a Honda Ruckus-50 scooter. Both Labashi and I took rides with big, silly grins on our faces.
That evening we met the new baby grand-nephew and had a picnic supper in the huge back summer room and sat around talking all evening.
---------------------------------
Monday, 27 September-
We left Maine this morning after our wonderful visit. We drove down I-95 to I-495 west and then joined I-90 west toward my brother Orat's home in western New York.
We spent the day buzzing out very nice I-90 through rain showers but with a very nice tail-wind pushing us along effortlessly. As we drove we listened to 'This American Life' and 'RadioLab' podcasts and that made the time fly.
By 1800 we reached the Rochester area, just in time to go out for pizza with Orat and family. Nice!
---------------------------------
Sunday, 26 September-
Our friend was working again for a few hours today. I spent much of this cool, cloudy morning patrolling my regular websites to catch up on whatever I had missed (not much!) and in getting the latest software updates for the laptop and checking them out.
Late in the day I drove over to the trailhead of the Atlantic Way Trail and walked for an hour or so, thoroughly enjoying it.
That evening we had dinner at the nearby Thai restaurant.
----------------------------------
Saturday, 25 September-
We had spectacular weather today here in coastal Maine. Labashi and I were just happy to relax after our few days of driving and the rainy and windy weather. Temperatures in Labrador and Quebec hadn't been bad-- low Fifties in the daytime, low Forties at night -- but we were feeling chilled when we arrived yesterday. In fact, today was almost TOO hot, as I found in working up a sweat washing down Mocha Joe this morning.
Our friend had to work until 1300 but then we spent the afternoon catching up on each other's lives. Later in the afternoon the girls continued the conversation during a four-mile power-walk to Old Orchard Beach and back while I surfed the web and dog-sat. Later, the girls drove down to the beach at low tide to look for sand-dollars. Upon their return we had a Mudslide avalanche. Our friend made up a pitcher of extra-potent mudslide cocktails and we enjoyed them on the porch-- for quite a while!
That evening we had a home-cooked meal of the most incredible haddock. I swear we can't get fish that good in our area. But now we're going to try!
************** END OF POST ************
(posted from home)
(This post covers 25 – 30 September, 2010)
-------------------------------
Thursday, 30 September-
This morning I worked on catching up the blog and went through the accumulated mail. I ran a few errands and notified the post office we're back and returned movies to the Blockbuster Express box. The Redbox machines are a bit slicker in operation in that the Blockbuster box sometimes makes you think there's something wrong but it's just a bit slow in spitting out your movies. But I do think it was a great idea for the machine not to need a Blockbuster membership. All you need is a credit card-- just like a Redbox.
That afternoon I did some web research on the Trans-America Trail (the motorcycle one, not the bicycling one), on Sirius satellite radio options (I'd like to be able to listen to CBC Radio while travelling), BMW G650 Xcountry motorcycles, Auto-Locator and Craigslist ads for motorcycles, and, well, any dang thing that came into my head. It was a wonderful day.
That evening we were wondering what movie to watch when I found 'The Thomas Crown Affair' (the original) on MGM/HD. And upon seeing the dune buggy scene I realized I had just today looked through the Auto-Locator listings for a dune buggy, as I do nearly every time I look through its ads. If I ever found one like McQueen's, I don't think I could resist, impractical as they may be.
After 'Thomas Crown', we watched 'Wild Bill' with Jeff Bridges. Oddly, we had never seen that 1995 movie.
And watching the movie led me to read and savor the incredibly interesting entries for Wild Bill Hickock and Charlie Utter on Wikipedia. Loved it!
--------------------------------
Wednesday, 29 September-
We finally headed home today. It seemed like a short drive (it's about 250 miles) and the northern portion of US15 had wonderful color. Labashi estimated about 70 per cent of the trees had turned color and when the sun showed through, they seemed to light up. I don't think I've seen this much color so early in the season before in Pennsylvania. (Northern Maine, of course, had incredible colors that looked lit-up even on the rainy day we came through).
On the way home we stopped in Mansfield to check out the gun case at Cooper's Sporting Goods (as I do each time I come through) and for lunch at Wendy's.
We made it home by 1500. We had everything up and running within an hour in the house and then spent another hour unloading the van and cleaning up.
By 1700 we were watching movies. We had stopped at our local Rutter's gas station's new Blockbuster Express DVD-rental box and picked up two for the evening.
We first watched 'Solitary Man' with Michael Douglas, then 'It's Complicated' with Meryl Streep, Alex Baldwin, and Steve Martin.
I was a bit disappointed in both movies. Both of them seemed full of cliches and plot stretches. I don't mind suspending disbelief a bit when I'm being well-entertained or am enjoying the story-line. But 'Solitary Man' was just too weak and 'It's Complicated' too strained at making their one-idea points. In the former the point is that powerful men oft-times do remarkably stupid things when their power begins to fade. And in the latter, it's BOTH the man and woman who do remarkably stupid things and continue to damage their families, still trying to find out 'who they are'. Give me a break.
---------------------------------
Tuesday, 28 September-
I spent today with Orat and JustJeff. They're in the early stages of building a car for rally-cross racing and needed to drop off an engine block for work at a machine shop near Canandaigua so I went along for the ride to the shop.
We then went over to the hangar where Orat and a buddy keep their planes (!) and motorcycles and I took a ride on a BMW 650 X-Country modified for the knarlier dual-sport rides. Orat's buddy has both a KTM Adventurer 950 and now the X-Country so he's really into the motorcycle adventure-riding thing. He's talking about doing the Trans-America Trail, a cross-country assemblage of forest roads, jeep trails, farm roads, etc, running from Tennessee to Oregon. Hmmmm... interesting! (Can I go? Please??? Pleasaaaseee????)
We also checked out Orat's RV-8 home-built airplane. What an incredible achievement! His workmanship on this all-metal, 200-mile-per-hour, variable-prop, fighter-cockpit design is top-notch and the design and modern technology are very impressive.
We then went back to the house and hung out. Orat pulled a surprise out of the yard-shed-- a Honda Ruckus-50 scooter. Both Labashi and I took rides with big, silly grins on our faces.
That evening we met the new baby grand-nephew and had a picnic supper in the huge back summer room and sat around talking all evening.
---------------------------------
Monday, 27 September-
We left Maine this morning after our wonderful visit. We drove down I-95 to I-495 west and then joined I-90 west toward my brother Orat's home in western New York.
We spent the day buzzing out very nice I-90 through rain showers but with a very nice tail-wind pushing us along effortlessly. As we drove we listened to 'This American Life' and 'RadioLab' podcasts and that made the time fly.
By 1800 we reached the Rochester area, just in time to go out for pizza with Orat and family. Nice!
---------------------------------
Sunday, 26 September-
Our friend was working again for a few hours today. I spent much of this cool, cloudy morning patrolling my regular websites to catch up on whatever I had missed (not much!) and in getting the latest software updates for the laptop and checking them out.
Late in the day I drove over to the trailhead of the Atlantic Way Trail and walked for an hour or so, thoroughly enjoying it.
That evening we had dinner at the nearby Thai restaurant.
----------------------------------
Saturday, 25 September-
We had spectacular weather today here in coastal Maine. Labashi and I were just happy to relax after our few days of driving and the rainy and windy weather. Temperatures in Labrador and Quebec hadn't been bad-- low Fifties in the daytime, low Forties at night -- but we were feeling chilled when we arrived yesterday. In fact, today was almost TOO hot, as I found in working up a sweat washing down Mocha Joe this morning.
Our friend had to work until 1300 but then we spent the afternoon catching up on each other's lives. Later in the afternoon the girls continued the conversation during a four-mile power-walk to Old Orchard Beach and back while I surfed the web and dog-sat. Later, the girls drove down to the beach at low tide to look for sand-dollars. Upon their return we had a Mudslide avalanche. Our friend made up a pitcher of extra-potent mudslide cocktails and we enjoyed them on the porch-- for quite a while!
That evening we had a home-cooked meal of the most incredible haddock. I swear we can't get fish that good in our area. But now we're going to try!
************** END OF POST ************
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 22:07
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