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That was a $100 meal.
Saturday Sept. 7th Here:73 There: 86
We landed in Boston to the beautiful site of a bed a shower and a remote control. We ended up staying an extra night in Acadia. It was really beautiful there. We did some great hiking.
We climbed up to Bubble Rock the hard way. I almost did not make it. I had to make a slight modification to the trail, it was like climbing a rock wall.
Yesterday we had a fantastic time taking a shower and doing laundry at the landromat. The showers were coin operated. You got 4 minutes for 4 quarters, Steph set her watch to go off at three minutes so we would not end up soapy. We spent our last 8 quarters so if we messed up then it would be too bad for us.
We had a fantastic time in Bar Harbbor. We brought our clean clothes into the internet cafe and changed in the bathroom. Then we shopped a little, ended up with the best travel mugs ever. Then we went to a restaraunt recommended by a kid in the t-shirt shop. He hit it on the money.
It was a half hour wait until we could sit outside so we headed up to the bar and discovered a great stout to go along with our porters. As it turns out the only other guy in the bar is also from Houston. He was quite a character he talked exactly like Forrest Gump and just about as much. After about forty minutes I was bugging the host about when our table would be ready.
We had some great seafood and a really nice time even though Nik (our waiter) was pretty bad. We walked around town a little more and then we were headed back to camp. We watched another episode of the Sopranos in the tent then hit the hay. Long about 3:00 am the Girl says she is not feeling well and to put it politely, lets just say, there is no fast way to get out of a tent when you are about to blow chunks.
It was a long walk up to the bathroom and I am sure we woke up alot of people in adjacent campsites. By the time we got everything cleaned up and the Girl felt like she could lay down again it was after 4:00 AM. At this point I started feeling kind of rumbly and had visions of food poisoning from the clams we had. Just as I was talking myself out of being sick there is some kind of critter sniffing around right outside the tent.
I am sure it was just a racoon, but it scared the sh!t out of me.
We both woke up feeling a little iffy but broke camp and headed west then south, back to Massachusetts. I do not think we will be having any more seafood this week.
Hey! Is that Debbie Hull?
Thursday Sept. 5th Happy Anniversary Here:60 There: 90
Our second night of camping was not nearly as excellent as our first. After a short visit to Worcester where everything is pretty much the same, just nicer and cleaner, we went up to Ogunquit.
We camped at Cape Neddick and were right by the road it was not all bad, we were a twenty second walk from the beach. There was a turkish couple who camped next to us they built a roaring fire that lasted about a half an hour. Maybe they were just burning their trash.
At 5:00 am we woke up to the sound of thunder and lightening in the sky. I asked the girl if she thought we should break camp before it started to rain. She agreed so by 5:20 everything was in the car except for the coffee stuff. We sat and drank our coffee for about a little while until it started to sprinkle. The we sat in the truck for a little while and listened to the news. Then we drove to the store and sat in the truck for a little while until it opened. Our day was having kind of a crappy start.
We decided to head north rather than wait around Ogunguit for it to stop raining. That is how we ended up at Acadia.
We took Rt. 1 the whole way up and we were at LL Bean before 10:00. The girl took this opportunity to put in her eyes and brush teeth, generally freshen up. We walk out of the bathroom into the home department and the Girl says, Isn't that Debbie Hull? Before she had the word Hull completely out of here mouth I was hollering Hey, Debbie. She gave us both hugs and we chatted about this and that Mark and Dana and how she was doing. Her father had died and she and her mom were on their way to the airport to pick up some family.
She reccomended that we go to Rockport to the Andrew Wyeth Museum there. and we took her up on that.
Rockport was really cute and the museum was good but not worth $9. It cost $9 to get into Mass MoCA and it was tons better than this.
We continued our way east had to make one last stop at Walmart for flip-flops (public showers are not possible without them) and another camp chair.
So here we are and even though we are by the road AGAIN the sleeping was great. Cool enough that you had to snuggle all the way into your bag. We are spending the day in the park going on some ranger led hikes. Driving as little as possible.
Porter Tally (in best to worst order)
1. Berkshire Brewing Company
2. Atlantic Brewery Company Coal Porter
3. Wachuset Brewery
4. Smuttynose Brewery
5. Geary's London Style Porter
Mass MoCA, Mas Cafe
Sunday Sept. 1 Here: 64 There: 95
The Super-8 Continental Breakfast was not exactly something to write home about except for the fact that they had partucularly good donuts. The coffee sucked. We busted out of there to do some shopping, we had not bought any groceries yet but our main mission was propane. You cannot believe how long it took to find propane.
We hit Super Stop & Shop, CVS, Ames and CostPlus and no propane. Ames is going out of business so we did pick up a lantern case for cheap. We put our propane endeavor on hold for a while. Next mission finding somewhere to camp for that night.
October Mountain ended up being suprisingly close to our motel. The gal at the ranger station who registered us was really great. She tried to convince us to stay two nights. It took a few tries to get a camp sight, the first two had people still there. We got assigned a sight and then went off to Mass MoCA in North Adams without setting up camp. Suprise suprise there was a Walmart on the way and if anyone will have propane Walmart will. Of course we ended up with another camp chair and the third season of the Sopranos as well.
Mass Moca is an old mill that has been turned into a contemporary art museum. We saw some amazing things, there is this guy (Erwin Wurm) who takes picture of people and then makes them really fat with pillows and stuff and takes their pictures again. He also did this to a Bentley. I guess my favorite is the Maya. It is a four sided pyramid of toys, mostly action figures, that is 10 feet tall and covered with thousands of toys. We decided to go for the self guided audio tour and they actully had them on MP3 players. It worked really well.
We drove back down to Lenox to set up camp. We were ready for a nap but decided to make coffee instead. It was only a couple of hours until it was time to go to Tangelwood. We were sitting there drinking our coffee and it started to rain. Really it drizzled but it was a continuous drizzle that is still happening right now.
We went in to see what the town of Lenox was like and we found a great tavern that served our new beer BBC Drayman's Porter. It was the kind of place where you do not have to have any teeth to be popular. The gals behind the bar had things under control. After a couple of beers and a basket of fries we were off to see Dave Brubeck.
We got there almost two hours early. We were on the lawn and since we did not have chairs we got to sit front and center. We sat there for the first 45 minutes on our rain ponchos until we realized we could be up at the snack tent sitting at a nice dry table. The view of the stage was perfect the only problem was that it continued to rain. We had neglected to buy any wine for our "picnic" on Saturday when we had our only opportunity so we paid $5 for 12 oz. beers at the snack tent.
Once the show started we pretty much forgot that it was raining. At intermission it was back to the tent at the top of the hill. I went up and asked for a beer. Because I used the word please the guy gave me my beer for free. I was stunned but I thanked him and walked away.
During the second half of the show Brubeck started with Pennies from Heaven for all us folks in the rain. He followed that with The Sunny Side of the Street at which point it actually stopped raining briefly. Then he played Somewhere Over the Rainbow like Judy Garland was there singing. You could actually hear her voice in the spaces he left around the music. Then the flute came in and he sounded like Judy incarnated as a Disney songbird. Then they played Take Five and we stood and applauded and they Lullabyed us goodnight.
When we got back to campground we climbed into our sleeping bags and slept like dry little babies listening to the raindrops on our tent. We are hotelling it tonight but I am looking forward to camping again. Man I slept good.
Pish Posh Bish Bash
We started our vacation yesterday. It started out very smoothly even though we flew Southwest airlines. It was my first time flying since 9/11 and things are different at the airport.
The atmosphere used to be full of emotion, people happy, hurried, panicked. I could always feel it at the airport. Now people are very flat, no excitement, no tearful hellos or goodbyes at the gate. No more "See honey there is mommy's/daddy's plane right now." I did not get picked for screening so as far as I am concerned flying is almost the same it just not as much fun and it takes longer.
We arrived at Bradley Field and rented a truck. It is a little red Ford 4x4 with a 6-cd changer right in the dash, we are both enamored with the truck. Off we went to western Connecticut to camp. We had a little over four hours of daylight to find a place to stay and we used every bit of it and then some.
Macedonia Brook State Park was our number one choice and we arrived to three rangers standing on the porch of the HQ shooting the breeze next to a sign that read Camp Ground Full. They did not even look our way as we pulled up. Next stop Housatonic Meadows, but we did not actually have to stop thanks to the very large sign they had posted on the side of the road, Camp Ground Full. Next, we were off to Mount Washington State Forest/Bish Bash Falls. There was no little picture of a tent on the map but we thought we'd give it a whirl. After many miles we pull into Bish Bash falls to the sight of a different sign No Camping. We took advatage of the empty parking lot and the fact that the sign did not say no peeing and then we moved on.
Beartown ended up being our last effort for the night. The kid working at Beartown tried to work up some enthusiasm (the Girl said, "At least he did not laugh at us.") he told all the parks that were full and suggested Tolland State Forest might have a spot, he had not called them.
Now I know it is Labor Day weekend and I half expected a campground or two to be full. But good lord, there is not a place in all of western Connecticut or Massachusetts for us to pop up our little tent.
We turned our little red truck around and headed back to Great Barrington where we had seen restaraunts that were still open and the lovely yellow glow of a Days Inn sign.
After after a couple of u-turns we parrallel parked in front of Baba Louie's Pizza and thank god we did. The salad tasted like I was eating it directly out of a spring garden and the wood burning oven cooked our hand-tossed barbecue chicken pizza to perfection. The best though was the beer. It was a Porter from the Berkshire Brewing Co. I asked the waitress and she said it came from Deerfield, we will be going to Deerfield.
We had found out the Days Inn was full so we continued north since we had to be in Lenox on Sunday anyway. We passed all the nice looking Inns and B&B's and evetually we ran across the lovely but slightly different shade of yellow glow of a Super-8 sign. Oh baby we were home, the parking lot was almost empty and the Girl had her credit card out and waiting.
The woman at the desk was extremely nice. She explained that, "Yes, even with AAA the rate will be $110, you can call Howard Johnson's they are $124." No thanks, we'll take it. We got the last non-smoking room. We threw our bags in the room and went out in search of more of that Porter. We drove further north to find only trees and darkend buildings. We ended up at a nice restaraunt that also had a tavern. In the aftermath of what looked like a wedding shower we settled for a Guiness (me) and a Newcastle (her) then we scooted on back to the Super8 to test out those double beds.
Today we are going to be at October Mountain early and hang around until someone leaves so that we can get their spot. We don't have a back-up plan yet but I do not think we will be staying another night at the Super8.
