Taking a break in .... Montreal

Hi everyone,

Sally and Tom are adapting to their new envronment. In the first picture, we help racers sign up for a river race involving canoes and kayaks. One of the interesting duos in the race are an Olympic caliber athelete (winter, biathlon) and his 8 year old son. They finished second to a pair of guys who race every weekend. The second picture is Tom looking over the city of Montreal. We discovered on Monday that we would not work again until Friday, so we drove the 200 miles to Montreal. 200 miles may not seem far, but most if it is on two lane backroads, but what a beautiful drive. We took a Greyline tour of the city and a walking tour. It is a very picturesque city, too bad we are limited on the number of pictures we can post.

Thanks for checking out our blog.

The AT Hikers

Tuesday we met Kenny, Foster and Teresa of the Appalachian Trail Club of Alabama in Lebanon, NH, as they prepared to hike Vermont over the next three weeks.

We had dinner at a really great little Irish pub in Lebanon (complete with a live group doing Celtic music at 7 pm on a Tuesday night.) It was a lot of fun catching up with Foster - it's been a long time since we had been able to visit. We spent the night at the Sunset Inn between Hanover and Lebanon. It's a very nice Mom & Pop establishment right on the Connecticut River. It's evidently a hiker stop. There was an AT log in a plastic box in the lobby. The lobby was full of all sorts of interesting books. It looked like a great place to spend a 0-mile day - in fact we met another section hiker who had exactly that idea. The host gave the "girls" the room on the river side. Tom and Foster had to settle for the room without a view but there was no noise from the guys room. Foster and Tom have almost identical C-PAP machines so there was no snoring contest.

The next morning after breakfast and some repacking, we dropped the three hikers off in downtown Hanover close to Dartmouth. The trail runs right through Hanover by the It had just started to sprinkle - the beginning of a five days of rain, rain and more rain. At least here in the western mountains of Maine, we have had day after day of rain. The rivers are filling up and folks are watching the rivers rise. We hope that Vermont wasn't quite as wet.

We left Kenny's truck at their next stopping place and headed back to Bethel. On the way, we stopped at the Long Trail Brewery between Killington and I-93. Very interesting place. I loved the "Blackbeary Wheat" summer brew. Probably the first lighter beer I have ever liked. I brought a six-pack back to Maine. We are headed back on Sunday to meet them again and help with the next shuttle - the plans include a night in a lean-to on the trail but I bet they will want some real food and a dry bed!

In Alabama - April & May, 2006

We spent all of April and the early part of May in Alabama visiting friends and relatives. Most of the time we were parked at our friends' house in White Plains. The picture at the top left shows one of the most exciting afternoons that month. The hail in that storm was a little bigger than golf ball size. The sound of those things hitting the top of the RV roof was scary. Fortunately we had little damage. The awnings over our slide outs ended up with some holes, but nothing too bad.
The other two pictures were taken at Coleman Lake campground in the Talledega National Forest. The sites are large and shady; the electric service is 50 amp so you can run air conditioning easily (of course, in Alabama that is almost a necessity!); and the bath houses are almost luxurious.
Our friends joined us for the weekend - they have a trailer and really love to camp also. We'll look forward to seeing them in the fall and camping at Coleman again.

Bickford Slides

We started out to hike the Royce trail in the White Mountain Natl Forest todaysouth of Gilead, ME, but the first river crossing was a little tougher than we wanted to tackle. So we went across the road and hiked the Bickford Brook trail instead. It turned out to be a beautiful hike - just enough climbing and a realy pretty bit of white water at the top. This is a view looking down the Bickford Slides. If you follow the trail down by the brook, you can get a close up view of that really narrow slot to the right of Tom. The brook keeps tumbling downhill for at least 1/4 mile. We are looking forward to getting back up and doing some more exploring in the area.
BTW, the head gear may look funny, but it helps keep away the gnats, mosquitos and black flies!
June 6, 2006

Stephen's Graduation - May 13th

I promised to share some of the events of March, April and early May and will start with the most recent BIG event. Sally's son Stephen graduated from Tulane Law School on May 13th. He was the top student in his class, an award presented at the Law School honors reception Friday night.

The main Tulane graduation ceremony was Saturday morning - speakers were Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush. It was held in the arena, across the street from the Superdome. It was a very different ceremony - no Pomp and Circumstance. The music was provided by a jazz band. The invocation was even musical - a version of Just a Closer Walk with Thee done in the traditional funeral format. The first section was a very soulful clarinet solo, followed by a rousing jaz version by the full jazz ensemble, including brass and saxophone.
At the end of the graduation, there was a surprise appearance by Ellen DeGeneres. She appeared in a white hotel-type terry robe saying that she heard everyone would be in robes. At the end, instead of a formal recessional, she and the university president led the students in a "second-line" dance carrying a parasol and waving a white handkerchief.
Stephen took us out for steaks at Dickie Brennan's after the Law School graduation ceremony. He started work Monday the 15th as a law clerk for Edith Brown Clement of the Fifth Circuit Federal Appeals Court.

Our picture

We finally did it!

We finally retired, got all our "stuff" sorted out and given away, and traveled to our location for the summer. The RV in the foreground of this picture and the truck pulling out are ours. We are located at Bethel Outdoor Adventures in Bethel, Maine, for the next few months.

The campground is on the banks of the Androscoggin river. BOA offers canoe and kayak rentals, guided fishing trips, tubing and a guided tour of an old mine - interesting to all rockhounds.

We are already exploring the area - we can see that this is going to be an exciting place to be. There is so much to do that we don't anticipate being bored at all. We are close to the Appalachian Trail and the White Mountains National Forest. There are so many trails there is no way to hike them all this summer (not to mention that some of them are so tough we are in no shape to tackle them yet!)

Just a note about our intent with this blog: The idea is to share with our friends where we are and what we are doing. It will probably not be updated daily - we'll see how often we can manage it.

Right now the blog is under initial construction so please be patient. We'll post later about our trip up here and what we have been doing since March, 2006.