Anniversary

Sally and Tom celebrated their 10th anniversary on July 20. There was some confusion on where in the "world" to celebrate.

The weekend before, Bethel had its annual parade celebrating "Mollyockett" day. Molly Ockett was a Native American medicine woman who served the western Maine community, including the first vice-president for Lincoln.

We chose to go toYarmouth on the coast of Maine for a day trip for our anniversary. We had a lobster dinner and toured some of the area. We were a day short of the "Clam Day" parade in Yarmouth. Some of the other work campers went to the festival over the weekend.

We had another meal out of the solar cooker. We also "sponsered" a covered dish supper for the workcampers with a favorite teams and sports theme. Football, baseball, hockey and soccer were represented. We made hot dogs (cooked in a beer broth in the solar cooker). Everyone seemed to have a good time.

Until next time, best wishes from the small crew in Bethel Maine.

The Week of July 10th

Friday, July 14th, Tom and I drove down to Loudon, NH, to watch the NASCAR practice and qualifying for the Leno Tools 300. The picture above shows some of the cars lining up to qualify at about 3 pm. We arrived at 8 - early enough to get a seat in the shade of the overhang and right on the start-finish line. Good thing, too. It was about 90! There was a nice breeze though and the humidity wasn't too bad. Don't think we could have handled a whole day in the sun.
Practice lasted all morning, qualifying for the NASCAR event was at 3 and then there was a Busch East race at 5.
It was my first time at a track since I went to the Daytona 500 in high school. The track really looks different on TV - Victory Lane is relatively small. The "pit" is just a road with the crews standing behind a curb! And it's loud - you do need ear plugs.

Saturday was Molly Ockett Day in Bethel. The day started with a 5 mile race, followed by a parade (see picture below of the Bethel Outdoor Adventure float), a festival on the town common (complete with frog jumping contest, fiddle contest, and fireworks). Molly Ockett was an Indian medicine woman in the late 18th and early 19th century. There is a lot of folklore about her in the Western Maine area. She was born nearby in Fryeburg and is "claimed" by many towns in the area. The story we have heard most often: One time Molly needed a place to stay. She went to one community who would not let her in. The story is that she "cursed" them with bad luck and moved on to the Hamlins from up near South Paris. The Hamelins let her stay with them and while there she cured their son of a fever. The son grew up to be Abraham Lincoln's first vice president (Hannibal Hamlin). More information available here: http://www.avcnet.org/ne-do-ba/bio_moly.html

The Solar Cooker

We are taking advantage of the sunny weather (finally!) and have started doing some solar cooking. I made a solar oven out of a shiny car sunscreen (about $5). The directions are on this web-site. http://solarcooking.org/plans.htm (Scroll down to panel cookers).

It works pretty well so far, though the wind does occasionally blow the pot over. All we have done to this point are fully cooked foods, like canned beans and cooked sausages or hot dogs. Pretty good - and as we get more confident, we'll graduate to more sophisticated cooking and maybe even some baking. See our first meal below.

Travelling the "World"

Sally and Tom have been planning to travel the world for many years. Now, it appears, you can travel the most of the civilized world and never leave the state of Maine. This sign is about 15 miles from the campground where we are working. There is another sign with more "exotic" places that we will post in the near future.

We are having a great time. Sally is doing quite a bit of hiking. Tom has a slight injury keeping him from walking as much as Sally, but he is quickly recovering.

There is a preservation society that sponsers an event each Monday night. We have seen a local humorist and an "Old Time Radio Hour" show. The events are held in a chapel on the property of Poland Springs, the bottled water people. We have to drive about 35 miles to this place. To put it in prospective, we used to drive 30 miles one way to play trivia in Atlanta. But he scenery is much better up here.

The work is fun. We get to meet a lot of interesting people from all over the northeast, even some from around the world. Two guys from Denmark came in the week before the 4th. Canadians show pretty regular. But most of the adventurers are from ME, MA and NH.

We miss family and friends, but we are trying to involve ourselves in activities to mask our homesickness. Good health to all. We'll be posting more soon.

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.