Turning my pages

This year's toilets

2012-01-17T12:50:00.000-08:00

This year our Christmas gift to each other is to level the house. Not as much fun as a new front sidewalk from last year, or a great window in the dining room the year before, or even the amazing super flush toilets that started this tradition.

But long after I replace the tile, replant the bushes, fill the sink holes that will remain when the dirt around the 18 new piers settles, I will enjoy the doors that open and close and lock, and the cessation of widening cracks in the wall, tile coming off the walls........A stranger walking in will not know the difference....but I will.

Till that time, my spring activity is set: restore the landscape, tile the patio, patch the cracks, repaint the walls......take hot baths.......dream of a massage......

What took me so long?

2012-01-04T14:04:00.000-08:00

I spent five years on sabbatical from Girl Scout volunteering. Guess I needed to cure my wanderlust when I retired, and I didn't want to commit to be in town for very long at all. Then last year I decided to try my hand at being a Gold Award Advisor.

The process hasn't changed much since Troop 2010 members worked on their Gold projects, just the names of programs. I have a job descripton, but I am not in charge of making anything happen. I wait to be contacted by girls in high school who are ready to start their Gold award. It's like the Eagle award, but bigger and better, I think.

So many reasons to do this:

To believe in the future
To mentor girls who WILL be making a difference right now and for the rest of their lives
To smile, laugh, and dream with girls on the verge of womanhood and life

After a few months of hem-hawing about when to take the plunge, I got a Google phone number. I chose an email to use just for Gold award business. I finally put my name on the list. And nothing happened for a while.

Then one night while I was watching TV reading my iphone messages I opened one from a stranger.

My first gold award candidate.

What a keeper she is. Mature. Polite. Social skills. Passionate about her cause. A true joy to work with. I think the universe is rewarding me in advance for all the girls to come who might not be so mature, and that's a good thing for someone getting back in the saddle again.

Here's a link to her blog. Enjoy!
http://ontheroadtogold.blogspot.com/

PS Yes, technology is a wondrous thing. Before we met, she googled me.

All but done

2011-08-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

I wore some of these guidebooks out: West Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and parts of a dozen other states. We covered 9,747 miles and averaged 17.5 mpg. We saw four great lakes, all but Ontario, and spent the most time on Superior and Michigan. Turned out to be more than a summer's worth of lake viewing. I rank the sand dune shores of eastern Lake Michigan the highest overall, with the allure of the coldness and blueness of Superior a close second.

As I took my last RV park shower, I thought of my next bath in my own home, how there would be absorbent mats to step on, water pressure that was familiar, move around room that was comfortable. My last RV shower wasn't bad. Any RV park shower with a dry floor is pretty high ranking. I thought back over the summer to a perfect 10 bathroom, in Ohio Amish Country, near Berlin, with a private bath setup that rivaled the Houstonian, including fancy rain shower heads. I took a long shower there. In contrast to the Amish country bath, I declined to even go into the bathroom in Hot Springs, NC. And of course, I remembered the Kohler bath showroom, where I wanted to crawl into one of their display tubs but was pretty sure I was supposed to keep my clothes on and look. I am looking forward to my next shower. I'll be able to leave the shampoo in the tub and hang up the towels on a rack and leave them to dry when I am done. And the spongy bath mat is going to be divine.

It has been a summer consumed by thinking about water, from the lakes to the flooding rivers to the drought at home and to the water bill waiting for me there. I'll be fighting with the City, explaining that there is no way my mostly empty house used 35,000 gallons in June. I've been calculating. That would mean leaving a faucet running outside 8 hours a day all month long. Something to look forward to, being greeted by a brown crackling lawn (I left instructions not to try to save it) and that water bill. Traveling in the RV, I am very aware of how much water we use: I fill our 35 gallon tank twice a week. There's another 200 gallons a week in showers outside the RV and maybe 100 gallons on two loads of laundry. Daisy drinks three gallons a week. I cannot get from those numbers to 35,000 gallons in a month. Should be fun negotiating.

What a contrast, between brown blistery Texas, suffering its worst drought since 1925, and the verdant green landscape of the Great Lakes states, with their rolling farms and little lakes everywhere. There's no doubt I had better scenery this summer than my friends in Texas. But soon I'll be joining in the prayers for rain and begging for a hurricane too. It will be good to be home.

Discovering Columbus, Indiana

2011-07-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

In every state there are certain town names you can count on finding: Lincoln, Salem, Paris, London, Columbus. But not every Columbus has the claim to fame that Columbus Indiana has.

This town of 40,000 an hour south of Indianapolis is a company town; Cummins Engine is headquartered there. The story of Cummins is unique in itself. Five generations ago a bank founder had a chauffer who loved to tinker with engines. The chauffer, who name was Cummins, invented the first diesel engine for vehicles. His boss bankrolled him, and together they started a fortune 500 company.

Time passed. Cummins grew. Mid 20th century Cummins established a foundation to pay the fee for credentialed architects to design any public building being built in the town. Soon Churches and businesses and people building their homes followed suit.

The result?

World renowned architecture, green spaces, public art. I M Pei designed the library, Don Hisaka the jail, Kevin Roche the Cummins headquarters, Isaac Hodgson the Courthouse. Well known architects are fond of designing a building in Columbus to be part of the scene where multiple buildings have been AIA design award winners.

I love what a forward thinking corporation can do for a town. I'd put this town and Kohler on the list of best towns of the summer trip.

On leaving Michigan

2011-07-24T16:05:00.000-07:00

A week ago we left the upper peninsula of Michigan, and I really thought we'd be done with lower Michigan in two days. Well, I was wrong. We spent a full week peeking at lakes on both sides, Huron and Michigan.

I had always thought the popular western side, along Lake Michigan, was pricey and crowded and overrated. Of course, that was based on one quick drive thirty years ago on a beautiful sunny Sunday. This time, I took my time. And it was crowded, if the day was a sunny weekend, and who could blame all those people for wanting some of that sandy dune shoreline, with water that is at times warm enough to swim?

The towns are quaint and full of flowers. At least ten towns along the shore plant petunia borders along the curbs from one end of town to the other. Then they water and weed all those beds. It seemed worth it to me.

But the most amazing feature of the shoreline are the dunes. Formed by sand blowing from prevailing southeasterly winds, the dunes shift and mound and grow, advance and retreat, trap inland lakes and then reclaim the lakes back into Lake Michigan. In Sleeping Bear Dunes, a man named Pierce Stocking, a lumberman who loved the dunes, decided to share them with the world. He thought if he built a road through the dunes, then we could all stand on top of 200 foot mountains of sand and share in the exhilaration of the blue waters and the wind blowing our faces. And he did it. Now a National Seashore, the Sleeping Bear Dunes are accessible to everyone, and Pierce Stocking Drive is the highlight.

Thank you, Mr. Stocking.

Today's blog brought to you by Daisy

2011-07-22T05:13:00.000-07:00

http://chewingmypages.blogspot.com/2011/07/another-summer-in-rv.html

To all my friends back home, from Alpena, MI, where everything is squishy today

2011-07-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

We have received your kind shipment of hot and humid air ( Detroit 94/75, Minneapolis 97/80) and it has made us so homesick for Houston (93/78) that we are thinking about turning to the south where a/c is considered a necessity. Besides, we don’t want to miss the tropical storm season.

Taking its cue from the rising outside temps, our frig went on the fritz (50 is the best it gets right now) and tomorrow we will be getting a new circuit board. Hopefully my watermelon will be cool enough to eat again before we get too far south (where people know watermelons are supposed to be icy cold). We plan to hug the shore of Lake Michigan as close as we can for a few breezes before hitting the non-peninsula states to the south (Indianapolis (95/78). We might stop at a few places that advertise they are KOOL inside.

As you might gather from my jiggly bicycling movies in my photo albums Mr. Lincoln and I have logged a few bike miles this summer in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. They have glorious long bike paths here. But today, it was too muggy to bike. We ducked inside NOAA's shipwreck museum to watch movies about the Great Lakes storm of November 1913 when twelve ships disappeared to watery graves. Made me shiver for a moment.

This weekend marked the 108th Chicago to Mackinac sailboat races. The 333-mile race from just off Navy Pier to Mackinac Island is the oldest annual freshwater distance race in the world. An estimated 3,500 crewmembers on 355 boats participated. Last night a storm with 60 mph winds flipped one of the boats, and two crew members died. To hear this on the news right after visiting the shipwreck museum brought an erie present day reality to history. Just the day before I had peered out into the water hoping to glimpse some of the boats. It never occurred to me when I heard rain on the roof in the night that someone would die on the Lakes.

Looking at Huron today, who would ever think this pale blue wonder would wreak havoc?

Great Lakes weather is highly unpredictable. Sailors leaving port in balmy seas can be confronted within hours by swells thirty feet high. Unlike ocean swells of that size, these are not rolling but crashing swells, as in swamp and smash your boat. (It was a scary movie and even scarier present day reality; I am not going sailing out there, especially not on an off season November special).

One more Great Lake amazing fact: did you know that if you spread the water of the Great Lakes over the whole US, we would be nine feet under water? I'd like to do that this summer. Pour some on the Southwest. Pour some onTexas. If we could just tip Superior on edge for about an hour.....

Who painted those rocks?

2011-07-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

The simple answer is God did, but I will add a few details.

The cliffs are pre-Cambrian rock that was once the ocean floor of a tropical sea, and the layers are different sediment accumulations on that open floor. Then the oceans dried up and the glaciers came, carving the rock into these 200 foot cliffs and leaving behind Lake Superior.

Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by volume and contains more water than all the other Great Lakes. If you emptied the other four Great Lakes into it, you would need three more Lake Eries to fill it up. It is 400 miles long, 160 miles wide, 1400 feet deep. And chilly. 40 degrees on average. Did I mention blue and clear?

Back to the painted rocks. The rocks are porous and small springs seep from them. Iron, copper, and various other minerals in the water paint the scene.

Water carves the formations. Superior was balmy the day we took our tour, but when the winds shift from the north, watch out for 8 foot seas. In the winter, ice forms a fairy castle display and further erodes the rock as it thaws.

All this geological history led to a landscape so precious that the US made it into a National Park, one of the must-sees on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

I want a bath

2011-07-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

Kohler Wisconsin is a jewel of a town. It is a company built town and has received awards for community planning. And in the heart of the town is the Kohler showroom, a design piece de resistance. (I don't spell very well in French, but I can pronounce it.)

More art gallery than sales exhibit, it is a salute to the bathroom. Ode to the commode. Fete to the toilet.

Words cannot describe.
I direct you to the photos.

https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/20110712Kohler#

On leaving Wisconsin

2011-07-12T20:28:00.000-07:00

Why would anyone want to leave Wisconsin before winter? I cannot think of a single good reason, except that my map is worn to shreds.Minnesota might have gained the same status in my traveling book of records, except that the legislature reached a budgeting impass and shut down the state. This is unfortunate for travelers, because all the state parks and all the waysides closed down. Chained, locked, shuttered. What this means is that all the precious natural wonders that the state so carefully protected by making them into parks are completely inaccessible. I have the distinction of being among the last people to see the headwaters of the Mississippi the day before the parks closed. Nobody knows for sure if it is still running, but I guess if shipping dries up in New Orleans, they'll send someone over to check it out.

So, we left Minnesota to keep its natural wonders locked and returned to Wisconsin. Door County was there for the taking, with its multiple county parks (free) and state parks ($5 pass gives you time to explore and then move on) and Washington Island, out on the tippy tip of the thumb of Wisconsin's mitten shaped land. The name Door County comes from the French traders version of the Indian description of the passage between Washington Island and the peninsula as Death's Door. So many ships were wrecked there that the enterprising Europeans began to use the Indian portage at what is now Sturgeon Bay to access lower Green Bay and its lucrative trading routes. Eventually it occured to them to dig a canal, and so Northern Door county is technically now an island.

When I arrived at Death's Door, readying for a ferry ride and biking Washington Island, I suddenly felt as though I was about to step off the end of the earth. The passage does look a little intimidating when the sun is not shining. I felt all alone, as though I might never see anyone I knew again. The feeling went away on the island, a quiet laid back place with its fair share of bars, one of them serving fresh lawyers. I didn't ask.

Minnesota and Wisconsin have a lot in common. Biking trails, for instance. Miles and miles of paved trails. Both have more lakes than they can name, especially in the north. Both have so much foilage that it is difficult to see much of the Great Lakes. People own the land and build houses on the Great Lakes, and they don't seem to be inclined to clear the thick woods that give them privacy and prevent drivers from peering through their windows to get a peek of blue water. Contrast this to Hiway 1 along the Pacific and I begin to appreciate California and Oregon's insistence on keeping the ocean in the public domain.

Today, however, I discovered the stretch between Two Rivers and Manitowoc on Lake Michigan. There the two cities have put in a hiking biking path along the water with wide open views. Another reason never to leave Wisconsin.

SWIP (senior, with iphone)

2011-07-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

When I was nineteen I could walk into any convenience store and buy a six-pack of beer. It was cool back then, looking older than I was.

This summer, Carl has been routinely buying two senior tickets, one for him, and one for me. He’s operating under the principle that rules differ from place to place, and maybe I am a senior. It’s $2 here and $1 there, savings that are supposed to make me feel better about being older.

But just between you and me, I wish they would card me. I’m not a senior, I am a with-it, iphone packing chick. And I don’t need those senior discounts, because I am paying my way with the Gas Buddy ap on my iphone. If I can’t save us a nickel a gallon every fill-up, I’m just not looking hard enough.

Got to go now, time to check today’s Groupon on my iphone to see if there’s half-price bungee-jumping in the area.

14 Waterfall County

2011-07-09T06:25:00.000-07:00

Marinette County, WI, has a 14 waterfall tour. How much better could it get?

I read a little further. "Park in the power line easement." "Take a small dirt road to the east." "Turnoff to parking can be rough." Descriptions not written to warm an RV driver's heart. Well, there's still nine waterfalls to see.

Reading on, I find "Follow some treacherous terrain along a high cliff." "Rocky and hilly terrain make good walking shoes a must." Surely insurance would cover the ER trip, but why risk it? Well, there's still four waterwalls to see. Let's see which ones.

"Carney Rapids is not a waterfall but an area of rushing water just to the west of the bridge." No need to drive cross country for that. Well, there's still three waterfalls to see, and they are all on the same road.

"Some improvements have been made, but the road remains generally winding with speed limits ranging from 25 to 45 mph." Well, we don't drive that fast anyway. And it is the longest Rustic Road in the state. That's an extra bonus.

Uh oh, the road is a washboard. Well, just the first 17 miles are. Won't take long at 15 mph. Those jiggling dishes in the cabinet are plastic and they'll be just fine.

Look, here's waterfall number one. Wow, should have put on bug spray. Well, I've heard about these northern mosquitoes, and finally, I get to see some. Yep, they sure are big. Guess they could not read the NO PEST sign. I read it and left Daisy in the RV.

* * *

Sometimes it is the destination, sometimes it is the journey.

Terra Cotta Warriors, stand aside

2011-07-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

I will go out of my way to see the creations of people with a passion that no one quite understands. Maybe looking at their worlds makes me feel more normal.

First is the House on the Rock, in the same valley as Frank Lloyd Wright lived and worked and built his masterpiece Taliesen.

https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/20110622HouseOnTheRock#

Look then at the creations of a retired Lumberman at the Concrete Park in Wisconsin.

https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/20110706#

If you are as speechless as I was when I visited, then I feel even more normal.

Superior in so many ways

2011-07-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

beautiful lost in fog

and on a clear day

4th largest lake in the world

largest freshwater

touching three states and Canada

40 degree water
partially freezing in the winter
warming a bit in the summer

livelihood of many a shipper and dockworker
transporter of iron ore and coal
home to Great Lakes freighters reaching 1000 feet in length
grave to many like the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald
icy blast in the winter

unbelievably blue

long summer days

My baby loves me!

2011-07-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

How do I know? Cause he dropped me off at the start of this fabulous 15 mile all downhill trail from Carlton MN to Duluth. Best bike ride in history.

Meanwhile, he parked at the terminus and biked UPHILL to meet me. That's love, yes it is.

Lake with a river running through it

2011-06-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

That's what Bemidji means, a lake with a river running through it. I asked both the pronunciation and the meaning. It's an Indian word. Indeed there is a Lake Bemidji with a river running through it, namely the Mighty Mississippi. Above, I am standing on a rock in the headwaters where it flows out of Lake Itasca (named after our RV, by the way) on its way to Bemidji Lake and Cass Lake and one I can't spell and then to the Gulf of Mexico, 1,475 feet lower in elevation and 2,275 miles away. When I said our plans for the summer were to visit the Great Lakes, I didn't realize that I would learn so much about rivers. The mighty Mississippi drains the eastern half of the US, and has 93 major and minor tributaries. It is the fourth longest river in the world, surpassed in length only by the Nile, the Amazon and the Yangtze.

Here's some folks crossing the Mississippi about a quarter mile from the source. Amazing to think it goes from this little stream to a mile wide at Cairo.

The search for the headwaters of the Mississippi was all consuming to some folks who got towns and counties and trails named after them in these parts. Why all the bother about the headwaters? Well, besides being geologically interesting, the Mississippi was politically important, setting boundaries between the US and France. The tip of Minnesota projects up into Canada because at the time of the Treaty of 1783 in Paris, the headwaters were thought to be much farther north.

But I stray from Bemidji. Bemidji, also known as the home of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, is about 50 miles northeast of the Fargo, ND. However, since Minot ND is 91 degrees and flooded and Bismark ND is flooding and Fargo warns of a heat wave, I don't plan to color in North Dakota this trip. Think I will stay right here in Paul Bunyan country.

(had to use Daisy for scale here.....she's the white spec by the ax)

The biking trails are fabulous here, all paved and fairly flat. Minnesota is not much on elevation, with the highest point about 2800 feet and the lowest 1400. That makes for some Texas flatlander type biking.

And guess who I spotted in Nisswa, cute little town on the 112 mile Paul Bunyan bike trail. I knew no one would believe me, so I took a picture with him. I wondered about him being here but then I realized we are pretty close to Canada. Even got Canadian TV tonight.

I think Justin may have been here counting lakes. The Minnesota license plates say 10,000 lakes, but in actuality, there's more like 15,000. There's over a hundred in Itasca State Park. I don't know how they count the little lakes the RV parks dig to make themselves more scenic, but since the count is so loose anyway, I suppose it doesn't matter. What does matter is that Minnesota is not running out of water. All you folks in Arizona and California and Nevada might consider moving up here. Plenty of water to drink here and you probably won't need to water your lawn either.

Course, it is a little nippy here in the winter. I met a gentleman at a fruit stand in St Cloud who said he moved from Houston, Texas. First winter he was here it snowed 36 feet on Halloween and the snow didn't melt until May. Coldest winter he remembers was 54 below. Don't put your tongue on anything metal in that weather, for sure. I saw photos back in Nisswa of golf tournaments on the lakes in the winter. Guess you don't get your balls back after you putt them in the hole.

The natives are enjoying swimming now that it is officially summer. I put one toe in Sunday night and changed my mind. I asked the girls in the pool where they were from: two from Minnesota and two from Canada. I understand folks from around here will swim in anything except Lake Superior. Superior is too nippy even for natives. But in little lakes like this one, you'll find the locals playing with wild abandon.

Partly cloudy with a chance of flowers

2011-06-25T19:59:00.000-07:00

I know where all the rain that is missing Texas has gone: the Great Lakes. So far Fridays have been the only sunny days of the week. When a beautiful Friday happens, the natives go wild. This week on Friday they were all on bikes along the Root River Valley, which has a 60 mile paved bike trail through little towns and along the river, past farms and barns. We found the beginning of the trail in Houston at the Houston Nature Center, complete with bike sculptures on display in the gardens.

Carl started his ride there, headed toward Peterson, about 20 miles upriver, where I drove Daisy and the RV before biking out to meet him.

It seemed fitting to end our day of biking in Austin, home to the Spam Museum and Yogi Bear's Jellystone Campground. First time I stayed at a Yogi Bear campground. Yogi Bear had a large population of little girls on pink bikes cruising till dark and back at it at sunrise. One of them asked Daisy’s name, twice. Then she asked, “Is Daisy a boy or a girl?” I wondered would a boy dog named Daisy have the same problems as a boy named Sue? Three boys asked permission to pet Daisy as well, and they were pleased at her talking. Then they all thanked me politely. I smiled an approving smile at their mother. She raised them right.

Yogi Bear also had a big bouncy jumping park. Since there was no posted Seniors only time, I stayed off of it.

The weather has been largely unpredictable, changing from sunny to sprinkles at will. The best indicator of beautiful weather is meeting a line of Harleys out for a drive. Harleys are also a great indicator that you have found a scenic route. When you meet Harleys, it is going to be a great day.

If the Harley's turn out to be wrong, you can always duck inside someplace like the National Eagle Center at Wabasha, an education and preservation institution, to learn some interesting facts from these raptors who have lost their ability to fly and therefore cannot be released into the wild. Most of them were hit by autos. This is the closest I have ever been to one of the magnificent birds. Since they have no survival issues in captivity, they may live as long as 40 years.

This is Angel. She's 12. A beauty. no? They found her hopping around on the ground, about age one, with a wounded wing that would have prevented her from ever reaching adulthood. Lucky Angel to have been rescued.

Angel has a soft imprint on humans. She was raised as a chick by eagles, so she knows she is an eagle. However, humans are her flock. Eagles raised entirely in captivity have a hard human imprint.

Angel is primarily calm, but every once in a while she jumps off and tries to fly into the crowd. We have to give her space. Did you know that the only thing that ever touches an eagle is a mate? No touching Angel, not even by her handler. And that eagles mate till death do us part? If one of the pair dies, the other finds another mate. Just like pioneers, they must go on to propogate. Only 20% reach adulthood, so the urge to propogate is strong and necessary.

One final word about the weather. Be careful what you wish for. It is supposed to stop raining for a while next week, and Minneapolis is going to reach 100. The weather report includes a warning that the mosquito population is about to explode. Clear skies, stay away!

The farmer in the Dells

2011-06-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

In some states, cows outnumber humans. But despite being a major dairy state, in Wisconsin there are 5.6 million people to 3.4 million cows. That means that for every person, there is 2/3 of a cow walking around somewhere. That seems fairly manageable until you throw in the number of people that own cows: 1 million. Those farmers are outnumbered 3.4 to 1. If anyone ever organized those cows, it would be all over for the humans. (I don’t know if I believe these figures. Seems like owning 3.4 cows is not much of a dairy.)

Geographically speaking, I think cows control more space than humans. They have valley after valley of verdant green dedicated to their well-being, growing crops for their consumption, storing grain for their winters, harvesting milk from their udders. In my travels, I can’t seem to leave the valleys. They transfix me. What an undulating and gracious terrain. Barn after barn, farmhouse after farmhouse, grain silo after grain silo, rolling road upon rolling road, the landscape tickles my senses. After a week, I finally stopped snapping 50 mph photos of every barn, finally barn-numbed, scenery sated.

From the large bovine population comes cheese and the local preferred snack, fresh curds. Convenience stores have bags of the curds on the counter and sample plates to offer. Hard to describe the tasting experience. A little chewy, about halfway to the chewiness of a gummy bear, dissolving in the mouth faster than cheese does, and they squeek in your mouth as you chew them. I experienced the flavor sensation of eating a Cheetoh. Visually, they have the appearance of a packing peanut, though much less uniform since they are randomly cut with screens before the cheese hardens. I sampled my curds at a family operated cheese factory with the cheese making process on view through glass windows. I suspect that curds are addictive, so after my sampling, I swore them off, less I not be able to stop.

Mississippi Two

2011-06-22T17:03:00.000-07:00

Today we crossed the Mississippi for the second time this summer, the Upper Mississippi. Like the lower, it is a huge traffic lane, but the prevalence of islands makes it look like Huck Finn and Jim might be alive out there. It seems bloated, based on the submerged trees on islands, some of them toppling over into the river.

On the Iowa side of the big river, we met some fellow geezers from Minnesota on a Model T tour. Their group name was the T Totalers. We talked to them while overlooking the confluence of the Mississippi and the Wisconsin (I noticed they did talk a little funny, like maybe they were from Lake Woebegone). Like us, they had chosen Pikes Peak State Park overlook on the Iowa side (no admission) vs. the state park on the Wisconsin side ($10).

They had been touring together for a week in Iowa, and I asked if they had a plan. "Well, Peggy does," the fella said, pointing to Peggy, "but she pretty much keeps it to herself. We just follow her."

I’ve been struggling with a moral dilemma. How much of a state do I have to traverse before I can color in the map on my window? Today we crossed into Iowa to have a look at the Mighty Mississippi but found no roads to travel north beside it. So we had a look from the State Park and came right back into Wisconsin.

Last summer, I declined to take a quick flying u-turn through Delaware so that I could color the state in. I’ve regretted it ever since. Who knows if I will ever get that close again?

Thus I’ve decided to color in Iowa. You never know if you will wake up tomorrow, and I’d hate to have that detail lost forever.

Prost!

2011-06-21T18:32:00.000-07:00

Counting my Weight Watcher points today. 4 points for sampling three fine craft brews is a bargain. 3 oz of each choice and I get to keep the glass too.

New Glaurus Brewing Company, in New Glaurus Wisconsin, has been voted one of the best breweries in the WORLD twice. And a woman owns it. That made two reasons to stop in for a tour and a tasting. They just relocated from a small brewery to a majestic setting on top of a hill overlooking this Little Switzerland town where the banks looks like Chalets. That made three reasons to stop.

I skipped over Totally Naked (like my beers with a little more bite) and started with Spotted Cow, an unfiltered ale, approachable and slightly fruity and soft on the palate. While sampling this one, I took the self guided tour. Carl was interested in all the boilers and pipes, and I found myself drawn to the more fun aspects, such as an industrial staircase that rose at least three floors and was labeled Stairway to Heaven.

I moved on to Moon Man, a session beer with a bright bold blend of five hops that flirted obligingly with the smooth malty backside. Looking around their gift shop while I nursed this one, I decided against any merchandise that said Totally Naked.

While waiting in line for my third, I could not help overhearing the couple ahead. "Why don't you have the Two Women?" she said. "Well, yeah, why not?" he said and looked back at me. "Anybody available?" She was blushing by then. She asked for the Fat Squirrel. After a quick taste, she said, "Yuck, you can drink this one," and ordered another for herself. As she left the room, someone asked, "What did you get?" "Two men." she quipped.

I took a chance and orderd Fat Squirrel, a Wisconsin malt of six different varieties imparting the natural toasted color and clean hazelnut notes resulting from the carefully chosen barley malts. The first taste was a shocker, but it grew on me. Especially with the million dollar view from a picnic table on the patio. Nice finish, that Fat Squirrel.

Garden Walks

2011-06-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

Erica, faithful reader who looks at my photos without me asking you to, this is for you!

https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/20110617MargaretSVisitToTheConservatoryMilwaukee?authkey=Gv1sRgCOGduLPokLOd4gE#
and
https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/20110620RotaryGardens#
and
https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/20110626MinnesotaArboretum#
and
https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/20110627StCloudGardens
and
https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/2011530NCArboretumAndBotanicalGardensAndOtherBlooms#

Drive by shootings

2011-06-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

Most of the scenery I see you will never experience, because as the RV moves down the road, the moment to take a photo passes before I can raise the camera. Once you have driven an RV for a while, you know you can't turn it on a dime or slam on the brakes. Once the moment is over, it's pretty much over.

However, I do take a lot of photos out the window. Most times I get a shot like the one above. I only saved it to show you how bad some of them are. Most of them are deleted the same night. I pretty much ignore all the rules of composition and hope for something better than a road sign in the middle of my rustic barn scene and power lines draped across my village street scene.

My friend Terry say she takes a lot of picture hoping some of them will turn out. And that's a typical day driving a scenic route in the RV. Sometimes, though, magic happens. I've started a new album, called Drive By Shootings, and I plan to add to it the whole trip. Here's the beginnings.

https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/20110615DriveByShootings

A Lot to Love

2011-06-15T15:03:00.000-07:00

I would never never never thought that I would love an automobile museum, but I truly loved the Gilmore in Hickory Corners, MI. What's not to love about a grassy knolled farm with a collection of relocated and restored barns? And a 1930's Shell Station? Then there were the cars. The collection of shiny brass and nickel ornamented automobiles brought out the artist in me. I found I never took a full photo of an auto, because I was fixated with the shiny lights and ga ga fixtures. Barn after barn was filled with pristine autos from the earliest days of the auto to the cars of my first memories. Just a yummy day.

Enjoy the photos.

https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/20110615MargaretSViewOfTheDayAtTheGilmore#

three weeks, three days and eight hours

2011-06-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

Finally, the Great Lakes, Erie to be exact. And finally, cool air. The heat wave that has gripped the midwest since we started our trip has broken. Daytime temps in the low seventies, dipping into the high fifties at night. Umm, Yum!

We found ourselves in Cleveland, which I would not have considered as an RV destination, but we needed a big city to find a dealer authorized to do warranty work. The cab A/C was toast. But Cleveland was actually quite gracious, at least the part I saw, Lakeside Drive to the west along a curve in the lake.

Cooler weather makes you do things like sleep with the windows open and plan a bike ride on an island, South Bass Island, and to the village of Put In Bay. Ferry rides on a lake are always a plus, and biking felt invigorating.

We've been spending the summer RV'ing for 4 years and finally snapped to the rating system in the RV camping books. Ever since, we've been seeking out bathrooms with a 10 rating. In Amish country, there was Evergreen, with bathrooms rivaling the Houstonian. The campground at Geneva on the Lake had showers so big I could have driven a golf cart into them. We've been enjoying the upgrade. Who knew? Tonight I am at another 10, in Monroe Michigan, Camp God Willing. The ducks love it here.

And this little boy loves Daisy.

Lost in the Cave, with music

2011-06-09T18:30:00.000-07:00

So have you heard a pipe organ made of stalagtites? A zany musician searched for stalagtites for each note, then wired an organ with electronic strikers throughout the cave to strikes the notes. Luray Cave was the best of the three I have seen on this trip, because of the organ but mostly because it is so old, with massive caverns and even more massive formations.
There's a video near the end of the album. Enjoy!

https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/20110609LurayCaveVirginia#

Luray Va RV Resort

2011-06-09T18:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes there is an RV camp worth mentioning, and nothing tells the story better in this case than the photos. https://picasaweb.google.com/margaret.lincoln/20110608LurayVARvResortCountryWaye#

Don't read this if you don't like history

2011-06-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

We crossed into Virginia, presidential country. Within 50 miles are the homes of Wilson, Madison, Jefferson and Monroe. Who can pass that up?

Wilson was our first stop. That's his Pierce Arrow in the photo. I knew little of him, but now I can tell you that after keeping the US out of WWI for as long as possible, he negotiated the peace settlements at the end. He formed the League of Nations but could not get Congress to ratify it. The US was never a member, even though Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Other things he is known for are the Federal Reserve System, Anti Trust and income tax. Yikes. He was a prolific writer during his tenure as history professor, rising to the rank of President of Princeton.

Personally, I have conflicted reactions to him. He was not a Woman’s Rights supporter, but his daughters were active suffragettes. One of them recorded songs for the Red Cross and then moved to India, where she remained until she died. Her name? Margaret.

This is the house he was born in, son, grandson and nephew of a Presbyterian minister. This was the Manse in Staunton, Va. where he lived until his father got a better position in Augusta Ga. There the family lived during the civil war, and his father was an avid Confederate. At the manse, there were servants, slaves hired by the parish for the Manse, on loan from local plantations. Wilson was the first Southerner elected after the Civil War since Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's running mate.

Next stop on the Presidential tour: Jefferson’s Monticello.

This is the nickel coin view of Monticello.

Born an heir to the land where he built Montecello and empowered by all the manual labor needed, he created his vision of a French mansion on the highest hill of his sizeable property.

Then he planned orchards, gardens, roads, and cash crops with the most intimate detail. He wrote down everything, from production to crop rotation. And of course he wrote many famous documents.

Jefferson wrote the first draft of the declaration of independence. Then a committee of Franklin and other edited it He also authored a document granting freedom of religion to Virginians, and planned every detail of the University of Virginia, from the books in the library to the buildings to hiring the professors. These three things he asked to be carved on his tomb.

Jefferson was conflicted all his life about freedom. He wanted it for every man, but in his will he only freed 5 of his 200 slaves. He wrote about his conflicts over slavery, but decided that the issue would be resolved by another generation. DNA researchers generally agree that long after Martha's death, he fathered several children by Sally Henning, a servant in his home.

He traveled a great deal, away in Washington and France, and it was in his retirement years that most of Monticello was completed.

Within a stones throw of Monticello is Ash Lawn, home to Monroe, on land that Jefferson picked for him. He even sent slaves to plant Monroe's trees. And 20 miles further is the home of Madison, Montpelier. But there’s only so many presidents I can do in a day, particularly on a day that reached a high of 96.

All Aboard

2011-06-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

The West Virginia Cass Railroad State Park met my expectations. We climbed to the summit of Bald Knob on an old logging train, open cars, cool breezes. The steam engine was the star attraction of the trip. It was a Shay, built especially for logging, capable of steep grades and curving rails. The designers created gears so that every wheel of the engine provided power and traction.

The details of the steam powered train became more interesting as we climbed. We saw the train yard, with its mound of coal, shovels idle, although clearly they were used to feel the coal elevator manually. We stopped for water twice, water stored from mountain streams. In the old days, the train would pump water out of any stream along the way. Our engine was the largest ever made, weighing in at 169 tons, and it produced more power than was needed to push our four tourist cars up the mountain. So the boiler constantly let off steam, puffing huge white plumes. The whistle let off puffs of steam as well.

I mentioned we got pushed up the mountain. That spared us from breathing smoke all day. The black plume of coal smoke was astounding. Lump coal does not burn completely, and the excess goes into the air. Coal powered electric plants grind the coal to fine powder in order to burn it more completely.

Seasonal employees man the train, and I thought at first the brakeman on each car had nothing to do. Then we started downhill. My view was of the woman brakeman in the car ahead. It took power to constantly turn the wheel to set the brakes just right, not so much they stopped the wheels, but enough they slowed the car from going too fast and hitting the car ahead. The brakemen worked as a chorus, checking the brakes visually by leaning out over the car, then waving okay to the car ahead and behind.

My woman was all business. In idle times, she talked about all the features of the train. She talked to her coworkers about hoping she could get on in the shop over the winter. Almost everyone in the state park system gets laid off at the end of the season and goes on unemployment unless they have a winter gig. It touched me to think about her living on the edge that way.

At the top of the mountain we stopped for a million dollar view from an observation tower. A kind gentlemen snapped this photo of us and emailed it to me when my batteries died at an unfortunate moment. A random act of kindness, and I received rather than gave.

Hello from West Virginia, almost heaven!

Country Roads Take Me Home

2011-06-04T20:04:00.000-07:00

We repeated the Parkways this summer as a scenic way to get to West Virginia, a state that is uncolored on my US map on the window of the RV. I’d heard it is beautiful. And yes, in fact, it is.

West Virginia has a wonderful network of state parks, all admission free. They have taken the natural treasures and developed them for the common man. So far two tram rides, one jet boat, and soon, a railroad state park.

With the state park network having a foothold on camping, providing everything but cable and internet for a reasonable price, private RV parks are almost non-existent. I haven’t had Wifi for days, but I have stayed in some very scenic places: Pipestream, Hawks Nest, Watoga on the Greenbriar River, and Forest camps as well.

I am also in a radio free zone, created so that researchers with America’s largest moving telescope at the Green Bank National Radio Astronomy Observatory can search for evidence of other solar systems like ours. 12,000 acres with no cell towers or radio waves. Big bang, anyone?

Can’t get that John Denver song out of my head. “Country roads, take me home, to the place that I belong, West Virginia, Mountain Mama, take me home, country roads.”The roads wind as we traverse the Appalachians, rising to maybe 4,000 feet. That’s tall for very old eroded mountains. Once we put a destination into our Garmain and instead of the main roads, we went on a windy twisty adventure. Underneath the canopy of the forest, mountain laurels were popping with pale pink blooms, much like the dogwood of East Texas in the spring. Still very few rhodies. Whenever I sighted one I felt like a bird watcher logging a rare bird. Two weeks from now the woods will be bursting with pink. Appalachian spring is wonderful.

I love that the barns are unpainted here, filled with square hay bales, bringing back memories of stacking them in the barn of my childhood, creating grand staircases and rooms and castles smelling of fresh hay. I love that the rhododendron planted 60 years ago right by the front door of a house is now larger than the house, and the homeowners have abandoned using the front door rather than cut it back. I love the peonies, planted close to the road so that passersby can admire their pink and white and purple blooms. I love the flame azaleas, bursts of fiery orange in the landscape.

I can see most things here from John Denver’s song, Almost heaven, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River.There’s just one line where I think the writer gave up on a rhyme that makes sense: Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze. ????What????

A little bit of history

2011-06-01T19:50:00.000-07:00

I love history. So anytime I get near something significant I have to stop. And Andrew Johnson’s hometown of Greeneville TN did not disappoint. He was the Democratic VP chosen by Lincoln, a Republican. Lincoln chose him because he thought he was a good man. The party philosophies back then were not what they are today, so let’s just say they had different ideologies but saw eye to eye on slavery. Even though he was from Tennessee, Johnson did not vote to leave the Union with his state.

After Lincoln was shot, Johnson became president and was totally at odds with Congress over the Reconstruction. He was a strict Constitutionalist, believing in preserving states rights. His politics got him impeached by the House, but he was not removed from office by the Senate. One Republican vote saved him. All this you can learn in a 14 minute film, or by reading the displays at the National Park Service site.

I have respect for a man who was so poor that his mother apprenticed him as a tailor when he was but a child, who taught himself to read and rose to the highest office in the land. He never gave up his ideals.

Greeneville is historic as one of the oldest towns in Tennessee, and it is clean and manicured. Not far east of the town is the birthplace of Davy Crockett. Now that’s something, eh?

I love Western North Carolina

2011-05-30T05:52:00.000-07:00

If the Natchez Trace is a massage, the Blue Ridge Parkway is a hot stone massage. I think I could travel it every day of my life and not tire of the misty blue vistas, even though our first day on it was pretty foggy.

As a reward for some good deed I did in my past, I am seeing the first of the rhododendrons blooming. They are not full yet; two more weeks till peak time, the ranger said. But the mountain laurel is making up for it.

In fact, everything about North Carolina feels like a hot stone massage. Even in their heat wave, it’s cool in the shade. And there’s lots of shade to hide in, in the NC Arboretum or the natural Botanical Gardens. Want art? It’s everywhere. The Grovewood Gallery is primo. With an urban revival and restaurants hopping with happy sidewalk diners, downtown is very upbeat.

We shopped two Farmer’s Markets for fresh produce and the entire town seemed to be there, intent on eating food grown close to home. I don’t think I have ever eaten fresh garlic before, but it has been quite a treat.

Can’t find anything to dislike here, although I would have to become accustomed to walking the hills if I stayed longer. We stayed again at Mama Gerties, probably the cleanest campground I have ever experienced, but walking Daisy was a cardio workout. The campground is stacked up a steep hill. But then so is the Grove Inn. Even at 4 stars you gotta walk uphill.

I like a town that’s big enough to have amenities, but small enough that I can get my arms around it. Asheville fits the bill.

Hot Springs, NC, on the other hand, is oversold and under delivered. The Hot Springs Campground is not a spot I would return to. It felt like an army of people had trodden over it, and the evidence was in the clearly visible garbage pile. Restrooms were slightly above fishing camp. The spa itself charged like airlines. $1.99 for water if you are thirsty, extra for a towel. Maybe I had mineral water in my hot tub, maybe I didn’t. I’ll never know. But the minute the guy knocked on the fence to say time is up, he started draining the tub. At least that means I was in clean water, I guess. Thank heaven the massage was good. Still no offer of a drink of water though. Everything was advertised as river view, but the river was mostly blocked by foliage. I’ll take the hot tubs at Truth or Consequences NM any day. Now that’s a river view.

Still, my heart springs eternal that all the towns with the name Springs in them still ahead in my travels will be sweet spots.

Crossing Tennessee

2011-05-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

It is impossible to drive in the South without running into the Civil War. Every town square has monuments to the thousands who died. The Battle of Chickamagua cost over 30,000 lives, and the National Battlefield commemorating them is a Must See. There are sites like this all over the South. The casualties of the Civil War are astounding.

Here we are at another one, Lookout Point National Military Park in Chattanooga. Chattanooga was a vital stronghold in the War. The Union had to overtake the Confederate positions on Lookout Mountain, a 2000 foot hill, as well as Missionary Ridge, a long narrow ridge that is a wonder to drive today.

Southern Tennessee and North Carolina on US 64 is a leisurely, scenic route. We're not in a hurry, just following the dots on the map to choose our route. After driving by the Tennessee River and other rivers coursing down valleys all day, tonight I listen to rain on the roof at Happy Holiday RV Park in Cherokee NC. Here in Cherokee county, we are on a reservation where there is a gambling casino with a Paula Dean restaurant. Considering going there for breakfast and wondering if I will notice the butter.....oh it's so good, ya'll. But the real highlight of this area has to be SantaLand, right near Happy Holiday RV Park. It's Thursday and school is still in session, so the park looked pretty empty, and when the Rudolph coaster went by, Rudolph only had two passengers. That'll change this weekend, I am sure, as Memorial weekend campers pour into this Northeastern Carolina recreation area.

Why I am behind on blogging

2011-05-21T19:34:00.000-07:00

Pardon my absence

I have been writing a lot this spring, but not blogging.

I have ten pages of the great American novel written. Doesn’t sound like much, but the research into a family story of children kidnapped by Comanche Indians has had me busy reading every early Texas history book I can find.

Then, there’s a non-profit website I volunteered to write and coordinate. The test site was ready the day I left on this summer’s wandering, so I have been editing on the road. This cuts into my blogging time. But I am so excited. I want you to see the “before” site, so look here: http://themenscenter.org

Now, here’s the test site I am editing. http://mc.lynnbelldesign.com It’s not perfect yet, but I am so excited to get to contribute.

And, most importantly, I have had some personal growth experiences while working on the site. After interviewing nine people about their AA stories I have begun to realize that the alcoholics in my family did not choose to be the way they were. Forgiveness after all these years just might happen.

Beyond the Sabine

2011-05-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

Once you cross the Sabine River and continue East, every self-respecting landscape is anchored by a magnolia tree. And in May they are in bloom, giant white blooms befitting those large leathery leaves that fall year round, the price to be paid for their dark green elegance. The best specimens are unfettered by other flora and stand majestically alone on a grassy knoll.

We spent the better part of the week before we left wondering if we could cross the Mississippi. As as matter of fact it was a non-event at Natchez. Natchez had the forward thinking to be built on a bluff, so all those antebellum mansions are just fine. Across the river in Louisiana, it's a different story. But let me just ask you. If you built a convention center, a surgery center and a new hospital on the land between the levee(which was still holding back the water for all those homes and businesses who built behind the protection of the levee) and the river, should you be surprised that you are flooded? A nurse from Natchez, commenting on the phone calls from across the river that it was flooding in the hospital, said, "Well, yeah. And those were doctors who built it there."

Driving the Natchez Trace Parkway is the motoring equivalent of a massage. It rolls and winds without traffic of any kind. In Mississippi, evidence of the violent tornadoes was evident for about 50 miles, a vast forest of overturned and split trees in the wake of the giant storms. We exited the Trace for the night in Canton Mississippi, made famous by the movie, A Time to Kill. Can you picture the courtroom?

Another must see on the Trace is Elvis' birthplace in Tupelo. I speak with the authority gained by reading the displays at his birthplace when I report that he never read music. He was taught by his preacher and a few others after his mama bought him a guitar at Tupelo Hardware. He wanted a bike or a rifle, but she thought those weren't safe. Glad Mama protected him. Thank you very much Gladys.

This year's toilets

2011-02-27T07:59:00.000-08:00

One Christmas my beloved said to me, how about some new toilets for Christmas?

That was the year he installed the amazing flushmates, pressure assisted, eliminating forever the need for a plunger in our household.

Since then, we have searched each holiday season for a similar gift; last year it was the installation of a window in our dark dining room. What a wonderful thing to look forward to, a January project that brightened the room and lifted the post holiday blahs. We started cutting a hole in the wall on New Year's Day.

This year? A new sidewalk to our front door. You can visit us stumble free now. Life is good.

OMG IIC (it is cold)!

2011-01-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

During the Christmas freeze of 1983 in Texas, we thawed the pipes at my mother's house with blow torches and hair dryers, a necessary step for restoring the luxury of running water. When we returned home, there was a broken pipe in the attic and major damage at my rental unit.

27 years later, I'm sharing another chilly experience with my extended family, who thought moving to the edge of the Tundra in New Jersey was a fine idea that July when they left Texas. Today though, at -8F when we awoke, it's a bit nippy.

The first hint of a problem came when I couldn't get hot water to wash my face. The house has a circulating hot water heating system, and yes, it did seem a bit chilly inside too. The heating oil has jelled, not flowing to the furnace, and as the day has progressed, we can see our breath inside the house. And once again, the hair dryer came out. I didn't have to man the hairdryer this time. Lucky for me, my niece grew up to be a TRUE WOMAN who went outside without me to try to warm the oil lines. Not that the attempt was successful. She called the fuel people. They'll be here some day, and then we will take a bath again and go back to wearing our indoor clothes.

Everyone on the street has fireplace smoke curling from their snow covered roofs. We don't have a fireplace, but there is a chiminea on the deck....maybe we'll bring that indoors and roast some marshmallows. Nancy's busy making steaming chicken and dumplings and the teapot is going. Jennifer has found a plug for the space heater in her office that won't blow the circuits, and that's where I plan to stay for the foreseeable future.

The finches are feeding outside the window. They don't seem to mind the cold. With Birds of New Jersey in hand to confirm the sightings, so far I've seen the golden finch, the house finch (he's red), the tufted titmouse and the red bellied woodpecker visit the feeder. Out in the evergreen fir a redbird is pecking the snow.

I've got on most of my layers and a fleece blanket wrapped around me. If the inside temp continues to drop, I can always put on my ski pants and jacket. High of 18 today. Perhaps sledding another day. Back home, I hear it is hailing. I think I prefer cold....maybe.....

Over and over

2011-01-21T10:55:00.000-08:00

The other day, doing squats, I got to wondering about stats. So roughly, since the beginning of October, three days a week I have done 60 squats of varying styles. So, you do the math....no, I'll do it, because I find the answer amazing. 3,420 squats. That's how you start climbing stairs again.

Then, there's the leg press. That's a squat with weights. 200 of those each workout means 11,400 leg presses. I am beginning to feel quad muscles.

The big yay! of January was the 18th, when I added another step to my front step-ups. And a few days ago, I decided to get on the treadmill. I am not walking the same on both legs, a slightly shorter gait on the right, which causes compensating body whining somewhere, so what better lab to force my legs to move the same?

Onward! New goals. There's a brick wall in a park nearby. I should be able to step up on to it. My mind says do it. I send the message to my legs. Nothing happens. I'm working on that.

The cobbler's bedside manner

2011-01-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

Today I took shoes in for repair. Same little place, same Mr. Kadinsky, same cluttered workshop, same smell of glue, same customer service.

"I glue. No guarantee."

I haven't worn those shoes for a while, but they are my only pair of Cole Hahns, and it's winter. I could use a closed toe shoe that used to fit.

"$5 each".

"Plus tax".

"Pay now."

In the old days, he used to insist I pick up my shoes the next day. That's because, in his old shop, abandoned shoes were groaning on every shelf. Then he solved his problem by collecting up front. Now he has no shoes for sale, just a few assorted handbags hanging on pegs by the carts overflowing with tools, cans of paint, bottles of unlabeled liquid.

I pulled out a $20, starting digging for coins, eyeing the cups of change on the edge of his cluttered desk. He followed my gaze.

"No problem. I give you $9 back."

My mind starting doing the math. Sales tax, 8.25%. That 82.5 cents. He's shorting me 20 cents and making it sound like I'm getting a deal. I considered pointing this out to him, thought the better of it. I like those shoes. He filled out the claim check.

The next morning I remembered another pair of shoes that needed repair. I took in the broken one.

"Never bring just one shoe."

"The other one is not broken."

" I fix and clean up, not look the same."

"Ahhh...."

"One shoe, $8." He didn't mention the tax this time.

"Are my other shoes ready?"

"What shoes?"

"I was here yesterday, remember?"

"I don't remember yesterday."

Later in the day, I found the match to the second shoe and dropped it by. This time there was recognition in his eyes.

"Sit."

I sat.

I've known him for years. I knew this was his way of saying my shoes were ready.

Humbling

2011-01-02T09:11:00.000-08:00

It has been four months since my knee surgery and three since I started working out with my trainer. When I look in the mirror, I see muscles. When other people look at me, they can see all the room for improvement that still exists. But I can't do that and stay motivated, so I press on with a vision of Rachel McLish in my mind's eye view of myself.

When I first started using the leg press at the manly man's gym, Hanks, I could barely lift the weight of the machine. Lisa my trainer said I was probably pushing 50 pounds. Then came the day I said I was ready for some weights. Give me five more pounds, I said. I had visions of the 12 inch diameter three inch thick 50 pound discs all the other women were pressing. She walked over with two 3 inch diameter 1/4 inch thick discs and clinked them on. The visual effect was more humbling than pushing no weight at all.

Lisa's initial rehab workout for my knee included daily straight leg raises, all four directions. I started with lifting just my own leg weight and progressed to ankle weights. Week by week, I added another weight to my 5 pound set. Finally, all my weights were loaded, and I put a 10 pound set on my Christmas wishlist. I was feeling pretty pumped. Then I discovered Carl's 5 pound ankle weights in the closet, and I said, well, why not just put both sets on instead of buying a new one. I took Carl's weights to the gym. Lisa picked them up and got a puzzled look on her face. She turned and walked away with them. When she returned, she reported that she had weighed both his and mine. Carl's were 5 lbs. Mine were 2 1/2 pounds. Oh my Gosh. I had spent three months building up to just 2 1/2 pounds. Humble Pie a la mode for me.

I've always considered myself a strong woman. Kamikaze gardener, farm girl, woman of power. Then I sat next to a 5 foot woman on the abductor adductor machines. I set the weight at 85 lbs, proud of my progress since starting at 40. We both finished our sets and switched machines. She raised my 85 to 160. Abashed, I lowered her 160 to 85.

I've got a solution for the next time I sit next to her. I'm going to set the weights at 200 when I finish my set.

Humble Beginnings

2011-01-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

Today I started my professional writer blog. It's very modest, since I have decided to only post things that have been published. Two things. But that's two more than a year ago. The link on the right will take you there.

Happiness is

2010-12-28T15:43:00.000-08:00

Matching snowflake pajamas and spending Christmas with the family wearing them.

A little rehab background

2010-12-12T19:12:00.000-08:00

"You really have to work to strengthen your leg muscles supporting the knee."

"Yada Yada Yada", I said back.

And then I paid the price. Torn meniscus.... both lateral and medial. " Huh?" I said? That means inner knee and outer knee, and when it's bad enough, surgery. I held off for a year or two until I couldn't take the pain and couldn't walk the dog, and then, I chose a surgeon. At the time of my choice, his Houston Oiler knee doctor credentials impressed me.

Thus began my journey of learning more about my body. Having ignored the wisdom of those who knew better than me for so long, I was determined to do things right after surgery. I started rehab immediately after my day surgery to trim away the torn meniscus and other degenerative issues in my knee. Since my surgeon sent me home with a constant motion machine to use 4-6 hours daily, I went beyond the minimum and strapped my foot in at bedtime too, adding 10 degrees range of motion every day until my knee bent all the way to my waist and awakened me at 2 am, about the time my narcotics wore off. I awoke gasping at the sensation that my leg was caught in an animal trap.

In addition to the machine, I also brought home some crutches. I was a 60 year old crutch virgin, wondering how such a hobbled experience as I was having with my new third and fourth leg could possibly lead to healing. For three days, wearing the same pajamas, I rolled my coffee cup around on an office chair and tried to figure out the mechanics of walking. Then I took a Saran wrapped shower and went to meet my PT guy, who taught me to walk on one crutch, and I regained a hand with opposable thumb. I was back in the business of carrying my own coffee.

Meeting my PT guy also meant I could dispense with the few terse instructions on rehab my surgeon sent. I had read them over and over, unable to make sense of

Therabands (black silver gold) 20-30 reps no discomfort to anterior infrapatella area

These were the surgeon's instructions to an Oiler trainer, I realized, but I had absolutely no frame of reference for them. Any another time, not on pain pills, I would have searched the web for information that might have cleared things up. But instead, I just started doing the routine the PT guy gave me, because his instructions came with pictures. By the end of my first week, I was feeling pretty proud of how much I could bend and straighten my knee and walk on that one crutch. I was practically flying from chair to bathroom to the coffee pot.

Things were looking up until I cruised into my one week checkup on one crutch. The surgeon was incensed that after all his valiant effort and painstakingly clear explanations that I would listen to a crazy PT man and walk on one crutch, much less stop taking pain pills because I was falling asleep. “Why do I knock myself out with instructions?” he lamented. "Take the pain pills, have some coffee," he said, "and do more squats."

Show me your squats," he ordered. I squatted. He corrected my technique.

I pulled out my list of questions, such as, what exactly did you find when you looked inside my knee, what did you do, what should I expect down the road?

“I fixed it,” was his answer, and that I should expect to get presents at Christmas.

“No, seriously, I want to know if I can hurt it.”

“Well, you can get run over by a car.”

“Am I just closer to a knee replacement?”

“I thought I explained all this to you already.”

Surgeons, got to love them.

Gymnastics

2010-12-02T17:16:00.000-08:00

Today Daisy and I walked thirty five minutes. The entire walk I felt what I would describe as a tweaking feeling in my butt, but I know that won't be a good enough explanation on Saturday morning. That's when I will return to the gym for my next rehab workout and Lisa will ask me to describe the sensation more specifically, maybe even use a scientific body part term like gluteus for butt. Then she's likely to comment, "That's good, that means you worked your glutes on Wednesday."

Yes, readers, I have been absent three months because I have been in rehab. Not the drug and alcohol kind, but the "I really want to walk normally again" kind. And I have been studying anatomy with the renewed interest of somebody with a dog in the fight.

Did you know that the hamstrings are six muscles? And that each one can individually be the problem of your complaint that your hamstrings are tight? I think with me is it the semimembranosus, but who can be sure? They all tie in together at the knee and the hip. Lisa thinks my tightness starts with the knee. There's a reason for that.....knee surgery three months ago.

So, if you check back, I'll share some moments of wisdom, pain and humility soon.....maybe even start at the beginning of this sixty year old's fight to walk the dog like a normal person. Gotta go..... gotta stretch.

Ave Meniscus

2010-11-11T13:21:00.000-08:00

I could have been faithful

to you, my sacred knee

listened to the sages

who said strong muscles
would save me from hell

But I took their counsel

and put it away, along with

“buy low, sell high”

and other worldly axioms

all good in theory

Instead I betrayed you

leaving no choice

but the surgeon with the big ego

crutches

and saran wrapped showers

Now I worship daily

in the temple of the Y

leg presses, adductors

supine, prone, squatting

genuflecting to my knee

Soon I will have quads of steel
hams of spandex
chiseled calves
taut abductors
supple gluts

All this and more
I will offer

on the altar to my knee
never again
a disbeliever.

Would I fly?

2010-08-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

Standing at the top of the Mount Cannon near Franconia Notch on a warm July day in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I experienced a disconcerting urge to leap into space and fly. What would it be like, to be swept by an updraft, to circle with the eagles? To gently spiral, looking for lift, meandering over valley and peak? My tummy turned. I backed away from the edge.

Moments later, two gliders rushed silently over my head. My mind climbed into the cockpit, living my fantasy.

We chased each other, criss-crossing, two birds playing.

The thermals were favorable, and we climbed higher.

Ever aware of our mortal limitations, we kept one eye on the airport to the north in Franconia.
Do you ever wonder, if you stepped out, would you fly?

A little mountain music

2010-07-23T06:16:00.000-07:00

On the Blue Ridge Parkway, a stop for a little bluegrass at the Blue Ridge Music Center..........Daisy had no opinion about the selections.

There's no drive more like a massage than the crest of the Appalachians. From Front Royal, VA, not more than 60 miles from crazy busy bee DC, all the way to Great Smokies National Park, we are wending our way. In the distance the hazy blue ridges seem to say slow down, be calm, we've been here for billions of years, and there's no need to hurry. So we don't.

The speed limit in the first section, Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park, is 35 mph. The park is less than two miles wide but over 100 miles long. On either side, the valley is green, the river winds, and I can hear the song with the same name in my head. "Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you.....and hear your rolling river...."

Little towns dot the landscape, but it is still largely agricultural. It was food that made the valley so coveted a prize in the civil war. In the town of Front Royal, markers describe the only urban battle in the civil war and the cunning moves of Stonewall Jackson, outnumbered by the Union forces but not outfoxed.

In Shenandoah, I walked one mile on the Appalachian Trail, an uphill rocky switchback that taxed me to the max and rewarded me with a million dollar finish. Imagine, 2,175 miles of rocky mountaintop hiking. I am not sure the AT will stay on my lifelist, but just to re-inspire those thoughts, I am listening to Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" during the drive. I'd read it years ago, but it is a perfect redo for this trip. In addition to a humorous account of his treks on the trail with his hapless college buddy Katz, Bryson treats me to a geological history of these mountains, the world's oldest, a third of their original size. They took billions of years to get this soft and pillowy. The haze that makes them blue is, unfortunately, pollution.

The Blue Ridge section of the Parkway has more elevation, including some 6,000 foot peaks, and is over 400 miles long. Sometimes there's even cool relief from the heat wave. The speed limit increases to 45, still a casual stroll along the ridge of the Appalachians.

Along the Blue Ridge, rhododendrons grow wild. In the spring, the parkway is a pink cloud. I think there are no bad seasons here on the parkway. Summer is green with wildflowers. Butterflies are abundant on the pink phlox, queen ann's lace and rudbeckia. Here the native flora that botanists from England harvested when the land was still wild grows in abundance. There's also wildlife, although it is harder to photograph. I saw two black bears as they scuttled across the road and into the bushes, several wild turkies, and deer. All of them were quite shy.

The park service has preserved split rail fences along the parkway....a delightful way to separate the picturesque farms from the highway. At one waypoint, five styles of spit rail fence are on display.

The artisty and the beauty of the stonework, the winding, undulating highway, the waypoints, the overlooks, all built during the Great Depression, convince me that the our current recession would be worth suffering through if one more Parkway were built with our tax dollars. I find it sad that nothing permanent like this drive in the clouds will be left to show for our investment in bailouts and rescues. I'd rather have a scenic highway than AIG.

Happy Birthday Christine!

2010-07-21T19:18:00.000-07:00

For your birthday, Daisy has finally posted a blog. Have a happy one!
http://chewingmypages.blogspot.com/2010/07/on-road-2010.html
And today's photo: The James River on the Blue Ridge, sky and water.

Skyline Parkway

2010-07-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

Today's photo: Skyline Parkway, Shenandoah National Park....

Give us this day our daily maintenance

2010-07-18T15:53:00.000-07:00

My cousin Brian asked me to write about daily life in the RV. Here's the request answered, although I do think it sounds a little like whining.....

Recipe for maintenance: Put your house on wheels, drive it down the road and shake it all day. Follow this simple recipe and you are guaranteed to have daily maintenance.

For example, yesterday Carl re-installed the shade on the cabin door, then made the passenger seat belt re-tract again. This morning he cleaned the refrigerator drain so that ice stopped forming in the defrost tray. Then he changed filters in the a/c, a procedure that requires a screwdriver. Tonight, he re-caulked the exterior where the cab and the house meet. That's when he noticed the screws in the cabin door were loose.

So you might be thinking it looks like Carl does all the work? Well, maintenance wise, that's true. When I am on my own, I let the fix it list build higher than the deductible on our maintenance policy, and then I visit an RV center and get it all fixed at once. Last summer when the A/C went, the water pump went, and the kitchen faucet knobs all came off, I met the minimum on my policy and then some. The sticky part, after finding a repair center on my route, was making two trips to the same repair center two weeks apart so they could get the A/C unit ordered and delivered.

Little things seem like big things in the RV. Particularly if they are noisy things. Two nights ago an alarm started beeping. I crawled down from my bunk and disconnected the battery. Carl opened the window, in case we were dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. Just needed new batteries, it seems. Last night the satellite clock alarm went off at midnight. It's very easy to accidentally set the alarm when pushing the light to see what time it is as you go by in the middle of the night. Carl reset the clock alarm to noon in case it happens again. And the smoke alarm goes off anytime I use the frying pan for beef. Maybe it has a cholesterol sensor?

There's more to RV TV than using the remote. One night Carl thought the TV wasn't working, but next morning discovered there's a filter that accidentally got turned off. When we got to Canada the TV stopped picking up signal entirely. Carl slept on it, and then had an aha! moment. Canada is still analogue. The signal going through our digital converter box was the problem. Not that Canadian TV was something we craved: it was either in French or World Cup coverage, and if those buzzing horns bother you in your great room, try listening to them in 120 square feet. We caught up on some movies, like Avatar on the small screen. It's all plot on a 17 inch display. Recently I drove off with the cable still attached, but it looks like I got away with it. TV cable still works fine.

Driving the house adds stress to other components as well. We have broken three bike racks now. The problems started when we added a storage box behind the RV and the bikes are now farther back behind the box. We also bought a bike cover, because the bikes get really dirty without one. The cover created a sail, and bike racks started failing, two last summer and one this summer. Luckily, Carl discovered all the failures while parked and we haven't dropped the bikes on the freeway yet. We're now going uncovered with dirty bikes.

Daily life in the RV involves conserving water and developing a pattern of electrical use. All is cool if the microwave or hot water heater are not on at the same time as the A/C. We've learned to remember this most of the time. And all RV'ers learn that hair dryers are verboten.

There's other daily jobs besides maintenance, and we've reached a routine on who does what.

Carl........
Prefers to drive, except during sleepy time in the afternoon
Plans the route on his GPS ... he couldn't sleep if he didn't
Hooks up TV and finds all the channels
Fuels up, lubes up, pumps up the air shocks, all systems go
Hooks and unhooks, walks around to check before driveout
Makes a dinner salad, just like at home
Early morning Daisy pee - they are both early birds
Does his best to make me happy

I........
Decide where we are going, what sights we are going to stop to see
Drive when I want to look at something at my pace and don't want to give directions, want to listen to music (driver gets radio control), and when Carl needs a rest
Refill fresh water tank
Hand wash the dishes (I am a fan of Dawn Hand Renewal detergent, which makes my hands feel better than before I wash dishes)
Take out the trash every day (I am amazed how much trash we create every day... we have a large carbon footprint relative to the space we live in)
Wash clothes
Empty the grey and black water (a very special job)
Take Daisy on morning and evening poop walks
Answer Daisy's middle of the night emergency walks...this is when I fantasize the bedroom door to the backyard at home

When you live in 120 square feet, relationships patterns require adjustments. Foremost, only one butt can be in motion at a time. While waiting for your turn to move about the cabin, you can work on your Buddhist patience practice. You can also practice patience while waiting for your turn to stretch out on the sofa or for your spouse to go to bed or wake up or be ready to go, and a list of other things that you can imagine for yourself. And I haven't had a private thought all summer. In that small space, nothing is private.

As for fashion, I like my three changes of clothes very much. (Actually, five changes, but two are for cool weather, wherever that is.) When it comes to groceries, we live European style....never buy too much at once, and buy as much from roadside vegetable farms as possible. The homemade pies at the fruit stands help me get in five fruits and vegetables daily and the ice cream cones increase my calcium intake. Healthy eating rules in the RV are very flexible.

We're not very particular about washing the RV. In fact, we haven't done it this summer. Lots of rain has done the job to our satisfaction, although we have considered pulling in to a fundraiser and letting the cheerleaders wash it. Some owners like to wash their RV every night, but I think the guys outside for hours waxing and buffing are simply finding a way to have a few private thoughts.

So, Cousin Brian, does this help you visualize the nitty gritty of life on the road?

Today's photos: sunset in Amish Country, Pennsylvania, with tobacco (yes, Amish tobacco) growing between the corn fields and a hot air balloon overhead.

Moose Rules

2010-07-12T05:42:00.000-07:00

I don't always get a view like this from my campsite. But from time to time, the view makes all the inconveniences of living in 120 square feet worthwhile. The view tonight is from the Grand Isles in Lake Champlain. To one side the Green mountains of Vermont fade into a blue haze. On the other side, the Adironacks of New York beckon. Other views are burned in my memory: the sun setting on an Amish farmer still plowing the fields, watching the tides rise and fall at St. Martens on Fundy Bay and the Atlantic from the bluffs along the Cabot Trail.

But twice as often as a dreamy view I see the broadside of another RV. I shut my blinds and start writing about the places I have seen that day and the view improves. And once in a great while there's a campground without a view that stands out for other reasons. Such a camp can be found at Moose River in Vermont.

Most of the Moose River campground residents are long term, "seasonals". They rent their little plot of ground with a water hose and electric plug and park their rig next to Moose River for the summer. The Moose River seasonals are a happy bunch who take ownership of the campground and its rules to heart. And well they might. In addition to a spot by the river, the campground provides them with a long row of pastel rockers on a porch with a view of an eclectic collection of moose.

That's where the residents were when I checked in, rocking on the porch, except for the greeting committee on the road that gave me the universal motion for "keep the speed down." (I was speeding along at 10 mph, twice the suggested speed limit). Once I slowed down, I was welcomed warmly. The porch rocking group was disapointed I was staying only one night. I could see it was going to take longer than one night to appreciate the collection of moose statues scattered round the campground.

It was also going to take more than one night to get the rules memorized. I received my check-in informational packet, with two pages on garbage procedures plus some very detailed information on restaurants where I was to say Moose River sent me. The owner said that since I had a pet, the poop rule applied. She would charge my credit card $25 if I didn't pick up after Daisy, and if another resident caught me, they would get a $25 reward. I too could profit from catching a dog owner not picking up the duty. The laundry had more rules. I broke two of them: I used powdered detergent and washed a rug. More rules about the shower curtain....I did okay with those.

Seasonals are a new experience for me this summer. The Northeast and Maritime Provinces are packed with summer RVers who park a few miles from home and settle in to life in the RV park. On Prince Edward Island, I met a woman who lived 20 minutes away. She liked to move to the RV park in the summer, she said. In Antigonish, Nova Scotia, I met a family that lived in the same town. There they were, a few blocks from home, living in the trailer, sitting under the awning a few feet from the next RV, grilling burgers, watching the children come and go. Young fry roamed the park from sunrise to sunset, riding bikes and skateboards non-stop. Is the attraction the confined area of the park so the parents don't worry when their children run free? The population in the Maritimes is so sparse, why not a spot on the beach, or a lake, rather than the middle of a town?

I don't understand the motivation for clustering so close together, but I find the seasonal residents a happy, helpful lot. They quickly offer to help, whether it's telling me which dryer works the best and giving me their leftover dryer minutes, or referring me to a Vet for Daisy. Everyone wants to pet my dog, and that's important too. They are good people living the good life, enjoying a perpetual summer picnic. That's the memory of RV park life that makes me smile when I lower my shade and dream of a view.

Dear Readers

2010-07-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

Today I finally left the Maritime Provinces and being back in the USA is exhilarating. So excited with the familiar! All we had to do to re-enter the USA was surrender our tomatoes and citrus.

I'm watching American TV as I write.

I have been thinking about writing some travel articles, and I would love feedback. If you have been reading this summer, please let me know what your top three favorite blogs were. I'd like to work on making them submittable as travel articles, which means I need to add more particulars so people can find the location, eat at restaurants, etc. Submittable, is that a word?

You can refer to the index for the months of May, June and July.

You can post a comment below or email me at daisy.lincoln@gmail.com. Thanks for your help!

Men in Plaid

2010-07-06T18:03:00.000-07:00

The first few weeks of this road trip now two months duration, my mind was swimming with everything that was different. Then the rhythm of the road took over. Change has become routine, and my daily task is to redefine "normal."

On Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island, bilingual road signs are "normal." And why not Gaelic? After all, Nova Scotia in Latin means New Scotland. King James VI of Scotland gave New Scotland to Sir William Alexander in 1621. This was confusing to me, since the island had already been claimed by both England and France before James made his gift. Then I learned that at the time of his bequest, the Scottish king had also succeeded to the thrown of England and become English King James I.

The French were the first to colonize Nova Scotia beginning in 1605. (This makes it normal to have tourist brochures and informational videos in French as well as English.) The Scots, despite the wishes of James VI, did not populate Nova Scotia until the next century, after the failed Jacobite revolution, when they sought political and religious asylum. More immigrants arrived after 1759, Highland farmers who had been forced off their rented land to make way for sheep grazing by the British.

I'm glad the Scots came, because this week it has been normal to listen to some Celtic fiddlin'. My first Celtic fiddler owned a whale watching boat along the Cabot Trail. He fiddled at the dock, and when we found whales, he fiddled again. He fiddled up two Pilot whale pods with 'tweens and babies, sociably cruising the cove.

My next Celtic event was a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee). In Antigonish, the Highland Games kickoff weekend featured a church luncheon with highland dancing, fiddlin' and square dancing. St. Joseph's Social Action Committee prepared a fine tea of finger sandwiches, biscuits with jam, and unfamiliar deserts, including a pot of whipped cream with Irish oatmeal. Lady pipers greeted the party-goers on arrival and young girls River Danced on the makeshift stage of the parish hall. Then Michael Hall, locally renowned Celtic fiddler, took the stage with a heavily rosined bow. The early crowd was predominantly ladies, tapping their feet and nodding in time. Then the hall filled. Everyone was moving to the music, fingers, shoulders, heads and feet keeping a rhythm that was hypnotic.

As the fiddler warmed up, the crowd warmed up too, and soon a group of eight was square dancing. This was no dosey-doe kind of square dance. No, that would not be normal in Antigonish. Their steps were Irish jig, a highlander step. One couple took the lead, and a complete set included four sequences. I think I could have done it. My mind said I could have. It felt normal, a Scottish version of a Czech wedding dance. Or maybe it is the MacIntosh name somewhere in my mother's family tree.

Over the summer, normal has come to include foot long lupines and naturalizing daylilies blooming in the ditches, blue waves pounding at rocky shores and lapping in fishing coves with lighthouses round every corner, and fog that curls in on a whim. Normal landscaping includes an old lobster trap, lawn chairs in shades of rainbow sherbet, and a miniature lighthouse. Taco trucks sell fish and chips and I've become a fan of them. But nonchalance about men in kilts? I'm not quite there yet.

Next weekend when the Highland Games fill the streets of Antigonish with men in kilts playing pipes and competing in tug of war, I could work on acquiring kilt immunity....an entire weekend might innoculate me. I could watch the kirking of the tartans or attend the Clan MacGillivray/Clan Chattan gathering in the town where most street names and building names start with the preface Mac.

I could attend the Halifax Tatoo, an annual production of military precision drills, piping, dancing.... that might build up my kilt callouses. Certainly the ongoing re-creations at the Citadel, the fort high on a hill overlooking Halifax, helped acclimate me today.

Maybe with time a man with nine yards of tartan wrapped around him will look normal. Mel Gibson, Braveheart, I'll call you when I am ready for the big test. We'll see if I notice you are wearing a kilt.

Oh Canada

2010-07-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

This lovely pair of ladies is celebrating Canada Day, Canada's birthday, and it seems the opportune time to clear a few things up. First, what's with the Queen? If she's still the Queen, why celebrate bloody independence, eh? Did somebody not tell the royalty? This week the Queen's in Halifax, inspecting the Canadian navy, as well as reviewing a pageant of warships from other nations, on the occasion of the Canadian Navy's 100th anniversary Then she'll buzz off to Ottowa and Toronto, where the newpapers will likewise report on her hat, her coat, her dress and the sapphire brooch from her Mum, along with proper etiquette should you meet her.

I asked the "What's with the Queen" question of waitresses and information centers for several days but got no further than "Well, because she's the Queen." Then a Cape Breton local on my guided tour of Fort Louisbourg stepped up to the technical side of the Queen question. Elizabeth is the Queen because Canada is a constitutional monarchy. She's the nominal head of state, just like in England.

So, if Canada is technically part of the British empire, albeit loosely, what's with all the French? Simple. They were here before the British. Here in Nova Scotia, French influence is abundant. Fort Louisbourg is a great place to brush up on some Francophile facts. The French wanted colonies here for the same reason as the Brits: money. There was even more money in cod fishing in Louisbourg than there was in the fur trade in Quebec. The French built Fort Louisbourg to protect their territory. Over the years, the Brits continued to lay siege to the Fort which guarded the St. Lawrence waterway to Quebec. Eventually, the French lost all of North America. The Brits did their best to expel the French settlers, the Acadians, giving Longfellow a story line for his poetic epic Evangeline and relocating some fine Cajun food to Louisiana.

Happy Birthday Canada, long live the Queen, and laissez les bon temps roulez!

Disclaimer: All the facts in this blog are pure hearsay, opinions are just opinions and there's no distinction between them. I have glossed over the latin name Nova Scotia, New Scotland, and perhaps I will get a heresay explanation for the bi-lingual Gaelic road signs sometime on my journey around Cape Breton Island. There's still more questions than answers.

Prince Edward Island - Through Anne's Eyes

2010-06-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

I arrived on Prince Edward Island with a giant gap in my childhood cultural experience, having never read Anne of Green Gables and therefore with no frame of reference for the fictional Avonlea, the Haunted Woods or Lovers Lane, all of which author Lucy Maud Montgomery modeled after a family farm near Cavendish. The story line of the children’s novel centers on Anne, a red haired precocious girl adopted by a couple living in a house called Green Gables. They were mistakenly sent an orphan girl instead of a boy, yet decided to keep her. But I knew none of this. I needed a crash course. So, with a friendly PEI library recorded book loan, I embarked on my driving tour of the island while listening to the eleven hour unabridged version of Anne of Green Gables.

Through the eyes of the red-haired orphan who has captured the hearts of readers for 100 years, I learned a few things about Prince Edward Island; some things are the same, others she never dreamed of. I crossed the Northumberland Strait onto Canada's smallest province on the13 km Confederation Bridge, completed in 1997. Anne, adopted from Nova Scotia, came by ferry and then by train to arrive at her new home. Today, the trains are gone and the rail bed is a hike and bike path stretching from one tip of the island to the other. Hiking or biking the gravel path between the storybook small towns of Prince Edward Island is gentle, since the highest elevation of the island is 152 metres (499 feet). Hike and Bike Trails. PEI is laid back in geography and atmosphere. I could feel myself decompressing with each mile. Except for the capital, Charlottetown, and a few major towns, commercial development is understated.

Russet apples and potatoes are unchanged from the early 1900's. PEI is home to miles and miles of potatoes, growing on small farms in ruddy soil, red from iron oxide, and with a spectacular view. If you like your potatoes distilled into Artisan Vodka, take a tour of the Prince Edward Distillery on the East Cape. Polish off your potato experience by visiting the Potato museum in O'Leary. Potato Museum

PEI is pristine and pastoral. Lawns are mowed almost daily and in June, giant lupines that have naturalized over the island fill the ditches with pinks and blues and whites. PEI calls itself the gentle island, embracing a laidback attitude, but also gentle in its rolling hills of cultivated land, farmhouses and churches crisp and white, just as they were in Anne’s time, and endless coastline, harbors, fishing villages, and 52 lighthouses. (After the first 40 lighthouses, I developed lighthouse numbness). Most lighthouses have been moved from their original locations due to erosion as the fragile sandy red soil of the island washes away with every winter storm. Lighthouses serve no useful purpose today, modern navigational devices having made them obsolete. They are points in history, preserved to commemorate events they have witnessed during Anne's time and before and lure tourists like me into quaint fishing harbors and onto points for a closer look at a lighthouse and the water, never more than 20 kilometers away from any point on the island. Lighthouses

I am puzzled that Anne, who lived only a few kilometers from the popular Prince Edward Island National Park, never mentioned outings to the beach. PEI’s beaches are human friendly, with wide swaths of white or red sand. At the National Park on the North Shore, the water is quite temperate for swimming in summer. I will suspend my disbelief that Anne was not a fan of the beautiful water that laps at PEI, just as I suspended disbelief that Anne’s adopted family would ask a distant acquaintance to pick out an orphan for them while they were selecting their own.

I doubt that Anne dreamed that one day PEI would call itself Canada’s Green Island and use wind turbines for 5% of its electricity. The North Cape Wind Energy Interpretive Center filled my mind with facts and opinions about alternative energy sources. PEI was my first experience with green garbage. By the time I left the island I had the system down: compost the leftover fries and napkin, trash the plastic fork, recycle the water bottle, and take the wine bottle back for a refund. (Anything bottled on the island must use refundable bottles.) PEI is home to the original recycler, Édouard Arsenault, an Acadian who, after returning from World War II, collected thousands of glass bottles and built a house, a tavern and a chapel at Cap-Egmont on the Western Cape before he finally became compost himself in 1984. Coincidentally, he was also a lighthouse keeper. Bottle Houses

Anne talked only of food served at tea, but if she had discussed dinner, surely fish would have been prominent. After potatoes, fishing is the second largest industry. PEI gave me my first taste of hake, which is popular in Ireland and now appearing in North American waters. It was the luncheon special at the Blue Fin in Souris, where a generous serving of pan fried hake, biscuits, coleslaw and mashed potatoes was difficult to finish. The special included desert, for me a moist bread pudding the friendly waitress packed to go. Lobster was in season in June, but I was early for the church lobster suppers of July and August. I was also early for tuna. Scallops are another local favorite, along with oysters and quahogs, which one waitress described as "like a clam but slimier". Along the Western cape, at the Seaweed Cafe in Miminegash I had my first Acadian meat pie and a seaweed pie made from Irish moss harvested from the ocean. I’ll try anything once, except maybe not quahogs. Seaweed Pie

By the time I reached Cavendish and the Green Gables house, I was in love with Anne the island’s heroine, referred to by Mark Twain as the most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice. The world has remained in love with Anne for over a century. Since publication in 1908, the book has been translated into 17 languages, has 7 sequels and has been adapted to film many times. I confess to butterflies as I approached the house made famous by Lucy Montgomery. I walked down Lover’s Lane, into the Haunted Wood, and up the stairs to Ann’s room under the small green gable. And I felt at home, as though Anne might walk through the door and offer me a raspberry cordial and some biscuits with jam. Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables made me fall in love with Montgomery's island. I was wistful when I finished her book, and reluctant to leave her island. Montgomery felt the same way. She married a minister and moved to Ontario where she raised three sons and continued to write until her death. But her heart never left the island. She asked to come home to the island of her birth to be buried, near Green Gables in Cavendish Community Cemetery. I understand why. And I heartily recommend that you too make the book part of your vacation reading when visiting her island.

Photos - Counterclockwise driving tour of Prince Edward Island

End Notes:

tourismpei.com, the official site for Prince Edward Island, is excellent.

Welcome centers with information are located near all entry points and additional sites are easy to find throughout the island. PEI maps available there showcase three scenic drives, all with good roads, and pinpoint camping and tourist attractions. Ask for the Hike and Bike Trail maps at the same centers. Lodging and dining information is available as well.

Approaches to PEI :
Major airlines connecting to Charlottetown include Air Canada, Delta, Northwest and West Jet
Driving from New Brunswick, the Confederate Bridge spans 13 Kilometers, a 12 minute drive across the strait of Newfoundland.
From Nova Scotia, Northumberland Ferries operates between Caribou and Wood Island PEI, a 75 minute trip.
Entry to the island by bridge or ferry is free. Fares are collected on the return, approximately $42 for a passenger vehicle on the bridge and $64 on the ferry.

How long should you spend? I spent five leisurely days driving the scenic routes. Add more time for Charlottetown, especially during the summer festival season. In 2010 Circ du Soleil participated in the Canada Day parade and fireworks displays. Summer theatre in the capital city features Anne of Green Gables, of course.

When to go? June and September are less crowded, but you will miss the church lobster suppers and the festivals of July and August.

Through Anne's Eyes

2010-06-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

I arrived on Prince Edward Island with a giant gap in my childhood cultural experience, having never read Anne of Green Gables and therefore with no frame of reference for Avonlea, the Haunted Woods or Lovers Lane. With a friendly Cornwall PEI library recorded book loan, I embarked on a crash course, listening to the unabridged version of Anne of Green Gables, 10.5 hours, while driving the island.

Through the eyes of the red-haired orphan who has captured the hearts of readers for 100 years, I learned a few things about Prince Edward Island; some things are the same, others she never dreamed of. I crossed the Northumberland Strait onto Canada's smallest province on Confederation Bridge, completed in 1997. Anne, adopted from Nova Scotia, came by ferry and then by train to arrive at her new home. Today, the trains are gone and the rail bed is a hike and bike path stretching from one tip of the island to the other.

Russet apples and potatoes are unchanged from the early 1900's. Miles and miles of potatoes, growing on small farms in ruddy soil, red from iron oxide, and with a view......where else can a potato farmer enjoy such scenery? And where else does a potato have its own museum but in O'Leary, PEI?

PEI calls itself the gentle island, embracing a laidback attitude, but also gentle in its rolling hills of cultivated land, farmhouses and churches crisp and white, just as they were in Anne’s time, and endless coastline, harbors, fishing villages, and 52 lighthouses. (After the first 40 lighthouses, lighthouse numbness has been known to occur). Lighthouses serve no useful purpose today, modern navigational devices having made them obsolete. They are points in history, preserved to commemorate events they have witnessed and lure tourists like me into quaint fishing harbors and onto points for a closer look at a lighthouse and the water, never more than 20 kilometers away from any point on the island.

I doubt that Anne dreamed that one day PEI would call itself Canada’s Green Island and use wind turbines for 5% of its electricity. The North Cape Wind Energy Interpretive Center filled my mind with facts and opinions. PEI was my first experience with green garbage. By the time I left the island I had the system down: compost the ketchup, leftover fries and napkin, trash the plastic fork, recycle the ketchup bottle, and take the wine bottle back for a refund. (Anything bottled on the island uses refundable bottles.) PEI is home to the original recycler, Édouard Arsenault, an Acadian who, after returning from World War II, collected thousands of glass bottles and built a house, a tavern and a chapel Cap-Egmont at before he finally became compost himself in 1984. Coincidentally, he was also a lighthouse keeper.

Anne talked only of food which was served at tea time, but if she had discussed dinner, surely fish would have been prominent. After potatoes, fishing is the second largest industry. PEI gave me my first taste of hake, which is popular in Ireland and now appearing in North American waters. It was the luncheon special at the Blue Fin in Souris, where biscuits, coleslaw and mashed potatoes generously covered my plate. Then there was desert, the moistest bread pudding which the friendly waitress packed to go. Lobster is in season, but we are early for tuna. Scallops are another local favorite, along with oysters and quahogs, which one waitress described as like clams but slimier. Along the Northern Acadian cape, at the Seaweed Cafe in Miminegash I had my first meat pie and a seaweed pie made from Irish moss harvested from the ocean. I’ll try anything once, except quahogs.

By the time I reached Cavendish and the Green Gables house, I was in love with Anne the island’s heroine, referred to by Mark Twain as the most lovable children’s book character since Alice. I confess to butterflies as I approached the house made famous by Lucy Montgomery, who tried five publishers before one accepted her manuscript. She was only 19 when she wrote the book. Since it was published in 1908, it has been translated into 17 languages and has 7 sequels.

Anne of Green Gables made me fall in love with Montgomery's island. I was wistful when I finished her book, and reluctant to leave her island. Montgomery felt the same way. When she was 37, she married a minister and moved to Ontario where she raised three sons and continued to write until her death. But her heart never left the island. She asked to come home to the island of her birth to be buried, near Green Gables in Cavendish Community Cemetery. I understand why.

Links: Seaweed Cafe /Miminegash PEI

Parks Canada Anne of Green Gables Historic Site

PEI Hike and Bike Trails

Bottle Houses

Potato Museum

The pull of the moon

2010-06-22T18:32:00.000-07:00

Tourist attractions along New Brunswick's Fundy Coastal Trail require a minimum of twelve hours for full appreciation. Over twelve hours you can witness high tide, low tide, high slack tide and low slack tide. And during those twelve hours, you can watch one of the maritime wonders of the world through full cycle.

St. John's big attraction is the Reversing Falls. I watched for a minute and it was a yawn. Then I paid $2.50 for the movie and saw the full tide cycle in 14 minutes, a fast forward feature that I found worthwhile. For six hours the Bay of Fundy forces the St. John River back upstream. Then for six hours, the St. John River has its way. At low tides, the rapids are exposed. At slack tide, which I understand as the time when both forces are pushing equally, the rapids are a flat pool and boats travel through the narrows of the river. When the tide rises again, whirlpools are created by sea water pushing upstream underneath the downstream fresh water. All this makes the Reversing Falls on of the seven maritime wonders of the world.

Along the coast are other maritime attractions. At Hopewell Rocks, visitors walk out on the ocean floor and look up at rocks many times their height. Then, they wash their shoes, mucky from the red river silt on the beach, and wait for the tides to cover the rocks six hours and thirty nine feet later.

In Moncton, the Peticodiac River's attraction is a tidal bore. Years ago the tidal bore was a very impressive high wall of water that surged in through the narrow river opening, a large wave pushing the river to reverse. However, a causeway built across the river has blocked the bore, and usually the river-wide wave is only a few inches high. Erma Bombeck wrote after seeing the tidal bore: "A trickle of brown water, barely visible, slowly edged its way up the river toward us with all the excitement of a stopped-up toilet."

Most of the tides are more interesting than the Tidal Bore. Even in the smallest of coves along Fundy Bay, all the boats are stranded at low tide, resting on a cradle of wood so they don't topple over. The difference between high and low tide on the Bay of Fundy can be as much as 46 feet. It's not uncommon to see 300 yards of exposed beach when the tide is out.

Last night, camped on Fundy Bay at St. Marten, Daisy and I walked about 50 steep yards down to the water's edge. A few hours later, we would have drowned standing there. We might also have gotten lost in the fog, which changed a sunny evening to a seafarer's nightmare in five minutes.

The tides move on schedule; the weather changes on a whim. It's important to ignore the forecast when planning the day's activities. This morning, the Fundy coast was forecast for rain, but instead it was a magnificent blue day, my reward for slogging along the foggy Fundy Trail yesterday, and a long blue summer solstice's day, light from 4 am till 10 pm. The light of a summer day in the north is magic.

Guilty until Proven Innocent

2010-06-20T18:55:00.001-07:00

Two years ago when we went to Alaska, we crossed the Canadian border many times. The border crossings were a yawn. No one looked in the refrigerator to see what contraband fruit or meat we might have. A cursory glance at the passport, a question about guns, liquor and currency, and we were waved on our way. I remember crossing the border three times in a day in Hyder, Alaska, going from our Canadian camp to the river in Alaska to see bears fishing for salmon. The agent at the border didn't raise an eyebrow.

This time, even though we were only going to the island of Campobello, a tiny Canadian island with an international peace park commemorating Roosevelt’s summer home, a border crossing agent came on board and opened every cupboard. She remarked about my labeling system. On our return we got a shorter onboard inspection on the US side.

That night Carl and I laughed about labeling one of our storage cabinets “Contraband”, even though we were sure the agents might not see the humor. We joked as I cleaned the RV. We were crossing into Canada again, and I was cleaning to be ready for unexpected guests.

We approached the New Brunswick border with trepidation, hoping that we’d slide through this time. But once again we were asked to pull to the inspection station. We thought we knew the drill. The agent would come on board and open the cupboards and we would be off again.

An hour later, we were still detained. Carl and I were separated to answer questions about our criminal backgrounds. I was rattled. I felt guilty even though I have never been arrested. What was going on?

They kept our passports. Two Canadian agents wearing gloves and bullet proof vests combed through every compartment inside and outside the RV while we waited on the sidewalk. Meanwhile, other RV's were waved through without inspection. We began to wonder if we were on a terrorist no fly list.

Finally, the search was complete and our passports returned. We quizzed the agents. Why were two geezers in an RV searched two days in a row? We got the party line. They inspect a lot of vehicles for contraband every day at random. I guess I didn’t really expect more of an answer than that, but I wanted one.

Tonight I feel vulnerable. This was different than finding an inspection tag in my checked luggage after an airplane flight. This time, a non-American looked into my eyes and then came into my home to see if I was breaking a law, a law whose rules and consequences I wasn't familiar with. A stranger rustled through my underwear and looked in every drawer while I watched from outside my home.

I wanted to cry out “I have my rights” even though I know there are valid reasons that Customs has the right to inspect whatever they want. I had to prove my innocence.

Post Script: We've been chatting with the tourist information centers about our experience since arriving in New Brunswick. As it turns out, random commando searches are common and frustrating on both sides of the border here in the Northeast. In addition to well known contraband, they are looking for potatoes. Spud missiles, anyone?

Saturday Night at Hilltop Campground

2010-06-19T15:34:00.000-07:00

I knew Hilltop was going to be a great spot the minute I turned in the driveway. Children were playing on a grassy hill and the pool was filled to capacity. It’s the first official weekend of summer here in “Down East” Maine. (I am unclear about the “down” part of the designation for this region, since you can’t get any more “up” than this and still be in the US.) All along the Maine coast summer's kickoff is celebrated with free days at museums, the beginning of seasonal ferries, the first sail of whale and lighthouse watching cruises. And it is a glorious first weekend, sunny skies, long warm days, cool and breezy nights. The natives are giddy, and so am I.

The Hilltop Campground celebrated with games all day and Bingo and Karaoke in the evening. And Bingo on a Saturday night at the Hilltop Campground, just south of the border to New Brunswick, ranks a close second to the shuttle liftoff on this summer’s RV trip. It started as a “why not, I’m just waiting for the laundry to dry anyway” and built to a fevered gambling experience. I bet against grandmothers, families, children and Canadians who paid for their bingo cards with loonies. There was no age limit for gambling at the Hilltop Campground.

I learned new things about Bingo, which has changed somewhat since my childhood days of sliding covers on permanent cards. Now the cards are disposable and there’s a see-through inker to cover the number. I watched the more savvy eleven year olds and got some tips. The first thing they did was mark the pattern of the game being called. “Small picture frame” meant fill in a square around the free box in the middle. “Plus sign” was more obvious and even I knew “blackout”. My personal favorite was “H”, because the numbers started rolling my way. When my H was missing two numbers, my heart started beating faster. The next number called was fifty five, pronounced "fitty five" by the caller and repeated “fitty five” by the crowd. I didn’t have it. But Granny playing six cards all taped together marked off "fitty five" several times. My tummy tightened. We’d been playing a long time. Someone was due to Bingo at any minute.

I heard a man on TV just the day before explaining that we could actualize our wishes through focusing. It was PBS and there was science to back his claim, so I focused. The caller said “G 46”. I had it! Now all I needed was B 10. I looked at the caller. He looked at me. He picked up the ball. “B…..” he paused, gathering dramatic effect. I nodded. I motioned come on. I focused on him. He focused back. “10!” “Whoop” I yelled. Folks turned and stared. I still needed to say the magic word. “Bingo!” Their faces sank; I celebrated in the end zone.

“What happens now?” I asked the lady who came to check my card. “They bring you the money.” Two fives American, two fives Canadian, two toonies and a Canadian quarter. I had played five rounds of Bingo, washed a load of clothes and was up about $18.00.

Later in the evening, I returned to the Pavillion with Daisy for Karaoke night at the Hilltop Campground. Once again there was no age limit, and also no talent minimum. Camper after camper struggled to read the words on the prompter and carry a tune. The crowd was there for the duration, no matter how much their ears hurt. Daisy howled and howled. Another camper turned to her and said, “My sentiments exactly.” I too agreed. It was a night to howl.

The Rain in Maine

2010-06-18T05:06:00.000-07:00

It has been sunny every third day of my visit to the coastal splendor of Maine. When the sun shines, the blue sky reflects on the water, turning it into a deep sapphire jewel. Mountains run headlong into the sea and waves pound and pulse with a jagged rhythm mile after rocky mile. It’s easy to be swept away by the vigorous landscape on a sunny day.

When the rains and fog take their turn, thoughts turn to long yellow slickers and a cup of tea by a potbelly stove. The reason the residents call themselves Maineiacs? It takes a hardy breed to survive the gray days. Last year in June it rained twenty seven days. When it rains, it’s a great day for an LL Bean outlet trip, where plenty of slickers, rain hats, and fleece pullovers are available to round out a southerner’s wardrobe.

On gray days, the lighthouses work overtime guiding the lobster boats safely to harbor. A lobster fisherman may run five hundred traps marked by distinctly painted buoys and check them every other day. On peninsula back-roads, every house has traps stacked in the yard. So many people depend on the fertility of a crustacean....not an easy life, and one that is threatened by a proposed ban on lobster trapping for five years.

The rain doesn’t seem to affect the attitude of the RV park operators. They attract seasonal volunteers who are so happy to be here that they can’t wait to hand out advice on attractions no one should miss. The farther out the peninsula the campground, the funkier. Near Bass Harbor, the campground coffee pot is ready at 7 am, and the summer resident retirees aka volunteers aka workmen show up to discuss the myriad of projects going on. There’s an addition to the office under way, and it looks like the insulation on the side of the building has been exposed during several rainstorms. There’s talk of a new water heater. The desk clerk is getting a lesson on closing up, which involves putting a board across the front door in lieu of locking it.

Another work camper attempts to rewire the internet connection; he’s trying to thread eight tiny wires into a plug. Should he succeed, I’ll post this blog. Then I’ll have another cup of hot coffee before putting on my new LL Bean slicker and walking out to the lighthouse, where I will think about the family living in the lighthouse and the families of the men in the lobster boats. I wish for them the bluest of skies.

New Hampshire Moments

2010-06-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

Near wildflowers, lakes, bogs and country roads
in the yarn shop the ladies spin and share their lives

on a quiet road a sway back horse lives out his days

and long departed settlers rest with their memories
of days when they walked along these streams
looked up at these mountains

and left their legacy to the flinty people of New Hampshire

like my friend Brenda
who has climbed 48 peaks over 4,000 feet

and other flinty folk
who honored the fallen of 9/11
by raising the flag on every one of those 48 peaks

in memory

9/11 story

Ghosts of Cape Cod

2010-06-11T18:28:00.000-07:00

Duck Creek Cemetery is the final resting place of many a soul. This particular soul seems a little restless. I have been presented with a refractory explanation for the Orb of light over the gravestone, but I cling to my belief that this is the soul of one who has not been able to move on. So many who might have unfinished business here......mothers who died in childbirth, interred with their babies; children, marked by tiny stones next to their parents; second wives, interred next to the first; an entire family dead within a week, victims of diseases we no longer fear; men washed away at sea; veterans of the civil war.
Epitaphs tell of their love, their despair, their hopes for the beyond.
"This youth in the midst of present youthfulness and future promise was lost in the disastrous wreck of the Schooner Warrior..."
"Friends pray stop awhile, here I'm buried with my child...."
"Snatched from her loving mate in the bloom of life...."
"Tree and fruit shall spring again.."
"In the firm belief of a glorious resurrection...."

I pass this way and remember them, imagining their lives, and I offer a prayer that they are in peace.

Who was Roger Williams?

2010-06-09T18:16:00.000-07:00

If you were raised Baptist, I'll bet you know that Roger Williams was a separatist minister banished from Plymouth colony in 1636 for his radical views that each person had a right to worship without interference from the state. He established the first Baptist church in America in Providence. So if you want some choices in religion, this is the state for you. First Jewish synogogue, first Catholic Church...Roger welcomed them all.

The Rhodys continued to be a free thinking group after Roger was gone. They declared independence from England two months before the rest of the colonies and were the first state to outlaw slavery.

Little Rhode Island is 48 miles wide with 400 miles of coastline. With a jagged profile around Narragansett Bay, there's plenty of lighthouses and their stories. What seafarer's wife waited for the return of her man? What lightkeepers lived and raised families there? Who perished, like the lighthouse keeper who died on Whale Rock in the hurricane of 1938?

And with water comes bridges. What is it about a bridge that fascinates? Starting over the bridge, there's anticipation, the jitters before takeoff. Then from the top, I can see for miles, and I am flying. Add in the architecture, the graceful cables, buttresses, metal lacework. Finish with the mystery of the other side, still to be discovered. One minute, five minutes....the journey is short for me; but for early inhabitants, before the bridge, what waits on the other side was worth a day's journey.

(Texas fact: Harris county is 50% larger than Rhode Island)

If I were a Nutmegger

2010-06-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't mind being from the third smallest state, because Connecticut is the most manicured and green state in the US.

I would live in a turn of the century white clapboard house...turn of 1800 or maybe even 1700.... on a village green, a manicured grassy parkland with a gazebo or a monument. I would share my green with the ghost of Harriet Beecher Stowe or Mark Twain or Marian Anderson or Eugene O'Neill. And I would belong to St. James Episocopal Church....every town has one.

I'd live in a town with an English name, like York or Kent or Cornwall or New London on the Thames River. Maybe I would cross a covered bridge into the town. I would buy fresh strawberries in June and later in the summer, corn on the cob at the Farmer's Markets. I would stop at Tag sales. I would hang out the bunting on Memorial Day and not bring it in till time for pumpkins.

I'd have a landscape rock sticking out of my lawn because it would be too massive to move. With all the other rocks I would build low walls of set stone, no mortar. In the summer I would manicure the lawn around the rock, and in the fall, I wouldn't mind raking leaves, because they are so splendid on the maples and elms in the fall. In the winter, I'd snowplow with my 4x4 vehicle.

I would drive the coast of Long Island Sound or up the Connecticut River for peekaboo views of sailboats and harbors.

I would order Mystic Pizza delivered.

I think I see the delivery driver now.

Does this count?

2010-06-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

Since my days as a Scout and after reading Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" I have fantasized hiking the Appalatian trail. Today, Amanda drove me to the trailhead and took my picture. So I ask you, does this count?

How quickly life moves on. Amanda, who first came into my scout troop in 6th grade, is now teaching 6th grade with four years seniority. She welcomed me into her lovely two story home, took me to the top of the highest mountain in Massachusets, then to dinner with her husband. All the while she was the gracious hostess. Daisy got bottled water, and in the morning we had free access to her shower, her refrigerator, anything we desired.

Here's to a mini reunion of troop 2010, Scouts everywhere, and hiking the Appalatian trail.

Tilley Trivia

2010-06-03T15:58:00.000-07:00

Carl Tilley Lincoln checked out his roots this morning at Tilley Hall in Hyde Park NY. The dates all sound right for him to be related to Charles Tilley, born sometime about 1830. In the 1860's Charles moved to Hyde Park and built tract houses for the workers of the town, most of them employed by the rich and famous in their country homes. Later he built Tilley Hall on the site of a burned declining hotel in Hyde Park. Tilley Hall housed a general store, The Oddfellows Lodge and a Dance Hall. All was prosperous at Tilley Hall until the 1980's. Eventually the site went up for sale for back taxes. In the early 2000's the current owner, Roger Larsen, got involved. It is now the site of Cranberry cafe (good coffee, baked goods, breakfast, lunch) and has offices on the upper floors.

Was Charles Tilley a brother of Admiral Tilley, Carl's great grandfather? Admiral Benjamin Franklin Tilley was born March 29, 1848, the sixth of nine children, in Bristol, Rhode Island.^[1] During the American Civil War, Tilley enrolled in the United States Naval Academy on September 22, 1863, at the age of 15. Could there be a connection?

Hudson Pastoral

2010-06-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

It only takes a few miles on the Palisades Parkway to leave Manhattan behind. And less than 100 miles farther north are monasteries, country homes, bucolic views of the Hudson, and history for the casual or serious presidential scholar.

Hyde Park, where FDR's home, burial place and presidential library are run by the Park Service, is our destination via a scenic meander along the Hudson. Nearby the Vanderbilts left a little 56 room country mansion to the National Park Service as well. Together, the Roosevelts and the Vanderbilts can occupy a whole day. Of the two, I prefer the Roosevelts..... old money vs new money.....

But if I were to choose the highlight of Hyde Park, it would be the CIA. The Culinary Institute of America, housed in a former Jesuit Seminary perched on a bluff above the Hudson, is the best lunch spot in the United States. Attentive service and preparation by the students at the Institute, culinary ecstasy ranging from elegant to cafe fare, delightful views of the red brick monastery and its spires, Hudson vistas.....I could go on, but here comes my chicken pot pie. Ummmmm!

Top of the Holiday

2010-06-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

Orville and Wilbur could have done this. All they needed was a little baking soda and vinegar to lift an aircraft 50 feet off the ground. Really, the rocket did lift off, just like the box said it would, and landed about 10 yards away. Miraculous!

Even more miraculous, the rabbit living at the host house for Memorial Day fun is still alive today. Daisy may not be invited back after her attempt to catch it for dinner! What a reputation Daisy is developing on this trip....and not for peaceful living, either.

It's back to school and work for the families today. I am sure my great nephews Matthew and Nathan will sleep well tonight. Scout campout, lake picnic, farm campout, flea market outing, airplane flying, bicycle riding, dog jogging, birthday party and swim party with a rocket launch made for a weekend of non-stop play. Adults will rest too, after fajitas and margueritas created by Jennifer and Nancy.

This morning as we left our weekend of family fun, Olga the grey and white tabby was begging to come back in the house. I am sure she ate well and rested in peace all day today. God bless Meena and Olga. Good kitties!

Predatory Instinct, New Jersey style

2010-05-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

The minute we walked in the door at Nancy and Jennifer's, Daisy smelled cat. Olga the gray and white tabby made a quick escape outdoors, and Meena the brindled calico hid upstairs somewhere safe. A few minutes later Daisy's pounding feet shook the ceiling and a brown fur blur rocketed down the stairs and into the office, Daisy in hot pursuit. All humans sprang into action to drag Daisy out of the house. Shortly thereafter, Nancy was off to the emergency room, bleeding profusely from a cat bite received trying to extract Meena.

Twice more that evening, Daisy broke the barriers to the office. Meena performed a cat circus trapeze act as she swung from desktop to curtain to wardrobe top with no safety net. After banishing Daisy to the RV, I surveyed the damage. It looked as though someone had tossed the room looking for a treasure map.

Nancy is on antibiotics for 10 days and Meena is under house arrest for 10 days, just in case. Meena is yowling from her basement prison, Olga is living the outdoor life, and Daisy sleeps with one eye on the basement door. There are three fail safe barriers between her and Meena, and we humans navigate to the subterranean dungeon through the airlock system.

Worst news? No alcohol for Nancy. All those Marguerita's on Memorial Day that I am going to have to drink for her....poor me!

Simply wonderful

2010-05-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

I didn't mean to be in Amish country, but I am. There's plenty of crab shacks but not many RV places between DC and Paradise Pennsylvania, so here we are, despite plans to stop near Wilmington and color in Delaware on the RV window map. Here near Paradise, the Amish mother and her three children drive a wagon through the campground and I buy more strawberries than I could ever eat from a young boy and girl who are too sweet to deny. The innocent look on their faces is worth the price.

By the time we drive into the countryside after a full breakfast at one of the many Amish cafes, the wash is out to dry at every farmhouse and the ladies are mowing the lawn or off to town in the buggies. It's hard work being simple. The men are in the fields, just like they were late in the day when we arrived. I see young women in gardens, picking vegetables that stock the honor system roadside stands. We stop to buy tomatoes, lettuce, spinach and potatoes. And moon pies.

Less than an hour from busy Philadelphia, the world stands still.

To Marguerite

2010-05-27T19:07:00.000-07:00

Not only does she live where George Washington once farmed on the banks of the Potomac, this lady, my cousin once removed, is descended from seven men who signed the Mayflower compact. Yep, John Alden and Myles Standish included, and an adventurous fellow named Hopkins who reached Jamestown by way of a shipwreck in Bermuda, returned to England and then came back again to Plymouth, where he apparently liked it better and stayed. No wonder Marguerite is so spunky! She has determined genes.

If it weren't for Marguerite, I would not know about my 17th century roots. She has earned a lifetime achievement award, awarded by me today, for researching and preserving our family genealogy for the generations to come.

Spunky, vivacious, gracious, engaging, interesting....and still playing doubles at 82. I wish I had inherited her knees!

Walking where they walked

2010-05-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

When I stand in the sand dunes at Kill Devil Hills and feel the wind, I can almost fly, transported back to the moment when Orville and Wilbur Wright first defied gravity. Scarcely a hundred years ago in the outer banks of North Carolina, these determined brothers made history.

I get chillbumps when I stand where people from the history books walked. In Williamsburg, I feel the fire of Patrick Henry. I stroll the campus of William and Mary where Jefferson attended college, sit in the church pew where George Washington attended the June 1st Day of Prayer.

In Jamestown I stand where Pocahantas saved John Smith from starving in 1608. She was only 13 at the time. At 19 she married a colonist and forged peace between the settlers and her father's tribe. What a legacy for one young girl.

Two rivers north, on the Rappahannock River, my mother's ancestor, a tailor named Daniel Winstead, born 1647 in Sussex Parrish, England, came to the new world for a 50 acre land grant in Lancaster County, Virginia. He was an adventurer, off to a new world, from tailor to tobacco farmer, but he did not live his dream for very long. He died in 1671, survived only by one young son, Samuel, the first generation of my mother's family born in America.

And today, I am standing where he stood. History gives me the shivers.

Why the Atlantic is not the Pacific

2010-05-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

I can't help comparing the southeastern Atlantic seashore to the Pacific. It's the same blue water, but the Atlantic beauty is hidden behind man's clutter, 1000 sf of beach house per capita. I'll have to check the latest census, because it might have climbed to 1500 sf. Put the Atlantic up against the Pacific and I'll take the Pacific, where nothing comes between the highway and the stunning views.

Myrtle Beach is the quintessential example of visual clutter. Retail overdose stretches about 10 miles and I'm guessing per capita feet of neon is over 100 feet. It's probably in the deed restrictions that there must be the following on each block:

Retail beachware shop, 10,000 sf or more, preferably a chain, like Waves, with a wave scalloped roof outlined in Neon.
One or more Pancake breakfast buffets
A pizza place
A fish place
A miniature golf course

It's quiet here in May, but even in high season I cannot visualize that many mini golfers. The golf places compete for the GaGa award with pirate ships, dinosaurs, thatched huts, waterfalls and fountains, all spouting an unreal bluegreen dyed water. But if all the courses are GaGa, what makes a mini-golfer choose one over the other?

And where do all those mini-golfers stay? I found my answer in our RV Camp. 893 temporary camping slots, and 2500 by the day/month/season/year house rentals. I could choose between the park we stayed in or a dozen others, side by side, right on the beach (technically, right behind the dunes). I thought about going to the pool, the recreation center, the cafe, the wifi hotspot and the laundry, but measured by how far I was willing to walk down the beach, I was never going to reach them without a golf cart. And yes, everyone there rents or owns a golf cart. They even walk their dogs in a golf cart.

To be perfectly fair to the Atlantic, once you find an opening onto the beach, it's very human friendly. You can walk for miles, even swim. The Gulfsteam currents keep the temperatures balmy. You can walk your dog on the beach, something California would never permit. You can camp an RV width away from the dunes. Never ever ever could you do this in California. You can cross the narrow islands to the intercoastal waterway and wind surf, put your boat in, fish. And there are lovely bridge top views of rivers and inlets and lighthouses, and ferries that lull you to sleep on two hour rides to the Outer Banks, dolphins that swim beside you and brown pelicans that control crash into the water.

The attraction of the Southeast Atlantic coast is summed up in the name of a wifi network I found while trying to log on the other night: no shoes no shirt. If you are in a five o'clock somewhere frame of mind, this is the place for you.

How low is it?

2010-05-18T18:46:00.000-07:00

When Southern Living Magazine drops into my mail slot, I open it immediately to the house plans. Frequently, the home plan of the month is a "Lowcountry Cottage". Lowcountry cottages are elevated about 10 feet, and now I know why. The Georgia and South Carolina coast is a swamp. From a satellite photo, the inland waterways reaching out to the coastline resemble spider veins. Rivers and marshes form a web, and the little swatches of land between them are thickly foliaged with pines, oaks, magnolias, sweet gums and palmettos. You could be lost for years in Lowcountry.

I had a misconception that I would have oceans views from Florida to Nova Scotia, but in the Lowcountry, I have to work really hard to see the ocean. My route so far looks like a blanket stitch pattern, with highway driving north alternated with forays east onto islands such as Tybee for a peak of ocean and a lighthouse. Those excursions would be ecstasy if I golfed, fished or bird-watched. Since I don't, I have contented myself with an overdose of antebellum architecture, dripping with wrought iron and laden with graceful porches. Savannah, spared by General Sherman, is graced with more than twenty oak filled squares around which homes constructed in early 1800 hold court. Beaufort's homes are even older. In Beaufort, the graveyard at St. Helena Episcopal church, circa 1700, contains graves of soldiers marked by the Union Jack, the Confederate flag and the Stars and Stripes. The church was used as a hospital in the Civil War, marble grave slabs the operating tables.

With a fort on every island and markers everywhere commemorating the War between the States, I am in a Scarlet O'Hara frame of mind. Fiddle Dee Dee, I guess I'll see that ocean a little farther north.

Southern voices

2010-05-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

Here on Jekyll Island, Georgia, the winter cottages of the turn of the century tycoons are the tourist attraction. Rockefeller, Morgan, Astor, Goodyear, Pullizer, the who's who that controlled the world's wealth before the Federal Reserve and income taxes, bought this island in the late 1800's for $125,000 for an isolated retreat, a place to escape the Northeast winters and the persistent press. It was an invitation only club that endured only 4 decades until the last of the founders died. The next generation abandoned the traditions of wintering on the island. Some of the 'cottages' still stand, now part of a state park created in the 1940's when back taxes owed were higher than the property was worth.

To me, though, the attraction of Jekyll Island lies in the oaks, hundreds of years old, still standing despite hurricanes that blast this barrier island. They drip with moss, their branches bending like pipe cleaners every direction. They keep the secrets of the ages: the Indians, the Spanish, the English, the cotton plantation owners, the slaves, the soldiers and yes, those of the very rich.

Living Differently 101

2010-05-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

Is it RV life, or is it Florida? Something about it makes me a little wistful. Here in Titusville, at the full-time Willow Lakes community with two little lakes, a nine-hole course and a clubhouse, life seems to stand still.

In section A of Willow Lakes, only class A RV's are allowed. That's the big rock star size busses. You can own your own lot and in addition to a monster concrete pad and utility connections, you can build a casita. I've never stepped inside one, but I envision an open living area, maybe a kitchenette, maybe a bath. Enough to have a recliner, or two friends for cards. You might build a high porch over your RV. You might have a tiny garage for parking your golf cart, because if you don't own a golf cart, I don't think you would fit in.

In section B, where we parked, you can have any other class motor home, or just a casita. I could easily walk from my RV lot through a little park to the clubhouse, where at 6 pm, couples were enjoying noodle time in the pool. There must have been a problem in the past with too many noodles in the pool. A sign states clearly that you MUST remove your noodle or it will be thrown away. Most of the couples were gathered at one end talking about big breakfast spots. But one couple did not fit the norm. At first I thought it was grandpa and 20 something granddaughter. Then their behavior gave hints of another relationship. She giggled at him, and he back at her. I'll have to say Mr. December was in great shape, all wiry and weathered, that Florida sun skin, the kind that makes me reapply my sunscreen. His hair, mostly still there, was a sunbleached blonde orange. He could swim under water the length of the pool, and he told the girl he had saved a man from drowning once. He demonstrated saving her by pulling her across the pool on her back. She seemed impressed. Then he got her to swim across the pool with him with one arm raised out of the water the whole way across. It was tiring, she said, in a slightly foreign accent.

In addition to a golf cart, you might have a dog at Willow Lakes, preferably a Pomeranian that you can take for a walk or just carry. I don't know where the residents put the dog's daily duty, because there are no garbage cans that I could find, not even near the clubhouse or in the park. The only garbage I could find was at the 7th Hole, a nice little Par 3 with a can for beer bottles and other empties. I am sure that it is a first class faux paux to put the dog's duty in there, and if caught, I would be on the agenda at the next homeowners meeting, minutes posted on the club house bulletin board like a Scarlet A. Do the residents take the duty back into the RV? Or do they take it as far as the golf cart, which they could then ride to the dumpster I never could find?

Everyone has a different idea of paradise, and a nice little community where you can put your name on a wooden sign outside your casita and enjoy palm trees, oleanders, mangroves and fresh oranges all winter is paradise for the folks in Willow Lakes. And there's no snow to shovel.

Seaching for Atlantis

2010-05-14T17:48:00.000-07:00

This day has been on my life list since 2001, when Carl was in Daytona for the 24 hour Le Mans style race and randomly happened on a shuttle liftoff while he was in town. His stories lit the fire in me to see one myself. My first attempt was December 2007; the liftoff scrubbed. Several weeks after I came home, Atlantis, sensors repaired, took off without me.

Last month, Carl reminded me the shuttle program was ending and suggested I get serious if I intended to see one lift off. So here we are, once again on a mission in Titusville, Florida.

And today, precisely on time, NASA lit the firecrackers and popped off Atlantis without a single hold.

I am incredulous. It happened so fast I hardly registered the facts as they unfolded. Less than a minute later there was nothing but smoke.I wanted a do over! I wanted to see the rockets light again and thirty seconds later feel the rumble in my chest, the sound reaching me across the water so long after takeoff it was afterglow.

I wanted to imagine I was one of the astronauts, strapped in watching the seconds tick down, then feeling the earth shake underneath me as I went from zero to a zillion in 10 seconds.

I wanted to drop the camera, drop the binoculars and use my naked eyes, my nose, my ears. I wanted it slow motion, so I could register the impact of the moment. I wanted to watch it again and again.

I am afraid that I have formed an instant addiction to shuttle launches, and what will I do? Today was bittersweet, knowing the 25 year old Atlantis will never fly again, that soon the crowds will no longer line the edges of Indian River to watch science conquer gravity. Only two more chances to see a liftoff for families like the one from Iowa with their two young sons here on their second attempt, families like the grandparents from Georgia who brought their grandchildren for their fifth attempt, families with tents and coolers and umbrellas arriving hours before the launch for that one minute of wonder as man leaves the earth and disappears.

We all deserve a do over.

Wish it were more exciting?

2010-05-12T06:53:00.000-07:00

As I awake in Frog City RV Park, Duson, Louisiana, visions of shuttle liftoff fill my head. But not yet. Here in Frog City RV, the clover has been blooming all spring, creating a clover burr mine field for poor Daisy. I let her out briefly and then we cut burrs out of her fur for an hour. Here's hoping the landscaping at the RV parks changes soon.

We have come only 214 miles on our journey east. It was a late start, plus an overturned 18 wheeler shutting down I-10 in Lake Charles and plus some unplanned last minute diversions, such as forwarding the phone. Who knew that Carl, in a cost cutting move, had canceled call forwarding? That's restored now, and you can call me on our home phone and get me toddling down the road. Our home phone bill is $2 less a month because we restored the feature and several others. Does that make sense? No, but we've already spent the $24 a year. Carl kept asking if we would be insured in Canada. Sure, was my reply. He asked me several times until I called today. We need a Canadian insurance card. Sure, they'll send it to their office in Daytona Beach. All I have to do is pay for the overnight, $25.

All in all, a break even day. Visual highlight, aside from refineries, alligator farms, dirt bike tracks and swamps, was a flatbed loaded with boom headed for the oil spill.

What's for Dinner?

2010-05-01T06:57:00.000-07:00

A love of cooking is generation skipping in my family. My mother basked in the full-bellied contentment of her guests; the more dishes to wash, the happier she was. The gene leapfrogged right over me to her granddaughter, who has refined heredity with science. My niece knows the precise temperature to achieve tenderness in a brisket and can explain chemically why my sugar free cake experiment tastes disgusting.

As for me, the only time I have achieved culinary kudos was cooking for my great nephews in my RV. I packaged my presentations by prefacing all food with the term “RV”, which added mystique. My RV hors d’oeuvres (white bread, buttered and parmesaned, crusts removed, three minutes on high) sparked a feeding frenzy that looked like a Piñata just broke. Since my groupies were the same little guys who could not wait to assist with dumping the black water tank, I temper their compliment as short of a blue ribbon.

Luckily, my husband is happy to make my dinner. When an engineer cooks, there is predictability. Main and side dishes are planned by noon and executed on time and on budget. At 6:30 pm sharp, the salad will be constructed from a bed of spinach one inch thick, precision cut tomatoes, evenly sliced cucumbers, finely diced red onions, and perhaps a surprise spear of asparagus cut into two inch sections. A modern marvel.

On becoming a poet

2010-03-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

Message in a Bottle

On Tuesdays my neighbors

place secrets in their recycle bins

and I read their messages to me

on my daily walk.

Five sixpacks of Shiner Bock

(I guess the Aggies won)

Case of wine bottles

(Tom says red is good for the heart)

Eight bottles Clorox

(Passed inspection at their Donut franchise)

Pool chemicals

(Spring break staycation this year)

Huggies Newborn

(Number four, and so soon, she looks tired)

Depends size large

(Hope that they got all of Joe’s cancer)

Used Motor Oil

(If he’s so handy, why does he murder the crepe myrtles?)

Three containers Little Friskies

(I wish she’d stop feeding feral cats)

Three containers Tidy Cat

(Since she let them move in, maybe she’ll neuter them)

Bin of 1989 Vogue Magazines

(Hoarders Anonymous tip paid off)

Seven liters Caffeine Free Diet Coke

(No caffeine, no sugar, no flavor…what’s to be addicted to?)

Topped off with Gator Aide

(Stud muffin will be hitting me up for MS150)

Overflowing with Evian

(First the teardown and now water snobs too)

Large appliance box

(Don’t see the energy star rating, are they even thinking?)

Bag of paper bags

(Sue really should be using cloth)

Weed and Feed

(I’ll be drinking that stuff in our water next year)

Two household garbage bins, no recycle bin

(Doesn’t believe in global warming either)

Styrofoam peanuts

(Any idiot knows you can’t recycle these, and tomorrow they’ll be all over the street!)

Today the city delivered

big rolling recycle bins

with lids to keep the paper dry

and recycling in Sunny Valley will skyrocket

but I’ll miss my weekly bulletins.

PS I also compost.

First Day Out

2010-02-19T14:39:00.000-08:00

Today, when I walked Daisy, there were two major firsts.

One: I wore closed-toe shoes, my first time since January 17th, that fateful Sunday when I decided to trim an ingrown toenail. A week later my neighbor nurse looked at it and recommended I go to the doctor. There were antibiotics followed by a podiatrist, followed by a month in sandals, in the winter. During that time I walked the streets of New York in the winter and California in the rain, where the many-years-old pair of sandals that I could wear socks with finally came unglued.

I have laughed sometimes about wanting to amputate my leg at the knee when my knee hurts, but now I know for sure, I don’t want to do that. I need and appreciate both my legs and both my feet.

Thank you Lord for closed toed shoes and warms socks in the wintertime.

Two: I am no longer stalking people when I walk.

I developed a huge case of sidewalk envy as I walked Daisy in the neighborhoods near me, neighborhoods that had the smarts to sign petitions ten years ago asking the city for new streets and sidewalks. My neighborhood started a petition last year, and when I inquired about it, I found that out of 16 blocks, only 3 were signed up. So, I did what any compulsive retiree would do, I volunteered to finish the job. I didn’t know at the time that I was going to trim my ingrown toenail and do the job in sandals in the winter.

I also didn’t know I had stalker tendencies. When I got close to the number of petitions I needed on a block, I began to stalk the remaining owners. On every errand I ran, I drove by, looking for a change, a sign of life, a curtain open, a different car in the driveway, mail taken in that had been outside the day before, a garbage can taken in on trash day. I became fearless. I stopped them in their driveways, followed them into their garages.

I was so taken aback by my boldness that I inquired if the Civic Club had insurance that would post bond when I ended up in stalkers jail. My Civic Club contact responded that if I was arrested, she would bake me a cake with a saw inside of it. Good to know.

I’ve lived here thirty years, most of the time leaving early and coming home late, knowing a few people on my street and the faces of those who walk their dogs. I have never once attended a regular meeting of the Civic Club. But now I know everything. I know where to go for the smell of Indian curry cooking on a Saturday afternoon, and I know where the boogey man lives. I know who replaced their front doors with leaded glass, and where if I knocked too hard, my hand might go through the door. I know if the occupants are half-full or half-empty. I know this by whether they thanked me for circulating the petition and maybe even offered to help, or complained that it was going to take too long and they might move before then. I know who is dying of cancer, has a bad back, is talking care of a mother who just fell and broke a hip. I know where all the dogs live, and the children, and the little ladies who wouldn’t come to the door but would call me if I left them a note. I know that I live in a melting pot of many races, and I like that. And I know that almost all of them will still open the door to a stranger who says, “I’m your neighbor.” And I like that too.

Yesterday when I opened the mail, I received the last petition I needed to finish the entire job. I should have had a celebration, but to tell the truth, I’m going to miss that stack of paper when I take it downtown next week.

I am sure the next obsessive compulsive project will come along soon, but until then, I am just going to walk Daisy, wear closed-toe shoes, and dream of the day when we will be strolling on our very own shiny new sidewalks.

On the occasion of my mother's birthday

2010-02-13T15:35:00.000-08:00

Today Frances would be 91 years old. She's been on my mind, and this story forced its way out of me.

No Easy Way Out

“Margaret, your mother called and she’s lost. She’s in a very dangerous part of town. You need to go get her.” There’s a moment when you face it, the realization that your parents will not live forever. For me, it was the phone call. This woman who had found her way into the city for thirty years to visit me had taken a wrong turn, and I could no longer ignore the signs of dementia. In that moment parent and child roles reversed. She needed a caretaker, and I was it.

I’m not unique in facing the issues of aging parents. I’m in the sandwich generation, baby boomers with aging parents, asking Dad to stop driving and Mom to move out of her house. Other cultures live with many generations under one roof, where caretaking of the parents is a natural progression. But in my world, our parents live independently until they face their failing abilities. And we must balance our instincts to protect them with maintaining their quality of life, which most often they define as aging in place.

Nothing was harder for me than the beginning. I didn’t want the job of caretaker. I would rather have continued my comfortable life, work centered and self absorbed. I didn’t want to spend my weekends driving to my hometown to check on Mom. So, I ignored the signs.

Among the first signs was her oblivion that she might have cardiac issues. I accidentally uncovered the problem when I took her to a wedding anniversary party, and she became winded and unable to continue a dance. Mother’s reaction was that she had already lived longer than any of her family. Longer than her father, her mother, her brother. She was content with 80 years, and I was not to worry about it. The next day when it happened again, I made the cardiologist appointment.

Of course the diagnosis was blocked arteries. I knew it would be. But then came the second-guessing on the cure. What was I thinking, considering surgery for an 80-year-old woman? She could die in the operating room. If she lived, what was ahead? She already showed signs of dementia, with an average life expectancy as an Alzheimer’s patient of eight years. I could see the future: mental deterioration and death, and likely a death more gruesome than cardiac arrest. And then there was my own moral conflict. A heart attack was such an easy out from something I didn’t want to face.

Objectively, though, she still enjoyed quality of life. She still lived alone and she was still physically strong. Shouldn’t I let her make the call?

I stepped back from playing God and asked Mother to decide, and she chose more of life, whatever it might bring. It was not an easy surgery, not an easy recovery, and certainly not a life-changing event that motivated her to change her diet and exercise more. But because she chose life, she saw her two great-grandchildren born, the second one on her 84th birthday.

Still, years later, I ponder the question of end of life interventions. Does a physician make a recommendation based on the cure without answering the question, “Should we do this?” Does he have an ethical choice? Is the answer easier when it is covered by insurance? Because we don’t pay the bill, we don’t ask. We’ll haggle over the price of cell phone service and never comparison shop our medical care. If my mother had been given a choice between a surgery that cost $50,000 and reallocating those funds for scholarships for her great-grandchildren, what would she have said? Should we replace one heart valve or feed 5000 hungry people?

The more I ponder, the more I hope never to make such a decision again. Who really knows what lies ahead? What mortal would we trust to make those quality of life judgment calls? In the end, I think when we choose life, we make the only choice we can.

I told you it was going to be a window

2010-01-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

Today was pressure day. The window weighs 287 pounds. Translate that to NO WAY can I lift my half. Thank goodness for our friend Simone. He and Carl moved the window from the garage to the opening while I tensed up and posted myself to stabilize it if it fell. Yeah, right.

Then there was the two foot lift from the ground into the window. It was actually three inches at a time. Simone would lift one side and I would put another 2 x 4 under the window. Finally it was even with the opening, and then, miraculously, resting in the opening.

I thought the miracle was those two guys lifting the window without dropping it or getting hurt. Carl thought the miracle was that it fit. Simone was just generally amazed.

And I am in awe. Window heaven, created in seven days. As my friend Carol says, how wonderful to begin a new year by letting a little light in. Metaphoric, she said. I do agree. How fitting to begin 2010 with more light in my life.

Got dust?

2010-01-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

This hole is my dream hole. I have been dreaming of a window in my dining room for years. Today it is a hole. Tomorrow, a window. Life is a dream.

Meanwhile, life is also very very dusty.

Most extensive use of gummy bears

2009-12-26T19:56:00.000-08:00

This young lady really liked icing. Minimal use of graham crackers, lots of icing, and many many gummy bears.

So the other categories included: Green house, see those solar panels? Santa had a bit of one of those....

And best use of candy corn fencing....

And then there's my shared castle....which I think is the best in show....

Pink Pink Pink

2009-12-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

My neighbor who is also named Margaret is a very active Pink Ribbons volunteer. We decided last year to make am auction quilt for the Pink Ribbons Society. It took a year for us to become inspired, but we finally did it.

I had never been a fan of the color Pink, but now I think i crave it. Pink is my new state of mind. Perhaps I have been too long in my pink bathroom, vintage 1957. Re-grouting my pink tile has been on my Outlook to do list for over two years. Re-grouting is a job you could put off forever, you know? Finally, the gaps between the tiles were becoming so large that I decided 2009 was going to be the year. In the process of cleaning out the old grout, several tiles came loose, the backboard began to crumble, and finally I had to empty the closet behind the tub so we (we = Carl) could repair the backboard from behind the tub. A few hours turned into weeks.

At one point, Carl told me I might have to buy a few tiles if he broke them cleaning them up. 1957 pink tiles? Who would have thought it? I discovered that pink retro tile is back. There is one tile company in California that makes the stuff. And did you know there are message boards out there on pink tiles? In addition to advice on how to decorate your pink bathroom, there many people offering up their pink tiles as they demo their baths, others seeking the discards of the demolishers. When it comes to Pink, either you love it or you hate it.

My pink tile tedium was saved only by the creativity of making a pink quilt simultaneously, but I have finally emerged from the grout business.

One more thing about grout. My neighbors, circa 1957 green tile, also decided to re-grout. They called in a crew this week who re-grouted two bathrooms in three hours for $500. So now I have a value on my work. Let's see, by the hour I made about.....never mind, I don't want to know.

Let it snow

2009-12-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

Today we had our ten year snow day. How magic. It only snowed during the daylight hours, it never dropped below freezing, there were no traffic accidents, and definitely no snow to shovel. Just happy people everywhere. Houston is absolutely euphoric about snow. Must be similar to the fourth of July if you live on the Great Lakes.

Make it a double

2009-11-16T18:37:00.000-08:00

I was lulled into thinking donating platelets was a piece of cake, a fantasy I created when my first donation only took 47 minutes. I did not realize the blood bank had discovered I was good for double platelets. Just like tax bracket creep, my time on the machine expanded to 70 minutes. I can accept that. But this time, I was on the machine for two hours.

This is my arm Day 4 after donating double platelets. I'm keeping this photograph so I can ask for the very best sticker at the Blood Bank next time. With this evidence, I am sure I will get Patrice.

Patrice took over after I had been on the machine about an hour and a half. We had plenty of time to chat about my chart. Patrice, who considers herself a good "sticker", said I should ask for her next time, since she was the one who finished me in 47 minutes.

Bruises aside, I'm still going to do it again. First, somebody needs my platelets. Second, I get my cholesteral count, which is 213 not on medication (whoo hoo!!! keep on with the power food breakfast!) and second, with doubles I am racking up the points. Just wait till you see the Christmas gifts I am picking out for you with my Blood Bank rewards points. Hope you all like the Blood Bank logo.

Naked Truth

2009-11-15T18:36:00.000-08:00

Some things are better done naked. Aside from the obvious.

For example, it's good to be naked when using bleach. I was reminded of this today as I sprayed bleach on the grout lines in the shower. I was also reminded how many spotted clothes I own by the end of a summer in the RV, where adding a little bleach to the water tank is my job, and a job I can't do naked. Well, I could, but that might make for a very short stay in that campsite. It's possible I could even be whisked away to Ranger jail. I can't even imagine the penalty for being naked on National Park properties.

Besides being naked for bleaching, consider dog washing. There's a job with no rewards that I know of for staying clothed. The clothes are soaked, if not from the runaway shower spray, then for certain from the dog's great fur shakedown during and after the bath.

Another ideal spot for being naked is a hot tub. Who wants a stretched out parboiled swimsuit?

What say you? What's your naked secret?

How I would look if I were a doctor

2009-11-12T18:50:00.000-08:00

Nancy looks more official, I think, with the pens in her pocket. They definitely say research.

I am surprised how good we look after two days on our feet in the testing kitchen. I was not made for this job, not at my age for sure. This experience made weekend long campouts with 15 girlscouts seem trivial.

We had to have 8 beans and rices, 10 meats, 5 cheeses, 15 chopped "veggies", secret sauces and salsas, tortillas, chips....I get tired again just thinking of this....hot or cold and labeled and ready for 10 testers to walk through a buffet line at precisely the right moment. It had to look good and feel good. We did this 8 times in two days.

I am still pretty amazed at how good we look at the end of the day. Anyway, walking two days in my nieces shoes, I am glad I did it, and really really glad I don't have to do it every week like she does.

If you read chapter one, you can read it all now. Vote for my book before November 9 in the Blurb contest

2009-10-23T15:07:00.001-07:00

Lost and Found...

By Margaret Lincoln

Book Preview

Not boring

2009-10-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

If I were to sum up my memories of Audrey Fox Lincoln, it would be in these two words: "not boring."

We don't get to choose the family members that come to us by marriage. But sometimes we get lucky. I got my husband's dad, Fred, the father-love of my life, and his wife, Audrey.

Coming to the family late in its history, when Carl was almost 40 and Fred's second marriage to Audrey was seasoned by many years, I had none of the usual family pathos, complications or expectations to color my experience. Preparing me for my first visit with his dad and stepmother, Carl just said, "Audrey's Audrey." I already knew he owed her a debt for re-establishing communication with his father. They had been estranged for at least ten years when Fred and Audrey married. She was their mediator.

I soon learned what he meant by "Audrey's Audrey." Unique. Opinionated. Verbally opinionated. Loving Audrey could be like loving a porcupine. On the flip side, she was: Intelligent. Well read. Informed. Interested in your family as well as hers. Had a memory for things important. Not boring.

Not boring. I wouldn't mind if that was written as my epitaph. So much goes into those words. She was a great conversationalist. A reasonable card player, but not as good as she thought. An incredible writer. Sometimes when I write, I think about her long journals, all hand written, on the trips she and Fred took to the far parts of the earth, sometimes on a freighter, sometimes a river boat, sometimes with elder hostel or Rotary. Sometimes I think about her when I plan the far parts of the earth I still want to visit. She was at least my age when I met her, going with gusto. She made me excited at what still lies ahead.

Audrey and I shared a silly game, sending each other mystery cooking gadgets in the mail. Once I sent her a garlic peeler, a tube that looked like a large plastic Manicotti. She wrote a note. "We think it is a sex toy, and goodness knows we can use all the help we can get. Tim and Candace have one too, and theirs smells strangely like garlic." I think about Audrey when I peel garlic.

She planned to live a long time. Why else would she go to Jazzercise class in her 80's? Or do a daily crossword puzzle? And she did live a long time, two days past her 93rd birthday. In the last two years, I have seen her three times. Since she lives over 1000 miles away, that says something about how much I valued her friendship. I knew the last visit I would not see her again, not in this world. She rose to the occasion of lunch, but that was all the gusto she had.

What do I wish? I wish I had taken off from work all day every day when she and Fred would visit. Then I would have had many more rounds of bridge to remember. When she didn't get good cards, she would say loudly "BORING!" (Actually, Audrey was often loud, a product of being half deaf.) I wish I had lived closer, so I could have attended cultural events with her. In her later years, I could have driven her to them. I could have gone to Jazzercise with her, joined her bridge group, her book club. I could have watched her role model for an active retired life. And it would never, never, never have been boring.

Guys in Tuxes

2009-10-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

There's nothing quite so handsome as young men 6 foot 5 and over wearing tuxes. The excitement of the groom in this photo is created by the sight of a drop dead gorgeous bride walking down the aisle toward him.

What I will remember most about this wedding are two things: getting to kiss the handsome groomsman who happens to be my godson,

and the groom's father's toast.

I'll try to paraphrase:

Two things.

My parents have never been close to me. They moved to Wyoming, for heavens sake. But when I married your mother, I also got her bazooka of a father and her fashionista mother. They took me in and treated me as one of their own. They never took sides in any of our issues. They lived three hours away, and we visited them often. I went because I wanted to. They are both gone now, and I miss them both terribly.

Your mom and I are 1100 miles away. But you have a new family now, living right here close to you. It is an incredible opportunity. Love them, cherish them, spend time with them.

Second thing. In your married life, there will be many happy occasions, many ups and downs. But for me, marriage is all about the extraordinary moments. My first extraordinary moment was in 1980 when you were born. It was then that I realized, this thing is bigger than the both of us. So too in your marriage, the time will come when you will stop and say, this is incredible. Look forward to those extraordinary moments.

59 years 6 months

2009-09-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

Among my peer group of baby boomer friends, I am one of the "older" ones. Nevertheless it may surprise you to realize that I am able now to take money out of my IRA without penalty. As with most discoveries, it is a mixed blessing.

In keeping with the theme of aging, I feel compelled to share with you that I visited the social security office today. It's been on my to-do-list for years, this visit, to correct my birth date. I discovered in filing income taxes online that my birth date is incorrect with Social Security, and frankly, I've had enough lying about my age in order to file online. Besides, I'm quite sure I won't be able to apply for social security a year early just because the Social Security Administration currently thinks I was born in 1949, not 1950.

Carl will be interested to know that marrying him aged me, because it was my name change in 1983 that triggered this error. I was born in 1950 until then.

I was under the wrong impression that after changing my birthday, I could leave my birth certificate with them and file online when the time comes. Not so. I have to go in person again when I want benefits. Phooey to a wasted morning. I could have lived with lying about my age a few more years if I had realized I could not multi-task my visit.

After I changed my birthday (and felt instantly a year younger), I decided to check a few facts. This only took two more hours of waiting, luckily with a good book to read.

Here are the facts I confirmed today.

Fact # 1. Early retirement is still age 62.
Fact # 2. Medicare is still age 65.
Fact # 3. Deferred retirement is still age 70.

So the only thing that has changed for us baby boomers is normal retirement age, currently age 66 for me.

So, do you want to guess the penalties and benefits of going on the dole early or late? 32% penalty for going early, 32% benefit for waiting till 70. I don't understand the math, but the difference between early at 62 and deferred at 70 is 75%. My brain is hurting trying to figure the rate of return for waiting 4 years or 8 years....but I'll come back with that later if I develop confidence in my calculations.

All that said, I am thinking that before I see a nickel at any age, all the rules will have changed. But today I feel really American. I've stood in line at Social Security.

St. Gertrude Celebrates National Tire and Battery Day

2009-09-14T19:30:00.001-07:00

I knew St Gertrude was up to something this morning. The first thing I noticed was a low tire as I picked up new mother neighbor Christine to take her baby to an appointment. But we were already running late. I could easily check that tire after I dropped her off for her appointment, so why waste precious moments now?

One block later, we were headed back to exchange my flat tired vehicle for hers, moving the baby buggy, the baby in the car seat, the diaper bag, the water bottle, the snuggy, etc etc etc. We were just a few minutes late. I dropped her off and settled in at nearby Rice Stadium to read a good book instead of parking the car 14 floors up at the medical tower. Christine could call me when she was ready to go.

A few minutes later I decided to relocate to Starbucks, but the click of the key told me I wasn't going anywhere. It could have been so much worse. I had visions of the baby screaming while Christine called for help to get jump started, and I knew already that St. Gertrude was at work. It was me by myself and not a new baby in the Houston heat dealing with this dead battery. And, I was not 14 floors up in Smith Tower. How awkward would that have been?

I didn't even have the chance to call AAA when a Rice policeman on a bike came by. "How old is your battery, ma'm?" I didn't know. How do you explain to a policeman that it's not your car? That you don't know where the cables are, or the hood release or why the horn alarm keeps going off? But he accepted all this as the truth and called a mobile unit that would give me a start.

Last Saturday in meditation class my teacher told of a wonderful experience she had when a girl in the smoothie store set out to make her happy with a perfect smoothie. It made her day. Well, the Rice police made mine.

While he was letting the battery charge up a little, the policeman told me to clean the connections with a coca cola. "Diet or regular?" I asked. "Regular. And warm, not cold. One can per cable connection."

This led to a discussion of the acidity of Coke. I recalled marinating a tough cut of meat in Coke to tenderize it. He then shared that in his family they marinate their chicken in milk. "Lowfat or regular?" I asked. "Whole milk. Breaks down the proteins and makes the chicken tender. "

Then he told me that at a fish fry, I should put potatoes in the oil and leave them there all day. It would keep the peanut oil from becoming too hot.

"And, by the way, this lot is normally closed off. I don't know how who moved the barriers." I was sorry, I said, and I would move as soon as the car started. I didn't think I needed to explain how it was probably St. Gertrude who moved the barriers. It might have been too much on top of explaining how the car wasn't really mine.

He continued. "If you have grass growing somewhere that you don't want it, put salt on it. "

Huh? Really?

That's when I knew St. Gertrude was definitely in action. Christine has been searching for a way to stop the grass growing between the flagstones on her patio without using harsh chemicals or throwing pebbles into the windows while weed eating. This was it! Salt on the flagstones. The answer we had been needing. St. Gertrude, my patron saint of fortuitous timing, had come through again.

"Rock salt or regular?" I asked.

"Regular. Only costs 19 cents a box."

"Okay, start her up, ma'am."

The car started right up.

Thank you, St Gertrude, for everything wonderful that happened today. And if you are wondering about St. Gertrude and how she came to be my patron saint of Fortuitous Timing, see how this all started on the July 18 2009 blog, "Saved by St. Gertrude" and more on July 19.

It's sort of like that old TV show where the guy time traveled and woke up somewhere not knowing why he was there. By the end of the show, he would have averted some horrible historical event. One time, he stopped Buddy Holley from writing the lyrics Piggy Sue instead of Peggy Sue.....but that was a little out of the norm. Anyway, it's like that with St. Gertrude. You think things are going badly, but then, eventually, you realize there's a reason for it. Meant to be.

Four out of Five People Like It

2009-09-07T05:36:00.000-07:00

Rafting the Colorado Shoshone Falls, No Name, Colorado

Chapter One

2009-09-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

“Why can’t Daisy fly in the cabin with us?” asked Louise.

“Because she’s too big to fit under the seat,” said Mr. Adams. “Don’t worry. We’ll be in Ohio in a couple of hours, and then we’ll all be with Grandma. Daisy will be too.”

“But if we drove to Grandma’s in our car, Daisy could be with us all the time, right?” Asked Louise.

“Yes, but then we wouldn’t have much time at Grandma’s. This is the fastest way for all of us to get there and be together for a nice long visit.”

“I hope Daisy will be all right”, said Louise, with a tear in one eye.

“Well, she certainly won’t be hungry,” said Mrs. Adams. “Look, she barely fits into her crate. She’s getting very round. No treats for Daisy at Grandmas’ house, okay?”

“Yes Mother”, said Louise. She looked at Daisy and sighed.

“Okay, say goodbye to Daisy now,” said Mr. Adams. “ We’ll see you in Columbus, Daisy.”

Daisy pushed her tongue out between the wires of her crate door, and she gave Mr. Adams a goodbye lick.

“Bye Bye Daisy,” called Louise as Daisy and her crate disappeared on the baggage cart.

Self Portrait of Nathan

2009-09-04T16:28:00.000-07:00

And here is the rest of the family, right before leaving Colorado.

Hello Trevor

2009-09-02T12:23:00.000-07:00

This morning I heard a hello as I weeded one little flower bed. There are SO many flower beds to weed, having been neglected for four months.

The hello was my mailman Trevor. Someone I have known more than five minutes. This is good! It is SO good to be home.

A few days in my cousin Katy's bed in Cushing OK reminded me how much I wanted to be home!!!! She was a great hostess. Her guest bed has linens just like a B & B. It came complete with Josie, the 8 month old boston terrior who dug in my hair till I woke up. Katy and I found a detox in Cushing at the Cutter Beauty School, followed by Tecates served like a frozen margarita. WOW. And a wonderful little winery, Tidal School Winery, in an old country school. They have some oklahoma wines that are not very fine, but I did love Impressao, a blend of cabernet, sangiovesse and another grape I have never heard of. I already drank it and threw away the bottle, so sorry.....no more information.

After Katy's house I was a horse smelling the barn. Carl convinced me not to drive the square tires all the way home in one day, so I stopped in Fort Worth, bookending my trip with a visit to Carol, now a famous internet talk show host. Catch her on Voice America Wednesdays and archived forever on a program called Stargazing Stories. She helped me drink the Impressao.

So, guess what! I wrote my children's book. Lots to do still, but I have a draft. Daisy gets on an airplane....and she gets lost. Oh my!!!!

swimming with an ipod?

2009-08-31T14:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, you can swim with your ipod! Nancy did and it still works. Maybe you can't detox an ipod, but you can swim with one.

Flying Solo

2009-08-27T18:03:00.000-07:00

I never planned to spend the night in Oakley Kansas, but I did. Oakley is home to Buffalo Bill, not Annie Oakley, in case you should be asking. Bill Cody and Bill Comstock competed against one another in 1868 for the title, Buffalo Bill.

I started my solo cross country today, hoping to log a few miles from Denver to Salina, but I got stopped short by a vibrating tire. After a while and conferring with Carl, I decided to get them taken off and rebalanced. My spare is now on the front, since they did not have my tire in Colby, Kansas. I had a separating belt. But I loved the tire place. T O Haas Tire in downtown Colby. Great home town folks wanted to take care of me. Stop by for mud and snow tires if you are in the area.

I liked the store manager, who used to work for a Dodge Dealer and was familiar with my chassis. I always quiz the experts on what will happen next. He said my headlamps (check, already got those), the turbo resonator (fixed twice, and now for good), and the trannie. I said, but every UPS truck has this chassis. And he said, Yep, and all of them have new trannies. Boy, glad we changed the trannie fluid and filter while I was hanging out for the a/c repair! Every 30 k, he said, maybe get a little more life out of the trannie.

I'm on my way again, but a bit short of goal. Thus, a night in Oakley, Kansas, where I was invited to visit and pick from the organic garden, and please, just kick back and relax at HighPlainsCamping.com.

FYI Oakley is home to the Fick Fossil and History Museum, and the area farmers grow wheat, sunflowers, corn, soybeans and milo. And FYI, I am not really all that solo. Carl is working the tire angle with me over the phone, and to jump ahead in time, tomorrow in Wichita at NTB I will find out that I simply have uneven wear from needing front shocks. The effect is a feeling like driving on square tires.