open book

Gone and done it..

New blog...

Mine.

Different look, different purpose. Had to be done - explanation's over there.

This blog will stay up for a while because I know people use the links on the sidebars for their surfing, etc.

Day Two

Michael's got that covered.

Except for the moment at which we turned one of those curvy corners in backroads Upstate New York and came smack dab up against a doe and her fawn. Well, not smack dab - we were going slowly, so we stopped. They stared at us for a moment, then Mama ran off to the right and, in its attempt to follow, Baby's legs went out from under him and he flopped down on the road, struggled, got up, and then raced off to the left, a sight which made some in our car laugh and some approach tears until the latter were reassured that no doubt, the doe would find her baby again, because that's what mamas do.

A word, before we arrive there, on Maine. I guess I didn't make it clear - well, I guess I didn't mention it at all - why Maine. I'm no stranger to Maine, and in fact, I know southern Maine better than I know most places I actually lived as a child.

My mother was born in Manchester, NH. When she was young, her father died, and she, her brother and mother moved up to Sanford, Maine, to live with her mother's sister and husband, who were childless themselves. It was there that my mother grew up, in a big house on Lebanon Street. She spent a bit of time at the now-defunct Nasson College in Springvale before she headed off, like everyone else with lung problems at the time, to the Southwest - U of Arizona, to be exact.

But Maine was still home, and continuing after her marriage to my dad (a Texan), she continued to spend at least a month every summer in Sanford, which means that up until I was 18, I did, too. It was a place unlike any of the places I was actually living in that, with my bicycle, I had free run of the town, could take myself shopping (such as it was), to the library, etc. We spent some time at the beaches, mostly Wells, but more time and my uncle's place up at Square Pond, a place he still has - much expanded now - but still essentially the same.

My parents went occasionally after I graduated, but the elderly relatives started dying off, and then my mother's health declined,  the visits decreased. About 8 or 9 years ago, they rented a place on Drake's Island (a small neighborhood, really, in Wells) - the children and I went up and spent some time. Since my mother died six years ago, my father has been up a couple of times, and this - another rental on Drake's - marked the 50th anniversary of the Texas boy's first visit to the great state of Maine.

So there it is - as I said in a previous post, until I experienced Florida beaches in adulthood, I had no idea that ocean water was anything but frigid or that beaches were anything but rocky. (although this southern stretch of Maine is actually beach-y). It was a nice return back - for both of us, actually, since Michael grew up in southern New Hampshire and was able to show us sights - but that's day 3.

Day one

You know how it is when time plays tricks on you? When you do things - not so long ago- but in retrospect, it seems like forever?

This trip, like every trip, was like that. Day One was barely ten days ago, but it could be months, for all I know.  It began in Cleveland, where Michael did a tour of the Catholic Marketing Network show after dropping us off at the Zoo, a place which I wondered if I had been to before, but thought as we went in, "Nah. It just reminds me of the Louisville Zoo, which I know I've been to."

It took a while - entering the Wolf Wilderness, to be exact   - to finally produce the "Aha" moment in which I realized that I had,indeed, been to this Zoo before (the year we visited Cleveland and ended up in a hot, darkened Byzantine Catholic Church, a hot, darkened Benedictine monastery, and a  hot, hot, HOT  Residence Inn, being, as we found ourselves, smack in ground zero of the great Northeast Blackout of 2003 the very evening it hit. ). In my own defense, I think the whole Australian exhibit, to which we turned first, is fairly new, which threw me off.

Speaking of throwing.

This giraffe interested all of us because it was so dark. It interested us so much that by the time I glanced down at Michael, he was sitting on the ground with only one sandal on, and he was working mighty hard on removing that one.

Luckily, I caught him before he could toss Sandal #2 to follow its mate.

In the giraffe exhibit. As in...into the giraffe exhibit.

Very nice, patient keepers there at the Cleveland Zoo. I'm thinking, though, that if had been the lions, we might just have been out of luck.

So, camels were ridden, sandals were thrown. A decent few hours spent.

And then onward to Niagara, which we reached around 8, I think. Not our first visit, but you know, it was on the way, we have hotel points to burn, so why not just stay in Niagara Falls? Nice view, eh?

I'd still like to visit the place in the winter someday...

Room with a view:

How'm I doin?

Thanks for your concern about the silence (and mild irritation, I discern). No reason to be!

So, we're back - from Maine. Making new friends, as you can see. We left ten days ago on a leisurely jaunt there, stopping in Cleveland and Niagara Falls, and returned this afternoon on a not-so-leisurely return trip - we could have probably forged on and made it all in one day, yesterday,  but for horrible back ups on whatever interestate runs through the middle of PA.

And why don't I announce it? Because it seems like announcing a departure for points across the country is akin to inviting trucks to pull up in our driveway, ready to load up the goods. You know?

So, more later....