A house in the woods

 

Barb and Henry’s house.

 

 

 

With a nice deck,

 

…yard,

 

…and room in the driveway for us.

 

Niagara Falls

 

We liked the falls the first day.  They were worth going back for on the second day.  Instead of being done and ready to move on after the second day, we were just getting more drawn in.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuxgOuZIH5A

 

There is no way to communicate the sensory delight of being there; the roar and the mist.  It’s addictive.

 

 

But we’ve moved on.  We’re at Barb and Henry’s house, Point Clark, Ontario.

 

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201563872774147443355.0004e02f0c80f1461c0bf&msa=0&ll=42.964463,-76.937256&spn=5.426063,13.392334

 

Safely tucked away in their driveway.

 

Another day at Niagara

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strangers in a strange land

 

We crossed over to Canada.  The border was no big deal.  Plenty of room for the rig.  The crossing might have taken 15 minutes; 5 minutes of that devoted to us.  The border agent was skeptical; we didn’t declare any guns.  He asked if we had any.  We said no.  He asked how many we had at home.  Maybe our story didn’t fit with the Texas plates.  He never asked about food or dog records.  He just wanted to know about guns and drugs.

 

We squeezed through the toll booth for the bridge, but just barely.  I had maybe two inches on each side of my outside mirrors.  The toll booth doesn’t seem to be configured for us.  Well, anyway it was fun to drive the bus 100 once we got over the bridge.

 

We’re at the Niagara Falls, Ontario, KOA for a couple nights.

 

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201563872774147443355.0004e02f0c80f1461c0bf&msa=0&ll=42.964463,-76.937256&spn=5.426063,13.392334

 

We got to the falls at dusk.

 

 

 

Then they turned the lights on.

 

 

 

The lights were on the land up behind us.  They look like this.

 

Then they turned the falls red.

 

A long walk along the river watching the falls; our evening’s entertainment.

 

We did it!

 

We’re in Ohio.  The last state of the 48!

 

A full map!

 

We’re just hanging out here, admiring the map, at Mosquito Lake State Park.

 

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201563872774147443355.0004e02f0c80f1461c0bf&msa=0&ll=42.964463,-76.937256&spn=5.426063,13.392334

 

It’s nice (and not very mosquitoey).

 

The view doesn’t suck.

 

Midweek so it’s not very busy.  Got here early, did some work that needed doing, had a walk, started the Ohio bird list.  Wood ducks.  Fireflies at dusk.

 

 

Tomorrow….  Canada.  We’ve got our passports at the ready and we’re prepared for the border search.  We’re crossing at Buffalo and stopping at Niagara Falls. 

We mean to stay in touch while we’re out of the country.  We’ve been warned that we can’t use U.S. minutes or data there so we’ve arranged for some Canadian minutes and data from Verizon.  Don’t know what the difference is.  Maybe the Canadian ones are metric…

 

Cousin Ed

 

Here is a picture of Ed from 20 years ago.  To those of us who know him, he’ll be easier to recognize.

 

…and with his wife, Diane now.

 

Good to see you Ed.

 

 

Tomorrow, Ohio (finally).

 

 

Cousin Ed

 

Now we’re in Pennsylvania.

 

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201563872774147443355.0004e02f0c80f1461c0bf&msa=0&ll=42.964463,-76.937256&spn=5.426063,13.392334

 

 

Got one good visit with Cousin Ed this afternoon.

 

Another tomorrow.

 

 

Out to dinner with Rock and Ginny.

 

…at the Roycroft Inn in East Aurora, I saw her slowly shuffling our direction.  It took several minutes before she finally arrived at our table and announced “This is where they put the celebrities.”  “What are you people famous for?”

 

That initiated the introductions and conversations.  She worked each one of us over, in turn.  She remembered the context for each as she asked questions about how we were doing, while regaling us with stories from a previous age.  She told us about the historic hotel we were in.  She had been here her entire life and remembered plenty.  Judy complimented her on her dress.  She was not dressed simply; it was a regal affair of layers.  She replied that she was wearing “memories”.  A pleasant interlude in our conversations at dinner.

 

Rock and I were on the same boat to Okinawa in 1964; the USS Breckenridge.  That trip took three weeks.  We spent a year there together in the 173^rd Airborne Brigade.  We went to Vietnam together when our unit was transferred there.  I came home after an additional year.  He stayed on.

 

We’ve kept in touch (with a little help from the women in our lives).  We’ve only seen each other a few times in the last 50 years, but each time we do, it’s like we’re just picking up from some conversation the day before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the visit with Rock and Ginny is done.  Tomorrow we head for Pennsylvania; a new state and a visit with Cousin Ed.

 

Thank you Lou and Alma

 

A delightful visit.

 

But we’re not there in Moravia anymore.  Interstate 81 north to Syracuse, west on Interstate 90, the New York Thruway, south of Rochester.  South on Highway 77 to Java Center, not far from where Rock and Ginny live in East Otto.

 

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201563872774147443355.0004e02f0c80f1461c0bf&msa=0&ll=42.964463,-76.937256&spn=5.426063,13.392334

 

Still two blank states on the map (excluding Alaska).

 

Maybe we’ll just claim to have visited all 46 of the lower 48.

 

 

Boat tours

 

This is how whale tour boats out of Bar Harbor look.

 

 

They’ll put 280 people on a boat.

 

We took our boat tours from a smaller town 75 miles north of Bar Harbor.  This is how our tour boat looked.

 

They take a maximum of 6 people.

 

 

They’re lobster boats.

 

 

Captain Jamie.

 

Captain Jim.

 

They take us in close to the sights.

 

 

They do puffin tours, whale watches, fishing, lobstering.  They stopped on the way in to pull up a lobster trap and show us how the traps work, how to measure the lobster, and explain lobstering licensing and etiquette.  In the winter Captain Jamie dives for sea urchins.

 

I’d pay extra to go on our boat instead of theirs.  The Bar Harbor tour cost more…

 

The last time we saw Terry

 

He lived in Colorado and was single.  We come find him a few years later in Bath, and he is married and has three kids.  We knew he had three kids so we brought presents.  His kids are 24, 19, and 15.  We brought stuffed animals.  Oops.

 

He has a cool old house from the 1800s.  The family home.  He and his wife Lauri both grew up in Bath.

 

 

In looking in the barn,

 

we discover that he hasn’t lost his interest in motocross.

 

He has a few bikes.

 

Every nook and cranny of the barn is stuffed with motorcycles.

 

Every nook and cranny

 

Mostly Husqvarna.

 

Some Maicos.

 

Except the upstairs.

That’s just parts.

 

How about that trailer outside?

 

 

Yep.  Four bikes rigged to race.

 

Amazing.  A few snapshots don’t really do it justice.

 

But we’ve left Bath.  We’ve moved on to see Lou and Alma in Moravia.

 

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201563872774147443355.0004e02f0c80f1461c0bf&msa=0&ll=42.722804,-76.376953&spn=5.447299,13.392334

 

And on the way there….   …we stopped for lunch with Meredith Small (and her daughter Francesca).

 

…and figured out we hadn’t seen her in 40 years!  She was a student at C.U. then.  Now she’s a full professor of anthropology at Cornell in Ithaca with a long career behind her.

 

Lou and Alma…   …we haven’t seen them in about 2 months.  We see them every winter in South Texas.