8/3/08 Bogs

Fortunately, Rodney anticipated that the course might be a little wet and encouraged me to go home and get different shoes than my favorite tennis shoes. At first I was thinking of my water shoes that I wear for boating or poolside at public pools. Rodney gave me that look that said, "I don't think that's what you want to wear." He even asked what size shoe I wear because he was going to see if he or one of his brothers might have something I could borrow. But then I remembered my Wellingtons. That, he assured me, would be by far the better shoe for me to wear. Little did I know how right he would be.

The course is already in a bog, so wooden planks to get across wet spots were not unusual any time of year:

But this summer, was even wetter than usual. Here you can see my Wellingtons in action as I retrieve my disc from a water hazard. Fortunately, discs are water proof, and though playing with a wet disc threw off some people's game, my game knew no nuances.

The last time you saw these Wellingtons in my blog, they were brand new on March 9, 2008:

Who knew that one pair of boots could serve two seasons?

8/3/08 Celebration Tour #5: Disc Golf

Whooop! We're done! And what better way to celebrate than to play a round of disc golf!

Well, personally, I wouldn't know since I've never played disc golf before. But I trusted Rodney on this one and we joined Randy and Jenn (a different his brother and sister-in-law than the ones that are moving into the family homestead) at Ricker Hill near Turner (the same place where we picked apples last fall). This is a serious sport. Rodney, Randy, and Jenn all have their own discs. That's plural. Apparently just like golf, you have some you use for distance, others for putting, . . . Hmmmm, I'm guessing this isn't like the Frisbee Golf that we set up at summer camp where we nailed bushel baskets to a tree and bought a bucketload of cheap flying discs at 3 for $1.

Jenn loaned me one of her discs. I had been warned that you had to watch carefully where your disc landed or you might lose it in the trees surrounding the course. Did Jenn really want to loan her valuable equipment to a rank amateur? Won't they rent you a disc or two at the pro shop? Wouldn't that be better. But she assured me it would be okay and we were off. As we were walking out to the course she admitted that she often doesn't go with Randy and Rodney because they're so good at it, but when she heard I was coming and had never played, she decided to come because she knew she had a better chance of not coming in last.

You can see that this course is well-established and well-marked! Here we are at Hole 1 ready for a late afternoon of fun:

Hole 2 has an interesting hazard. It's not a typical water hazard . . . it's a cranberry bog! There were signs warning us that if a disc went in the cranberry bogs we weren't to retrieve it ourselves as we might damage the cranberries. If we notified course personnel, they would retrieve it for us.

Though the clouds were dark, there was enough blue that we thought we could get in a whole round before more rain came. There's been so much rain that the course was a little wetter than usual and as a bog, it's usually pretty wet. The scenery was gorgeous but I can't tell you if the water in this photo (which was near Hole 1) is cranberry bog or just temporary "summer of 2008 bog."

Rodney in action:

Here's an action shot of me that Rodney took. When your disc hits the vertical chains, it typically falls into the basket underneath and that's the ultimate goal. For the most part, it took me twice as many strokes as the others to get to the basket. Sometimes, it took three times as many strokes. But my partners were patient and even gave me pointers on how to improve my game.

This is not an action shot of me, but check out what flew into the picture as Rodney was taking it!

This trio actually knows what they're doing when they play disc golf:

Today wasn't exactly a "Celebration Tour" like our other ones. This one just had more celebrating and less touring, but I think it counts.

8/3/08 the last of the sorting and packing

For five or six weeks now, Rodney's been gathering and sorting through his earthly belongings in preparation for the big move to Oregon. It's been as much therapeutic preparation as it has been physical preparation. It's been pretty therapeutic for me as well since I just went through this less than a year ago. It's been nice to be able to "pay forward" all the amazing help I got from friends in Dallas when I was going through this. Though our stories are different of how and where we acquired so much stuff and the stories have very different plots as to where we went and why, there are many many parts of the stories that are similar. And so off and on, inbetween Celebration Tours and obligations that we both already had on our calendar, I've been trying to help wherever I could as Rodney packed up his life in Maine to start his new chapter in Oregon.

Today was the pen-ultimate chapter of the packing story! He actually finished packing everything into a box that is going into storage here in Maine, got everything given away or thrown away that he doesn't need to keep or take, and got everything organized that is going with him. Give him about two hours to do the final packing and fitting everything into his car and he could leave on a moment's notice. Wow!

You can't tell from these photos, but this is at a stage very close to the end. Rodney's brother and future sister-in-law are moving into the family homestead and farm where Rodney's been living. One of the things they wanted to do before their wedding next Saturday (which will be at the farm) was tear out all the old carpets and take them to the dump before they started cleaning up the rest of the house. Rodney was working on rolling up the red and green plaid carpet in his room when he crawled under the bed to get the last corner of the carpet out. At first I was helping to lift the bed while he pulled the carpet out and didn't really see him go underneath. When I came around the corner and saw this, I knew I had to take pictures!

When we took a break for lunch, we stopped at Hannaford's to dump the change out of the big change cup into the machine that counts and sorts coins. We both made guesses before we went in as to what the value of the change would be. We were both off by sooooo much! Just trust me that those commercials about emptying the change out of your pockets at the end of each day really know what they're talking about.

8/2/08 Gotta be a local

Here's a sign you won't see in Dallas. :-) This was at Fountain Fortune Chinese Restaurant.

8/2/08 The End of Summer?

Here is a goldenrod plant in full bloom. I don't think I've ever seen goldenrod up close and personal before, I've only heard about it in relationship to allergies. The dog-walking park/field is full of goldenrod in bloom. It's quite beautiful. The sad news is, around here, that's an indicator that autumn is on its way. Legend has it that once goldenrod is in full bloom, it's six weeks until the first frost. How can that be when we haven't even had a real summer yet?? I knew summers in Maine were short, but this one seems exceptionally short. I better hurry and squeeze in as much summer fun as I can.

8/2/08 Krazy Kite Kind of Afternoon

So it's a rainy drizzly Saturday afternoon (we're growing quite accustomed to this, which doesn't mean we like it, it just means it's been a very rainy drizzly summer) and MRM, RBF, Rodney and I are sitting around trying to think of something fun to do that doesn't involve getting wet. We're not having much success when MRM and RBF decide that they'll go on a walk around my neighborhood and get back to us later. There was some whispering going on before that announcement and MRM had a mischievous grin as they made their announcement. Soon, I get a phone call. "What are you doing?"

"Hmmmm, still sitting here like we were when you left. Why, what's up?"

"I have an idea of something to do, but it's a secret. You need to either stay there for 25 more minutes and not go anywhere, or meet us at the river in 5 minutes."

We opted for the meeting at the river option (this is the same as the field outside my window and is also known as The Dog Walking Park). We arrive first and as soon as they pull up, I knew what fun we were in for. You could see the giant bouquet of color through the car window. We were kite flying!

It turned out the little bit of breeze that MRM had seen in the hydrangeas at my apartment was what inspired the idea, but when we got to the park, the wind was very slight and not very consistent, so it wasn't the best kite flying after all. But it sure was fun to spend time with friends doing something different. From there we went out for Chinese food at Fortune Fountain restaurant. There are two Chinese restaurants in town and though I've never eaten at the other one, I've only ever heard people recommend the Fortune Fountain. After a fun dinner, we went back to MRM's and watched part of the Red Sox game and ate snow cones topped with tangerine snow cone syrup and Midori melon liqueur. MRM invented it as we watched and taste-tested. They were quite delicious.

8/2/08 Blueberry Festival Parade

I slept in this morning and missed the chance (yet again . . . two days in a row) to have blueberry pancakes at a festival. Wilton, the first town south and east of Farmington, has its annual Blueberry Festival the first weekend in August. MRM says they're the best blueberry pancakes she's ever had. I guess that's what next year is for.

I had a stack of dishes in the sink that really needed to be washed, so as I tackled that job, I turned on the radio for some background noise to make the task fly by. I love listening to local station WKTJ, FM 99.3. Ashley first introduced me to it. Not only is it nice to hear local weather and news, but their programming is delightfully eclectic. They carry all Red Sox games, which is great. Sometimes they play hits from the 60's and 70's, sometimes the 80's. But on Sunday mornings, they carry a syndicated show that plays hits from the 30's, 40's, and 50's! Local health and non-profit organizations have 20 minute time periods dedicated to their causes. I think my favorite is the daily call-in flea market. Call in and tell what you've got for sale, for how much, and give your phone number. You just never know what you're going to hear when you turn on the radio to WKTJ.

Today was no exception. I turned on the radio and what I was hearing was the play-by-play broadcast of the Wilton Blueberry Festival Parade. What a hoot! Oh, the dishwashing passed by quickly. The announcer knew practically everyone in the parade personally and obviously had done this before, so there were a lot of personal stories about the people themselves or their history in the parade. When you watch parades on television, The Rose Bowl parade, for example, you can tell that the announcers have scripts and detailed information about each entrant. They have access to more information than you could possibly be interested in: the length of the float, the theme, the history of the organization. This poor man didn't even know how long the parade was going to be. He kept marveling that there were still more groups coming down the street. Good thing it was local programming without a deadline because there's no way he could've compacted the coverage into an allotted time slot.

When a gymnastics group came along, he introduced them and described their costumes. Then the group stopped and started performing. He was literally at a loss for words as to how to describe that. You could tell because of the length of white noise coming out of the radio. Silence is not a good thing in most radio broadcasts, but it cracked me up this time. Suddenly, he said, "Looks like they're going to perform a whole routine here, so we're going to take a music break." And he played a song from the 70's. It had nothing to do with blueberries or gymnastics or even this year's theme "Say Thanks to our Firefighters and EMS Personnel." It was just filler music because there was nothing to say.

When he came back on the air, he had a guest "in the booth with him" who was to add to the "color". It was Michael, the son of the owner of Mt. Blue Hotel. We all know Michael because he has a tag line in the radio commercials for his dad's hotel. I'd recognize that voice anywhere, but the announcer also gave him a big introduction. I'm guessing from his voice that he's 7 to 9 years old. Thinking of things to say to describe something to people who can't see what you're looking at has got to be an incredibly difficult job. He did a really good job, especially for someone as young as he was. It added a layer of complexity for the announcer as he had to keep the audience informed of what was going on AND keep Michael engaged in the conversation and coach him into saying "colorful" things while on the air.

After a little while, a second guest color announcer joined. He was the regular sports guy on the station. Inbetween flag groups and Shriners on motorcycles, they got in a lot of promos for upcoming sports (mostly Mount Blue High School football and Jay High School football). He marveled, too, at how long the parade was but he didn't know when the end was in sight either. But all of that idle chit chat came to a halt when the tractors came through. Those two could describe a tractor like nobody's business. If I knew more about tractors myself, I'm sure I could have pictured each one vividly and accurately.

My friend and Games Night Charter Member Michael actually attended the parade. He made a blog entry with photos that describes the parade wonderfully.

Next year when I go The 27th Annual Wilton Blueberry Festival to have my blueberry pancakes, I'm staying for the parade. But I'm bringing a portable radio. I know that seeing it in person will only be enhanced by hearing the play by play live on WKTJ radio.

8/1/08 Theresa and the Lobsters at The Maine Lobster Festival

What's a Lobster Festival without some lobsters? We definitely had plenty to choose from. This giant lobster was "acquired" by the Lobster Festival this year (according to the sign) and they were having a contest to name it. I imagine we will see it at all future Lobster festivals but I bet it will make a couple of parade appearances, too. We found this early on and since I seem to have a knack for having my photo taken with larger-than-life lobsters, I decided to go on a quest for lobster photo opportunities.

Ann took the photo above on my iPhone. Ashley took the one below. You just can't have enough photos of yourself with a giant lobster.

How easy was this one?! The festival provided this photo op and even labeled it for me. That's a Port Clyde Root Beer in one pincher.

I don't know why I smiled in this photo. I should look very frightened as that is a very frightening lobster. This was the bigger-than-life, hang-it-over-your-fireplace-sized version. Further inside the artisans' tent, we found other various sizes AND we learned that the name of the piece is "Predetor" [sic]. Very scary.

Can you imagine having this job? Walk around in stilts wearing a raincoat with lobsters hanging all over you? Oh! But wait! And you get to shoot bubbles out of a bubble gun. It was the lobsters hanging on the raincoat that made this worthy of a photo to be included in the quest.

Here's Ashley's photo of the same moment. Is there any way to stand next to a man on stilts in a photograph and not look odd?

I love this one! Here's my best mermaid imitation. Behind me you can see a mermaid being carved out of clay. The ones to my right are statues (sorry . . . I don't know my mediums). The same artist that made the blueberry coffee mug made these. Here's the fun. Think of "Where's Waldo" except in this version, it's "Where's the lobster?"

An artist that painted pictures of lighthouses on tiny wooden lobster buoys that could be used as Christmas ornaments had a unique pen and brush holder. That's me, shaking claws with the lobster.

8/1/08 Free Food at the Maine Lobster Festival

It began to feel like we were at Costco on a Saturday afternoon. There were free samples of food and beverage all over the place. When we first walked in the gate, there was a booth of Vermont-based Cabot Cheese samples. I got to try some new flavors without having to buy a whole package. Here, Ann and Ashley are drinking free Starbucks. To the left, under the yellow tent, is free Lay's potato chips.

Fried dough! Not just fried dough, but FREE fried dough! I've only ever had the choice of powdered sugar or cinnamon & sugar. Here we had sauces and fruit as well. This very nice lady (we chatted with her for quite a while) told us her favorite was maple syrup sauce and powdered sugar. She then made up a batch of that and put it out for us to try. Mmmmmm. She was right. That was quite delicious.

"Try it before you buy it" beef jerky:

Kettle Corn is Ashley's favorite part of any fair or festival. She bought a whole bag and shared, but we took some free samples anyway:

Fruit sauces and chutneys:

Samples of homemade fudge:

This booth was run by a husband wife team. She sells blueberry jam and he sells pottery decorated in a blueberry theme. I actually bought one of his coffee cups for my apartment. Ashley asked why a woman who doesn't drink coffee would want a coffee cup, especially since I'm also a woman who doesn't cook and she knows I don't know how to make coffee. But I'm creative and use coffee cups for multiple things. And if I ever have a guest who wants tea, I can use a coffee cup to serve tea. (I do know how to serve tea . . . boil water and hand the guest a box of tea bags and a cup.)

8/1/08 Maine Lobster Festival

Yes, it was another rainy, drizzly day in Maine. They say this is an unusual summer, but they said that about winter, too. Here are Ashley and Ann (fellow UMF folks) as we walk in the front gate of the 61st Annual Maine Lobster Festival held in Rockland, Maine.

We chose not to arrive in time to eat breakfast, though it was tempting. They served lobster-shaped blueberry pancakes from 7am to 10am. But it's about a 2 hour drive and we decided that sleeping in on a summer day was more important than blueberry pancakes. After breakfast ends at 10am, the crew sets up the Main Food Tent for the lobster meals. Lobster is served starting at 11am and here's the line waiting to get in:

Check out these great lobster hats! This young man was selling Port Clyde Root Beer. It's a local root beer (Port Clyde is just down the coast from Rockland) and I a) love root beer and b) really like to support local merchants, so I bought a bottle. It was only $2 which was what other merchants were charging for their soft drinks. It turned out to be delicious! (Thanks, Ashley, for the great photo!)

Here's a new feature of the Lobster Festival. So that's how you cook all those lobsters at once to feed all those thousands of people!

If you look closely, those bricks are engraved. It's a fund-raiser to raise money for the cooker. There's a fun story about a man from Oklahoma who proposed to his future wife with one of those bricks.

Here they are at work, serving lobster in a very efficient method. You can tell they've done this more than once. On the other side of the tent, they have other lunch food for sale. But why come to the Lobster Festival if you're not going to eat lobster??!

I got a lobster roll and drank another Port Clyde Root Beer.