Maine Coast/Acadia National Park

We've been in coastal Maine for almost a week and have explored the entire coast north to Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada.  I have to say, I'm not very impressed!  The Oregon coast is much more spectacular; here, the road is not very close to the ocean and you see very little of the actual coastline.  You do see quite a bit of the numerous bays, inlets, and rivers which are interesting enough.  Towns are kinda cute, although I'm really tired of seeing so many houses painted white - they're not very much into color variety here.

This whole area used to be the Arcadia part of Canada and was settled quite a while before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.  When the British government ousted the Acadians, they ultimately relocated to Louisiana and are the ancestors of the present day Cajuns.  My great-grandmother was Cajun.  She didn't speak any English when she married my great-grandfather (Abraham Lincoln Jones).  From all accounts, it wasn't a happy marriage and ended in divorce after the birth of seven children in the early 1900's.  For some reason, after the divorce they continued to live together off and on throughout the rest of their lives.  I imagine they had communication issues!  Anyway, I was very eager to see this place and am glad we came and explored.  Can't say I see any reason to return, although Pat has loved eating lobster everyday for a week.  For some odd reason, I'm not a lobster fan; seems a little bland and rubbery to me; so I've been trying to find other great seafood dishes.

On Thursday, we move on to the VERY northeastern point of Massachusetts where both Pat and I have ancestors that settled in the area shortly after the arrival of the Mayflower.  We also plan to take trips into New Hampshire to see the fall foliage, a day trip to Boston, and a trip to an area where there is a large settlement of Portuguese descended from immigrants from the Azores (like Pat's family in Maui).

We're still doing great in "the 5th".  We've been going and doing so much that it seems like we're hardly here at all.  We are missing our friends and family and especially our new grandson (who looks like his grown a ton in the two plus weeks since we left Colorado!). 

Niagara Falls

OK, Niagara Falls is every good thing you've ever heard about it!  Very, very, awesome.  Pat and I arrived here after a nerve wracking drive from our RV spot in Barrie, Ontario through Toronto and back into the USA.  Custom agent on the US side can't hold a candle to the really personable Canadian agent when we entered Canada.  Also couldn't pronounce "Oregon" (decided not to attempt to correct him-probably would still be in Canada!).  Once we got in and got "the 5th" all setup, we decided to take a chill-out break, eat some lunch, relax for a while, etc.  When we felt recovered, we drove to the park and did all the top of the falls things.  It was a cloudy, cool, day; perfect for all the walking we did to get to the various islands and top of the different falls.  The next day, we took a tour that was well worth the money.  Went down to river level and sort of walked through the falls, then took a boat trip on the river to the base of all the falls.  It was absolutely beautiful and we had a great time.

Retirement

What I’ve learned in retirement:

-Even “young” retirees like we are lose track of the day of the week and the date.  There’s really no reason (usually) to remember them, they are all like a weekend, only the TV shows are different.

-Hearing aid batteries last a lot longer.  By the time you get up (maybe an hour later than you did before), read the paper, do the Sudoku/Word Jumble/Crossword puzzles, and go for a walk; it’s at least 2-3 hours later than you use to put your hearing aids in.  Multiple that by 7 days and you gain at least an extra day of battery life (these little batteries are not the cheapest things in the world!).

-Being a grandparent is wonderful.  You get all of the fun and enjoyment of parenthood without any of the heavy duty responsibility and angst.

-Pay attention to where you are in the time zone.  If you are on the western edge and enjoying a nice, lovely, long daylight evening before taking off early the next day for a long travel day; recognize that this means it will be dark later the morning!  Closing up and hitching up a 5^th wheel in the dark (Pat used his cell phone as a flashlight) is NOT fun.

-Even in retirement; you are the same people.  The first thing Pat & I did when we headed off for two days of touring the Black Hills of South Dakota (Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Badlands, and Wall’s Drug Store) was go to a cemetery where some of my ancestors are buried!  I assume the town was larger 120 years ago (no stores, no people, no post office now); however, it’s always sort of awesome to stand where you know your ancestors stood at one time.  And, we now know what people mean about the prairie wind.  It didn’t feel that windy to us; but the silence was so absolute that you could hear the wind:  constant, non-stop.  I really like wind; but I think that could drive me batty.

-Remember, Canada is a foreign country:  your cell phone plan does not apply there.

Canada, Oh Canada!

OK, we made it from Sara's home in the Denver area to Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada; mostly without any big problems.

We left Denver on Sunday, Sept. 8th and drove straight through to Rapid City, South Dakota.  Had OK weather while we were setting up "the 5th"; but once we got all settled, we started getting phone and TV warnings about a huge thunder storm headed towards us with golf ball size hail and 60 mph wind gusts.  We looked at each other and wondered what does golf ball size hail do to a tin can like "the 5th"?  Good news; storm veered and mostly missed us....we just got heavy-duty regular rain, wind, thunder, and lightening.  We spent the next two days in the area and really loved it.  We plan on returning and spending a lot more time exploring and hiking.  If you ever go here, go to Custer State Park.  The drive is awesome and a little scary.  However, you get vistas of Rushmore from the next mountain over at "eye level"-truly awesome.  There's all sorts of wildlife in the park including a buffalo herd.  Of course, Pat & I (as usual) saw very little wildlife (but the drive itself is worth it).

Too bad I can't say the same for the drive from Rapid City to Sioux Falls, SD.......what can I say, but BORING.  The next day from Sioux Falls, SD to Bemidji, Minn. was only slightly better.  However, this is where the Mississippi River starts.  There's this really pretty lake, and out of this lake comes this little, bitty stream.  It's about three feet wide and one foot deep, and it's the Mississippi.  It was really a beautiful place and pretty amazing to think that that little tiny trickle of water becomes this massive river.

This morning, we got up and headed to International Falls, Minn. and Canada.  International Falls is a really pretty town, we should know since we drove around in circles looking for the border crossing.  Finally stopped at a gas station and asked, only to find out we had already been there, but turned around because it looked like we were entering the gates to an Oregon sawmill.  Little, dinky, weird border crossing with the nicest Canadian custom agent you could ask for.  After many, many hours and miles (kilometers), we reached Lake Superior and Thunder Bay, Ontario.  Lake is gorgeous, area is nice and we are enjoying a wonderful evening.  This is the first time since Oregon that we have worn shoes (not sandals), long pants, and jackets (this morning).  The temperature never reached 70 and there's a nice briskness to the air.  We also saw our first fall foliage colors-the vine maples here are already bright red.

Grandson, Jonah Patrick Blass at 2 months (enjoying his jolly jumper).

Previous Trip Updates

1-Sept-2013

Two Month Update:  Well, we’ve been retired for two months now and we are leaving the Denver area (and Sara, Drew, and Jonah) a week from today; so a short update seems like a good idea.  So far, retirement has been like an extended visit to Sara & Drew (with the added bonus of Jonah Patrick).  We are so glad we got to spend these two months getting to know and being a part of Jonah’s life.  In addition, we’ve got to spend more time with Sara than we have since the last summer she spent in Eugene (2005) and got to know, appreciate, and love Drew more than ever.  Being grandparents is as great as everyone tells you.  You get to have a lot of fun with the grandkid; but you always know someone else ultimately has responsibility for all the hard parts!  Sara returns to work on Tuesday and she felt it would be an easier transition for her if she could leave Jonah with his grandparents at first instead of daycare; so we are spending the coming week with Jonah Patrick Blass (and greatly looking forward to it!).

We have managed to squeeze in some visits to other parts of the area.  Sara and Drew live in Louisville (pronounced Lewisville) which is about 10 miles east of Boulder.  Pat & I have visited Fort Collins, Loveland, Boulder, Denver, Golden, Vail, Aspen, Colorado Springs, and Rocky Mountain National Park.  We have been surrounded by massive mountains in places so beautiful it just confirms that Mother Nature beats Man hands down when it comes to spectacular.   Along with beautiful scenery has come a wide variety of weather.  We have been in severe thunderstorm warnings (followed by severe thunderstorms), a flash flood warning, a tornado watch, and a tornado warning.  We have had thunder and lightning almost every other day – clearly we’re not in Oregon any longer.

Amazingly, we haven’t seen much wildlife; at least not where we expected to see wildlife.  We have seen lots of bunny rabbits (in the RV park), a coyote (trotting down a paved bike path between two neighborhoods), an antelope herd (in a field between two housing developments); and a couple of buffalos (in a nature preserve 10 minutes from downtown Denver that I read about in last Sunday’s Eugene Register Guard!).  We did actually see a moose (one moose and no other wildlife) in Rocky Mountain National Park.

A week from today (Sept. 8^th), we take off on our cross country trek.  We think we will start feeling more “retired” then!  We go from Denver to the Mount Rushmore area of South Dakota on Sunday.  After a couple of days there, we head north and east to the headwaters of the Mississippi and then across southern Canada to Niagara Falls.  After a couple days there, we head off again to the coast of Maine.  We plan to be in the northeast until mid-November when we return here to spend Thanksgiving with Sara, Drew, Jonah, Emily, and my Mom.  After several weeks back in the Denver area, we head south to spend Christmas in Tempe with Emily (who has lived in Tempe for 10 years and has never celebrated Christmas there!).

Well, I think that covers it; not too much excitement (other than Jonah’s birth!); but lots of wonderful family time these two months.  Pat and I are still happy living in “the 5^th”:  haven’t got cabin fever or headed for divorce court yet.  I have realized how lucky I was to work every day with people who were also friends and I miss you all.

I’ll keep you posted.

 1-July-2013

1^st Day Out:  The Great Olive Oil Debacle:

OK, so being the anal, type A, people that Pat and I are, we were on the way out of Eugene at 5:30 a.m. as planned.  We had never traveled with the 5^th so full of “stuff”, so we purposefully stopped in Thurston to do a double check on how things in the interior were faring.  Everything looked great; but we noticed that my Kindle (Kinny-he’s male) was MIA.  This bothered Pat more than me.  After wasting valuable travel time looking for Kinny, Pat wanted to return to Deerwood RV to check our site to see if I left him there.  I, on the other hand, knew I hadn’t set him down on the lone outside table and walked off and left him.  I was sure he would be found, and, if not, well, I’m supposedly one of those rich PERS retirees, and I would just buy another one.  FINALLY, we left Thurston headed east. 

Re-checked the interior when we stopped in Bend – once again, everything looked great.  Discovered Kinny hiding under a pillow on the bed – good news, Pat doesn’t have to fork out funds for another piece of technology!  Survived the really boring drive from Bend to Burns where we stopped for diesel, drinks, and sandwiches I was going to quickly put together in the 5^th.  After getting diesel, we parked in the large parking lot of a grocery store, Pat headed across the lot to McD’s and I headed to the 5^th to fix sandwiches.  Outside temperature is in the 90’s.

I pull down the steps, open the door, and discover olive oil EVERYWHERE.  Apparently, the upper cabinet containing olive oil, balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar, soy sauce, Worchester sauce, Pam, etc. had come open and a bottle of olive oil flew out, hit the opposite wall, lid popped off, and olive oil went everywhere….walls, doors, microwave, fan hood, stove top, refrigerator door, and a huge lake of olive oil was on the floor….it was absolutely everywhere.  Floating in the lake of olive oil are all the other bottles that were in the cabinet.  Good news, no bottle broke, including the olive oil-- the lid popped off!!!  Of course, inside the 5^th, it’s probably closer to 100 degrees.  I click into cleanup mode and start mopping things up, and, of course, sweating like crazy.  Use cell phone to call Pat who is apparently stuck in the slowest McD’s ever.  Does no good, he’s left his cell phone in the pickup – I can hear it ringing….I’m not very happy.  I clean some more, Pat shows up with iced tea and diet coke,  I tell him to return to slowest McD’s and buy lunch….I’m not making sandwiches.  I think some language was exchanged regarding appropriate use/carrying of cell phones.  I clean even more while Pat purchases lunch and we finally continue on our way.

Arrive in Boise with temperature hovering around 102 degrees.  The 5^th is still a mess.  After setting up, Pat decides to go get fuel and…….more drinks from McD’s.  I clean….you all know how much I like to clean….especially in a 5^th wheel with interior temperatures that must have exceeded 110 degrees.

By the time Pat finally returns, most of the interior has been cleaned; however, even today, Monday, I keep finding drips, drops, and streaks, of olive oil and I clean the edge of the carpet that was soaked in olive oil daily, in a vain attempt to finally get rid of all the olive oil…..

After another day of driving and spending the night in the ugliest RV Park we’ve ever seen, we arrived in Boulder today in time to enjoy a leisurely lunch with Sara (who is still pregnant with Jonah Patrick) and Drew and have settled into our new home, away from home, in Golden…..to be continued.