Maine

It’s not only tomorrow when we were in New York, it’s the day after tomorrow.  Between visiting and driving – and refueling and letting the dog out – I run out of time and mostly energy.

 

The drive to NewYork was adventurous and stimulating.  Cars were everywhere.  Google maps send us in circles but always with the correct results – evidently.  Roads, bridges, tunnels, lights, stop signs, pedestrians, skyscrapers, rivers, another bridge, several hundred more cars and no parking places.  Oops, I lied.  Dwight met us in the middle of the street lined on both sides with parked cars and enough driving room for one vehicle unless you pulled in your mirrors and said a prayer.  Gail jumped out.  I greeted Dwight.  Colleen appeared from the daylight basement rowhouse (Is that a good term?).  I pulled in the mirrors as Dwight and I watched a delivery truck finish his delivery and close his tailgate.  Moments later I slipped into his vacated spot and we paid the meter - $2 for one hour, $6 for two hours and two was the max. You do the math; it's crazy but logical - they want to discourage long time parking.  We’d come back in a couple hours and pay the meter again.

 

This visit was awesome.  I’ve always enjoyed Dwight and getting to know Colleen was wonderful.  We swapped stories about college – Dwight and I were in the same class, both math majors, Colleen was a year younger and Gail was three years younger.  So we had shared my senior in college but didn’t all interact back in those days.  We walked down the street for a omelet lunch and back to their house to compare some family history stories.  Dwight and I took a side trip to purchase some authentic New York bagels.

 

This is where the fun begins.  We pointed our covered wagon toward Boston with an ETA of about a bit after 6PM.  We spent many a mile going about 10-20 MPH along with several thousand of our closest chauffeur/soccer mother/commuter friends.  We rambled down David’s gravel road to his end-of-the-trail house as the clock approached 9PM.  We were so happy to make the arrival.

 

After the initial greetings and hearing the weather forecast for heavy wind and rain startng at midnight, Gail prepared the covered wagon and I chatted for a bit.  David is probably my best friend from grade school and high school.  He’s now a director of music at the United Church of Christ church in Boston, a great musician/composer and a gardener extraordinaire.  In the morning we walked through his exquisite yard which backed onto the Charles River.  While it’s not actually a greenhouse attached to the house, the one floor served that purpose well.

 

After a shared brunch we headed to the coast of Maine.  They say it’s beautiful and they – whoever they are – are right.  The wind and rain from the night before was still affecting the coast line and the waves were gorgeous with the waves and mist climbing high into the sunlight.  After having viewed the mandatory lighthouse for a Maine visitor, we had a Maine lobster and checked that off our bucket list.

 

Now we are now in the WalMart parking lot in Scarborough, Maine, recuperating from several wonderful days of visiting old friends .  We’ve reached our westernmost, southernmost and easternmost points on this journey.  Tomorrow we direct ourselves westward with a straight line like the teeth on saw.