Month: September 2013

Hello dear autumn family.  We’re in Boone North Carolina.  Chuck and I drove (Chuck drove and I changed CDs) for about 9 hours yesterday and got me to St. Elizabeth church on time to meet Mark and Karla for vigil Mass.  Chuck came to the house to play with the dog until we got here.  Dog is a Golden Retriever with long fluffy fur and tufts on her toes. She is so gentle!!!!!  The trees have not yet begun to really turn in the Blue Ridge yet but it is cool with sunny days.  Last night we ate corned beef and cabbage in honor of St Patrick and then today we sat outside for lunch at Bella’s Italian restaurant.  Went to the flea market where I picked up a little bench to paint…   I guess I better get busy with the paints.  Karla teaches the next 5 days so there will be plenty of time to paint during the day.  We are cooking a big pot of soup as if it is winter time. We always fall back into comradery (Karla and I have known each other since her senior year and my first graduate school year at Barry). Loosen us up with a red wine and talk turns to "the old days, Robin Williams, taking care of each other, books we have read, and movies we need to see."  Believe it or not, Mark has not seen Mrs. Doubtfire so I think that is a necessity. All is well here on the mountain. Be healthy.  God bless you.

We left Connecticut yesterday after visiting cousins (missed a few… there are many cousins in CT). But we had a great time on mostly sunny days where we boated on Laura and Dennis’ lake and played with the BIG dog…   Then we moved on to a tiny stream and a tiny dog in Eastford to have lunch with Barbara Keish with whom Chuck used to play with Carol when they were little…  Talked of old and new times and then we were off!  Crossed the Tappan Zee bridge on route 84 and turned south through NJ and NY into Pennsylvania.  I remembered crossing that bridge with Chuck’s Mom – it was their chosen method for leaving CT after their summers in Ct and heading to Miami – avoiding I95 and NYC … also to visit Katie… on the motorcycle that bridge is scary.  I looked north as we crossed the bridge and thought of visiting Sleepy Hollow and Katie and John on the motorcycle! Hope you are all healed Katie….  This morning when Chuck said we should stay in Pa for a few days because we really enjoyed it when we took Harley back to the Harley Davidson plant where he was probably made in York and Gettysburg and the little town where we stayed while on the motorcycle when they had a big storm with tornados (the guy at the welcome center sent us there, and we returned to that welcome center yesterday)… … When Chuck said that, I remembered we were all over Michigan and I missed visiting our friends Michele and Terry at a boat Marina in Michigan… I am sure we could have gotten a boat ride or two out of that visit!  Please give us a rain check Michele and let us go out on Big Pine Key "skinny waters".   It is amazing that this trip has been so long and we have covered so much ground… and now…  I am rushing. My nose is headed south heading towards Mom who is waiting for me!    I was born in Pittsurgh, Pa, and every time we stop in Pennsylvania, I feel like I am home.  The people we run into are nice and hospitable. Wait! Everyone  we have run into has been nice and hospitable – America is like that!  We have had a great trip.  I have managed to go to Mass every Sunday in many strange towns (and Mass is always the same…) and some churches I have repeated like in Hartford near Dennis and Laura’s and this afternoon I head for St Elizabeth’s in Boone where I have worshipped with Karla and Mark.  Tomorrow there is a festival at St Elizabeth’s so we’ll get Chuck onto church grounds at least!!! I have to find some long pants as I have mostly been in capri pants as it has been warm enough although I have worn jeans occasionally. I think it will be cooler in Boone in the Blue Ridge. Then we will emerge and rush to visit the Paparellis where I hope to catch a glimpse of Julia who is with child… and then on to LaGrange to give Mom a big hug!  One week with Karla on the porch first. Love and God bless you! Sue

Life in New England:  Yesterday Dennis drove us up to Old Sturbridge, Mass. Old Sturbridge is a small village: a bunch of donated land and old houses trucked in from around New England and you have an old town as it might have looked right before the Civil War (the 1830s). We went to the sawmill and watched old machines make planks. A water wheel turns wheels and the saw goes up and down …  It was fascinating to see it done without fuel or motors. At Sturbridge they sheer the sheep and then card the wool to make it ready for the spinning wheel. We went to an old house where a lady was cooking… I think the flies freaked us out… but that was the way it used to be with no screens. Dirt, flies and barn smells none of us is used to… Finally… the beautiful trees are changing to reds and oranges. We’re off today for Eastford, Ct to visit another cousin!  We’re going to try to go to Washington DC to visit Rebecca Skipp. and then head south to Boone.  God bless you!

I made an apple pie using up all the New Hampshire apples…. YUM.  Dennis made a pumpkin pie.  It was wonderful too. Now we are plump(er). Yesterday we spent the whole day at "The Big E" the Fair!  We dropped the van off at a garage friend of Dennis’s on the way to the Fair in West Springfield, Mass.  Since it is a New England Fair they have buildings that each state in New England has their stuff in.  Oh my gosh the smells of the foods and candies that each state makes made me hungry so…  we went to a lovely restaurant called Storrowton… "Real American Food."  Chuck and I bought chairs for the porch in the Keys and a giant flag pole for the Keys with an American flag and a Navy flag. I guess the Fair guys could see us coming with our credit cards! There were crafts and lots of "October Fest beers." (I drank and liked Sam Adams pumpkin ale).  There was a long parade in the afternoon with 2 teams of Clydesdales and tiny ponies. During the parade, the garage guy called and he said he looked the van all over, checked fluids and bands etc and didn’t find anything wrong. The van just didn’t want to accelerate on a hill to pass a car. The van is polite… and she got cranky. This morning the boys will pick up the van and we will go someplace fun. OK. Cousins and Chuck are moving around so I need another cuppa Joe and need to finish getting ready to go out into Connecticut.  God bless you!

It doesn’t get much better than the beauty of autumn.  A little bit of rain falls during the night and the lawns are green and trees are green, red, and yellow.  I’m sorry for the people of Boulder Co. who are suffering with the floods as this time of year "autumn’s mist and fruitfulness" is the richest.  We’re off to the fair to celebrate harvest and let us pray for those who don’t "have" and those who are suffering need and pain.  My Mom had an episode of breathlessness and spent a night in the hospital but I understand she is out and about again.  Thank God.  God bless us.

We arrived at Chuck’s cousin Laura and Dennis’ home in Stafford Springs, CT yesterday (Saturday) afternoon.  It only took about 5 1/2 hours with 2 stops to drive from SW Harbor, Maine to church in downtown Stafford Springs.  The church (St Edward the Confessor) was built by Franciscan fathers in the "early times."  This town was incorporated in about 1790 which is so amazing to us Floridians who are accustomed to being established after the Great Depression when they drained the swamps in south Florida.  After Mass, we went to a small family restaurant called Basils and then home to play with the giant dog who can "fetch" a tennis ball all night if you wish to throw it…   I like little dogs… but we have seen some giant ones on this trip.  We are now sitting outside looking at the clouds clear off the lake.  There are birds (chickadees and little red birds and other birds flying about… They don’t seem to be too interested in flying south.  The hummingbirds have not left Maine yet so we southerners will not get our birdies until later than we normally do.  Migrations seem to be later as autumns are warmer lately.)   The trees are turning… we have seen full red trees and full yellow trees and some half way turned… It will be fun to sit with a brush and paper to paint the lake.  Tomorrow we are going to a New England Fair called "The Big E" in Springfield, Mass. It is a huge multi state fair… It has buildings for each state and a "better living building" etc. etc.   Have a wonderful Sunday and God bless you!

What is this? The Keys? No! It is Maine and we have had 4 days of sunshine!  Yesterday we packed up some stuff and headed out for a day of sailing on the Virginia J. She is 35 feet long, a lovely blue color, and she sails beautifully. We slathered with sunscreen, but I still got my lips sunburned. When we got home Dave made Scallops wrapped in bacon on the grill, and Moira made us lobster macaroni and cheese. I asked for the lobster mac because it is a new Maine specialty and I had it in Camden Maine.  Talk about mixing 2 favorite food groups.  Yesterday I made an apple pie and it was wonderful. At my friend Linda’s I added Baileys Irish Cream to the recipe and did it again here.  YUM. Later today, I’ll go out with Moira again to the peaceful retreat of the poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and the sculpter Richard Tuttle. Moira is closing up their house for the winter, and I volunteered to help. Just being there where beautiful art has been created is such a blessing. I am painting every day (or I try to set aside time to do that) and I will take paints to paint while the washer and dryer are doing their thing. Fattened up, we will be leaving tomorrow for Connecticut and then south to Boone, North Carolina. God bless you.

As we drive from SW Harbor through Seal Harbor to Bar Harbor, it’s like we’re in a giant forest and indeed the Acadia national park was established before WWI by men who wanted to preserve the wilderness on the island that attracted the rich to build huge homes on the water.  If they hadn’t, we wouldn’t have anything left; just big houses. Rockefeller and Vanderbilt led the charge and a gentleman named Doer petitioned Congress for years to create the National Park.  Yesterday we took a trolley ride and went up to the top of the forest and down to the rocks that the sea batters. We visited Thunder Hole where the water rushes in and creates a giant air pocket that booms as the water rushes out.  Boom!  On the TV is bad news … The Naval Yard killings and the Boulder floods brought on partly by the fires last year that destroyed all the trees that would have protected the land.  We prepare beautiful dinners while the news tells of the suffering.  I pray that God bless us… Moira and I drove to a place on a protected area and only a few homes back there… Moira calls it the Spirit House because the owners (an artist and a poet) say there are mostly good spirits and only one bad spirit there. Moira maintains the house for the couple, opening and closing the house and providing help with small maintenance tasks.  She loves the couple who come up for a few months in the summer and create their art.  I helped Moira and I felt the creativity in the air of this eccentric "camp" of many small buildings… a living area, an art creation house, a boat house for sleeping. WOW!  The land is on a cove; the sleeping/boat house is on the beach that is really a beach, but at high tide will fill up all the way to the house. Two days of sunshine and we are going to test Maine’s generosity… tomorrow we plan to sail!  God bless you.

Today we woke up in Camden, Maine which I highly recommend to first time Mainers. Plan to stay in one of the B&Bs near town and eat on Main, Atlantic or Bay Street. All 3 streets face the harbor and the view is delightful with old and new yachts and fishing boats. Water runs into the harbor from a river and you can sit in several restaurants right on the river above the harbor. As we are on our last story on CD, and it is a sleeper… We shopped for books on CDs and found 2 bags full… We visited the public library where we found paperbacks for 50 cents each, a really neat bookstore with a bargain table that yielded about 8 books on CD, and finally visited the Stone (I can’t remember the name of the store… stone something) you go through a door and then you face steep stairs, climb to the 2^nd story and meet an eccentric gentleman (whom Chuck said reminded him of Dr. Skipp) who has assembled an amazing collection of books and CDs. I felt like I was in my library at home and fell to reading Yeats and ee cummings poetry. I looked through his extensive collection of books on CD and bought 2, and Chuck bought an old John Wayne film from 1930 that we had never seen… Can’t wait to find a DVD player. (the book seller said it was from his personal collection, but he’d sell it … of course he would. The shop was hardly busy and we were his only customers perhaps for the week (it being Monday perhaps I exaggerate).  We drove at a leisurely pace north on US1, stopped to eat some lobster chowder (Chuck) and clam chowder (me) and shrimp that was amazing (I only had one bite due to my shrimp allergy – I am being careful), we then turned into the group of islands that make up Bar Harbor and SW Harbor. We arrived at Dave and Moira’s lovely home and Chuck and Dave drove off to shop for lobster (excuse me… lobstah) and wine. First, I can’t believe we drank all the wine Chuck brought from Miami and the 2 bottles of Four Daughters we bought in Minnesota and the wine from the winery we visited in Ontario called The Good Earth. Second, we need lobstah to eat with the wine so off with you boys and come back with many bags. I contentedly agreed to stay home and unpacked my suitcase and several of my bags into a drawer and put my night gown and robe on the bed. Put on slippers and baggy sweat pants and tried to settle on the back porch, but the wispy mist of rain sent me indoors.  Now I’m on the soft green sofa in the front room, feet up, I’m settled. They might have to use a screw driver and pliers to pry me out of here, but I know we will have to move on, south, eventually. Time to rest and read while I await the return of the boys from shopping and Moira from work. (Boys came back, Moira returned, dog is being walked, and all is well).  God bless you.

We did not get to the Pacific this trip so I can’t say… "from the Pacific to the Atlantic", but we did hit the Atlantic yesterday!  We left Sugar Hill, New Hampshire under beautiful clear blue skies… Chuck tore me away from the gardens and the green house, and smelling redolently of basil and thyme (Linda was gracious with her gifts of herbs, apples, corn and a big squash …) we headed east.  There is no graceful way to drive east from New Hampshire to Maine…. It is a bunch of small roads or you drive south to Boston on I93 and then go up on I95. We drove through lovely little towns and suddenly, like a clear bump! Hit the water!  It’s the Atlantic! Maine has a rugged, raggedy coast that we just drove north along and on the familiar old US1 which stretches from the Keys to Maine… We stopped yesterday in Camden, Maine which has a lovely harbor and visited for dinner with cousins who were spending a week here from Hartford.  We realized we had been to Camden on that wonderful motorcycle trip 5 years ago when Kenneth and Barbara celebrated their 50th and we drove up from Miami to celebrate it with them.  At that time, on a whim… "while we’re at it… while we’re here"  we drove up to Maine. Hard to believe that was 5 years ago.  Chuck has been talking to bikers all the way up, and now this morning, while the rain gently falls, he said, "I remember what it was like to ride the bike in the rain" (not pretty, dangerous, not romantic). "Wait a few days and it will clear", the Mainies say. Folks from Maine (I call them Mainies) have lived independent and tough for a long time. Look at the state on the map. They have fought off the British and the French and Indians… The state pokes up into Canada and it fights constantly the Atlantic which made its coast so craggy.  There, look, the rain stopped. We will walk around Camden and then head north into SW Harbor to stay with "old" friends Dave and Moira who have visited us on Big Pine Key. Tre trip is winding down, but not yet. We still might catch some "leaves" in Boone, NC.  God bless you.