Author: Susie

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.

Still in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, after Apple Pie making (my first crust and pie making from scratch) and eating yesterday, today Linda picked tomatoes, and Joe and I went to the "upper garden" and picked swiss chard, a giant zucchini, and and a big blue squash and we plan to bake the squash and make fried zucchini like Mom loves, and I guess a salad with lettuce and tomatoes.  That’s a run on sentence… but you have to move quickly as it is wet from the rain yesterday and 50 degrees!  The big squash looks like a giant round watermelon but it IS bluish. Linda says it is a Blue Hubbard winter squash. After 2 rainy days, it’s crisp today in New Hampshire. Our friends just took a walk and I will try to do a big painting after I trim the swiss chard which I learned how to cook from my sister who grows it in pots in Jacksonville. Yum.  God bless you.

Today we talked of Robert Frost as we drove over beautiful tree lined country roads to the apple orchards.  We did not pick apples as it was raining and it rained even harder after we bought bags of apples and ran to the cafe for cinnamon-apple pancakes with real maple syrup. Voted the best apple orchard in New Hampshire, the little apple farm offers self-pick apples or buy the bags, and buy jams and jellys and other lovely gifts. We will make a pie later making the crust and filling here at Linda and Joe’s farm "Gate Bella" The Beautiful Gate.  There is a soft rain falling, but later, I will pick swiss chard from the "upper garden" and we’ll have it with meat loaf covered with Linda’s tomatoes and other goodies from the gardens.  Linda grows her own herbs, garlic and onions so we could just stay here and eat out of the garden… which we do except for example… the little trip to the apple orchard. I painted yesterday and I have 3 books stacked up to read. God is good and this is a little slice of Paradise here in New Hampshire.  God bless you!

I promised my sister I would probably ruminate on auto parts because I remember the days when my father would lean half into the motor of our old Ford (I guess it was a Ford). He would tinker and tinker and come up with a greasy part that he would soak in gasoline to get the grease off and then tinker some more to fix that part, or go buy a new part, and then put it all back together and make the old car run again.  Remember? … We were coming back to the hotel in Saratoga Springs when Chuck said "remind me to check the oil." That isn’t good news, because he usually checks it every thousand or so miles and it’s fine.  We’ve travelled 6000 miles already in that dear old van and she has 106,000 miles on her "new Michelins." The oil pressure was dropping to 0 and the check engine light was coming on at that point.  So check the oil and it was fine, but I knew we had a day of "semi mountain" driving to get to Sugar Hill, New Hampshire ahead of us the next day.  So I prayed a lot, and woke up and asked Chuck to take it to a dealer, and he said yes.  So off we went and good thing too, it was drooping to 0 and asking us to check the engine.  So there we were on I87 south, me praying for September 11 victims, and Chuck praying for that oil pressure and we got lost at the correct exit (you usually can see those big car lots from the expressway) (wrong).  So we called them twice (Chuck sweating that light…) and finally pulled in and Chuck pulled right into the repair bay. Let them drive it out of there. He got a really nice service writer who showed us the Mall across the street and said she would call us about 3pm. So that means lunch and a movie which we never do on an afternoon….  Lunch at Olive Garden and a wild car racing movie called Getaway (if you like car chases with the Shelby race car – go see it!) It was a good, "wait for the car dealer to call" movie… and the phone rang. It’s fixed and not for an arm and a leg either.  It was a "sender"… Chuck had said it might be the oil pump, but apparently technology depends on computers and that is the end of guys like my dad cleaning up greasy parts and "fixing" the cars themselves.  I am possibly the last of the old fashioned people as I turn my cell phone off when I’m busy and I don’t text.  I do use a computer though…   Well, we are on a beautiful farm on the top of a hill in Sugar Hill New Hampshire. Home of Linda and Joe McCarthy (they are of Irish and Italian descent!).  Chuck is cleaning out the van… the laundry and bills and check book await and I guess I better get to "work" so I can get outside and paint.  God bless you.

It was bittersweet to bid the mighty and powerful Niagara Falls goodbye as I don’t think we’ll return because we still have so much to see and I still want to retun to Ireland and the Holy Land…  busy busy – so many places to go.  It was a little disconcerting going through the border (it really always is) No "Welcome Home!!!"  But questions: "Where do you live? What country were you born? Where have you visited? Why did you go there?"  Then he told us to take off sunglasses and asked if he could look in the van…. "Sure" There’s nothing there but bags of dirty laundry, a half eaten loaf of bread, couple bags of crackers, plastic glasses strewn about, a cooler full of cheese, mustard, mayo, hard boiled eggs, meat from last night’s dinner to be made into sandwiches… etc and just stuff travelers carry in a cooler, and a cooler of what remains of the wine Chuck packed 6 weeks ago, and bags and bags of "Stuff going through to Miami" and bags of books we have purchased at book stores with 70% off sales… did I mention the dirty laundry?  And miscellaneous jackets and the rain gear we wore on the Maid of the Mist.  The van is pretty much a junk bin at this point.  "What’s in the cooler?"  Gulp… Wine we brought with us and 2 bottles we bought in Niagara on the Lake (and a pair of shorts, and some tonic water…) He looked through that and looked around at the piles of bags of stuff. I guess we don’t fit the profile. Then he came back around and said to Chuck "What state do you live in?" By this time I’ve forgotten my name… "OK, go ahead" he said.  I can’t blame the US for worrying about people coming in, it is the day before Sept 11 and that is one reason I said, "Let’s go home…"   Then with the dismissal we headed into Buffalo which isn’t the best place to go. Got out on I 90 and headed east towards friends’ farm in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire.  I picked Saratoga Springs to stop for the night because it is the Alma Mater of Julia Paparelli.  How charming the town is! They have painted ballet slippers and painted horses in the streets as an art exhibit. And the campus is beautiful.  While walking around campus, I picked up some leaves that have already turned color… and I noticed the fire hydrants with the flags on top so firefighters can find them in the snow.  I felt like we were parents looking for school possibilities for our child. We took photos (of course we took photos). And we send our love and prayers to kids who are starting school.  God bless you.

Tuesday morning. The Falls are still falling….  Huge and amazing as always. Thank God!  We slept well after dinner at the Secret garden and watching a little NFL.  I was asleep by 2nd quarter…I have window open and I’ll bet it’s no lower than 65 degrees.  Crossing the border here in Niagara by 8-8:30 am today (Tuesday)….. Going "home"  Will cross over northern New York headed for New Hampshire.  God bless you.

We are astounded at Niagara Falls.  This morning we took the Maid of the Mist ride into the clutches of the Horseshoe falls… and we snapped a million pictures! Some photos I am sure we won’t see a thing but fog as these falls make their own rain.  After that ride we headed up the Niagara river to take photos at the rapids and then the Royal Botanical Gardens and Butterfly Conservatory where a butterfly settled on Chuck’s finger as he was taking a photo and sat there for about 15 minutes.  We viewed lots of flowers and roses and then picnicked in the gardens (sandwiches made from last night’s lamb dinner up in the Skylon)… Then Chuck dropped me at the Falls while he took the van back to the hotel.  I just stood in one place and gazed (and took more photos).  What a memory we have.  We then walked the entire mile or so towards our hotel stopping for a "domestic beer" Molsen Canadian beer and then to the Secret Garden for dinner.  It was a really beautiful garden with a restaurant in the middle. Sat outside and just absorbed. Time to watch NFL TV with RGIII back in the saddle playing Michael Vick. and then… tomorrow morning (Tuesday) heading back into the USA! God bless you.

I just wrote to my sister Donna that I haven’t spent any time on this trip working on the book idea which involves studying and writing about the Psalms…   I spend my quiet time studying roads, things to see, landmarks and how to get places, and as you can see from the blog… we have seen a lot!  Even with all the studying of materials… I have had a near miss or two… For example, near St Catherine I thought we would be just traveling through and get there late so I had Chuck pull into a Super 8 that AAA said was 2 stars… I thought "save a few bucks; it’s only to sleep in"… I had misgivings almost immediately, the lobby piled on more misgivings, and I asked the girl at the counter if I could see the room… it was such a definite no!!!  she had already run Chuck’s credit card so I got a refund and we went out of there.  We got a Comfort Inn in St Catherines and that is where I went to Mass this morning.  I just couldn’t even think of sleeping at that Super 8.  So like today I picked about 6 wineries and only one was brilliant… the first one. How do you top the best if you get it first?  When Tammy was competing in the Olympics this was the problem if the best team went first… the coaches would give them a low score because there were 7 teams to go… well today the first vineyard, called "The Good Earth," was beautiful, had good tasting wine at a affordable price, had a great chef-cooked lunch, in the garden with the owner a wonderful creative lady.  Can’t top it.  We went across the top of the wine region. If you look at your map it is across the bottom of Lake Ontario to Niagara on the Lake and then you come south on the Niagara River to Niagara Falls.  Our hotel might not be the greatest (like the big high rise Embassy Suites overlooking Horse shoe Falls), but I do have a balcony room with a King sized bed on the river.  You can’t see the river because the Niagara river is in the bottom of a giant crevasse (where the puma reside)… but it’s nice.  We walked to the Falls which are like a wonder of the world.  Took a million pictures, got into the mist which is like rain as you walk on the street. It’s about 65 degrees so it was not a welcome mist!  Then Chuck said, "let’s take the incline," so up we went.  We went up on the Skylon Tower and had dinner in the revolving restaurant (our second bottle of wine in the day)… absolutely amazing.  And who is going to look at all these pictures I took as we revolved over the Falls?  I guess I started this with… I make decisions to do stuff and who knows how it will turn out.  I smelled a lot of lovely roses today and sipped some good wine and saw the wonders of the world (and took their picture).  Thank God. I cannot believe it was just this morning that I was lost looking for that little Catholic church for Sunday Mass.  Amazing and wonderful.  Now I’m looking out at Bridal Veil Falls which the USA colors red white and blue at night.  When you get above them, like in the Skylon Tower, they fall from a normal looking river down a cliff about 170 feet (I googled that – it seems like a lot more!!!) Engineers have stopped the erosion a great deal.    Amazing – Thank you God. God bless you!

We left Tobermory this morning and headed south intending to stop someplace but continued on to St Catherine on Lake Ontario and ate dinner at a port called Port Dalhousie. I have marked off 4 wineries to visit before going on to Niagara Falls tomorrow, and if it isn’t raining tomorrow (today was chilly and damp…) we’ll visit and picnic at the wineries and head to Michael’s Inn on River Road Niagara Falls.   Plan to stay 3 nights. Hope for a little change to warmth in the weather.  Peace on earth.  God bless you!