Still didn’t see Joe. OK I am no longer a fan of Penn State, if Joe wouldn’t come see me I am not going to cheer for him anymore. The leaves are still pretty as we head south on more narrow winding roads.
To get to Falling Waters you first have to go to Nowhere, turn left to SomePlace, the right into Whatyoucallit and then after another 50 miles on noname road you finally arrive. Serious it is in the middle of nowhere. It was developed as a retreat from the city and they accomplished that goal.
Falling Waters is the most fantastic houses I have ever seen. It has to be on your bucket list. I have seen the photos, read the article but I had idea how great it was going to be. It may be one of the most perfect houses I have ever seen. Well there was that little thing about not being able to stand up in some of the rooms; apparently, the family who owned it were short people. Overlooking that, the views in and out of the house are amazing. Each bedroom has its own bath and terrace. There are cantilevers everywhere. Balconies, rooms, bookcases, shelves, desk, everything is cantilevered. The setting in the woods is unbelievable. It is perfectly sited in the rock outcropping taking advantage of the stream and views of the valley. Can you tell I really liked it?
Charleston, West Virginia is a nice town with a river running thru the middle of town. We walked a restaurant near by to celebrate Carole’s Birthday.
Today we are on a mission to get home. Nothing but driving. Wonder if Fuzzy Butt our cat will speak to us when we get home.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Lake Placid – State College
A killer day. Nine hours of driving and only 2 hours on interstates. We wound around down and thru every small two lane road in New York and Pennsylvania. That was the bad news.
We had the most beautiful drive we have been on ever! The leaves on the west side of the mountains where in full color. I think we may have hit the peak color for a lot of the area we went thru. The road winds thru the woods with little lakes every few miles. I wanted to stop get some birch bark, build a canoe, paddle of across the lake and look for a moose or bear.
We happened across the Museum of the Adirondack, which is totally in the middle of nowhere. I would have loved to spend a bunch of time there because they have one of the largest collections of Guide Boats in the existence. We didn’t even try to go because I knew I would be lost. I did go thru the museum store and buy a bunch of books I didn’t have. Carole found some of her china in the store and they had a couple of pieces she didn’t have. We both left happy but I would like to go back some time and spend several hours checking out the boats. If you don’t know what a Guide Boat is you need to Google it and check them out. They are basically canoe that you row.
I expected Papa Joe to greet us as we entered State College but I guess he must have been busy. I think I am going to give up on football. Joe doesn't welcome me and Nick doesn't call me at half to ask for my advice.
On today to see Falling Waters, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs.
We had the most beautiful drive we have been on ever! The leaves on the west side of the mountains where in full color. I think we may have hit the peak color for a lot of the area we went thru. The road winds thru the woods with little lakes every few miles. I wanted to stop get some birch bark, build a canoe, paddle of across the lake and look for a moose or bear.
We happened across the Museum of the Adirondack, which is totally in the middle of nowhere. I would have loved to spend a bunch of time there because they have one of the largest collections of Guide Boats in the existence. We didn’t even try to go because I knew I would be lost. I did go thru the museum store and buy a bunch of books I didn’t have. Carole found some of her china in the store and they had a couple of pieces she didn’t have. We both left happy but I would like to go back some time and spend several hours checking out the boats. If you don’t know what a Guide Boat is you need to Google it and check them out. They are basically canoe that you row.
I expected Papa Joe to greet us as we entered State College but I guess he must have been busy. I think I am going to give up on football. Joe doesn't welcome me and Nick doesn't call me at half to ask for my advice.
On today to see Falling Waters, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Burlington – Fort Ticonderoga – Lake Placid
There are Dunkin Donuts on every corner in the Northeast so we figured we need to check one out for breakfast. We walk in and there is a line with about 20 people. To give a quick overview the coffee is good, the donuts are adequate, nothing like a good hot Krispy Cream.
The drive to Fort Ticonderoga is nice, thru large farms with field of corn and mega barns. The road is along the lake and you can see it over the farms. We cross the lake by ferry and we timed it perfect. We drove on and they shut the gate behind us. We are behind a school bus. Why do kids always wave? I told Carole that this was a bad omen, those kids are going the same place we are. We get to follow the bus all the way to the Fort, which actually made finding it quite easy.
The history of the Fort is much more real when you see it that when you read about it in history books. Starting in 1759 the French and British, well that is probably much more detail than I need to go into. What was interesting is a family named Pell saved the Fort from destruction. It is probably relatives of the founding fathers of Pell City. If you are ever this far north it is worth a visit of course Carole and I love to tour old forts and read all the signs.
The GPS wanders us all thru the New York roads to get to Lake Placid. We made most of the trip on very narrow two lane county roads. That was not all bad because the scenery was great. We got into several nice patches of color. One section of the road had waterfalls along side and a canopy of colored leaves above.
As we are entering into Lake Placid there are these two towers we see in the distance. We debate what type of industrial operation is going on there. Looks a lot like the towers around coalmines. They are two concrete towers with what looks like conveyors running down from them but they look way to steep. Then we see the sign to the ski jumps. Those people have to be totally crazy to go up and ski off those things. I have seen a lot of Olympic ski jumps on TV but I had no idea of the magnitude of what they were jumping from. I have a whole new appreciation now.
The town of Lake Placid is neat. Beth you should have come here much nicer than Stowe. There are lots of little shops on the edge of the lake. There is one boat house that is unbelievable. I would guess there is some pricey real-estate in the area.
The hotel we are staying in would not meet Michael standards. Luckily it is only one night. For those of you who don’t know our measure of hotels has always been on the Michael Standard. When he was about 3 years old we stayed in a motel and it want to leave because it wasn’t nice enough. So from then on we have always based the quality of the hotel on the Michael Standard. May there is something about mountain hotels because the one he wanted to leave was in Gatlinburg.
Today we head south. We have about 9 hours of driving ahead of us. OK Carole stop snoring, get up and let’s get moving.
The drive to Fort Ticonderoga is nice, thru large farms with field of corn and mega barns. The road is along the lake and you can see it over the farms. We cross the lake by ferry and we timed it perfect. We drove on and they shut the gate behind us. We are behind a school bus. Why do kids always wave? I told Carole that this was a bad omen, those kids are going the same place we are. We get to follow the bus all the way to the Fort, which actually made finding it quite easy.
The history of the Fort is much more real when you see it that when you read about it in history books. Starting in 1759 the French and British, well that is probably much more detail than I need to go into. What was interesting is a family named Pell saved the Fort from destruction. It is probably relatives of the founding fathers of Pell City. If you are ever this far north it is worth a visit of course Carole and I love to tour old forts and read all the signs.
The GPS wanders us all thru the New York roads to get to Lake Placid. We made most of the trip on very narrow two lane county roads. That was not all bad because the scenery was great. We got into several nice patches of color. One section of the road had waterfalls along side and a canopy of colored leaves above.
As we are entering into Lake Placid there are these two towers we see in the distance. We debate what type of industrial operation is going on there. Looks a lot like the towers around coalmines. They are two concrete towers with what looks like conveyors running down from them but they look way to steep. Then we see the sign to the ski jumps. Those people have to be totally crazy to go up and ski off those things. I have seen a lot of Olympic ski jumps on TV but I had no idea of the magnitude of what they were jumping from. I have a whole new appreciation now.
The town of Lake Placid is neat. Beth you should have come here much nicer than Stowe. There are lots of little shops on the edge of the lake. There is one boat house that is unbelievable. I would guess there is some pricey real-estate in the area.
The hotel we are staying in would not meet Michael standards. Luckily it is only one night. For those of you who don’t know our measure of hotels has always been on the Michael Standard. When he was about 3 years old we stayed in a motel and it want to leave because it wasn’t nice enough. So from then on we have always based the quality of the hotel on the Michael Standard. May there is something about mountain hotels because the one he wanted to leave was in Gatlinburg.
Today we head south. We have about 9 hours of driving ahead of us. OK Carole stop snoring, get up and let’s get moving.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Bethel to Burlington
We stayed at a great B&B last night, had a great breakfast this morning and then off to the west. Well it was generally west but we zigzagged back and forth across the mountains. First we went west to Gorham, then south to Conway, then west to Woodstock, north to Stowe then southwest to Burlington. We spent about 8 hours to go 3 hours.
We went around Mount Washington. We thought about going to the top but everyone we talked to recommended against it unless you needed that merit badge to get your Eagle. It is a dirt road to the top and generally, the weather is terrible, so we decided to see it from the road around the base. We are still a couple of weeks early for the color of the leaves to hit their maximum color. We did find patches of some color change. It was a beautiful drive along the side of a stream with mountains on each side. It even had a few switch backs along the route. I guess since we are early there wasn’t a lot of traffic, although the tour buses have started to show up.
Stowe was a place we had to visit. It is a special place for our niece Beth and her husband Taylor. Ok now we have been why in the hell do they like that place? It is like Gatlinburg. Just your typical tourist trap, with one tee shirt shop after another. Really, Beth you can do better than that.
On tomorrow to Fort Ticonderoga and Lake Placid.
We went around Mount Washington. We thought about going to the top but everyone we talked to recommended against it unless you needed that merit badge to get your Eagle. It is a dirt road to the top and generally, the weather is terrible, so we decided to see it from the road around the base. We are still a couple of weeks early for the color of the leaves to hit their maximum color. We did find patches of some color change. It was a beautiful drive along the side of a stream with mountains on each side. It even had a few switch backs along the route. I guess since we are early there wasn’t a lot of traffic, although the tour buses have started to show up.
Stowe was a place we had to visit. It is a special place for our niece Beth and her husband Taylor. Ok now we have been why in the hell do they like that place? It is like Gatlinburg. Just your typical tourist trap, with one tee shirt shop after another. Really, Beth you can do better than that.
On tomorrow to Fort Ticonderoga and Lake Placid.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Cruising the Coast of Maine, Marital Aids and on Westward.
I have a lot of catching up to do. We had “NO” internet or phone service for a week. Man was did I have a case of the DT’s. We were finally able to log on to the internet last night and go our phones to working tonight.
The cruise was uh, how am I going to put this, well, it was different. Our cabin was about the same size as the small bathroom, in our house, without the shower. The bunk was 6’-1” long, so you don’t have to do the math that is about 5” too short. There were two heads and one shower for 28 people. Carole and I had two showers all week. We were so cold all week there wasn’t a danger of breaking a sweat so there wasn’t much of a need to take one. OK that is the bad part. The good part was the sailing was really good. We had a mix of weather some sun, some clouds, some heavy wind and some light wind. (It was cold all of the time.) It was interesting to see how the boat sailed with all of the rigging and lines. The boat had no engine so we sailed everywhere. They did have the capacity to put in a small boat to push the big boat and would do that sometimes when leaving an anchorage or shifting the boat in an anchorage. Most of the time we sailed into and out of the anchorages. The captain’s goal was to take us to places we couldn’t get by car. The 1st night out we stayed at Swan Island, then back to the rendezvous with 14 other schooners at the wooden boat school. The 3rd night we were at Isle Au Haut, which is supposed to have the smallest post office in the US. The 4th night we had to run for cover from a storm and were anchored in a cove at Castine with about 8 other schooners. The storm passed to the south and with the protected anchorage, we only saw about 25 knot winds. The last night we were in a pretty little cove at Islesboro. We saw the boat at 10 knots several times during the week, with 7 to 8 knots being common. (For you non sailors that is hauling ass.) The boat even with all the sails up and at 10 knots had very little heel and a comfortable motion.
Just before the boats entered the anchorage at the wooden boat school, they were all sailing around each other. I have some really great action shots of them sailing (about 430 to be exact). So be careful if you tell me you want to see some photos.
You know I don’t talk about people but I am going to have to ask you to pray for some of the people of that boat with us. They were just too weird. Maybe we just hit it wrong but there were two other couples who hadn’t been on this schooner before. All of them picked the same week each year to go sailing and we would not have been able to go this week if someone hadn’t died. How do I know that? They had the funeral for one of them on Saturday morning and spread the ashes in the sea.
Oops, I almost forgot Michael wanted me to talk about the food. The food was really good. There were a couple of young girls who did all of the cooking on a wood stove. (I think their mothers must drive them to work they looked so young.) We had fresh baked bread every meal. Typically breakfast was either pancakes, French toast or eggs with some type of breakfast meat, bacon, sausage, ham, etc. and fruit. Lunch was mostly a hearty soup and salad. Suppers where some type of meat, pasta, vegetables with fresh bread and pies. It was all very good. When you consider they were doing it all on a moving, rocking, heeling wood stove it was damn excellent.
The trip is something I am glad we did but it isn’t something I want to do again at least in this life time.
Both of us caught colds from someone on board. For some reason we both snore when we have a cold. So I would snore for a while and wake Carole up, she would punch me and I would wake up and roll over. Then she would snore and I would wake her up. And then we would do it all over again. So our main trip on Sunday morning was to go to Wal-Mart and purchase some Marital Aid (Ear Plugs). Last night we both had the first good night’s sleep we have had in about a week. It was wonderful. Hot showers, shaving, clean hair, comfortable bed. It was just wonderful.
Today we left the Brooklin Inn. (Highly recommended and yes I do want to do that again.) We drove across Maine. The GPS took us on some roads that I swore we were lost. It was a beautiful path thru the mountains, along streams and glacier lakes. The leaves are just beginning to turn so every few mile we would hit a patch of brilliant red leaves.
Tonight we are in Bethel Maine at a B&B. We are the only guest. The couple we are saying with are very nice. Staying in B&B is a cool way to travel.
OK I left out tons of details. Maybe I will have time to go back and fill in some details later.
The cruise was uh, how am I going to put this, well, it was different. Our cabin was about the same size as the small bathroom, in our house, without the shower. The bunk was 6’-1” long, so you don’t have to do the math that is about 5” too short. There were two heads and one shower for 28 people. Carole and I had two showers all week. We were so cold all week there wasn’t a danger of breaking a sweat so there wasn’t much of a need to take one. OK that is the bad part. The good part was the sailing was really good. We had a mix of weather some sun, some clouds, some heavy wind and some light wind. (It was cold all of the time.) It was interesting to see how the boat sailed with all of the rigging and lines. The boat had no engine so we sailed everywhere. They did have the capacity to put in a small boat to push the big boat and would do that sometimes when leaving an anchorage or shifting the boat in an anchorage. Most of the time we sailed into and out of the anchorages. The captain’s goal was to take us to places we couldn’t get by car. The 1st night out we stayed at Swan Island, then back to the rendezvous with 14 other schooners at the wooden boat school. The 3rd night we were at Isle Au Haut, which is supposed to have the smallest post office in the US. The 4th night we had to run for cover from a storm and were anchored in a cove at Castine with about 8 other schooners. The storm passed to the south and with the protected anchorage, we only saw about 25 knot winds. The last night we were in a pretty little cove at Islesboro. We saw the boat at 10 knots several times during the week, with 7 to 8 knots being common. (For you non sailors that is hauling ass.) The boat even with all the sails up and at 10 knots had very little heel and a comfortable motion.
Just before the boats entered the anchorage at the wooden boat school, they were all sailing around each other. I have some really great action shots of them sailing (about 430 to be exact). So be careful if you tell me you want to see some photos.
You know I don’t talk about people but I am going to have to ask you to pray for some of the people of that boat with us. They were just too weird. Maybe we just hit it wrong but there were two other couples who hadn’t been on this schooner before. All of them picked the same week each year to go sailing and we would not have been able to go this week if someone hadn’t died. How do I know that? They had the funeral for one of them on Saturday morning and spread the ashes in the sea.
Oops, I almost forgot Michael wanted me to talk about the food. The food was really good. There were a couple of young girls who did all of the cooking on a wood stove. (I think their mothers must drive them to work they looked so young.) We had fresh baked bread every meal. Typically breakfast was either pancakes, French toast or eggs with some type of breakfast meat, bacon, sausage, ham, etc. and fruit. Lunch was mostly a hearty soup and salad. Suppers where some type of meat, pasta, vegetables with fresh bread and pies. It was all very good. When you consider they were doing it all on a moving, rocking, heeling wood stove it was damn excellent.
The trip is something I am glad we did but it isn’t something I want to do again at least in this life time.
Both of us caught colds from someone on board. For some reason we both snore when we have a cold. So I would snore for a while and wake Carole up, she would punch me and I would wake up and roll over. Then she would snore and I would wake her up. And then we would do it all over again. So our main trip on Sunday morning was to go to Wal-Mart and purchase some Marital Aid (Ear Plugs). Last night we both had the first good night’s sleep we have had in about a week. It was wonderful. Hot showers, shaving, clean hair, comfortable bed. It was just wonderful.
Today we left the Brooklin Inn. (Highly recommended and yes I do want to do that again.) We drove across Maine. The GPS took us on some roads that I swore we were lost. It was a beautiful path thru the mountains, along streams and glacier lakes. The leaves are just beginning to turn so every few mile we would hit a patch of brilliant red leaves.
Tonight we are in Bethel Maine at a B&B. We are the only guest. The couple we are saying with are very nice. Staying in B&B is a cool way to travel.
OK I left out tons of details. Maybe I will have time to go back and fill in some details later.
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