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I took a lot of pictures of the food preparation for the fourth, but they will be a piece of the blog for the fourth. Tonight was a seaside happy hour with some fine sunset pictures.
That's Bonnie Nester, the campground owner, on the right. Durelle's on the left.
Note the back porch on the back of the big, three-axle fifth wheel.
Tim Boucher and Liz Flood.
More hors d'oeuvres.
As the sun was going down there were a lot of nice shots of the sunset.
And here comes a paddleboarder.
Cormorants on the monument.
Bayside.
Sunset. It was a busy day for the barbecuers. They are preparing to feed over a hundred people tomorrow. The whole hog weighs 120 pounds...there are five briskets weighing just south of a hundred pounds...there will be sixteen racks of ribs, twenty pounds of sausage, and ninety pieces of chicken. All the other participants will be bringing a side dish.
For some altruistic motivations I don't completely understand, the barbecuers have decided not to charge anyone. Since I am one of the happy beneficiaries, I shall not complain.
Yesterday The Roths invited us to tag along with them for a lunch in Bar Harbor. Durelle was planning on doing a wash and some grocery shopping, but I felt that we needed to change our routine a bit. The Roths are a higher energy couple than we are, so we just followed their lead. It's a pleasant hour and a half drive to Bar Harbor, and, as always, it was awash with tourists by the bus loads. We stopped at a fine Irish pub where I had a corned beef sandwich and a couple of pints of Guinness.
Looking in the other direction is the harbor, which always has some ultra-luxurious yachts. Here's the bow end of one.
Shortly after we got home, the Tim and Wendy Boucher arrived with their new forty foot fifth wheel. Their Coal and Scout are the two nicest, best behaved labs you will ever meet. At 5:00 Wendy showed up with a tray of bacon wrapped pork bites that quickly disappeared. All in all I gained two pounds..."Sad!"
Saturday was the first lobster feed of the year for the Cloutiers. There were ten of us, so two lobster pots were required. It is always fun when one of crew has never had a lobster before. There is no end of advice. These were all hard shells save one that had molted. Therefore everyone had to work a bit to extract the tasty morsels. Below is a picture of a "newbie" getting to touch her first lobster.
You can't read Dick Roth's T-shirt in the picture. It shows a puzzled lobster who is saying, "Excuse me. What's the melted butter for?"
Anyone who has tackled a whole, steamed lobster knows that, even with the hard shells, a lot of water is released when the shells are cracked. Starting a few years ago, shears have been used to snip the tips off the claws before the lobsters are served.
That's Debra Donnahoo, our campground manager, using my left-handed lobster glove holding the lobster for Dick with the right-handed glove.
Here's the first lobster being served to Michelle, Debra's sister. She had one of those "bucket list" trips. She saw a moose and a whale.
The sides at one of our lobster feeds are corn-on-the-cob, chips and blueberry pie with ice cream.
Life is good...a lobster dinner on the shore with corn and dessert for $15.00 per couple!
Building a blog is the capturing of pictures or events...and sometimes a bit of philosophy. Mostly, it is a matter of keeping your eyes open for that perfect photo-op. You wander around looking for a pleasant scene and waiting for that ideal light. Then it dawns on you that the everyday view, seen from your seat at the dinette, and looking through a yet to be washed windshield ain't exactly chopped liver.
The observant reader will also notice the Red Sox game is on the TV.
We are getting settled in. We picked up a few supplies, some groceries and are looking forward to lobsters this weekend.
We are finally here! Mark did his usual great job of driving (and parking) the bus. When we arrived, we had more friends helping than you can imagine. The Roths, the Floods, Debra Donnahoo, Dick Brann and several others were here to help us old farts get settled in. After we were hooked up, we sat down to get reacquainted and have a beer. Before long it was time for happy hour. We had about decided that it was too cold for an outside happy hour when Richard showed up with a glass of scotch and pulled up a chair.. So, happy hour happened. Durelle came prepared for the weather with a new blanket from Mark and Heather.
Yesterday we were running the air conditioners.
It is wonderful to be back with all these camping friends, and we are looking forward to four more months of the same.
The 18th of June is often a triple (or even quadruple) threat celebration.It's our anniversary and son, Mark's birthday. It's sometimes Father's Day and this year it was the last day of the US Open. Daughter-in-law, Heather, bless her soul, easily manages to throw a major league shindig for a dozen or so. There were shrimp and veggie platters for dipping. There were two pound fillets of salmon and haddock as well as a tub of sirloin tips. Of course, Heather being Heather, she made a large, obscenely chocolate cake with mint and frosting. Here's the birthday boy with the first slice of cake.
The rendition of "Happy Birthday" was better as a photo than as an audio tape.
This is Mark with two of his kids and his granddaughter Brielle who will finish the sixth grade on Tuesday. I also took a sneaky picture of Brielle as she was playing cards with her great grandmother.
The extension cord into Mark's house did not seem to want to reliably handle the air conditioner, so the generator ran all day...we have to keep Mocha cool! There is no set time for departure tomorrow. My motto is, "It's been a long time since I was in a hurry."
Three days from Hanahan, SC to Nashua, NH...300...400...400. The first day is always short 'cuz we didn't get away until ten. We arrived in Nashua on Friday the 16th. There were substantial traffic delays all three days, but we haven't been in a hurry in a long time. Mark did an outstanding job of driving. It is NOT just a matter of turning on the cruise control and aiming it.
We were approaching NH today with the hope that we could get home without one more fuel stop. No such luck. On I-495 in MA we got a low fuel light. There were no big truck stops along the way, but Mark said that he remembered a big station at exit 34 on route 3 in Tyngsboro, MA that "looked large from the highway." Sure enough, we saw signs for a Mobil station with 24 hr diesel. We found it, but only one of the six islands had diesel. To get there seemed impossible. We had to find a way to navigate around the building which had a drive thru for Dunkin Donuts and a car wash. To make the turns, which were designed for cars, required some turns that put both the right front and the left rear wheels over the curbing. It was not as big as he had remembered. We made it undamaged.
Then the pump would quit at $100, so I ran it again and pumped another 40 gallons. On the third try the pump said, "Go Away!" We arrived at Mark's at 1730.
We plugged in to AC and water. The dish locked in on the satellite, and the internet connected.
Tomorrow is a nothing day, but Sunday is a multipurpose celebration. Monday we head for Maine.
