Travel

We in TEXAS

While in the Atlanta airport awaiting our flight, Donna decided to call brother Scott to see how they were doing. He, his wife and the three kids piled into the family vehicle and left Seattle on Friday afternoon. Scott and Beth were going to take turns at the wheel so they could get to Albuquerque virtually non-stop. She called and there was no answer, so she left a message.

Just before we were getting to board our flight she flipped open the phone to give him a call and noticed we had two missed calls and a text message from Scott. She tried to call him back, but got no answer again. I suggested replying to his text. She had never done it before, so I talked her through the process and watched in amazement as it took 5 minutes to compose a couple of four word sentences. She wanted to know where the question mark and other punctuation marks were on our simple cell phone. We don’t have any, so she sent it off. I told her it was texting, you don’t need no punctuation. You don’t need all the letters in the words. Heck you don’t even need verbs.

When we landed in Dallas, she sent him another text, “We in TEXAS.”

Bluffton

We spent the weekend on HHI and instead of roaming the island we crossed the bridge back to the mainland for breakfast. Our destination was the world famous Squat-N-Gobble in Bluffton. We figured we’d eat breakfast and do a little geocaching around town, there were probably about a dozen within walking distance, and then head back to HHI.

Donna and I actually ate at this restaurant once before – 21 years ago. We were in Savannah for a Miata gathering and had brought our bicycles to go for a Saturday morning ride with the Coastal Bicycle Touring Club of Savannah. The Squat-N-Gobble was the destination for lunch and then ride back.

The place hadn’t changed much. It seemed like they bumped it out enough to add two more tables, but we couldn’t be positive. When we pulled into the parking lot I notice a town police car across the street and a city working was piling barricade parts on a telephone pole nearby. Donna asked our server if today was the town’s Christmas Parade and the answer was, “Yes.” “It starts at 11, but they will be shutting the streets down starting at nine.” She told us to park in the Dollar General lot next door as the parade route passed right down the street between them, that way if we wanted to get out of town beforehand we could.

Donna and I thought it might be fun to watch their parade, so we ate and headed out touring town and geocaching away. We found 7 in a row and when we DNF’d number eight we called it quits. It was 10:30 anyway, so it was time to head back to find a viewing spot. We dropped our equipment off at the car, grabbed a couple of cold soft drinks and wandered into the fray. For such a small town they sure attracted a large crowd for the parade.

Turns out thinking it might be fun and it actually being fun were not too similar. We watched about 15 minutes before making our way back to the Dollar General parking lot and heading out of town and back to the condo.

If I Was Running For President

I would have to apologize to the citizens of the great state of Florida, because if I wanted to get to get elected I would probably need the 29 electoral votes it represents. But thankfully I’m not running. That’s Gary Johnson’s problem.

Florida is actually, in spots, a very nice place, and we have been to several. Including today when we visited a lock on the Okeechobee Waterway where we found 2 out of three caches and walked along a couple of nice nature trails. So we probably would visit Florida if Sandy and family weren’t here, just certain, less busy, spots.

Artist’s Retreat

Monhegan has always been a haven for artists and artist’s workshops. While we were there, we stumbled onto this group several times at various locations around the island.

Foggy Morning On Monhegan

The morning we left started clear, but the fog soon swept in giving some mood to the island. Most people who visit Monhegan come for just a few hours via ferry from the mainland, so they don’t need a place to stay. But for those who come for an overnight or two, mainly stay in one of a couple places.


The largest and most visible spot is the Island Inn which has 32 rooms and is probably the first thing you see when pulling up to the dock.


The next most popular place is the Monhegan House with its 28 rooms. Both of these two spots serve breakfast to both those staying there and folks who walk in (like us.)


If you are staying longer the best option is a rental house that run from rustic to almost modern.


If you come by boat, you can always stay aboard. Not on one of these though as they are lobster boats owned by the local fishermaen. There was a small sailboat moored in the harbor this morning, I just didn’t take its portrait.

Rooms 302 & 303

The photo above is the view out the window to the porch of the cottage my cousin and her husband were renting for their 2 week stay on the island. They have a land line phone (cell coverage is very spotty) and a propane stove and refrigerator, but no electricity. Light is provided by kerosene lamps or candles. There is electricity all over the place on the island, but it costs about 10x what it does on the mainland. Plus there is the expense of putting in wiring in older homes. The Vaughn House where they are staying was built in the 1700’s. The expense is also the reason there are no street lights anywhere on the island, so when the sun goes down you better have a flashlight or the full moon to find your way back to where you are staying.

Last night we went the Cracker Barrel across the street from our HIE to have breakfast for dinner. It was 6 o’clock in the evening and the place was crawling with Hokies on their way home from a football game. We even had to wait 20 minutes to get seated*. As we sat there waiting on our food I could barely hear myself think for all the chatter and dinnerware noises. When I could get a thought in edgewise, all I could get was that there were more people in that restaurant right then, than we saw in our whole two days on Monhegan Island.

*Cracker Barrel is the only place we really wait like that.

When I woke up this morning at 5:00 AM and got up to use the restroom I was alone in in the bed of Room 303 in the Holiday Inn Express in Roanoke, VA. Donna was not in the bathroom either. I turned on the light and she wasn’t in the chair in the corner of the room either. I was alone. My first thought was she had woken up early and gone for a walk, but dismissed that when I looked outside and it was still pitch black. My second thought was she had been abducted by aliens. My third and more likely scenario is that she was curled up on a couch in the lobby sleeping. I have a nice loud snore sometimes which is fine if she gets asleep before me, but if not, then one of us goes to the other bedroom in our house.

Donna was actually across the hall in Room 302. I started snoring, her usual tactics of getting me to be quiet, poking, prodding or talking me into rolling over didn’t work, so she went downstairs at midnight and rented a second room.

23,000 Feet Of Line

Somewhere in the Poconos, the Purple Whale clicked past the 23,000 mile mark.

Today was the first day since we started our trip that I didn’t take a single picture, so I have posted an artsy photo from Monhegan Island. More than likely that will be the case for the next week or so.