Canadia

I know it’s not spelled Canadia, but my friend Julie, likes that word and it makes me smile. Did anyone know that pepper spray (and military teargas) is illegal in Canada? Well, I’m here to tell you it is. I know that because they took mine away. No, I don’t carry it on a daily basis, nor do I remember to take it along the times when I would be most apt to use it. That will no longer be an issue, since I don’t have it anymore. I got it because I like to walk my little dog, Idgie, in our neighborhood, and there are coyotes in our neighborhood. I figured that since we will be on the road for so long, it might come in handy, if for no other reason than to spray it at Rick if he makes me really, really mad. Lol-just kidding. So after a half hour of BS, I signed the necessary documents to turn over said contraband. Learned something new. Don’t tell the truth when someone asks a question. Again, I joke.

Back to regular stuff. The road from Portland, Maine to St. John, New Brunswick was beautiful. So green and with so many lakes and rivers, not to mention the coastline. It hit me when we saw the first beware of Moose in the roadway sign with a picture of a Bullwinkle-like creature, that I never mentioned some of the odd signs by the road that we have encountered along the way. In Florida it was alligators and jaguars, next, and for many states it was deer (as evidenced by the many deer mangled by the side of the road), but now we are deep in moose country. Part of me wants to see one, but, please not on a highway at 70 miles an hour.

We checked in to a nice and very clean 3 star hotel in St John. Glad to see they do exist and are not a figment of my imagination. We walked down to Market Square on the waterfront. It was foggy, windy and downright chilly at 63 degrees-we finally got to wear jackets and jeans! On Wednesdays, they have Saint John Idol, a local competition that has a finale with a $10,000 prize in August. There is a stage set up near the patios of the restaurants, so you can eat, drink and listen to some pretty good music. Not a bad way to spend an evening. In the background there was (Canadian) beach volleyball, which means they have to wear a lot more clothes than they do in San Diego or South Beach. After we were full and happy we started to walk back and heard some really nice music coming from somewhere close. There was a little park called King Square, and in the middle of it was a big gazebo with two people playing guitars and singing. Quite well, I might add. St John is definitely an odd little place. The population is about 70,000, and there are some pretty little areas, but there’s a kind of gritty look about the port and some ugly industrial areas on the way in that are kind of a turn off. Walking around the Historic center makes you see the good parts. It’s my favorite way to check out a new place-just get out and walk. We met a nice Canadian guy while walking who made sure we took the right turns and got to where we wanted to go.

Photos below-the moose sign will wind up on the next post. We are having technical difficulties with Rick’s phone. It will not connect to Wi-Fi, which is annoying as heck, and I took some photos with his, while my phone was busy providing the navigation portion of the entertainment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life after New York

Well, that sure was a culture shock. After 3 days at the lovely 4-star Lexington Hotel in Manhattan, we hit the road and got as far as Groton, Connecticut. Ran into another sweet Jesus, no way is this a 3-star hotel situation. I walked in to that room and wanted to cry, of course without touching anything in the process. Rick reminded me that sometimes we hit a home run on the rooms, and sometimes we strike out. This was really only the second real clunker (I might have said third, if I counted Nags Head-but it was beach front, so, bygones), and still better than Hadden Hall in Miami-lol! (Sorry Lauri) It was probably worse having come from Manhattan, and already being a little sad about leaving there….I worry that I sound kind of bratty with the whole star situation, but I really am quite flexible and open minded. I am German after all, and I expect things to be neat and clean-can’t help it.

Anyway, we got moving. Through Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and landing in Maine which was our destination. All those states, and we only drove 182 miles. Crazy! We got to Kennebunkport and had a delightful Lobster lunch. We arrived in sunshine and by the time we left a fog cover had rolled in. The contrast was as startling as those two hotels mentioned above. See the photos below. Our server at Cape Pier Chowder House has met former President Bush and his wife Barbara at the restaurant. Says they are quite friendly.

After that we started really checking out hotels in the area. This really does get tedious at times. Kennebunkport had 1-star hotels for just under $200 and 4-star as high as $840. We kept going. We found a great deal on the Westin in Portland, Maine. Just what the doctor ordered. Halle-freaking-lulljah! And we decided to stay there for two days. We are within striking distance of Canada.

We enjoyed our first evening walking down Congress Street-complete with a little music venue that looks an awful lot like The Rialto. We got up on Tuesday and Rick went to the gym while I went through over 150 Benco emails. I slacked off there a little. Oops. After that we walked to the AAA office to get some info on New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Weighed down with about 15 lbs. of books and maps, we headed back up the hill to our hotel to drop it all off. Then we really started exploring. We walked down to the pier and up and down several more hills until we decided it was time for a bite. We went to this great little place called Duckfat. Seriously, how can you go wrong with a name like that? Rick wasn’t sure he wanted to wait a whole 10 minutes for a spot at the bar-like we have something more pressing to do-lol. I persisted. They had the best Poutine I have ever had! For the uninitiated, Poutine is a big bowl of French fries (fried in duck fat), and covered with duck fat gravy and sprinkled liberally with cheese curds. Best served with an ice cold beer. Definitely worth waiting for-3 1/2 hours later I was still stuffed.

It’s hard to believe that today is exactly 6 weeks from the second beginning of the trip. Tomorrow is the beginning of the Canada portion of the road trip and after that, we make the big left turn and head west. Wow.

 

 

New York!

Bright and early on the 15th we headed to Long Island, NY, because after watching Revenge and the Barefoot Contessa, I HAD to see the Hampton’s and it’s so close to New York, so why not, right? Well, we encountered some of the nastiest storms I have ever seen, and while driving on the Interstate, with no visibility. Thank god Rick likes to drive, because, this was horrific. First off, thank you again, Steve and Linda, for lending us your spare EZ Pass-every time we go through a toll booth, we both say “Thank you Steve and Linda!” It has made life so much easier, not having to get in those long toll lines-especially in the rain. Once we hit the Cross Bronx Expressway, we were at a standstill at the Jerome underpass. There was a Cadillac sedan literally floating in the water. Luckily an ambulance needed to get through and we were able to get around, up and over and head back on to the road on the other side. When we checked in to our hotel Rick wanted to see the local news, and sure enough the lead story showed the exact underpass mentioned above. It turns out New York got 2.5 inches that afternoon. You will notice virtually no pictures taken on Long Island. This is because the rain did not let up until late on Wednesday. We still enjoyed it, but everything was gray and damp-which to a desert rat, is a thing of pure beauty, but still not that great for picture taking and sight-seeing. As beautiful as the Hampton’s were, the ridiculous traffic, made it less so. We wanted to go out to Montauk, but we were unable to break 15 mph and mostly just stop and go. We turned around and went back and ate lunch in Southhampton.

Rick decided he didn’t want to drive in to the city, nor did he want to fork out the $55 a day for parking our car in the garage there. We took the Long Island Railroad in, which was really a leap of faith. As we were contemplating our trip, the MTA and LIRR were in discussions regarding a possible strike which was to go in to effect at 12:01 Sunday morning and of course, we were due to leave Sunday afternoon. So, I was very apprehensive of this plan. Rick was fairly certain they would work it out. Off we went on Thursday morning and sure enough, on Friday morning the two parties came to an agreement and I was able to relax about it. He was right again.

We had an amazing few days in the city. The first day is always a little overwhelming, and then you kind of fall in to the natural pace of the city. Did I mention that I love New York City? God, I really do! On Thursday evening we walked around a bit and had dinner at one of our favorite places, The Grand Central Oyster Bar, which sadly was not quite up to par, and a total rip-off this time. And the Albanian server who has waited on us every time before, was kind of a jerk. But, holy cow, a pretty great martini was involved. So, that helped.

Friday morning we were off to buy our tickets to the Broadway play If/Then, with Idina Menzel. She could seriously sing names from a phonebook, and it would be phenomenal, but a story and songs make it all the better. She never misses a note. God, she’s good! We proceeded, tickets in hand, to Trattoria Dell’Arte, for a fabulous lunch and then off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a little culture and some great art. Later that night the play. We planned to stop in at the Pig and Whistle, where we usually go for a late night beverage and some live music, and lo and behold it has been replaced with some night club which looked heavily populated by your basic thugs and a pounding bass sound. Oh well. And this after realizing earlier in the day, that our old standby for hot pastrami and New York cheesecake, Roxy, has been replaced by a Radio Shack. This kind of change sucks.

On Saturday we had Asian day (Pho and Sushi in the same day!). First to a great little Vietnamese place for Pho (OBAO) and then we took the train down to the World Trade Center Memorial. Pretty powerful stuff. The last time we saw it, was in November of 2001. They have accomplished a lot here in so many ways. Our last planned event, turned out to be the very best one. We met my brother, Neal, in the East Village for an amazing night that included some great Sushi at Takahachi and a couple of bars in the area. At the end of the evening we went to a quiet little bar called Quartino and talked for hours. We enjoyed visiting with him so much, that I just didn’t want the evening to end, and was totally sad when it did. Every time I spend time with Neal I wonder why we don’t see more of each other (living so far apart doesn’t help). The first time I saw him he was just a few months old and I did not see him again until he was 17. But from that moment, we hit it off. We grew up far apart, with only a father in common (and I use the word father loosely in this case), but we seem to think and feel so similar about many things. He is just so amazing! Anyway, sometime after 1:00 a.m. Neal walked us to the subway and we made it back to our hotel around 1:30. My favorite quote of the evening was what Rick said when we walked out of the subway station at Lexington and 51st, “I get emotionally involved with the people around me-I’m worried about the girl next to me on the subway-her boyfriend is a dick.” Kind of sweet……

I did not enjoy packing our stuff up and leaving. Even Rick said he was sad to head out. I know we have more adventures ahead of us……till then

 

 

The Marshall’s!

On Thursday, the 10th of July we arrived at our old friends, Steve and Linda Marshall’s house, and stayed until Tuesday the 15th. We were so happy to see them and both of their kids, Matt and Tori. Poor Tori had four wisdom teeth removed the morning after we arrived, and while she wasn’t able to eat with us, she was quite the trooper. We had a great time there and were able to decompress after over 4 weeks on the road. Steve and Linda live in Ashburn, about 20 miles west of Washington D.C.

We went to a vineyard-and really, who knew there are wineries in Virginia? And surprise number two-the wine was good. We went to Harper’s Ferry, where the civil war started. We went in to D.C.-and did some shopping and eating in Georgetown. On Sunday we drove to Shepherdstown, WV, where Matt lives and we went to the farmers market and out to lunch. We also sneaked in to a Premium Outlet mall while we were in Ashburn. It was a nice few days. And I should mention the stellar guest quarters provided by Steve and Linda. We had the whole basement to ourselves and while that may bring a picture of cold and damp to some people, not so in this case! This is like a suite in a 5 star hotel, complete with a bar and family room. We figure we could make our master bath this nice if we got rid of the toilet and half of the walk in closet. Probably won’t do that though-I would miss my closet-lol!

 

 

To the Outer Banks

Although I had hoped to go to both Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, it was not to be….Rick decided he didn’t want to drive up the coast and that we had spent so much time on the beach already. Really? Is there a beach limit? I thought not. He was ready for an I-95 shot straight up. Didn’t seem worth arguing about, but a little sad to have missed it….We wound up stopping in a little place called Rocky Mount, where I-95 and 64 intersect, and then decided to head back to the coast and spend a few nights in the Outer Banks, which is something I just had to see. My guess is Charleston is probably similar to Savannah, and Myrtle Beach probably similar to Hilton Head. So, whatever…..

We got a place on the beach in Nag’s Head, which Rick thought was oddly appropriate and hilarious . Um, I’m not laughing…..The drive to the Outer Banks was beautiful, so green with lakes and streams and farms everywhere. The tobacco farms were so beautiful, it’s hard to believe something so pretty could be unhealthy…..You go over this really long bridge (maybe 5 miles), and then you are on the island. The strange thing is, that with Ponte Vedra and Hilton Head and all these beautiful places we have been to, it’s just a little kitschy. The first impression is not good. We immediately found a little seafood joint, that is supposedly popular with the locals and the shrimp and crab was delicious, but the clams, not so much. After lunch we headed out to the Wright Brothers Museum, which was very interesting.  And then we checked in to our “3 star hotel on the beach”. They are using the star system rather liberally on this one. But, ok. I can handle it for two nights. I walked in and wiped down every surface we might possibly touch with Cavicide wipes. For people not in the dental field, think Lysol wipes on steroids.

I kept thinking about the first time we went to Kauai, and had reservations in Kapaa. I was underwhelmed, and couldn’t believe all the hoopla I had heard about Kauai. Then we headed to Princeville and Hanalei, and I totally fell in love.  Hoping that was the case here, we decided to head north to Duck, Pine Island and Corolla to check it out. And that is exactly how it is here. The far north, is beautiful, and according to our server in the seafood place in Corolla, the south, Hatteras, and Ocracoke, is also beautiful (and just the middle is kind of meh!).  We didn’t get to see the south part, but I will take her word for it. There are still wild horses that live on the Outer Banks, and if you have a four wheel drive vehicle, you can get to the beaches where they hang out. (I guess we took the wrong car) They say the horses will actually get pretty close to you if you see them on the beach. The wild mustangs are descended from the Spanish mustangs  which arrived close to 500 years ago. You can get on a tour to see them, but advance reservations are necessary, and since we don’t know where we will be in the next week, that is not possible. This is a go by the seat of your pants kind of trip, after all.

The next stop will be outside of Washington DC, in Virginia. We have friends that live there and we will stay with them for a few days and explore around there. I am hoping they let me cook. Eating in restaurants for a month really makes you want to cook again.

Here are a few photos from the area.

Hilton Head, South Carolina

As I was writing the last post, I realized I could reply to comments left on the blog. Duh! So, if you left a comment and I did not reply, it was nothing personal. Just part of the learning curve, and I do apologize. Anyhoo, we arrived here in a rain storm that was off and on all the way here. And when I say off and on, I mean mainly on, except for the short time it took Rick to run in to the grocery store, but not long enough for him to get back out. It was pretty hilarious, but then I was the one who was dry and comfy in the car.

Another great Priceline Express deal-score on this one. We stayed at the Sonesta Resort at Hilton Head. A very nice place. It is on the ocean, and the beach is beautiful here. It is so wide and so long with white sugar sand and dunes covered in vines and grasses. It has been pretty rainy today, but, we loved it. Starting our day with a good workout in the fitness center, and following up with a long walk on the beach in the rain. Good move, because we were about to have the heaviest single meal of our trip. And it was worth every single calorie.

We went to this crazy little place called Dye’s Gullah Fixin’s. I know, it sounds pretty weird, but it is low country cooking. We are talking fried chicken (exactly like Rick’s), seafood gumbo over rice, butter beans, corn on the cob, black-eyed peas, collard greens, sweet potato pie, mac and cheese, potato salad, corn bread, and sweet potato cornbread pudding with a syrupy sauce for dessert, and let’s not forget a couple of quarts of sweet tea. I didn’t know if I could make it out to the car after all that food. Dye, the lady who owns the place, was so fun to talk to. She sat and talked to us the whole time we ate, getting up only to fill our sweet tea (which was quite a bit, actually). What an interesting lady. She works in that little restaurant seven days a week, making only so many things every day and they change daily. She loves good food and dislikes chain restaurants, cheap food, and people who don’t want to try new things. She was like my foodie soulmate…..Sunday is buffet day, and we felt obliged to try it all and have seconds of some things (okay and maybe thirds of the chicken-it was THAT good). As we left, she told us what would be served tomorrow, and we were tempted to go back, but really, so many restaurants to try and that would be a driving day. New places, new restaurants……

 

 

Georgia on my mind

Just kidding. Not really. All things considered, I have Florida on my mind, but we went to Georgia next. First stop was a delightful little spot called Polly’s BBQ (exit 58 on Highway 75, Townsend). Polly is an enterprising lady who, with her husband runs a Chevron Station with two big smokers out front and serves up some mighty terrific bbq pork sandwiches with a choice of sides- we chose the baked beans and potato salad. I read about it on yelp, as we were nearing Peach World, where Rick had to stop to buy more boiled peanuts. Anyway, Polly also bottles her own peach salsa, and corn relish and preserves and baby beets, and so many other wonderful looking things. And yes, of course I bought some. Polly was a hoot!

We made it to Savannah, which had a kind of carnival atmosphere with the 4th of July activities. Okay, carnival atmosphere is being kind. It was like Disneyland on a holiday weekend. The hotel prices never came down below the $300-$550 per night range in the Riverfront area. Aaannnddd, we are both way to frugal for that kind of nonsense. So we wandered around, had a cold beer and regrouped. Time to go to plan B. Wound up staying about 40 miles outside of Savannah, which was, I admit extreme, but that blasted city was so pricey for the weekend that Days Inn was charging $200. Uh, no thank you, and Hinesville, here we come. That place was so crowded too, that we got there and they said they ran out of rooms. I was totally stunned. I said, wow, I don’t really know what to do. This has never happened to me before when getting a room through Priceline. The two very nice ladies, said wait, let’s see what we can do, and they released a room that just had a new a/c unit installed that day. (Which was exactly what I needed, as it was ungodly hot and humid) Thank you, Miss Kathrina and Miss Val at Country Inn! You went above and beyond! And you avoided seeing a grown woman cry. They told me they turned away a lady right before I got there, who started yelling and screaming and cursing……whew! The best thing about this hotel, other than the aforementioned nice ladies, was the coin operated laundry. So while the rest of you saw fireworks, we were doing laundry and watching the fireworks on television. As Rick said, I’ve seen plenty of fireworks. Ditto.

We left bright and early the next morning and headed back to Savannah for a full day of sightseeing. The place had already emptied out quite a bit. We had an excellent lunch at the Olde Pink House, which came highly recommended. And rightfully so. I had a BLT salad which was fried green tomatoes layered with bacon which had been baked with brown sugar and mixed greens tossed with a house-made buttermilk herb dressing. Served in a tower….and accompanied by a Pink Lady-raspberry vodka and pink lemonade. I won that round on ordering. Rick got fried chicken, which was good, but he makes a better one himself!  We went to two museums and an old mansion tour. And then it started to rain. A lot. And it continued to rain all the way to Hilton Head where we had two nights reserved at a beautiful resort on the ocean……

Ponte Vedra

We thoroughly enjoyed our 3 days at Sawgrass Golf Resort and Spa. We worked out every day, we ate well every day and we swam every day. Other than that, we accomplished very little. We met some nice people and read a lot. Despite all that, it was tough to leave. We felt totally pampered and it felt great!

Still in Florida!

We sure had a tough time leaving the Keys…..but made it as far as Boca Raton, to visit old family friends-Stephanie and Milan. They had us and their daughter, Michelle over for a delicious home cooked meal-which we enjoyed immensely! And after a fun afternoon sent us on our way with a bag of homemade cookies.

Next stop was Cape Canaveral, where we stayed for two nights. We spent 8 1/2 hours at the Kennedy Space Center. What a fascinating place-I sure wish we had taken our kids there when they were little. Tyler would have loved it! On our second night there we ate in a Greek restaurant, which we have missed so much these past weeks. We shared a combo dinner called a Mezedakia-It had lamb chops, gyro and pita, stuffed grape leaves, spanakopita, tzaziki and a village salad, and had a nice bottle of Greek wine. Yum! There were only 3 tables taken in this place, while the McDonald’s across the street was packed. Go figure. Come on people, try new things, it’s good for you!

Rick picked our next stop. Ponte Vedra, between St. Augustine and Jacksonville. We found a beautiful resort called Sawgrass Golf Resort and Spa, home of The Players Championship. What a place! It’s just a shame that they were booked for the 4th, so we only got to book 3 nights here. It’s hard to believe that today is exactly 3 weeks on the road from our second take-off. Time really does fly! We plan to continue north toward Savannah and hope for a last minute place there on the historic Riverfront where the big celebration is-so far it’s not looking so good……but you never know!

 

 

 

Changes in latitude, changes in attitude

Ok, so that was borrowed from Jimmy Buffett, but I couldn’t help myself! Key West is such a laid back place, you can’t help but relax. And if you stay away from Duval Street, which is super touristy, you will really get a feel for the place. You have to go to Duval street too, but there is definitely more to Key West than that. We spent three nights here.

Something we noticed on the drive down Highway 1-the Keys get better as you drive west. Highway 1 is a 126 mile road that has 42 bridges, including the spectacular 7-mile bridge. When you first hit Key Largo, it is a bit of a shock. Kind of tacky, maybe even a little trashy looking and  having heard about the Keys, let me say this right here, no one ever mentions how incredibly bad it smells in some areas. Not all the Keys, not everywhere, and some places are worse than others-but, yikes. It seriously was so bad in places, that we were concerned that we might not be able to tolerate it. Thankfully, Key West isn’t one of the odiferous areas. Marathon Key has the best beaches, but the, um, air isn’t quite as pleasing there….As you drive toward Key West, you can feel the difference.

And, while it should be no great surprise, considering how far south and west we are, it is pretty darned hot here. We found a great place on Hotels Tonight again, and it is absolutely charming. It is called Eden House, in the Old Town area, which I would definitely recommend (and the a/c is fantastic). Eden House is the longest continuously run hotel in Key West. The main building was built in 1924. The people who work here are a friendly and helpful group of like-minded souls. A big shout out to Kayla, who was a wealth of information, and a delight to talk to! One of the many things she told us is there are still modern day pirates in these parts…something I had no idea of. On our first afternoon we wandered around for a while to get a feel for the area, and while we probably lost a few lbs. in water weight, I was able to have a few conch fritters as a snack, to insure that the weight didn’t disappear completely. Key lime pie is from this area (duh!) and they make a frozen key lime pie slice, dip it in dark chocolate and put a stick in it, and it is absolutely wonderful.

We took a tour of Ernest Hemingway’s house, which is now a museum. As we were buying our tickets, the lady at the stand told Rick that locals get in free. He apparently has that Key West, old hippie look about him….(he paid for the ticket, though) The house is beautiful, and the grounds are lush. To see where Hemingway wrote is pretty powerful. His old Royal typewriter is sitting on the table in his office which is in a guest house. There are still 48 cats living here, some of which are descendants of Hemingway’s cats. They are called 6-toed (polydactyl) cats and it basically looks like they have an opposing thumb. Kind of creepy-I had to get a close-up photo of the paws of one of them. Check it out below.

 

We spent our last afternoon by the pool talking to some of our fellow guests and enjoying the happy hour the hotel has by the pool every day. Had a nice dinner at Azur where we met two delightful couples, both of whom had a child who is a dentist. Small world! After dinner we went to Aqua for a drag show….all in all a good end to a great few days in Key West. Now here are the way too many photos I took here (you should see how many I deleted).

Our last day in Key West was also Jenna’s last day anchoring the news. Jenna accepted a position doing public relations for Goodwill of West Texas, and could not be more pleased with the move. Way to go, Jenna!