Gone to the Dogs and Back

My plan to leave Massachusetts fairly early and beat the Labor Day traffic rush to get back to Connecticut at a reasonable hour actually worked out quite well though that meant that Amanda and I had to leave Salem before Walt and Juli got back from Montreal so we didn't get a chance to hear about how wonderful of a trip it was.  From the looks of the pictures I saw on Facebook, Walt was having a wonderful early birthday celebration and even though they missed those two little fellas pictured above, I'm glad he and Juli felt like they were in good hands and could relax and enjoy themselves.

Speaking of hands, yep - that's mine to the right giving Dewey a bit of a head scritch - something that I count as a great accomplishment.  Unlike JayJay, Dewey is a bit on the shy side and it takes some time for him to warm up to people and let himself be touched so when he would actually nudge my hand and tap on my arm with his tiny little paw in a "Hey!  Pet me!" sort of way, I deemed that to be a great honor!

It wasn't just all dog-walking and house-sitting for me this weekend though as I managed to not only do some wandering around the North Shore but also make a rather unplanned drive up to New Hampshire early Saturday morning.  I had a phone call from Juli around 10:00 or so on Friday night explaining that she had a bit of conundrum as she and Walt had accidentally left their passports behind and they weren't going to be able to make their planned trip to Montreal without them.  Ut-oh.  They had stopped for their first night at the Quechee Inn about three hours away and it was as Juli was thinking of the day ahead of them on Saturday that the thought dawned on her that their passports were sitting in the kitchen cupboard back in Salem.

Well, I did what any friend would do and offered to drive them up to them as how could Walt celebrate his birthday in Montreal if he couldn't even get through the border crossing?  Juli said that if we could meet halfway that would be great but as neither she nor Walt really liked driving at night it would be better if we did it early in the morning.  Now anyone who knows me knows that I am not exactly a big fan of early mornings but knowing that the earlier I got going, the better it would be as far as traffic went and the better it would be for Juli and Walt to get to Canada without losing too much time having had to backtrack a bit so I said "Sure!"  I Googled a halfway spot that would be easy for both of us to find, said I'd meet them there at 7:30, and went to bed hoping I wouldn't be too groggy in the morning.

At 5:00 (late by Barb's standards!), I climbed out of bed, took a quick shower, went down and fed the dogs and let them out, watered the plants out front, and then hit the road north while getting a last look at the lovely full moon that was setting while the sun was rising.  If I'd had time I would have stopped to take some photos but I was a woman on a mission and there simply wasn't time.

After meeting up with Walt and Juli at a Hampton Inn just outside of Concord, New Hampshire, hugs were exchanged all around as I handed them their passports and then they insisted on buying me breakfast at a nearby little restaurant.  After breakfast, more hugs were shared and they started towards Canada while I headed towards Ipswich in Massachusetts.  As I came down I-93 southbound through New Hampshire and saw all of the traffic backed up at the toll booths that I had practically sailed through about an hour earlier, I was quite glad that we planned to meet early and avoided all that.  Whew!

I got as far as Epping, New Hampshire when my gas light came on so I stopped to fill 'er up at prices that were .40 cents a gallon cheaper than here in Connecticut; not that $3.63 is anything to dance a jig about but it sure the heck beats $4.03 a gallon!  In celebration I decided to splurge on a car wash - as pictured above! - before continuing my journey south. En route I stopped at one of the New Hampshire State Liquor Stores and picked up a few bottles of wine - one for myself and one as a thank you gift for the gal who was checking on Tesla for us while we were gone - as well as a bottle of 12-year old Jameson that my dispatch partner has been hankering for.  Granted, he's going to pay me back for it so it's not like I'm some wonderful partner who bought the bottle for him but he was still very happy to pay the discounted price that the store was offering and he was very happy that I thought of him while I was there.

Continuing southeast, I soon arrived at the destination I had planned to visit that day - the Crane Estate on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in Ipswich, Massachusetts.  Just a little "summer home" for an industrialist from Chicago who made his fortune on the advent of indoor plumbing and would spend a whopping six weeks a year there with his wife and two children.

Uhm, yea, summer home - sure, if you say so!  I won't write too much more about the house here as I'll be writing a full-blown post for Travels With Nathaniel  (hopefully soon) so if you'd like to learn more about the stately English manor house and the beautiful grounds surrounding it, you are invited to stop by there at some future point.

I will say that photos were NOT allowed inside the house however, they didn't say anything about taking photos of the grounds from the windows of the house so I took the one above with my iPhone just to give you an idea of how beautiful the Grande Allée is. Following my house tour, I walked the entire half-mile uphill/downhill stretch to the end where one gets an absolutely beautiful view of the ocean and a much welcome breeze, too!

Of course, once I was all the way out there, I had to walk all the way back!  I bet on a nice crisp, fall day it's a great walk but on a hot, humid end-of-summer day I could have really used a bottle of water! And lighter clothing! Ah well, it was good exercise and the view was certainly worth the walk!

Once I finished walking around the rest of the grounds and taking more photos than I'll ever need or use, I decided that it was way past time for food so I drove back to Rowley to do some "research" for another Travels With Nathaniel  post at the historic Agawam Diner.  

Now, I know that a lot of you have been posting pictures of your food and talking about all of the fantastic healthy eating that you've been doing so I almost feel guilty about posting the following pictures - almost! - but in the name of research, sometimes a gal just has to make some sacrifices and eat things like grilled beef franks with a really delicious potato salad and tasty cole slaw ... 

... and then follow it up with a slab of some of the best lemon meringue pie I've had in quite some time.  With a crust that wasn't soggy at all!

So ... all of that walking from one end of the Grande Allée to the other and back in the hot sun was pretty much negated by lunch but how could I write a post about how good the diner food was at the Agawam Diner if I didn't actually eat any?  Exactly, I couldn't! However, because it was late in the day, I didn't eat any dinner so this was really two meals. Two very delicious meals!

To wrap up my weekend, I spent most of Sunday writing the post on the Agawam Diner and then at night I drove down to Logan Airport to pick up a friend of Juli's who was flying in from India.  He had a heck of a time getting through Customs as apparently all of the agents were taking a holiday weekend and there were only two on duty so by the time I got back to Salem, it was after midnight and definitely time for bed.

Today we made the drive back home after I took the pups for a final walk around the neighborhood and arrived back home to a cat who acted like we had abandoned him for days on end!  Obviously Tesla missed us as he's been wrapped around Amanda since we got home but I know that he was well taken care of while we were gone as he had plenty of food and water in his bowls when we arrived home.

Heck, I just don't get it - I sometimes wish that people would leave me at home for three-and-a-half days by myself!  I'd sure enjoy the peace and quiet but then, look at all the great stuff I'd miss! 

Touching Base on Tuesday

Just popping in for a quick post before work to say "Hi!" and dust off the cobwebs. It was another busy batch of days off for me - not because I went anywhere exciting, mind you, but simply because I was up to my eyeballs in everyday stuff.  With a couple of overtime shifts scheduled for this weekend I suspect that it shall be the same on my next batch of days off but that's okay as I haven't worked any overtime in quite awhile and I could use the extra cash for future wanderings!

The picture above is from my last trip to the North Shore with Barb way back in early July though it sure doesn't seem like it could have been a month and a half ago already!  That picture above shows the Twin Lighthouses of Thacher's Island which I pointed out to Barb from the shore near Rockport, if you're interested in learning more about them check out my latest post on Travels With Nathaniel  titled "Going to Gloucester for Great History, Gorgeous Views, and Good Eats!" Not only can you learn about the Twin Lighthouses but take a virtual tour around other nice parts of Gloucester which is America's oldest fishing community and a place I'd love to live someday if I were to ever win that elusive lottery!

After going up to Day Kimball Hospital yesterday morning and having the second half of an EMG done to see if my carpal tunnel syndrome had flared up again or if there was another reason I have numbness in my fingers and pain in my shoulder (the doctor said that the test didn't indicated CTS or any nerve damage), I went to visit with my mom for a bit who is doing great and not showing any signs of the stroke she suffered in May.  They are having a deuce of a time getting the dosage correct with the blood thinners that's she's on and she said that her sugar has been out of whack as they've changed her medications with that too but otherwise she gets around pretty darned good and is doing well.  Until they get her prescription right on those blood thinners, though, I told her she'd best not even get a paper cut or she'd be in trouble!

Following that visit, I came home and took a Benadryl as my arms had broken out pretty badly from where the metal leads of the test device they used at the hospital had been applied as I seem to have developed a horrible metal allergy as of late.  That knocked me right out so I found myself going to bed at 7:45 and not getting up (except for that short break in the middle of the night when my bladder was screaming at me!) until 5:00 this morning.  Yikes!  I should be well rested for work at any rate!  At least that's my hope though I'm sure a nap will sound lovely right around 2:00 this afternoon but that will most likely be when most of the 911 calls come rolling in as it's another of Murphy's Laws that the number of 911 calls meets or exceeds the number of yawns executed by a dispatcher at any give time!

Ah well, speaking of which, time to climb into my uniform and go earn a paycheck.  Hope all is well in your parts of the world no matter where they may be! 

Weather and Wandering

I don't know about in your part of the world but when Summer arrived this past Wednesday, it brought with it a rather nasty heat wave filled with all the things I dislike the most about New England summers - haze, heat, and humidity.  Ugh!  Thankfully it only lasted three days - just long enough to be recorded as a heat wave in the annals of meteorology! - before some pretty severe thunderstorms blew through the region on Friday evening and cleared things out.

Even though some pretty impressive dark clouds rolled into town, we didn't get much to speak of here in Norwich but rumor has it that a lot of other parts of the state saw hail, lightning, and lots of thunder.  I was a little disappointed that we didn't get the big storm as I do enjoy a nice thunderstorm but as we all know, there's certainly no controlling Mother Nature!

The weather didn't really bother me too much as I spent the majority of the heat wave working but it certainly increased the number of 911 calls that we got - to no one's surprise at all.  I oftentimes wonder how we all managed to survive before the advent of air-conditioning and things like "cooling centers" that are quick to open when the temperatures reach a certain level.

I've got an air-conditioner in my bedroom as well as one in the living room along with several fans spread throughout the house so it doesn't get too uncomfortable at all in the house but I remember one summer long ago, when I was about 14 years old, when we lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in government housing on Pease Air Force Base where there was certainly no air-conditioning and we kids didn't even have the luxury of a fan in our rooms.  It was about as oppressive as it gets with nary a breeze to stir the air so, in what was probably total desperation, I got out of bed, went into the bathroom, filled the sink full of cold water, and stuck my head in the sink in an effort to cool down some! I guess even back then I was blessed with a little bit of my ancestors' Yankee ingenuity!

Anyway, all weather aside - and I'm sure we'll have at least another heat wave or two before the summer is over - I wanted to mention that there's a new post up at Travels With Nathaniel  that you might find interesting even if you aren't going to be doing any traveling here on the East Coast. If you've got a moment, stop by Be Adventurous and Explore Provincetown at the Tip of Cape Cod Just Like the Pilgrims Did in 1620 ... Just Don't Take a Slow, Leaky Boat to Get There! and you might just learn a bit of America's history that you didn't know before - honest!

Introducing "Travels With Nathaniel" - One of the Reasons I Spend So Much Time in Salem Lately Other Than I Love It Up There!

Most of you have probably noticed that I seem to wander up to Salem, Massachusetts on a pretty frequent basis lately - even more so than I did when Amanda was briefly attending college in Beverly at the Montserrat College of Art.  There's been good reason for that other than the fact that I really love it up there and have made some wonderful friends in Salem with whom I enjoy spending time with as often as possible; I've been working on a project for the Hawthorne Hotel and I'm happy to say that today that project has been launched.

I am pleased and even a bit nervous to introduce Travels With Nathaniel - a travel blog that I am writing in conjunction with the Hawthorne Hotel which will provide guests of the hotel with information and ideas on historic places to visit as possible day trips from the hotel.  As a member of Historic Hotels of America, the Hawthorne feels that it's important to give their guests the opportunity to visit more of the history that's located nearby - and not just in Salem itself - and this new blog will hopefully help them to do that.

When I was first approached by the hotel this past winter about taking on this project I had no hesitation at all in saying something along the lines of "Heck, yeah!"  I mean, really, this is like a dream come true in that I get to search out history and then write about it and share it with others (hmmm, sound at all familiar??) but this time I'll have a wider audience.  Add on the fact that the Hawthorne plans to eventually take the posts and turn them into a book and how could I say 'no'?  The thought never even crossed my mind!

This isn't a project that will go on forever as we have a list of places that I am working off of but in the meantime, yes, it takes up a lot of time that I might have used otherwise writing posts here or at The Distracted Wanderer but that's perfectly okay by me as I am totally loving working on this new project.  I've found some absolutely wonderful places to visit and learned so much interesting history along the way while putting the Nikon through its paces and I wouldn't trade that for anything!   Add on the fact that my traveling companion - little Nathaniel up there - has made my wanderings even more interesting and fun as people stop and ask me what on earth I'm doing when photographing him (generally at arm's length it seems); when I explain it to them they have all, without a single exception, said "What fun!" and "What a great idea!" and I can't help but agree as what a terrific way to bring history to people. And you all know how much I love history!

I want to also take the time here to say thank you to my friend Claire -aka The Doodologist - who has been a great source of inspiration and encouragement as I've been putting this new blog together, and to Juli and Kristie of the Hawthorne without whom there would even be a project and who have provided me with everything I need to get it going - especially the fact that they believe in me and trust me to do this project right.  Ladies, you are all wonderful!

So, if you get the chance, pop on over to Travels With Nathaniel and tell me what you think. We'll be publishing a new travel post each Monday and Friday and even if you aren't a guest of the Hawthorne Hotel, I hope that there will be some interesting history that you'll like so much that maybe - just maybe - you'll be inspired enough to eventually BE a guest of the Hawthorne Hotel so you can see some of the great things I've seen in one of the most history-rich areas of the country.

In the meantime, I'm busy but I'm definitely lovin' it!