Bluff Spring Journal
June 2009
June 3, 2009
The last day of school! Enough said? We love'em but occasionally they need a break from us.
I'm teaching 10 workshops between now and our vacation. Why did I do that?
June 8-12
Great group of people this week at the workshops. It's truly good to see teachers giving up their well deserved break to pursue additional skills to help them in the classroom. Some are even teaching summer school and then hurrying over to take an afternoon class. I've visited a few summer school classes. I want to go back to school! I saw lots of engaging activities that made me wish for 'School Days'. Only there is a lot more going on than 'Readin' and 'ritin' and 'rithmetic.
My brother flew in from Jacksonville, Fl for a weekend visit with our family. It was good to catch up on all that we miss by living so far apart. I drove him down to West Plains and we had dinner with Mom. I'm proud to say that I paid for the check. It's a feat just to keep Mom from paying and it really irritates her when we pay for things. Hey, she has no one to blame but herself. That's the way she raised us.
June 13
Off to Mt. View, Ar for the Fowler family reunion. We made the drive in about three hours. Of course we stopped along the way a few times. Breakfast at our favorite resturant. Corsey's Smoked Meats for some smoked swiss cheese and ham. I don't know how it happened but some bacon got into our bag. hmmm.. Then a final stop in Leslie at Serenity Farm Bread for a couple of loaves of the best bread you could ever pass under the palate of your mouth.
It was great to see everyone. There were about 35 people at the lunch. We ate at Jo Jo's Catfish Wharf. No guilt here. I had the baked catfish. Of course the hush puppies made my diet take a small vacation of it's own.
My other brother Bruce and my little sister Cathy made the trip from the Dallas area. Hey guys here's your chance, she's single. Here's a link to the rest of the family.
Tuesday June 23
Off to the friendly skies for some much anticipated time alone with my lovely bride. We’re headed to Acadia National Park which I have been erroneously pronouncing Arcadia National Park for the past month. How I ever got that into my brain I will never know but I apologize to all my workshop participants who were either forgiving or didn’t know how to pronounce it either. There’s more to the story that I’ll get to later.
The plane ride to Chicago and then the connecting flight onto La Guardia were uneventful which is the way I like flying. I was almost hopeful that this would hold true but then we had the purely charming experience of catching our plane onto Bangor Maine. I don’t know who or why but someone suffered a lapse of intelligence when doing the planning for this airport. Hummm… they wondered, why not have persons exit their arriving terminal, go outside, catch a bus and ride it to another terminal and then just for fun have them go back through security again. It’ll be fun watching them taking off their shoes, belts, watches, emptying their pockets, taking off their hats and going through metal detectors all over again. Note: Never fly through La Guardia again.
Lower Manhattan
After landing in Bangor-on a turbo prop-yes, it was bumpy, we picked up our rental car and trustingly took the advice of the counter representative at Enterprise and took a right onto I-95. It’s here that I must introduce you to the third party along with us on this trip. Her name is Debbie Directions or Double D and I like to call her. I had programmed our trip to Bar Harbor into to Debbie and she was not happy with the way we were starting our trip. After the 2nd ‘Recalculating’, comment from Debbie and her insistence on us turning around we finally took her advice and did just that to get on the right course to Bar Harbor. As you’ve probably guessed DD is a GPS. This one is made by Garmin. She was to prove herself invaluable on this trip as we navigated our way through down east Maine.
As I stated earlier I’ve nick named this the Great Lobster tour as I plan to eat my way across Mt. Desert Island. There was no better time to start the tour than an hour after having arrived in Maine. I had done some research and had located a celebrated Lobster Pound, the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound, to be our first stop. The pound didn’t disappoint us in the least as we picked out our live lobsters to be cooked in salt water in outside pots heated by wood fired ovens. It was a little more work than my lovely bride had in mind but we cracked and clawed (pun intended) our way to a very delicious meal. What a great way to start our trip.
Wednesday
We purposely had nothing planned for our first day in Maine. We just wanted to tour around and get our bearings. Our first stop was Schooner Head inside Acadia NP.
Thursday
Mt. Washington road trip today. We've heard it's the worst weather on earth. Wind speed clocked at 231 miles per hour still stands as the all-time surface wind speed record. We're hoping for a little calmer conditions. Here's the railroad train that took us to the top.
Mt. Washington Cog Railway
After some time at the summit which only sported fog and a little wind we stopped at the Mt. Washington Hotel and had a delightful lunch on the veranda.
Mt. Washington Hotel
The area also had several waterfalls. Below is the Silver Cascade Waterfall.
Back in Bar Harbor we continued to explore Acadia National Park. We stopped at Jordan Pond and after some great Lobster Bisque we took a little time to enjoy the peacefulness of this place.
Jordan Pond, Acadia National Park
Inlet into Frenchman's Bay