INTERWEBZ!!

OMG y'all, it's the Internet! I haven't been online since Monday, and on Monday I forgot to post. I got so wrapped up in email that I spaced a post. Sorry. Before Monday I hadn't been online since the previous Wednesday. Holy crap, y'all. That's a long time!

I'm on the homeward leg of my trip. OMG I have had a fantastic time. I camped. There are pictures.

Today is the longest day of the year. Taking full advantage of that, I woke up at 4:30 this morning to break camp and head out. Left the campground around 6, iirc, and headed east to St. Johnsbury, VT. Strange name. Pretty town. Got gas and caffeinated coffee!! First caffeine I've had for days! It was utterly thrilling!! I still feel buzzed from it. OK, not really. I feel buzzed from being over-tired. I drove through a bunch of New Hampshire then into Maine, down the center (or something - not the coast) to New Hampshire again, because one must go through New Hampshire to get to Massachusetts from Maine. So I did. I got as far as Southington, Connecticut.

OMG, y'all, I haven't told you about Skippy yet! He's Skippy the Wander Bear. Because he goes with me when I wander. I got him in North Carolina in a little shop on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Here he is in the truck when we got to the campground in Vermont. He's excited about it, but it's hard to tell. This is the mess of my truck after approximately 10 days on the road. Skippy is very patient with me. He makes an excellent traveling companion. I can talk to him and he doesn't argue with me.

Although I didn't have access to the interwebz, I did take notes. I've got lots of stuff written in a little notebook, mostly the kind of things I'd write here if I could. Since I wrote down the info about Skippy, I forgot that I hadn't actually told you for real. I'll get back to that (I hope), transcribing (or interpreting) my notes into blog posts. I'll tell you then how Skippy got his name. Waffle House is involved.

My mind is all over the place. Beer is a contributing factor, but I was pretty crazy before I had my first. I've only just started on my second. I'd better hurry and write before I get to my third, because I have no idea what kind of foolishness will spill out from there.

Tonight's selections include Third Shift and Samuel Adams' Irish Red. Happiness ensues.

You wanna see the conestoga? I made sure to take pictures this morning before I took it down.

How groovy is that? From another perspective, how redneck (hick, podunk, hillbilly, white trash, bootleg) is that? WTF, I like it. I mentioned in the last post that I hadn't figured what to do about the sides. Well, I got an inspiration at the Black and Blue store (Red White and Blue thrift store in Pittsburgh, but I like to call it Black and Blue because it's fun and it irritates Light). Shower curtains!! They already have holes in them for hangin' and they're about the right length. Two of the three I got are extremely light weight. And I think they are all pretty. Put together with that crazy plaid, it all looks, well, bootleg, but what the fuck. Maybe one day I'll get it all color coordinated, but if not, what the hell? 

Here's the rundown of the trip so far. I went first to Indiana, PA to visit Light. There is more to say about that, but for now I'll say I had a lovely time. I was there from ... Saturday to Friday (6/8 to 6/14). Then I drove to Troy, New York to visit Breen Acres (Sean and Jeffrey). I was there until Tuesday 6/18. Man, what fun!! Of course I also saw Harvey Milk and Rita Mae Brown. They are the stars of the show, no doubt. I had a truly marvelous time visiting the Breens. 

On Tuesday I went to Vermont. I've been fascinated with Vermont for a while. Superman researched the state for a story he wrote, and he is pretty fascinated with the place as well. I wish he could have been with me. I drove from the capital district of New York to Bennington, VT, then hit highway 7 north to Rutland, Middlebury, and Burlington. I hung a southeast out of Burlington on highway 2 to Montpelier. From there I continued on US 2 to Groton Forest Road (called New Discovery Rd on Google Maps, but whatever). The campground where I stayed is called Groton Forest Rd Campground, so we'll call the road Groton Forest Road. OK? It's a small privately owned campground. Simple, but with nice facilities. Definitely functional and handy. I set up between two very nice camper trailers. Oh, yeah, I looked very hillbilly. I'll let you know if I start to give a shit about that. 

Did you get to see tonight's full moon? Actually, I think it's maybe a day short of full, but close enough. The sky here is very clear and the moon is awesome. How cool is it that the Summer Solstice coincides with a full moon? Very. 

I'm at the Days Inn in Southington, CT tonight. Skippy says that camping is fun and all, but Hey! Hotel rooms are really nice! 

Beer #2 is gone, and I've been awake and active for approximately 19 hours. Since I'd like to get to Virginia tomorrow, sleep would be an excellent idea right about now. 

There is more to say, but you will have to wait. 

Oh, except this one thing. Ur-Spo, I drove through Tewksbury today! No rats were consumed. *N.B. Massachusetts spells the town "Tewksbury" whereas England adds an "e": Tewkesbury. Not sure how rats are involved, but I suspect it's a rather sordid affair. 

(Just realized that today I've been to every state in New England except Rhode Island. Is that why I'm tired?)

Road Trip update

Warning: drunk blogging ahead

I gotta tell you, the summer climate here is SO much better than back in South Carolina. The temps this week are about 10 to 15 degrees (F) lower than what poor ol' Superman is suffering. It's warm here, but bearable. Here's a thermometer I saw in the shade at noon. Isn't this lovely?

We don't want to talk about what this thermometer will look like 6 months from now. It hangs beside the mailboxes at an apartment complex where Light was investigating housing options. We've looked at some apartments, and have more to look at tomorrow and maybe Thursday.

As we drove around the area today we come upon this view. Isn't it lovely? This is a hillside west of Indiana, Pennsylvania.
Also, Pennsylvania is fun to type. As is Massachusetts. Schnecdity isn't nearly as fun, because I don't really know how to spell it, even though C and I stayed in a very scary motel in Schnectidy last summer. Scnectidy. Schnectity. OK, using spell check now: Schenectady. See? That was not nearly as fun as Pennsylvania or Massachusetts, which I can type without getting those mean red lines under them.

Now, about the drunkenness. I'm not really drunk, just a bit buzzed. On of all things, beer! Yes, I'm developing a taste for beer. I've been working on it for a few months now, starting at a local Greenwood eatery I may have mentioned before, a pizza place with lots of beer options. Tonight I'm drinking Shock Top, a Belgian white beer with a hint of orange. I've had two, which is all I'm going to have tonight. I got a great deal on it, though, from a bargain beer store where I had to buy a case of bottles. That's the smallest quantity they sell. The price per bottle was just over $1.20. Actually, I don't know if that's a great deal or not. I hardly ever buy beer from a store. I get it at restaurants, where it's more expensive. I don't even know how much beer costs from the restaurant. I rarely pay attention, since Superman pays the check.

We left the quaint rustic hotel today. The window unit air conditioner was blowing something we suspect is mold into the room, causing Light's sinuses to explode (metaphorically). She could barely breathe. We didn't use the air conditioner at all the last day and a half, and that helped a bit, but she was still suffering. So was I, what with my intolerance for heat. It wasn't terribly hot, but it wasn't comfortable either. So we're at a Comfort Inn on the south end of town. The room is probably three times the size of the one we had in the other place. It is prettier, but has much less character. We're paying twice what we did at the other place, but saving a bit of money with discounts available at local eateries by presenting our key card. Yes, our key cards are also discount coupons. Cool, huh? There is some other kind of savings over the other place, but I forget now what it is.

And speaking of character, here are some pictures of the bathroom in the old place. This is the floor of the shower.
The shower floor has the same tile pattern as the rest of the bathroom floor. It has a pleasant geometric balance, though these colors wouldn't be my first choice.
The shower looks almost like it could be a tub, but it isn't quite. It's big, almost 5 feet long and 3.5 feet wide. Light took her showers in the morning and had irregular water pressure, but my evening showers had near perfect pressure. I dunno.
I seem to be rambling. I'm getting tired and my beer buzz is nearly gone. We've got apartments to look at tomorrow, and perhaps we'll go to the Jimmy Stewart museum. Did I mention that Indiana, PA is his hometown? Yes, and his voice instructs pedestrians crossing all the intersections along the main east/west road through downtown. It's charming and disarming. The locals who work downtown are probably sick of the man's voice by now.

Oh, look, I'm rambling again. I got hot and sticky today, so I'm going to take a shower and go to bed in my nice cool motel room. Light just went to bed and is covered with a blanket and the comforter. I'll probably only need the sheet. This is great.

This just in

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A small hotel on Turkey's Mediterranean coast has fired all its male employees for repeatedly having affairs with foreign female guests, the manager said on Wednesday.

Pelin Yucel, manager of Image Hotel in Marmaris, said her 27-room hotel now only employs female staff. Most of the guests are British and Russian tourists, she said.

"We had been facing the same problem every year but after the last incident we decided to run the hotel by only female staff," she told Reuters by phone.

"The last straw was when I saw our bartender, who was a very decent man, walk out of the bathroom with a British tourist," Yucel was quoted in the media as saying.

Around 20 million tourists visited Turkey last year, many of them drawn by its sandy beaches and turquoise waters.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

Well, if she fired the philandering male staff, what's the purpose of going to that hotel anymore?  She obviously didn't realize what a good thing she had going there.