Lowell, MA Folk Festival

Today ( 7- 27-08) we took a little road trip to Lowell, MA and spent the day in the downtown area where they were having the Lowell Folk Festival, which is the largest folk festival in the USA.

Lowell has an interesting history as it was founded around 1802 by private investors and was initially designed as an industrial city that was built to spin cotton goods for the north. A planned community in the 1800's. Imagine that! Bet they didn't have HOA fees then though. :)

The streets in the entire downtown area are still paved with the original brick pavers that were installed when the city was built. Kinda cool. The folk festival itself is a world-wide draw for musicians from all over the world and you can see & hear music from every country. Quite an impressive event! Click on the slide show below for larger pictures.



This Friday Kathy and I will be leaving Exeter, NH for a couple of weeks and staying in Salisbury, MA. From there we'll explore Plymouth and the Cape Cod area. We'll return to Exeter for a week or two and then head west towards South Dakota... AFTER bike week cause I ain't got my baby no more. Boo Hoo!

We're just getting anxious to get back on the road! We LOVED staying in a nice apartment in Exeter for a month, but find ourselves missing our RV ( our home!) and also find ourselves wanting to get bck to traveling some more! Yeah, I know - it surprised us too!

Independence Day in Exeter

Last night Exeter had a little town celebration. There was a little fair, reinactments and a fireworks works show at the end of the day to top it off.

Kathy & I went to the RV, fired up the generator, grabbed a couple of toddies and enjoyed the fireworks from the parking lot. We also spent the night in our RV! We're starting to miss our home! HA! Here are some pictures. Just click anywhere ON the small pics to make them bigger :)

The Maine Trip

Well, here's my version. Not so different from Steve's. Anyway, we decided to kennel Elvis (his idea) so we could not be attached by leash to the dog, and it actually went better than I expected. Found a really good kennel, and when we got back, Elvis barely noticed we'd been gone. However, he's not letting us out of his sight at ALL!! Smart doggie.

I didn't delete that horrid picture of me sleeping, cause Steve asked me not to and I figured I could get a LOT of mileage out of that little courtesy I did. I'll be milking that one for weeks! Ha!!!!

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I knew I'd never make it up the elevator in the Observation Tower, so I didn't even give it 2 seconds thought. Steve tells people I get a fear of heights when I put on thick socks..............he may be right! I really DID want to go up to the top of Acadia National Park, up to Cadillac Mountain. It just didn't work that way. About 3/4 of the way up, the road was so so steep and the only borders were big rocks. I take my mountain roads wide, with large heavy duty guardrails, if I have to be on them at all.

After Steve got us down off the mountain, he even said that road made him a little nervous. So, yeah, beautful, but I'm gonna leave that to the rock climbers!

So, we are glad to be back in Exeter, and are looking forward to the Independence Day Celebration this Saturday. Will post pics from that.

Again, thanks for following our adventures. Take care everyone!!

DON'T FORGET TO LOOK AT THE PICTURE LINK ON STEVE'S PORTION OF THE BLOG JUST BELOW THIS. THERE ARE SOME GREAT PICTURES OF MAINE!

Sight Seeing In Maine

Just got back from a 3 day sight seeing trip along the coast of NH and Maine. We took our dog, Elvis, to a local kennel for the first time because we needed some time to ourselves so we could go out to dinner, take an excursion, etc. without having to worry about him. Bless her heart - I guess we left too early! HA! More pictures of our trip to Maine here.


Here's how Kathy started out HER sight seeing adventure as I was driving to our ultimate destination, Bar Harbor, ME.

Eventually, she woke up and we stayed at a cute little hotel in Belfast, ME that had single room cottages over looking a bay. Very relaxing to sit on the porch watching the sun set.



One would think that the water would be FREEZING... but it's actually warmer than the Pacific in southern CA. There were quite a few people swimming in the ocean. I was just playing around here :)




While we LOVE the New England area for it's beauty, we're looking forwrd to our trip across the states via I-10 this winter. Getting kind of tired of driving in the mountains!

Now PLEASE don't take this the wrong way, but I've noticed a few things about taking a vacation around here:

• It's not cheap! It's obvious that businesses make 95% of their money in June, July and August from people like us - tourists. The prices that businesses charge reflect that too! A small soft serve ice cream in Bar Harbor costs $3.75, a little hotel room ( NOT a fancy place!) starts around $125 a night, and food is a little jacked up on the prices as well. We wanted to get a hotel in Bar Harbor, but didn't want to pay the $250 a night that most of the hotels seemed to want!
• Toll roads. There are toll roads everywhere and they nickel & dime you to death... uh, I mean they DOLLAR you to death. We finally bought an EZPASS for the RV and the car so we didn't have to dig around for $1.25 here and $14.75 there. Even I-95 is a toll road up here.

OK, I'm done! We still love the area and we're back in Exeter, NH now. We will be leaving for two weeks to stay in Salisbury, MA on July 31st, and then back to Exeter until Oct. or whenever the leaves start to change :)

My Ameriplan business is humming right along now too. I sure am glad I started this thing 5 years ago:)

WTH?? Sunrise at 5am????

Wow! I love NH so far, but being this far north means the suns rises and sets at times that I'm not used to!

Sunrise is 5:05 am - which means that I'm up at 5:15am because I just get up when the sun is streaming through big windows.

Sunset is 10:30PM - which means that because I got UP at freakin 5:15 in the morning I never get to see the sun set because my tired butt in asleep in bed by 10:30pm! HA! My Dad was right... it DOES suck getting old. I can remember not too long ago, my friend and I were just getting ready to hit the bars at 10pm at night! Now, I'm in bed at 10pm. Sigh.

We are in Exeter, NH where we shall remain until fall ( sometime in Oct.) and then we'll head back to Jacksonville, FL for a few months. We're renting a sweet loft style apartment from a friend.

I saw the sign for the local golf course & driving range down the street from where we are, so I get to dust the dust off my golf clubs that are stowed in the RV and maybe do a little golfing!

We also had our 1st "at home" lobster dinner last night and THAT was fun! Kathy went to a local store and picked out a couple of live lobsters, had the store steam them for us and brought them home where we commenced to tear them UP! Only $8.99LB for lobsters, and I predict that we'll be eating them a LOT while we're here :)) We do have a "lobster pot" here in the loft, but we haven't gotten to the point where we can cook our own live lobsters... yet .

So - we will be just hanging out for awhile and probably won't have a lot to post. If we find something neat, we'll let ya know though OK?

Cheers!

Loft in Exeter, NH

Well, we made it to Exeter, NH where we'll be renting a loft apartment until sometime in Oct. thanks to our friend , Catherine. Aside from one 2 week period in August and a couple of other weekends where the place is already committed to other renters, we get to park here and enjot the New england area! Below are some pictures of the loft. Cool huh?

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From Mass to New Hampshire/July 4th Week

So,

It's July 3rd; we have finally made it back to New Hampshire (our favorite state so far). Cheap liquor, low taxes (except for property taxes and we ain't buying NO real estate any time soon).

Mass was pretty neat as well. Our campground was TOTALLY family oriented. Not that everyone wasn't especially nice, but there were literally 300 or more kids with 200 or more parents, all in golf carts. To add to the confusion, the spot we had was at an intersection of 4 dirt roads in the campground.... so because our dog is "not kid friendly", it was quite a challenge.

But we did get to meet up with a good friend from Florida and have dinner with her and her sister, and visit their home town. (see pics of Ware and Quabbin Reservoir).

We boogied on back to New Hampshire, to a place called Newfound Lake. It's rumored to be one of the cleanest lakes in the world. It is beautiful! We are right across the street from it, in a campground with NO pool, NO golf carts, and better yet, very few kids. Our campsite backs up to a wonderful babbling brook, which Steve and Elvis have explored, accompanied by a mess of mosquitos. Anyway, it's central to the White Mountains, and we have lots of privacy again, so all is well!

Today we took a trip to find covered bridges. Found three, dating from the late 1870's to one built in 2001. All were awesome, and driveable, except one closed down, so we decided not to be too adventerous. We also found the famous (here in NH) stone mountain carvings; one of the "Old Man of the Mountain" and the other the "Indian Head". So very much like our mountains of Florida (LOL).

Will be here through Monday am, then head back to Exeter, to our "secret location" where we will be for most of the summer. It's an incredible town, and we can't wait to spend some time there. There is an Indepence weekend there mid July, where characters dress like George Washington, and march down the main street citing the Declaration. (of Independence). duh!!!! We will be staying one block off Main Street, so will go get some pics and edumacation then.

Probably won't see any fireworks tomorrow; this town does them next week and we aren't all that into them anyway. Will just make a nice campfire and cook hot dogs. I know, we are way too high tech out here!

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe Independence Weekend. Happy Birthday America!!!!!!

Kathy, Steve and Elvis