Home again, Home again
Jul 24th, 2006 by john
Well, we’re in Maine and are slowly getting settled in. I should have been updating this earlier, but I’ve been WAY too busy.
So, here are some observations Colette & I have had since coming back:
- Everything is BIG – cars, trucks, grocery carts, packages of kleenex, size of soft drinks at fast food places (I can order a small and it’s like an Aussie medium)
- Maine is GREEN! It’s so lush here this year. We’ve had lots of rain and the foliage is thick.
- Things are cheap! Going out for brekky and paying less than $12.00 for 2 people is pretty nice.
Here are some hilights of the trip home:
- Our flight was delayed in Chicago so we didn’t get into Rochester until almost 3am. Poor Paul had to come and pick us up in the middle of the night.
- We had a great time at a friend of my sister’s place in the big town of Albion NY. He owns an old quarry that’s filled in with water that makes a nice pond. Even being jet-lagged we had a good time.
- Yet another flat tire. This is kind of a ‘bookend’ event. On our way to Australia, we had a flat tire on the camper on the thruway when I ran into the world’s biggest pot hole. This time we were just east of Syracuse when the truck started feeling strange and I noticed lots of smoke coming from the trailer. I pulled over and the other tire was now flat. Fortunately, we had good spares both times.
- We got home to find the basement had some water and damaged some things. Fortunately, nothing major, but we did have to get a repairman in to fix our old 36″ TV. A diode died on it. Whether or not that was connected to the moisture, who knows?
- Mice had moved into our lawnmower! The first time I mowed the lawn I pulled the lawnmower out of the shed and changed the spark plug and filled it up and did a basic check. When I pulled the cord, out ran 4 little gray mice! My dad and I finally took the engine all apart this weekend (after scaring out the mice again) and found out they had built quite the nest in the top of the engine casing.
- The Connie (a 94 Kawasaki Concours -aka- GTR1000) is a much different ride than the Suzuki Bandit! Whew. There’s a much bigger lag between telling it to go and when it starts going. Next year, I’m going shopping for a new bike.
- We’ve had to buy a bunch of furniture and are waiting for it to get delivered. In the meantime we’re sitting on some fun camping chairs. Talk about comfy. not!