Moving Out/Moving In

 

Today was the start of a new life journey for Emily. She had been packed for a month at least for college. We left at 7 a.m. We were about an hour from her school when we gassed up the car. I thought the tree, ATM was interesting.

 

The school is very efficient. They had the traffic pattern set so cars could not go by the main dorms. They had a 45 minute parking limit in the parking lot closet to the dorm so that everyone could have a turn. Upper classmen were armed with grocery shopping carts and came to the car in teams of 3. All Em’s belongings were quickly loaded up and brought to her room. It made life easy for us. Several times helpers came around to make sure things were progressing and internet connections etc. were working.

The rooms are basic dorm rooms. The photo to the left would be her roommates side. We were there first so Em picked her side. Her roommate lives in NY and was planning to come around 2. Unfortunately we didn’t get to meet her. The rooms are small, clean and looked freshly painted. When empty they have a bit of a jail cell look. Emily went about the business of making her side homey and cozy. Every room comes equipped with a special fridge/microwave unit so we didn’t have to bring one. They are energy efficient.

By the time we left around 1 Emily was pretty much settled in. Parents had to be out by 4. As we looked around it seemed that parents cleared out fairly quickly.  There were things left to put on the walls but she and Jarrett, her boyfriend, who is also a student there were planning to do that later. Em met Jarrett over the summer via the college’s class of 2014 facebook page. They became friends, eventually met and have dated primarily via Skype over the summer. He lives about an hour and a half south of us. They managed to get together every few weeks. He’s a very pleasant, upbeat kind of guy with a sunny disposition and is very outgoing so we think he’ll be a good influence on Em this year. He also lives on her floor pretty much right around the corner. I know they’ll have fun, we’re just hoping not too much fun.

Labor Day Weekend Craft Fair

Yesterday was an annual event at the fair grounds. Its been years since we went so Greg, Emily and I enjoyed a pleasant morning. We were there when it opened so the crowds were low. Hurricane Earl luckily didn’t turn out to be much so there was no cleanup to do.

Emily enjoyed checking everything out and getting some things for herself and a present for her boyfriend’s birthday which is the same day as Greg’s. Interestingly enough her last boyfriend shared a birthday with Derek, that leaves me and Mark for future boyfriends.

325 Years Young

Once again I have been tardy with posts. There never seems to be enough time. On August 21th Derek, in one of his bands, performed at our local library. This summer is Boxford’s 325the birthday. Here is a link to their first tune: Boxford's Birthday

Derek, of course, is on drums. The sax player is a senior at Derek’s school. He’s extremely talented and joined the group on the spur of the moment with only one rehearsal. Derek is in another band with him. Keyboards is Ryan, a long time friend from high school. He is a senior at Northeastern for music business. Derek is in a bluegrass band with his family. He and Ryan are also in another band with other guys as well. The bass player is another friend from high school. The guys gave a solid performance and its clear there is some serious talent in the group.

Fun While It Lasted

 

Greg and Mark spent last weekend camping and ATVing in Maine. They stayed at a campground on the Kennebec River located in the small town of Solon.

 

 

The campground is located on an old Indian camp.

After setting up on their site they went for a ride along the river. They were able to access the trail system right from the camp site.

 

The first ride took them across the top of this hydroelectric dam on the river.

 

And along the river on an old rail bed converted to a multi-use trail.

 

 

The first evening they ate dinner on this deck. Not exactly roughing it. The campground also had 5 cabins like the one above.

 

On Sunday they explored many other trails and found scenic mountain vistas like these.

 

This mud bog was located off one of the rails. Mark just had to give it a try.

 

They covered nearly 70 miles on Sunday, and made several stops along the way to take in the views.

 

They came across this picturesque farm along the way.

 

The day ended with some beef stew around the campfire.

 

Monday morning they woke up to a light rain and decided to pack up and head home to dry the tents.  

Update

 

Mark is on vacation for the next two weeks. He and Greg are heading north first thing Saturday morning and plan to come back Tuesday. They are going old school, hard core camping. Above are some of the supplies they have been gathering for the last week. Last night they were talking about all the flashlights they were bringing I though perhaps they would like a generator.

I’ll be working Saturday and Monday. Camping isn’t really my thing. Above is the new computer I got about a week ago. It’s a Dell Studio 1749, icore 5 with 8 gig ram, 1 terabit hard drive, ati 1 gig graphic card etc. My other one was 3.5 years old and tediously slow struggling to handle new software. Anyway, we’ll all be playing in our own way.

Paradise in the North

 

Greg and Mark came back yesterday evening from their Maine get-away. They both had a great time riding the trails and stopping to explore. The weather was perfect – upper 70’s with low humidity.

Above is what some of the easy trails looked like. Others were more like goat paths with large rocks and boulders and at one time had been part of logging operations. Mark’s ATV hit the 500 mile milestone on this trip.

 

They stopped to explore a stream along the trail. It has been fairly dry and the water levels were low. Always the optimist Mark was hoping to find some gold in the creek. He did bring me home a very sparkly rock.

They also explored the banks of the Sandy River near the town of Strong. The water was not that cold and it would have been a great place to swim on a hot day.

They came upon this hunting camp along the trail with some trophy antlers mounted above the entry.  Most are very rustic, but this one looked like the windows had been recently replaced. Notice the ATV reflection in the upper window.