Tucketon, NJ to Dover, NH

Mon June 30

I have another errata to correct. I received and email from Meg, whom I met on the eastern shore to inform me that her name is really Susan. My apologies. Hence you shall be called Susan! She informed me that she kayaked some on Assateague but the bugs were ferocious so she and Jim cancelled the rest of the trip and are going to a Bluegrass festival instead. Sounds like a great plan!

This morning I woke up having slept very well and rode my bike around the Park before anyone else was stirring. It was great having it to myself. Very peaceful. There were a few flies after me so I kept moving. I rode on some trails through the pines and the trees were very green and there were rhododendrons and blueberry bushes in the under story. Are the bases of the trees and anywhere the earth was bare there were beautiful mosses growing! I was surprised to see them as the Pine Barrens were named because not much was supposed to grow here. Turns out to be a really cool eco system with a lot going on in small ways. Everything was wt this morning after the thunderstorm last night. I cut fruit and nuts for breakfast and headed north up Rt. 9. I passed through Atom’s River and headed for the coast.

New Jersey

I hit the coast at Spring Lake, NJ (thanks for the recommendation Teresa) It is a beautiful community right on the beach with some huge houses and a grand old beach hotel. See pic. I took a break and rode my bike and looked at all the grand old houses ad the grand new houses. then drove on up the beach. I started getting hungry and stopped a bicycle cop to ask about a good lunch and he recommended a pizza joint! I should have know by now! So I had a couple of great NJ Pizza slices! One with everything and another with tomatoes and ricotta! Very good Pizza! Huge slices. I am SO full!!. I drove on up the beach. And passed a building shaped like a large confection. Then another like a windmill.

I continued up to the very Northern tip of the coast to Sandy Hook. There is a National Park and a Fort there and I heard there is a nude beach but i never saw it. I biked around and explored the old fort remains and then went to the beach for a swim. After that i was planning for the morning a car ferry ride to Manhattan so I went to find the ferry terminal but discovered that there are no more car ferries into Manhattan. Oops! SO I revamped my plan and drove west a bit to Cheesequake State Park. I camped there for the night and made a plan to drive to Hoboken in the morning and take the person ferry over to 39th Street. I found a great site off to myself and drank a Youngs Oatmeal Stout and relaxed. As I was getting ready for bed the people nearby started shooting fireworks. Warming up for Independence Day. They didn’t last long and soon I drifted off.

I woke up at 4 am with my left foot hurting. It has been sore since the Outer Banks and I realized I must have stepped on glass or something walking on the road there. I thought it was just a stone bruise but now it needs attention. So I got out my first aid kit, sterilized a sewing needle wiped it and my heel down with alcohol and began to dig. The skin on my feet is so tough that I bent the needle in the process of getting through but was able to open up a small area and then out popped a small piece of glass. I wiped it all with alcohol and then Neosporin and a band-aid. It felt better already. Since I was completely awake I cut up some fruit and headed out. I reached the front gate of the park only to find it locked! My first encounter with a Park gate I could not get though. So I parked and ate my fruit and listened to a great Jazz station on the radio. At 7 am the first employee showed and I was free. I drove into Hoboken and found, parking space and was on the 8:30 ferry to Manhattan.

It was a beautiful day and 10 minutes later I was walking up 40th St. I cut over and up to 42nd. The theater district and then up Broadway all the way to Central Park. All the shops were opening and people headed for work and breakfast. It’s a great time to walk the Streets of NY. Central Park was beautiful with new grass everywhere and flowers blooming. Lots of bicyclists and runners. People out with their kids and dogs. I walked North to the American Museum of History. I arrived with 10 minutes before opening so I stretched and took pictures of the painted horses out front. This was my first time in this Museum and it was great. Lots of animals and lovely painted dioramas, minerals, antiquities, outer space and displays about different cultures from around the world. The mix of people was incredible. I counted at least 15 different languages being spoken around me as I toured the museum. What a great place.

When I emerged it was 1 pm and I need to head back so I walked downtown in the shade along the edge of the Park and across Columbus Circle. Just watching all the people. “Summer in the City, back of my neck getting hot and gritty” It was hot and all the benches are full of people chilling and eating lunch. I stopped into a shop for a falafel. It was great. They warmed the pita and then loaded it up with marinated cucumbers, baba ganoush (eggplant) tahini (sesame butter) and a thick hot sauce. It was heavenly! All those different flavors jumping around on m taste buds. I sat in the window and watched the people. I am a diehard people watcher and New York at lunch time is fascinating. All kinds of people. I walked back to the ferry and rode back across. Had a minor heart attack when it pulled into Weehawken but they assured me it would go the Hoboken next. Relief as I could have walked ot but I need to get upstate to meet my friend Carol. I got on the rode just after 3.

New York

I had planned on 2:30 but traffic was moving nicely and I made 95 to the Palisades Parkway with no problems. Then onto 9W and as I was going over Bear Mountain the clouds were building. I hit the place where you can look out over an amazing view of the Hudson River Valley as the rain started and the was a rainbow below me over the valley! Just beautiful. I headed North through heavy rain and the sun on into Kingston, NY. Carol gets off work at 5 and I rolled in about 5:30. She is looking great and lives in a old part of town over looking the river with a bunch of cats. Henry J. Hudson and company! the sky was clear so she took me for a ride in her convertible. We drove down along the river to a small park and sat on a bench looking over the river and chatted until we were hungry then drove back to her neighborhood where we sat outside and ate pasta with Italian sausage in a red cream sauce and 3 bean chili and salad. Our waiter was falling all over himself to please me. We decided he had a crush on me or fishing for a huge tip! Dinner was good and we headed back to Carol’s apartment and had a glass of wine. Then I had a bath and we crashed.

We were up at 6 and had tea and Carol showed me this set of paintings of the moon that she did recently. They were really cool and a children’s book that she made of woodblock prints about cats years ago. She has scanned them into the computer and is cleaning them up n Photoshop and they re looking great. I want to see the finished product! We traded books White Boy Shuffle for Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. Just before 7 am she left for her job as a florist at the Mohunk Mountain Resort and I headed to meet up with an old friend near Boston. I crossed the Hudson over the Rinebeck Bridge and the mist was rising off the mountains. It was cool and clear and going to be beautiful. This is the summer weather I love. 60’s at night and low 80’s during the day. Splendid. So I headed east on 122 and drove on the smallest roads i could find across Connecticut passing just north of Litchfield where I was born. It’s lots of picturesque little one light towns, farms and low mountains. I was on a couple of roads that were narrow enough that I was the only car but kept my speed down as there wouldn’t be room to pass if I encountered truck coming the other way around a corner. I had gray fox trot across the road in front of me and lots of deer on either side. It was lunch time when I drove up to Mike Z’s house in Auburn, MA. I met Mike when I was the Technical Director for the Mayor’s Office of Special Events on Albany, NY. He owned a concert staging company. We have exchanged an occasional email but I haven’t seen him in about 15 years.

He is great and has sold his company but is working as a consultant designing concert staging and rigging systems and doing quite well. He showed me his house and pond and we went to an Italian place for lunch. Great eggplant parmagiana and a salad bar. I ate my fill and we talked about staging, design, old friends and the state of the world. It was great to see him. I had planned to camp at his house for the night but one of his clients had called him to work on a July 4th weekend job so I headed Northeast to Dover, NH where on of my stepmother’s son Steve lives with his family. I had made arrangements to celebrate Independence Day with them. When I confirmed pans with his wife Beth she gave me cell and said to come early If I could. SO I called and left messages on her cell and house that I would be arriving after 7 pm and headed out on the back roads. I love driving New England back roads. They are two lane and the curve around farms and down valleys and through mountain passes. They are old road with lots of character. Once you get used to them they are great to drive and even if the roads aren’t numbered you can guess with one goes they way you want. Even if you guess wrong there will b around crossing soon and it’s easy to get back on track.

The sky got dark and I was caught ina heavy hailstorm and had to pull over for 10 minutes until it eased into rain and I could see again. It rained off and on all the way until I pulled into Steve’s driveway at 7:30 pm. I was done with driving! They live in an old Farmhouse that has been a B&B but Beth runs a preschool there now. And Steve is a wine distributor. The parking area was empty so I pulled off to the side and took a walk around the house to stretch and a no one was home I pulled out a Rogue Morimoto Pilsner and read my email. There was one from Steve saying the key was under the mat and directions to their camp (New Englanese for vacation home). So I happily took a shower and then popped the top on BEYOND and had just turned out my light to sleep when Steve rolled in. So I got up and helped Steve put way the animals. They have ducks, chickens, quails, rabbits, cats, bobwhites, and hamsters. We got them all safely into the barn where the foxes can’t get them and Steve had a little dinner and some wine, made plans for the morning and then off to bed.

In the morning, Steve had to drive south of Boston to Foxboro, MA to pick up a load on wine, and I went along for the ride. We left about 7:30 and made good time. Got the wine loaded and labeled and headed for Nashua, NH to the state warehouse where we dropped if off. From there Steve’s clients will have it delivered. Then we headed for Portsmouth where he was doing a tasting and I had parked BEYOND. I bought some provisions and two headlight bulbs as Mike Z told me one of mine was out. Got that installed and headed for camp which is a house on the Great East Lake which straddles the ME, NH border. I arrived and had a sandwich and a SmuttyNose Old Brown Dog beer which is brewed in Porthmouth, NH and is one of my favorites. Then I went for a swim with their sons Chase 10 and Tucker 7 on the lake just below the house.

The weather is wonderful and the lake while warmer than the Atlantic was very refreshing. What a great place to be for Independence weekend. After swimming we played Uno and watched the movie Spiderwick Chronicles then I made a salad and roasted some marinated shrimp and corn on the grill for dinner and was confused about the kids eating with us so we had to throw some beef tips on the grill when Steve arrived and we all had dinner some excellent wine. Beth and the kids went to bed, Steve and I cleaned up and talked over another glass and then I headed out to BEYOND to sleep.

There are two small boys staring over my shoulders. It’s very odd! I am not used to writing with an audience. They are fascinated with the laptop. They have a PSP 3 that they play games on and can go on the internet. It’s a fascinating machine. This morning Steve made blueberry pancakes with the rest of my Delaware blueberries and bacon. Then his son Chase was getting into making a song with the Garageband program on my computer when Steve’s friend Bill and his sons Costas and Dimetruis showed up. We are headed to the Lake and spent all day swimming and working on the boats. Steve and Bill finally got the motor on the big speedboat working and after sandwiches for lunch they headed out into the Lake for a test run. It was a success and after some more tuning and swimming. We sat the kids down to watch the movie Hot Rod and made a dinner of grilled beef tips, mahi mahi, asparagus and fruit we shot off some fireworks then all piled into the boat and drove out into the middle of the Great East Lake with about 100 other boats and watched people setting off fireworks all around us. I had to yell out to a couple of boats that were about to run into us but other than that it was great fun. We made it back to the house and soon headed for bed.

Up at 8 today. It was really quiet last night. But for some reason I got up in the night and moved my van about 100 ft down the road. Now this is a tiny dirt road out on a spit on land with a few places were two cars can pass. So it was a little scary waking up in a different place from where I went to sleep! I always have been active dreamer but this is my first incident of sleep driveing. I guess I must have drunk too much good wine! So I moved my van back to were it was and headed into the house and we all had a laugh over my nocturnal adventures. Then Bill and his bunch headed home and we had eggs and bacon for breakfast. Then swam and went for a hike up Mt. Pickett to pick blueberries. It was a great walk about 700 ft to the top and the boys did great. When we got to the top the whole mountain was covered in ripe, fat, juicy blueberries. In about 20 minutes we had picked 5 pints on berries and headed back down. We checked each for ticks, as we found a few on our legs on the way up, and the trick is to catch h them before they bite as some of them carry Lyme’s disease. We declared ourselves tick-free and headed to the lake for a swim. Then some neighbors came by Kathy and Kos with their Lab puppy and visited while the boys played with the puppy.

Then we got in the boat and motored over to see some other friends of Steve’s. Terry and his family and friends welcomed us and insisted that we have some dinner. So we noshed on some burgers and excellent scallops and pasta salad and passed our wine around. After dinner we motored back home, changed into dry clothes, replenished our wine and Kathy and Kos picked us up on their boat and we went to the middle of the lake where a local community band has a concert every July 5th. They played some polkas, big band and patriotic music. Then we headed back and lots of people were shooting fireworks again and a rock band was playing at one house. We got back to our house and the neighbor and the end of the point was having a loud party with big fireworks. We watched the movie James and the Giant Peach and then went to bed. It was really noisy so I slept down below in BEYOND where it is much quieter. Good thing as there was lots of activity and loud music and fireworks into the night.

New Hampshire

In the morning I was happy to see that I was parked in the same place as I drank lots of wine yesterday as well. With out harvest from the day before Steve made blueberry pancakes again. They were wonderful! We decided on a mountain bike ride. It got a little too rocky for Tucker so we walked away and when the trail smoothed out rode the rest of the way. Then back to the house for more swimming and boating and soon we heard a woohooo from the house. It was Beth and soon she was on the beach and we were all in the water swimming. Steve tried to tune the idle on the big boat and took the boys knee-boarding and then we packed snacks and all went out on the motorboat. It didn’t run very well but we made it out to the middle of the lake and had a snack, played YATZE and watched a group of sunfish sailing around. Then we struggled to get the motor started and finally it caught and we didn’t stop until we were back home and docked. Frustrating motor. Then Beth and I swam across the Lake to the point and back and we put the water toys away and I shelled peas then we grilled some beef tips, and had asparagus and fresh peas from their garden.

Then we washed up. Packed up and Steve and the boys and I discovered that one of BEYOND’s tires was low again. GRRR! Steve and I got out the big bike pump and pumped a bunch of air into it and the boys were excited to ride in BEYOND back to their house in Dover, NH for the night. We put away the ducks, chickens, turkeys, bobwhites and other animals. Had a nice hot shower and off to bed. What a great way to celebrate Independence Day. Thanks Steve and Beth for a great weekend!
Hope all my friends and family out there had as much fun as I!
Peace to you all.
I have added map locations and titles to all the previously unlabeled photos and added new albums.

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