Fun and Games Dept

After a good night’s sleep I was up relatively early and headed into Charlottetown, which I believe is the only city on Prince Edward Island. After a brief stop at one of the local markets, Sobey’s, for some breakfast fruit, I did some touring of the downtown area and the harbor.

Here’s the obligatory self shot.

I found the downtown area to be quite nice. It reminds me a bit of Portland, Maine and Burlington, Vermont to some to some extent. Everyone seems quite friendly and the sidewalks were busy. There’s all sorts of shops and businesses. There’s a pedestrian mall area with a large selection of restaurants and bars. There was even a brass quintet performing, as they give a free recital twice a day during the week.

Being an island and all, PEI has a lot of marinas.

After touring around a bit, I decided to relax in some air conditioning a little bit, so I went to the local mall which is anchored by a Zellers. Reminicent of K-mart back in the good old days, I was delighted to see that Zellers still has a “K-mart Cafeteria” / Woolworth’s “Harvest House” type restaurant, but I skipped that culinary delight since I was meeting up with my sister Jennifer and her boyfriend David to do some sightseeing this afternoon.

Once I met up with them, our first stop was in Cavendish, home of Anne of Green Gables. Jennifer insisted I try on Anne’s hat and pigtails, so here’s a photo of the event. It’s a little blurry but there’s no spirit lost.

I also snapped this picture of Jennifer and David as we were getting ready to move on to our next adventure.

We then went onto the beach (there’s a lot of water around here!) where the ocean is clocking in at 17-degrees celsius, which is a chilly 62.6 degrees fahrenheit. We stuck our toes in and found it to be cold. I could swim in it after my body numbed up, I suppose. We opted to walk along the water instead.

Now I’m resting up a bit before meeting with Dave and Jennifer and their friends for a dinner theatre tonight. We might have a few drinks afterward. I don’t think we’ll be out exceedingly late though, since Jennifer is catching a plane home tomorrow morning around 6:30. It’s funny to think that she’ll be home way before I will.

Last night I mentioned that I was going to take a long road trip this week. With Earl’s best wishes and encouragement, I hit the road this morning looking forward to exploring parts of the world I’ve never been before. I knew where I was going along, as did Earl, but nosy people read my blog and I wanted to surprise a few folks. So here I am, sitting in an Econo Lodge. I snapped a picture before I reached my intended destination.

My sister spends a lot of time on Prince Edward Island, as her boyfriend and his family lives here. Tomorrow is her birthday and I thought I’d surprise her and take her out to lunch.

So I’m in Charlottetown, PEI.

She’s in Halifax, Nova Scotia, getting away for a few days.

Oops.

I’ve talked to her and she’s planning on being back on “the island” tomorrow, so this spontaneous plan will work out.

In talking with various family members trying to coax information out of them without giving my intentions away, I’m discovering that some find it odd that Earl and I are not together on this trip. I’ve always said that few “get” us and this is one of the aspects of our relationship that I’m referring to. Earl knows how much I love roadtripping and since our vacation schedules aren’t meshing this time around I embarked on this little adventure alone but with his blessing. It’s probably a good thing he’s not along, as I drove about 950 miles today.

A few quick observations and then I’ll call this is a wrap:

1. Maine becomes very, very, very rural north of Bangor along Interstate 95. It also becomes wildly beautiful and I loved driving along this portion of the roadway.

2. I’ve never been to New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island before as my Canadian experience has been limited to Ontario and Québec. I must say that like Maine, N.B. and PEI both have a rural beauty that is quite rare in our part of the USA. From the little I’ve seen, I absolutely adore it up here. And where else could I get a McLobster Sandwich?

3. I might have to hit Nova Scotia on the way home, just to add another province to the roster.

So we were on our way to Hillside Campgrounds this past Friday when Earl said to me, “Since it looks like you’re going to be working in a week or so, why don’t you take a couple of days next week and go for a little road trip?”

Holy crap.

He knows that I’ve been wanting to take a trip in the Acura and just explore some area of the country that I’ve never been before. I have to admit the thought is quite tempting, though I am a little sad that he can’t join me for the fun. When I mentioned this to him, he reminded me that I would probably drive 15 to 20 hours in one shot and he wouldn’t enjoy that long of a ride.

So I’m leaving tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. I’m just going to drive. I’ll post late tomorrow night and then we’ll both know where I ended up for the night.

Earl and I are back from the “True Colors” concert at Bank of America Pavilion in Boston this evening. Completely wiped out from the experience, we’re settled into our hotel for the evening. I’ll have a full report tomorrow.

One thing that blew my mind: I ran into a very close friend from high school. We have not seen each other in 20 years. I’m giddy beyond belief.

Earl and I are settled into the Sheraton in Newton, Mass. for the night. If you’re driving eastbound on the Mass Pike, be sure to wave because we’re in the hotel room that’s situated over the roadway.

We’re getting ready to head to the “Bank of America Pavilion” to see “True Colors”, featuring Cyndi Lauper, Erasure, Deborah Harry, Dresden Dolls, Gossip and Margaret Cho.

I think it’s going to be a great night.

It seems like this patio project has been going on and on. How long ago was it when we ripped the deck off the back of the house? How long ago did we plan to do this project? Well it looks like tomorrow everything will be said and done.

The patio has been in nearly a month. The furniture has been assembled and installed for three weeks. Today the we met the landscaping contractor at the local garden store and picked out the plants. This evening we arranged them. Tomorrow, they get planted and the mound of dirt finally gets seeded in hopes of becoming a lawn soon.

All of this can only mean one thing. The Promised Patio Party is finally coming to fruition. Prep your calendars and watch this space for further details.

Today Earl and I had my dad and his wife and my sister over for a get together on our new patio. Dad is going to be out of town next week for Father’s Day so we decided to celebrate a week early. This is the first time that we’ve had company on the patio and we were a little hesitant since we don’t have a lawn or landscaping installed yet. The contractor has left several mounds of dirt and promises to be here the first part of the week, but whether that really happens remains to be seen.

Even though I now do the majority of the cooking in our merry little household, when it comes to entertaining company Earl takes control of the kitchen and I just clean up behind him and stay out of his way. Here he’s getting the spare ribs ready for the picnic.

Since we weren’t serving tuna fish or kibble for the get together, Tom had to eat his regular food in his bowl. I kept him company and chatted with him so he didn’t feel left out.

And I took this shot by standing on one of the mounds of dirt that is destined to become beautiful landscaping. By taking the picture from this angle, one can’t notice the “Yucca Flats After The Blast” motif we have going on directly behind me.

All in all it was a good day.

Earl and I are installed on site 70 for our first weekend at Hillside Campground in northern Pennsylvania. We always enjoy our Hillside experiences and this weekend is no exception. Earl is currently in the master suite (the larger bed of the camper) taking his first of several naps today as we were up rather late last night. I have no internet access so I’m typing this entry with the intent to upload it a little later once I’m in wi-fi range. I think we’re in one of the few sites in the campground that doesn’t have internet access. Maybe I’ll sit at someone’s picnic table in a little bit and borrow a little bit of their broadband.

One of the interesting aspects of this weekend is that the local power company is turning off power to all of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania tonight at 10 p.m. for a “major upgrade”. The power is scheduled to be off until 6 a.m. tomorrow morning. Since this is a gay campground, this power interruption poses a problem as there will be no juice to run the disco at the rec hall tonight. One musn’t fear, however, because the owners have contracted out for a generator to run the sound equipment. People will be stumbling around in the middle of the woods in pitch blackness and peeing on random trees as there will be no lights or running water but by god we’ll still have the disco. We do have our priorities around here.

Our friends Sean and Jeffrey from Albany are here with their friends Don and George, so the six of us hung out together last night at the bonfire. Good times were had by all. It’s Sean and Jeffrey’s first time at Hillside. We’ve already planned on having them join us later in the season as we’ve scheduled several visits for this summer. They’re good guys and we don’t see them nearly enough, which is usually the case for us since we rarely see Steve and Tim in Buffalo these days as well.

We’ve been invited to a cocktail party scheduled for this evening hosted by our online friends Brad and Brian from New Jersey and then we’re having supper with 1st Earl.

Such the social butterflies. Even in the dark.

Last night Earl and I went to the first night of a summer tradition, “Saranac Thursday.” Many upstate New York cities have social gatherings on Thursday night; Syracuse has something at Clinton Square, Buffalo has something on Main Street, here in Utica it’s at the local brewery.

Saranac Thursday attracts a thousand people or so for cheap beer, food and live music. It gives us a chance to hang out with good friends and to see people from different parts of our life (old jobs, new jobs, school, servers at restaurants, etc.) all in one place. I was never one for Saranac Thursday a couple of years ago, now I look forward to it. It runs every Thursday night from 4:00 to 8:00 starting the first Thursday after Memorial Day. If you’re still in the mood to party afterwards, there’s a good variety of clubs to choose from on neighboring Varick Street.