Little door at Mystic Seaport

Every time we go for a ride I look for little doors.  I just love them.  I haven't found one in quite awhile but today while we were kayaking at Mystic Seaport I found one.  So cute!

Classics Illustrated Comics

Paul has recently been thinking about his old Classics Illustrated comic books that he had as a kid. He Googled them to see if they were available on the Internet and found out about a guy who had a store in Easthampton where he sold them by appointment. Paul set up an appointment for today at 3:30 to look at the Classics. When we found the place it was in the old Stanley Home Products factory now called Eastworks, which has been converted to hold small businesses. The comics store was on the second floor in a huge warehouse type place. The guy must have millions of comics, all separated and in cardboard bins. Paul ended up buying about 12 of the ones that he used to have. He said that when he was a kid he used to get comics for 10 cents, but these Classics were 15 cents so he didn't get as many.

After that we had dinner at Pizza Hut. I have lots of good memories of eating there with the kids when they were young. The place looks pretty old inside now. We hadn't been there in a long time. I looked up Pizza Hut on the Internet and found out that it was started by two brothers and a friend in 1958 in Witchita, Kansas. They called it Pizza Hut because the sign that they purchased only had enough room for nine characters and spaces!

Also, my friend Linda, who is spending the winter in her condo in South Carolina, e-mailed me these pictures of little doors! She knows that I love little doors and have been putting them on my blog, LOL. The first one is from her condo,



and this one is from her neighbor's condo.



Thanks, Lin. I love them!

Pandora

Today we took a ride to the scrapbook store in Bellows Falls. A few weeks ago we discovered the Pandora app for my iPhone. I don't really quite understand it, but you type in some music that you would like to listen to. We put in The Drifters from the '50s and '60s. It will then play a song by the artist that you put in, but it also plays other music of that genre. It was so much fun. We listened to it all the way to Vermont. Of course, lots of back roads in Vermont don't have any cell phone connection, so it would go in and out. If you like any of the music you can actually buy it from iTunes right on the phone. Technology - it blows me away!

On the road I saw a little door in Jacksonville, VT.




And a post office in Wardsboro, VT.

Vacation, Leaving LL Bean 2012

We left Freeport about 11:00 today and took Rt 1 through Portland and stopped at all of our favorite places, Old Orchard Beach, the Gottier cottage, Ocean Park, the Salvation Army Camp, Wormwoods at Camp Ellis, and then down to York Beach. It was really cold today, much colder than the day before. No walks on the beach today!

Lobster trap Christmas tree



The Pier at Old Orchard Beach



Flo's







Nubble Light at York Beach



While I was taking pictures from the car of York Beach I saw my reflection in the rear view mirror and took a picture of it. I changed my profile picture on Facebook to this. I think it looks neat. It reminds me of how much I love taking pictures and telling the stories that go with the pictures!



Another lobster trap Christmas tree.



We finished up eating at Bob's Clam Hut, always delicious.



Then on the highway and home at 8:15.

Wonderful getaway!!

***Another Post Office

Wells


****Little doors

Camp Ellis


York Beach


York

The work of Hurricaine Irene

Hurricane Irene blew into our area last Sunday. Luckily our particular area did not have too much damage. All of the weather channels were really talking it up to be a really bad storm, high winds,flooding, etc. You can read about it here.

Vermont was one of the hardest hit areas in New England. You can read about that here.

Today Paul and I decided to go for a ride and check things out. We took back roads through Western Massachusetts. We had to re-route twice and never did get very far into Vermont. All the roads were closed. Parts of Brattleboro were a real mess, streams flooded, roads buckled, mud everywhere. Sam's Outdoors Outfitters had their basement flooded and lost thousands of dollars in shoes.

On Rt. 9 in Brattleboro Channel 22 News was there reporting.

We have had such weird weather this summer, from the tornado in June, to a microburst a week or two later, to an earthquake in August and now the hurricane.

Here are some pictures that I took, although they did not do justice to what it was really like.

This is Littleville Dam. Although it was nowhere near flood stage, the road that goes down to the lake was totally flooded.




Knightsville Dam. Still not at flood stage but usually in the summer it is just a stream. Note the debris.




Road in Brattleboro, VT




Channel 22 reporting




These next few pictures are from the Green River Park, or as I call it, the Greenfield Pool. This was a place I used to go to frequently with my grandfather and my cousins. My grandfather's brother lived in Greenfield and we used to come here a lot with him.

The water had bent over the iron fence and there was mud everywhere, on both sides of the road.









This is where my grandfather's house used to be, across the street from the golf course, which was flooded. They moved all the golf carts here.




We came across a little door in our travels. I can't remember exactly where this was, but I'll remember eventually.




***Note - today I decided to begin, in addition to my little doors, another series of pictures.

With all the talk of the Postal Service maybe closing some of the post offices, I decided to take pictures of the post offices that we encounter in our journeys.

Today we went by the Brattleboro, VT post office



and the Deerfield, MA post office.

Happy New Year! (from Maine)

Today was an absolutely beautiful day, sunny and 47 degrees. We took a coastal ride to Orr's Island, Bailey's Island, and Harpswell Neck, including Lookout Point where we had kayaked. It was so nice that we were able to have the windows open at times. This is where these pictures of the little doors were taken.


Little doors














Back in Freeport, we had dinner at a new place called Bucks's Naked Barbecue (the reason they call it naked barbecue is that the meat is served without BBQ sauce and you have your choice of four homemade sauces on the side). Paul considers himself somewhat of an expert on BBQ and he thought it was really good. It's funny, the building that the restaurant is in used to be a shoe outlet and at one time it was the LL Bean outlet store.





We (I) spent the evening shopping at LL Bean.

331/365 - So much for our relaxing ride....

Today we decided to take a "relaxing" ride across Southern Vermont. We have done this ride many, many times. Paul said he wanted to get out early and be home in the early evening. We left the house around 9:30, went out to breakfast and then headed north. We took back roads all the way. I spotted a few little doors along the way (see this post).

This little door was in Plainfield, MA.





This one was in Charlemont, MA.





And this one was in Whittingham, VT.





Aren't they just so cute?


*****Mignonne, these pictures are for you. When we were going through Whittingham, VT we saw this sign.





We took the rode up the mountain and there was the monument to Brigham Young where I assume his birthplace was. It was freezing up there, and it was here that I noticed a few snowflakes.





This is the view from the monument. It was beautiful up there.



It started to snow around 2:00. At first it wasn't really sticking to the road. We thought it was just flurries.



It got bad pretty fast. We were at a pretty high elevation and it was as if it just fast-froze on the road.





By the time we got here, we were wondering why this truck was stopped in the road. Then we saw that a man was out of his car stopping cars when they got to him. He told us that a tractor trailer was down in the road a little ahead.



We decided to go home another way, but that road was full of hills and before we got too much further a cop had traffic stopped in front of us. He said the road was very icy and cars had been spinning out all over and he wanted us to stay put until the sanders came. That was about 3:00.



We waited for about two hours until the sanders came.



We were on our way again, but not for long. Another wait came up the road, this time for about an hour. Eventually we got to Brattleboro around 8:30. We hadn't eaten since breakfast (except for some animal crackers that I had taken with us in the car). We were starving and shaken. I don't think I have ever been that nervous. At one point we saw two wreckers on the other side of the road. I wondered whether they were just waiting for stuck cars, until I saw a car overturned in a ditch. Yikes, it was awful. We passed by a couple of motels. I wanted to stop but Paul wanted to keep going. When we got to Brattleboro (which is a much lower elevation), there was just a little snow on the grass and none on the roads. We were still two hours from home. We got home at 10:30.

I may never go to Vermont again (or at least not after October!)