10/19/08 Dartmouth in a Day

Gerald, my major professor from my doctoral days at UNT, was going to be at Dartmouth with his wife and oldest son visiting his youngest son who's a freshman. They invited me to come join them for lunch or dinner on Sunday and I took them up on the offer. Sure, it's a three and a half hour drive, one way, but that doesn't matter! So I left after church, drove 3.5 hours, got a quick tour of Dartmouth campus from Gerald (who also attended Dartmouth for his undergraduate days), visited with the family, had dinner with them, and drove 3.5 hours back. Fortunately, I had plenty of unheard podcasts on my iPhone to listen to on the way down. Plus, it was still autumn and though a lot of leaves had already fallen, it was still beautiful. The drive through western Maine's rolling hills is gorgeous. Then I drove across New Hampshire into Vermont and then drove south in Vermont right next to the Connecticut River. That was gorgeous, too. Then I took a left, crossed the river, and was back in New Hampshire to get to Dartmouth. I was able to easily stay awake on the drive home because I was listening to Game 7 of the American League Championship between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays. I heard 30 minutes of pre-game and 8.5 innings. I listened to the sad sad ending 1.5 innings in the apartment when I got home. It was rather a whirlwind but it was fun and it was so great to see Gerald and the family.

There are more details about the Maine portion of this trip in the Maine blog, but here's the highlights:

I stopped in Rumford, ME when I saw this giant lumberjack. What a hoot! I stopped for the lumberjack and then stumbled on this little park and the waterfall. Who knew Edmund Muskie was from Rumford, Maine?! Not me, though now I do.

I also drove through Bethel, ME, home of the world's largest snowwoman. In my Maine blog you can see the entry where we went to visit the site of the snowwoman on July 1 and there was still 10 feet of snow in a big pile. It wasn't much snow compared to what had been there, but on July 1 to find that much snow in one place was pretty remarkable. Needless to say, there wasn't any snow left on October 19. Here's the empty field where the snowwoman used to be:

The "Welcome to New Hampshire" and "Welcome to Vermont" signs were pretty unimpressive and it wouldn't have been safe to stop and take a photo of either. This moose sign in New Hampshire was more interesting:

Ah, Dartmouth. It was sooo New England, collegiate. I'd only been there once before and that was at night. It was fun to get to see it not only in the day, but in the autumn.

8/20/08 Ice Cream!

(NOTE: Somehow I missed getting this into the blog in the right time. Since I know some of you have already read past the 20th, I won't put it down where it belongs chronologically . . . at least not for now.)

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How appropriate that this crowd would go for ice cream on a Wednesday night . . . it's like old times with the Chums. :-)

I loved that they had a "Twister" and an "Iceberg" at this place. Do those belong in the same genre of ice cream delights as the other weather disasters: Blizzard, Nor'Easter, Cyclone, et.al.? I haven't seen a typhoon yet, but somebody probably has one.

We are at Ralph's Famous Italian Ice. They have Water Ice and Creme Ice. I ordered a small creme ice that was toffee candy flavored. The wild thing? So did Hank and David! And there were a bazillion flavors and choices. How fun that three of us independently decided on the same thing.

8/24/08 The Miracle Tire

Don't tell my mom about this. Oh wait, she's one of my most faithful readers. Oh well. At least this is after the fact. Hi Mom! Yes, I'm all okay. Shwew. It's safe to read on now.

So I was driving from New York to Maine on Sunday. I left New York around 2:30 . . . only an hour and a half later than I had planned but nothing was set in stone. I stopped at the Ikea Store in New Haven, CT for a little break. It wasn't halfway--I'd only been on the road for about an hour--but it was a desired stop. It's an 8+ hour drive from Long Island to Farmington, depending on traffic, so I should definitely be home before midnight and that's not too bad for me. (BTW, I hit very little traffic going through NYC. Shwew!)

Around 9:30pm I was right at the juncture where 495 becomes 95. You don't have to exit or make any lane changes, the road just changes numbers on its own. I'm approaching the city line for Salisbury, Massachusetts when the road becomes incredibly rough. When you drive that much highway through that many states, you expect (and get) a lot of variety in road conditions but this was particularly rough. Then it dawned on me that it might not be the road. I hate that feeling. It was dark, so I couldn't see the road's surface all that well, but it didn't appear particularly different while looking at it in my headlights. I decided to pull over. There was a definite correlation between the timing of the thumps I was hearing and the speed at which I was traveling. But it was weird 'cuz even though it sounded like a flat tire, it didn't feel like a flat tire. There was no wobbling of the car, no pull of the steering wheel, no loss of control. But I pulled over anyway. I got out and walked around the car looking at all 4 tires. They appeared to be fine. I even turned on my little bitty flashlight that's on my keychain (so I can find the keyhole to my apartment door at night). I got back in the car and pulled ever so slowly just a short distance. Yep, There was still a thumping. I stopped again and got out. I wasn't sure what I thought I would see this time that I didn't see last time but I went to check all 4 tires again and there it was. A giant bump. No, more like a humongous bump. Apparently, when I stopped the first time, it was at the top of the tire and by pulling forward a little, I had rotated the tire such that the bump was now at the bottom. I mean, really, when you're looking for a flat, who looks at the top of the tire? I will from now on, but I never had before. And thank goodness it was on the outside because I wouldn't have though to look at the inside of my tires if I had heard thumping.

So I got back in the car and had a nice dilemma to work out. Should I call AAA or use OnStar and my Saturn Roadside Protection Plan? I knew they would be redundant in some settings but AAA is so cheap and I like the maps that I kept it when I bought the Saturn Plan. What I liked about the Saturn plan was that it included free towing to the nearest Saturn dealership if the car was rendered inoperable. Anyway, I decided to try my OnStar. Sure enough, it worked like a charm and in less than the 30 minutes projected, a very nice man from Simmie's Garage in Salisbury, Mass. was putting my spare tire on. He seemed rather flabbergasted at the size of the bump. When he put the bad tire in the trunk, he warned me that if I heard a loud pop while driving home, it was probably the tire blowing out. Wow. I wouldn't think it could do that without any pressure on it but he assured me it was a possibility. He also admonished me not to drive over 60mph and to get it replaced ASAP. "Remember, you don't have a spare now."

I was home by 12:30am. The whole tire incident only took 45 minutes total. Monday afternoon, I carefully drove to Lewiston/Auburn (an hour's drive) to get to a Sullivan Tire Store and have it replaced. I had used them in Old Orchard Beach area once before when I had a slow leak and I really liked them. Sure enough, this store had friendly, helpful staff who seemed very knowledgeable. Two different employees that I spoke with were both quite shocked at the size of my bump. "This is usually a very good brand of tire," the one guy told me. We were thinking that my tire must be the exception (as in a lemon) and then realized that indeed this was a very good tire. Most tires would have exploded with that kind of damage and I would've had a serious blowout. But the last few belted threads held together to keep the tire intact long enough for me to get safely to the side of the road and get the tire changed.

And that's the story of my miracle tire. God takes very good care of me.

(I took these pictures in the parking lot of the tire store before they removed the tire, so you're seeing the inside of my trunk along with the tire.)

8/24/08 Traditional Godfamily Photo

Sunday morning we all went to church. We actually went to two different masses because two boys were singing at one mass and another boy was being an altar server at another mass. But inbetween masses, we had a chance to take this photo and pass Little Brother from one parent to the other.

I have a collection of photos of the family in this same place. I need to find them and put them all in one place. I always tried to come visit once a year when I lived in Texas and usually left after church on Sunday, so I always tried to take a photo of the family in this same place in front of this statue. Some years we didn't get it done, but it's a fun tradition when you can do it.

It's sad to leave, but I love knowing that the Godfamily is now only an 8 hour drive away. I've actually had two visits with them this year and look forward to more visits than just once a year that I could do when I lived in Texas.

8/23/08 Canoeing on the Nissequogue River

This entry is co-authored by Godnephew.

We went to Nissequogue River to canoe. Theresa had to paddle the whole five and a half miles because Goddaughter and Godbuddy were the only other passengers in that canoe and they rotated with each other. The other canoe had Godnephew, Godchum, and Godfriend plus Dad. They had all the food and drink at the beginning until we made a rest stop at a small patch of sand that we stopped our canoes at. The Nissequogue is a tidal river (also known as an estuary river) which means that there's tides on the rivers so the water goes different ways every couple of hours. We went the direction of the tide as soon as the tide started flowing from the Long Island Sound inland. Theresa's canoe got stuck on a pipe that was just far enough underwater that you couldn't see it but just high enough that we could get stuck. The other canoe had to help them and strangers in kayaks and passing canoes helped also and eventually they got out. We went five and a half miles until we got back to where the car was. At the end of the river there was a bridge where we had to get out and drag the canoes to the shore.

8/22/08 After the Mets' Game

I'm not sure how much of the game Mom actually saw because she had to spend most of her time keeping Little Brother entertained and out of other people's way.

Here are the players congratulating each other at the end of the game:

Look at all those brake lights. We are about to enter that traffic:

In the background you can see Flushing Meadow, home of the U.S. Open. Some of the preliminary U.S. Open events were happening tonight at the same time as the game. Knowing how bad traffic was going to be with both of those events happening so close to each other was another reason we left early to get to the game.

As we walked out from our high, high seats, we could look down on the other people who were leaving:

Neon signs depicting baseball, like this one, are a signature part of Shea Stadium:

8/22/08 Go Mets!

Ballpark hot dogs at Shea are really Nathan's hot dogs! So that means Theresa had two Nathan's hot dogs in three days:

It was an exciting game. The Mets played the Astros (it turns out that they were both expansion teams started in the same year).

Bryan Schneider just hit a two-run home run to extend the Mets' lead to 3:

See the Brooklyn skyline to the right of the scoreboard? Also, look at the top of the scoreboard. There's a neon outline of the city skyline.

8/22/08 Making Our Own Pizza

Here's a fun way to have lunch where everyone gets something they like. Make your own pizza!

We liked that this cheese was made in Denmark, Wisconsin which is where Aunt Kathy was born.

8/22/08 The Mets' Final Season at Shea Stadium

This entry is being co-authored by Godbuddy.

On August 22nd, Theresa and her friends got to go to a Mets' game. A big reason why we wanted to go was it was the Mets' last season at Shea Stadium and we wanted to see the park. This park has been with the Mets almost since the franchise started. (The Mets started in 1962 and the park was built in 1964.)

On the 45 minute drive to Shea Stadium, we gave Little Brother the digital camera to keep him entertained. Here's a self-portrait that he took himself:

Here we are driving up to Shea Stadium:

This is the new park called Citifield:

Here you can see the two parks side by side:

Though most of the family is Mets' fans, everyone agrees that Godbuddy is the #1 Mets' fan in the family:

Here is the whole gang (except Dad who's taking the photo) in front of Shea Stadium:

Theresa liked this "You are here" sign because it showed that we were really at Shea Stadium:

Here's one of Little Brother's cute faces at Shea Stadium. Look how close we were to the top of the stadium:

Another look at how high up we were:

Dad got a commemorative bottle:

8/21/08 The Cyclone on Coney Island

This entry is co-authored by Goddaughter.

The Cyclone is a wooden roller coaster on the boardwalk of Coney Island. Although it was very expensive ($8 a ticket), it was worth it. The first drop was the worst. After that it just didn't seem as bad or scary. After the ride, this one person tried to get us to ride again for just $5 but we just kept walking so he lowered his price to $3. Guess what. We still didn't go on again.

Dad bought the pictures of us on the ride. We find them quite hilarious.