72 oz. to glory

Here is a picture of someone at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo,
TX trying the 72 oz. steak challenge.

That's 4 1/2 lbs. of steak, 3 fried shrimp, a salad, baked potato, and
a roll in under an hour. If you can do it, you get your meal for free,
and you get your name on the wall.

Quite a lofty endeavor. Unfortunately poodle and I didnt feel up to
the challenge, but we enjoyed sirloin and prime rib in the kitschy
setting. We are really enjoying route 66, and taking our time getting
across the Texas panhandle. Tonight, we will meet up with our aunt and
uncle in Albuquerque, for what I'm sure will be another outstanding
meal.

Cadiz, KY

Here's a picture of our cousin Joe and great aunt Lucy taken at joes
beautiful home in Kentucky. We had a lovely meal prepared by Lee, and
are enjoying catching up with our family.

We spent the last two days reliving our childhood in lake lure, north
carolina. While there, we rented movies (unfortunately no "teen wolf")
swam in the indoor pool (all by ourselves) and did a drive-by of our
grandparents former home--where a great many of our favorite childhood
memories occurred. All in all, those two days were the most nostalgic
for us, and it made me desperate to buy a home there to host family
get-togethers. Tomorrow lee has promised us a home cooked breakfast,
and then we are off to Memphis where we will visit elvis. (his home
anyway.)

Busch Gardens -- Williamsburg, VA

Here is a picture of "England" at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg. We had
a great time there. Our favorite ride was "the big bad wolf"
rollercoaster. We paid extra money for a pass to buypass the queue for
the most popular rides-- it was totally worth it. Thanks to moms
boyfriend, Richard, for the free passes, which also got us some
excellent discounts inside the park.

The rest of our trip here (Charlottesville) has included pub trivia
with dan (who just submitted his dissertation-- congratulaions, Dr.
Kent) and lots of the video game "rock band."

Obviously I never finished catching you all up on NYC and D.C. But I
hope to do that when I can sit down at an actual computer. :) Patience
is a virtue, friends.

Tomorrow (well, today actually) we leave for lake lure, nc where we
will attempt to relive our childhood by playing air hockey and eating
snow cones.

Washington D.C.

Folk art made of found objects/scrap (mainly aluminum foil) at
smithsonian museum of american art.

New York City

Hi readers,

Sorry for the lack of updates, but the city that never sleeps also has
absolutely no patience for blogging. :)

So this entry will probably be a long one. On Monday of last week, we
arrived in nyc after a brief detour in rhode island to catch up with
my friend sean over lunch, and then a stop at Yale to see where the
"gilmore girls" went to college. Then, because we'd be late to make it
midtown to christine's office to pick up housekeys, we decided to stop
in CT to kill a little time watching Hellboy 2. (which was pretty good.)

So Monday night, christine made us an awesome taco salad and we went
to sleep. Tuesday, we took the train into times square, had lunch and
got tickets to see Mary Poppins on broadway. Of course the show didnt
start for five hours... What to do... Oh, there's a movie theater down
the block?... So we saw Journey to the Center of the Earth (in 3D) and
The Stone Angel (in 2D).

After our movies we went to the theater for Mary Poppins which was
beautiful and magical. Definitely worth seeing. Except for the
incessant chattering of the three year old sat behind us, whose
parents and grandparents thought it was entertaining for all of the
rest of us that she talk the whole time (for the record, it wasn't).

That's all I have time to update on right now. Stay tuned for the rest
of our time in nyc and our trip into D.C. this afternoon. We are going
to the spy museum. :)

-wm

Provincetown

Good morning dear readers,

It has been brought to my attention that we have gone far too long
without blogging. Sorry!! We've been busy girls.

This picture is from the home of a sculptor in Provincetown on cape
cod in Massachusetts, where we were last Sunday. We had a lovely day
there. We saw whales on our ferry ride, we bought lovely soaps, and
looked at some cool art.

We ate seafood in a seaside restaurant with eastern European servers.
When our server asked us to guess where she was from I guesses
Belarus, and she got very excited. I was the first person who had ever
correctly guessed where she was from. What can I say? I'm a geography
genius (thanks to the world map shower curtain in my bathroom.)

When we left ptown, our ferry got called out on a distress call, so we
were an hour late, and the seas were pretty rough. But we all made it
without getting sick.

Then Karen made turkey meatloaf burgers and we watched the grifters
before calling it an early night so we could drive to NYC the next
morning.

Staying with barb and karen was wonderful!! Very relaxing, and a lot
of fun!

???

Well, our 30 minute (each way) detour for the distress call appears to
have been for naught. We circled the boat a few times, waited for the
coasties and then left. I'm glad that the boaters appear to be okay,
but the sea is angry this day, my friends, and I could have done
without the extra hour.

Sent from my iPhone

S.O.S.

We are currently on the Boston fast ferry from p-town when our ferry
got called to answer a distress call by the coast guard.

We could almost see the skyline when we turned in another direction.
So much for my afternoon nap.

Sent from my iPhone

Donna Summer at the pavillion

Last night our lovely Boston hostesses, Barb and Karen, took us to the
Donna Summer concert at the bank of america pavillion. We all had a
great time. Barb is still singing "Hot Stuff" this morning.

In the picture you can see our awesome VIP seats with table service,
with our favorite people watching victims in the foreground. The man
in the green shirt is "tall skinny ice-t" and his date is "hair
extensions boob-falling-out-of-dress lady." They had some serious moves.

We also went to fanueil hall yesterday, and got to sleep in a real bed
and have our own bathroom in Barb and Karens fabulous south end
brownstone. That would have been enough to be the highlight for us,
but the concert was wonderful.

Today, they're taking us to Provincetown on the fast ferry for some
shopping, dining and people watching. We are having such a wonderful
(and comfortable) time it will be hard to leave tomorrow. :)

House of the seven gables

Today we left the air conditioned comfort of our Laconia hotel for a
cute little riverside campground in Gloucester, Massachusetts--home of
the "perfect storm" fishermen.

We chose Gloucester for its proximity to Salem, where we went to the
witch museum and the salem diner (thanks roadfood.com) and the house
of the seven gables. The house of the seven gables was definitely the
coolest part of the day. Our tour guide was outstanding and had a cute
little Boston accent. Tomorrow we head into Boston to stay with Barb
and Karen. I'm looking forward to seeing them and poodle is praying
for cocktails. :)

-wm

Bye bye saco

We gave up on the Saco cause my forehead blistered from the sunburn.
It looks like we made the right decision. Its raining cats and dogs
here in the white mountains region. Flash floods, hail, etc. etc.

Sent from my iPhone

Mars Rover?

Is that a photo from the mars rover? Nay! That is an extreme closeup
of my knee. That's what we call sunburn friends.

Poodle is enjoying the canoeing much more now that I'm not saying how
much I love it every two minutes.

We are currently at a campground right before brownfield bridge in
fryeberg, me and we have canoed 26 miles in two days. Not bad
considering we didn't get started until 1:30 yesterday afternoon-- and
we had a 300 yard portage with a giant canoe and all of our gear. (I
am certainly lamenting that extra-roomy four person tent right about
now) It took us three trips to get all the gear around the falls.
Fortunately that's the only real portage this trip, but getting the
gear to the campsite this evening wasn't particularly fun either.
Anyway...

Now, before anyone gets preachy about sunscreen here, I have been
using SPF 50 on my body and 70 on my face, I just didn't reapply it
enough (apparently)

Yes, we do have a full first aid kit, and sports tape for blistery
fingers. Strangely enough, my muscles havent been sore at all (which
is why poodle has threatened more than once to knock me unconscious
with her paddle) but I did not sleep well last night. (which is to
say, I did not sleep at all.)

One of the coolest things about canoing the Saco is that you can camp
primitively on sandbeds. We have been pretty much the only people on
the river the whole trip because most of the social Saco goers went
out for the holiday weekend. (I planned it this way intentionally)
anyway.. We are the only people for miles. We are on a sandbed, and
there's a forest behind us, and something keeps rustling the leaves.
I'm completely paranoid about bears and every time I was just about to
fall asleep, another twig cracked and I peeked outside to see if we
were about to be attacked. Of course we weren't. And we were actually
like 1/2 a mile from a major road, but we were the only people on the
river and I don't take any anxiety medication. Although maybe its time
to consider some.

Well. 26 miles, strong headwind, two days, no sleep. I'm going to call
it a night. If my sunburn doesn't stop freaking out, I might just call
the shuttle to pick us up tomorrow. We will see how I'm doing in the
morning.

-wm

Saco river

Poodle missed our new state yell for Maine, cause we did it on the
river. Fortunately, the river isn't super rural, so I have just enough
service to send this message. We have been about 10.5 miles today and
we are getting ready to set up camp for the night. Poodle is not
nearly as excited to be canoeing as me, and we nearly had a mutiny on
our hands, but we worked it out and powered through. Hopefully we will
make it all 45 miles without killing each other.

-wm

Sent from my iPhone

Shootin

Just to complete the new hampshire experience, we went to the shooting
range today. Good fun!

Fireworks -- Bradford, NH style

Bradford is awesome. I worked at a camp in Bradford in 2000 & 2001 and
jon and I found this awesome town celebration for 4th of July right
down the street.

Now jon is lucky enough to live one town away from this magic. I mean,
seriously, they even have funnel cakes. The fireworks display lasted
almost a full half hour. I'm afraid none of the photos I took can do
it justice, but I'll include one anyway. I hope that all of your
celebrations were as wonderful as ours.

-wm

New Hampshire

This is a picture of jon changing my oil. What a friend!!!

New Hampshire

We made it to new hampshire safe and sound. We finally got to sleep in
real beds at jon and catherines lovely house. Catherine made us a
really nice dinner with a salad and homemade bread and everything, but
poodle got a terrible migraine and missed it all.

Jon and catherine and I tried to go see some fireworks last night, but
we got the date wrong, so we will try again tonight. In the process of
waiting for the non-fireworks we got eaten alive by massive mosquitoes
and I stepped in dog poo which I managed to track into catherines car.
All in all, a red letter day, I think.

We are also going to go see a campy 1950s sci-fi film in concord, nh
this afternoon. I'm psyched!!!

Sent from my iPhone

Ontario, Niagara, "Cooperstown"

Let's see... When last we left you, intrepid reader, we had paused for
a brief soujourn at Circus World.

Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the chicago KOA, which was ok. We
met a wanderer named derek who invited us to join him and his dog
eddie for a drink by the fire and some tunes on his guitar, but we
were both wiped out (and just the tiniest bit frightened of him) so we
passed.

Then we drove from chicago to ontario, which took longer than it
should have because of an accident somewhere in michigan that resulted
in an hour long detour. When we arrived in Ontario, we set our tent up
in the rain (in record time, I might add) and went to sleep early.
This morning, we accidentally overslept a bit due to the time change,
so we packed up our wet tent and left around 11 am.

We stopped at niagara falls (much, much better on the Canada side, by
the way) and then drove through a torrential downpour through serious
back country roads (we passed several Amish on buggies) to make it to
the cooperstown koa. We sagely decided to wait until after dinner to
set up our tent because it finally stopped raining. Now we are getting
ready for bed. We heard some horses naying, wolves howling, and rifle
fire. This should prove to be an interesting night.

Tomorrow we drive a few hours to Warner, New Hampshire where we will
celebrate the 4th with my friends jon and catherine, and hang with
them for a few days before our big canoe trip in Maine.

Its been a great trip so far. We are thinking of you guys as we go.

-wm

Sent from my iPhone

Multimedia message

This is as close as we got to Chicago. No pizza or Oprah sightings to be had.

Circus World!!!

Today poodle and I decided on a whim to stop at the Circus World
circus museum in Baraboo, WI. We both enjoyed it so much that we are
considering it the highlight of our trip so far.

The attached picture is of a scale model of one of the giant circuses
of old. The model took up a space about the size of my living room and
is reported to be worth in excess of $250,000. It is absolutely mind-
blowing.

We were also both enamored with the exhibit of circus posters and
advertisements and the costumes on display.

We did not partake of any of the contemporary circus activities on
offer--including a clown show, animal rides and magic-- because we
wanted to get to Chicago to set up camp, but the history and
memorabilia were well worth the $14.95 ticket price.

Today we also had the pleasure of dining at the norske nook in osseo,
wi--which never disappoints.

We left minny early this morning on little sleep after a rivoting
evening of board games with maria and chris and michael. Because we
are so exhausted, I'm going to sign off and get some rest. Tomorrow we
visit Chicago and drive to London, Ontario to camp before hitting
niagara on Thursday.

If you have any ideas of things for us to do (cheaply) in NYC, Boston,
or D.C., we'd love to hear about them. Also, any great roadside
attractions like circus world or the norske nook. We love that stuff!

-wm

More pie

Here are some individual slices. Of note: the green and brown slices
are chocolate mint.

Pies!!!

Here is a display case at national pie champion "norske nook." I got
the banana cream and poodle got pecan cream cheese. Awesome.