Today was the day...

Mary checks out her weight - not to see how much she gained from eating that "Sticky Mama" yesterday, but to see how much her luggage weighed. 62 pounds - not bad considering she came over with only the black bag on the right and somehow managed over the last two months to fill up the blue bag on the left. Personally, I couldn't lift either one.










One last lunch near the old mill in Clinton. Can you believe Mary opted to skip dessert? Of course the portions were extra large - even the two John's weren't able to clean their plates.


Then it was on to the airport. We were lucky to find a wheel chair just sitting in the parking lot so grabbed it to use as a luggage carrier. Security didn't ask what she'd done with the person in it... just so long as she wasn't trying to sneak in any shampoo and toothpaste in her carry-on. Hugs & goodbyes and Mary was on way to the boarding gate and we were on our way to NYC rush hour traffic.
It was a great treat for those of us on this side of the Atlantic to have Mary here for the summer!!!! We hope you have enjoyed following our trip and, like us, are looking forward to future adventures!

Trivia question - Where is the world's largest crayon? The second question (a bit easier if you're looking at the photo) - What color is it?

We took the scenic route from Philadelphia along the Delaware River to John & Judy's in New Jersey. Several detours were included, the result of severe spring flooding along the Delaware - rains we missed on our trip west.

After the exciting visit to see the crayon (the answers are Easton, PA & blue), we stopped for lunch in a wonderful diner. Frank & Rita be warned when you pick her up on Wednesday! Mary's appetite has not diminished. After consuming ALL of a huge veal parmesan sandwich AND the potato chips AND the pickles AND a pint of iced tea, she decided to order the "Sticky Mama" for dessert. In case you're wondering, you take a rather large Philadelphia sticky bun, slice it in half, grill it, put half in a bowl, add 2 BIG scoops of vanilla ice cream, add the other half of the bun (with lots of nuts) to the side, cover ice cream with sticky bun "goo", top with lots of whipped cream and a cherry. Mary licked her bowl clean. Need we say more.

Just when we thought we’d seen the last of the "world’s this, that or the other" for one trip, we go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis. It turns out their beautiful dorm is the largest in the world housing all 4,100 midshipmen. The photo shows us with Cyndy & her nephew, Burt (a senior at the Academy) in front of the dorm. It was family weekend for the plebes and there were A LOT of good looking guys walking around. As you might suspect Mary had a REALLY good time.
Anyway, back to the dorm. The other two photos are of the main hall in the dorm. Not a bad place to hang out. Even the dorm rooms looked nice. They have a “sample” room set up for family to look at and Burt says it’s typical. Two or three beds/desks per room, a bath for each room with a marble shower (Burt allowed the sample IS a bit cleaner than normal), & air-conditioning. A lot of the rooms also have a million dollar view of the bay complete with Academy marina and sailboats. Contrary to what you may have heard, these midshipmen still have an opportunity to learn navigation and basic sailing (John was very envious.)
Back in Philly to spend the night with Cyndy, we realized Mary is starting to try to transition back to the French culture… she ordered an anchovy & cheese pizza for dinner.

Three words tend to describe Washington, D.C. in August - hot, hazy, humid. Some good fairy must be watching over this trip because it was NOT hot (at least in comparison to the heat wave we went through in Montana), NOT hazy & NOT humid. And, best of all, there weren't too many tourists. Parking Charlie at Arlington we took the get on, get off bus around the city.
We "did" the typical stops including the capital building (probably the only capital in the world where the statue on top has a bird for a hat - particularly one that looks like a cross between a pheasant & a turkey); the Smithsonian Air & Space (after looking at those first space vehicles one has to believe our first astronauts were a bit touched in the head - the lunar module especially looks like it was put together by a third grade class with limited resources); the Natural History Museum (they were having a special exhibit on Lewis & Clark - to be honest we've had enough of those 2 guys for one year - Mary skipped them entirely & went to look at fossils and bones); the White House (security was tight as protests were going on in the area opposing Israel's recent actions); the Reflection Pool with the Washington Monument being held up by John & Mary (my positioning was a bit off but you get the general idea); and other points of interest too numerous to mention (aren't you thankful for that?!)...
PS - Here I thought Mary had finished with the state business, but, wouldn't you know, we added Virigina today bringing her total up to 29 states visited this summer.

Finally, a picture of the Maryland relatives. In the center is "the queen", Virginia, who's the wife of John, upper left, first cousin of John, in the middle, and first cousin once removed of Mary on the lower left. On the right are John & Virginia's "adopted" daughter & son, Narelle (Australian by birth) and Art (Canadian by birth). They're both now US citizens but work in the hotel industry in China. John & Virginia lived in their hotel when John was bringing Seagrams to China (even the Chinese need a little gin & whiskey once in a while.)




Since we're on the "eastern shore", Mary decided to try her hand at crabbing. Let's just say we're fortunate we did not have to rely on her skills to supply dinner.

Meanwhile, John admires Comet #1 and how beautiful she is. In the background Patty is trying to find some resemblance between it and the boat (supposedly a Comet) currently housed in John's workshop. At least she knows he'll have plenty to keep him busy during his retirement years.

What? No pictures? Sorry, but we just weren't fast enough to capture the highlights. First, Charlie's northeast states map that Brooklyn Kathleen created for us ended up covered in wax (long story) and you couldn't see the states so that was out. Then Cyndy graciously lead us by car to 95 headed south and even though she had her arm out pointing at the entrance, John somehow missed it so had to do a U-turn. That would have been hard to take a photo of even if we had been fast. The "Welcome to" Delaware & Maryland, the last of the new states Mary will visit, flew by and we missed those. It was cocktail time when we arrived at John & Virginia's and we forgot about pictures. So....
Anyway, today is another day.

“This is where I was born. This was the library I used. This is where I went to college. This is where I used to live. Up there is where I went to church… Our Mother of Constipation.” Wait – are we back in Boise again? No, this was Cyndy’s tour of Philadelphia, HER hometown. Boise may be the city of trees, but Philly has its share too. It also has Fairmount Park, the largest urban park in the world, and the Schuylkill River with its world-class rowing and sculling.

Luckily memory lane lead directly to Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell (has it really grown legs?), the new Constitution Center (well worth a visit), soft pretzels & Philly cheese steaks.

The mint is also down there. We made Mary get her photo taken in the ten and even though I told Mary I wouldn’t use it on the blog, that’s what you get when you go to bed before the rest of us.

After a day of sightseeing we met Anne & Bob (John & Mary’s cousins) & had a wonderful dinner at the Victor Café where the wait staff continue to serenade the clientele with arias from favorite operas. Leaving the city we noted Cirque du Soleil was performing, tried for tickets and ended up seeing a GREAT performance. How is it possible to make your body DO things like that? Even Mary thought she was a bit old to be trying out even for the bit parts.

Dillon (John & Patty’s godson) continues to grow like a weed. It won’t be long before he’s as tall as we are. And Peyton is quickly catching up. However, he’s not quite as cooperative as Dillon when it comes to having his picture taken. Their grandmother, Joey (next to Dillon), just got back yesterday from Croatia where she had a GREAT time being captain of a 47 foot sailing boat around that part of the Mediterranean for a week. And you thought Tillie was awe-inspiring!

On to Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, where we’re staying with Cyndy - the same Cyndy who joined us earlier for the Lake Louise part of our trip. You can see Cyndy, Mary & John are still thinking of Patty’s birthday tea by the way they’re holding their little fingers.

Is that Nathan's famous hot dogs behind Patty? Could it be the one in Coney Island? What on earth was Patty doing in Coney Island?
To make a loooooong story short, she munched on a pearl in a mussel in Maine & ended up with a tooth ache. Brooklyn Kathleen's (B-Kath) dentist was in his Coney Island office so worked her in. Three X-rays & probing just found a traumatized nerve (Patty had visualized jumping off the Coney Island parachute jump with a string around her tooth! Yikes!) The most unbelieveable part was the dentist didn't charge Patty anything - just said to say hi to B-Kath & Stanley, so "Hi!!!"




While Patty & B-Kath were playing on Coney Island, New Jersey Kathleeen (NJ-Kath) & Bridge started the Manhattan part of the tour for Mary & John.... Times Square, Grand Central Station, NY Public Library, St. Patrick Catheral, Central Park, FAO Swartz, Rockefeller Center. Can you believe they did all this BEFORE lunch? When B-Kath & Patty caught up them at the Korean restaurant, John had grown a bit long in the tooth (or perhaps Korean food just makes you a bit crazy!)
Coming to our senses once again we headed off to the Empire State Building - of course we took Mary up! Then some strolling down 5th Avenue where Mary shopped til she almost dropped. You know that bank account you USED to have Frank??????
Nita (a friend of B-Kath's) called while we were contemplating the program outside a church - "What should women wear?" & asked if we might like to join her & her kids on a James Beard sunset dinner cruise. (Some of her sales staff had cancelled.) Let's see... no dress code, gourmet dinner, a cruise around Manhattan & the Statue of Liberty on a VERY nice yacht, sunset, a full moon, open bar, no charge (FREE). It was a HARD decision! Thank you soooo much, Nita! (She's standing next to John.)

Can you guess where we were today?

And where are Mary & John? After all it was Tillie (Tillie's namesake as well as John's mother & Mary's grandmother) that came to the U.S. past the lady you see on your right & through Ellis Island. Well, it turns out Mary & John took the boat to N.J. & Patty took the boat to NYC & Mary & John were in charge of the photo & Patty was in charge of the text & Mary & John are staying with Kathleen & Patty is staying with Kathleen but we're all getting together tomorrow. You've had days like that too, haven't you? Please call if any of you understood any of that and clarify it for us. Stay tuned....

Who ARE all these people?

Beats me, but somehow I think if DNA samples were taken a connection might be determined.

Mary spent the day trying to determine who were cousins once removed, who were second cousins (and what the difference was), who were sisters/brothers, etc. etc. Luckily she had met Uncle Jules when she first arrived so at least she had that relationship figured out before the day began. She never realized she had so many east coast relatives.

Vinalhaven may be small but that doesn't mean they don't have entertainment. Thursday night we went to the dress rehearsal for the world premiere one-woman play, "The Little Locksmith". Lisa (on the left) is the star and was terrific as was the the play. To know how talented she is, just imagine changing your thick Cockney accent into an American one, then learning enough lines to fill an hour & 20 minutes.

As we prepared to leave the island on the ferry, Mary & John strike heroic poses. Mary seems to be getting the hang of this heroic pose business even with a piece of toast in her hand.

Charlie the Chyrsler was waiting patiently for us at the dock so off we went narrowly escaping the crowds for "Lobsterfest" in Rockland. He also sailed by B&M baked beans in Portland, the world's best baked beans. Apparently he thought he had enough gas for all of us. And he proved his worth in Hartford... 99 degrees, bumper to bumper SLOW traffic and we sat cool and comfortable inside. Tillie would not have been happy. (Today, Mary added Massachusetts & Connecticut to her list of states visited.)

Terry Riley & Nita Robinson with us on Vinalhaven? Is THAt why they look so surprised? No, no. We just forgot to put their picture on the blog as we said we would.

Bruce & Leigh have a baby???!!! Who knew? No, no. It’s just another forgotten photo. The baby, Devon, is Leigh’s grand-nephew.

And finally back to Vinalhaven for real. A little wine, a little garlic & mussels straight from the sea. What could be better?

Topped off the day with a local concert featuring Gigi & her “Granite Island Chicks”. Lots of fun & good entertainment. They were introduced as “the group in various stages of menopause so you never knew what to expect from them”.

Vinalhaven = lobster. And for those of you interested in trivia, the world’s largest lobster fishing fleet calls Vinalhaven home. An 18 wheeler (BIG truck) leaves the island 6 days a week (they don’t fish on Sundays) loaded with live lobster.
Back to the real matter at hand, Mary had her first whole lobster. It’s not every French woman, or anyone for that matter, who can say they had their first lobster delivered to the door by the fisherman who caught it just that morning. If being a quick study in how to cook, then dissect and eat a lobster is any indication, her career choice of biology should serve her well. So did Mary like the lobster? Let’s just say she managed to eat her 2 pound lobster plus John’s tail and one of his claws. Karol & Patty didn’t offer to share.
A small note to those suffering in the east coast heat wave – it’s a pleasant but muggy 70 degrees this morning. Being surrounded by the cold north Atlantic is a blessing.

With Ben off to soccer camp we wave goodbye to Steve (Ginny left at 5:30 – we don’t get up quite that early!) and we head for Maine.
We are already noticing the differences between Tillie & Charlie. Air conditioning? The pool at the end of the trip was great but somehow we didn’t seem to appreciate it nearly as much as when we sweated through the plains. Conversation? You mean we actually have to think of something semi-intelligent to say to one another… ALL the time? Radio? There’s something ELSE going on in the world besides our trip? Mosquito bites? We don’t have to research campgrounds and think about putting up the bug net (now what DO we talk about?) Guard rails on bridges? Mary’s photo taking has decreased - Charlie rides lower and she can’t take pictures over the guard rails like she used to in Tillie. Cold snacks? Charlie doesn’t have a frig. Leg room? Actually Tillie had more. Power steering? Charlie wins hands down but John gets bored with nothing to do. State map? Poor Charlie. We didn’t think to get a map for him as well. Friendly waves & honks? Poor Charlie, he just blends in with the crowd.
Future adventures??? - we stopped in Freeport, Maine, to check out the biggest globe in the world. It must be by boat since Mary & John seem to be pointing at the ocean. Sure enough, only a few hours later we were on the ferry to Vinalhaven. The island is still as beautiful as ever and John & Karol are both helping Mary with her heroic poses. You can see from the photo she seems to be making progress.