It’s great to be back in Maine again and this year we decided to continue our island tour. This year we decided to head up to Vinalhaven which is a 75 minute ferry ride off the coast of Rockland. The experience was phenomenal and included an overnight stay in a wonderful AirBNB home owned by Anne and her family from MA. We were able to fit in a short hike, pre-dinner wine and cheese at the house followed by a great meal at a local restaurant called Salt.
I know I always say that I will let the photos do the talking but this time it was really tough to take a bad photo….so I will definitely let them do the talking this time around. I hope you enjoy!
If you have read any of the recent posts on this blog, you will notice that we are really big fans of the band, The National. So, when I learned that they would be playing two small shows in Hudson, NY to promote their new album, I quickly mobilized the troops–my nephews and sister–and bought tickets and started planning the quick weekend trip.
We decided on an itinerary that included stops at Trogues Brewery in Hershey, PA and back to Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown, NY with a one night stay over in Windham, NY on the way back.
The plan went like clockwork as I departed KY on Friday morning and arrived in Pittsburgh in the late afternoon. We all woke up early on Saturday and the adventure began. Thankfully, the long drive was more than worthwhile as Basilica Hudson–the venue for the concert–was much smaller and intimate than I imagined and the show turned out to be beyond my expectations.
The breweries and great food were a bonus.
I was back in KY the following Monday afternoon. Not sure if it is possible to do more in a weekend but I’m sure I will try sometime soon.
I won’t go into much more detail–as usual, I’ll let the photos do the talking…
Here are several videos that I shot of the sound check and some songs from the performance:
Lastly, I have to include an Ohio rant and a plea to The Donald. Don, Ohio’s roads are screaming for help. Please send a boatload of infrastructure dollars their way–please! I have seen worse roads but they are in the middle of a desert in Turkmenistan. Ohio deserves better. So, please Don, make Ohio’s Roads Great Again–I will guarantee that your poll numbers will improve if you start opening up that infrastructure wallet. If you can’t manage to do this, then consider building a wall around Ohio so I will be forced to drive around it.
Billboard on Interstate 71 between Columbus and Cincinnati. Yes, Hell is Real–it’s driving on the awful roads of Ohio.
A couple of days ago, I did a short 20 mile out and back bike ride that I used to do with a good friend of mine when we were in high school…was that really 38 years ago? Back then Dave F. and I started in the Allentown section of Pittsburgh and rode Rt. 28 to Shaler and then rode up Saxonburg Boulevard to Deer Lakes Park. That was a bit of a suicide mission back then as the 10 mile ride along heavily traveled Rt. 28 was unnerving…I wouldn’t even consider trying it today.
Instead of the full trip from Allentown, I strapped my bike to the Thule rack and drove the car to Shaler Plaza…the beginning of Saxonburg Boulevard. The weather was perfect and the ride brought back some really good memories…and really bad ones too…the hills!
Despite the challenges the hills presented (I am probably +40 pounds since high school), I didn’t push the bike once. Actually, it was a very manageable ride…nothing like the 65 mile killer I experienced in Oregon last summer.
Stopped at the halfway point and had breakfast at the Deer Creek Diner where the food is excellent and the portions could feed a family of four.
A really great short trip and I certainly didn’t miss the stress of riding on Rt. 28–inches away from cars going 60-70 mph. Funny how getting older makes you much more risk averse…or smarter…or both.
The National announced a last-minute concert in their hometown of Cincinnati earlier this week to support the Get Out the Vote campaign. This was only a 90 minute drive up the road from me and a proverbial “hop, skip and a jump” compared to the 15 hour road trip we took to western Massachusetts to see them in June. The short trip combined with mid-70 degree near record-high temps for early November made for a great night. The best part was arriving a couple of hours early to see the sound check…me and about 10 other folks got to see and hear a few songs. Here are a few videos from the afternoon and evening. The first video, the song Pink Rabbits, is from the sound check. I apologize for the overly loud sound of the other videos; I guess I was too close to the stage.
It’s been a couple of weeks since we returned from Armenia and, as usual, I have not updated the blog as quickly as I wanted. The flight back was brutal as we spent 27 hours on planes and in airports. Four legs took us from Yerevan to Doha to Boston to Atlanta and finally to Louisville.
Unfortunately, my last day in Yerevan was spent in bed until late afternoon as I think I had a case of mild food poisoning. That meant I missed visiting the Genocide Museum and a couple of other places I wanted to see. Luckily I recovered enough that the 27 hour trip back was manageable.
I will start the trip recap with a short 2 1/2 minute montage of the trip followed by some photos that all of us had taken during the trip:
Below are the photos used in the video above – make sure you view all four pages of them…
Finally, my last piece of media to show. Here is a 360 degree video from the Wings of Tatev tram. If you are on a PC you can click and drag anywhere in the video to see the full 360 view. If you are using a tablet, you can expand the video by clicking the small square in the lower right of the photo and then moving your tablet in a circle. If you are on a Mac or iPad you have to use the YouTube app:
I still hope to have one last post that includes details of things we did on days 6 through 9.
