1) We went to the Tulluride by the Sea film festival at the
in Portsmouth. Neat old theater
.
We saw Coco Avant Chanel, a very good
indep. French film starring Audrey Tautou. We felt pretty darn intellectual. Then we drank pumpkin spice lattes at
, which also made us feel intellectual.
2) breakfast at the slightly odd restaurant,
3) house-museums and
, a 12 acre museum of homes running from colonial era to WWII. Mid-September, the gardens are still blooming with a hundred colors and the grass is still a lush green while at the same time, some of the trees are turning red and orange and yellow. COLOR! We history-buff nature lovers really enjoyed this place.
4) toured to the top of the Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse.
then dinner at Petey's Lobster Shack on Rye Beach.
5) watched the Texas Tech vs. tu game. I have never turned on my TV, so mom just about freaked out when we couldn't figure out how to turn on the game on .
Oh and Jordan Shipley almost got impaled by Bevo.
6) I went to the 30 mile cycling race through historic downtown. I snagged a great spot in eye shot of the starting/finish line. I got a cold drink and wondered around the festival, then strategically balanced myself on a 4 ft. concrete pillar to watch the end. I had never been to a race before. It was fun.
7-9) I spent the evening on my own (while mom worked). I went to Sarah Goodw
in's garden at Strawbery Banke and memorized plant and herb names for a long time. It was too lovely to leave. Summer is desperate! Fall is migrating southward. There are a few strawberries still on the patches, the morning glories are still glorifying themselves and the johnny jumps have yet to stop jumping. Some trees remain July-lush green and half of the other trees ar
e red, organge, or orangy-red. I left there to go to another garden where I practice my expertise treeclimbing skills and balancing acts. I got some weird looks. Then I went and watched the sunset over the Pascataqua River from a dock at Prescott Park.
10) Rented
11) drove through the white mountains to see the beginnings of fall leaves. Then ate half orders of pasta at a really fun restaurant at the Inn at Mill Falls right on the Lake Winnepesaukee. So we watched the sunset over the water while we ate and that was so marvelous.
12) down to historic Boston and Plymouth on the way to
13) Cape Cod. Walking uphill on fine sand for a long distance works your quads. We drove out to the very tip of the cape and spent the night in a Provincetown.
14) Then Wednesday, we went to the Masalin's (the most kind and hospitable family I've ever met) house for dinner, which was oh so wonderful!
And then headed back to Maine. Mom left for Dallas today.
I entered the Appalachian Mntns the 2nd morning. I appropriately turned on Edvard Grieg's "Morning" as I wound up my first mount. The music seemed to meander and dip and climb with my road. Then, with amazing precision, the music climaxed just as I rounded into my first valley. I was nearly overwhelmed by the rush of visuals and music. Just below my road was a rusty coal train. Just beyond the coal train was a broad river. And the second burst of music erupted at the same moment that I spotted a shallow waterfall as wide as the broad river beyond the coal train below me was broad. Although it was winter, the view was spectacular. A light snow lay between the bare trees. More twists and turns revealed old red barns, valleys of grazing horses, bubbling brooks spilling out of still ponds, and few humans.
I drove from the Blue Ridge Parkway, across the dog ear of West Virginia, through the crane neck of Maryland. I passed Scranton, PA but did not stop at Dundermifflin, then paralleled Long Island Sound til I reached the Masalin's house.
So last night, Iwas anticipating cooking chicken when the door bell rang. It was our lobsterman neighbor, Jeff, holding two live lobsters that he had caught in the bay! He instructed us (in his rich Mainer accent) to boil 1" of water then stick 'em in for 12 minutes. Great. So Chris and I let them crawl around on the kitchen floor while we boiled the water. It was like having pets. Then we killed them. Nervously, Chris took one tail-flapping crustation and I took the less angry one; we exchanged glances then quickly crammed them into the pot and slammed the lid on. Ah! Their feelers were hanging out under the lid and I tried to tuck them in, but didn't have room. 12 minutes later, they had turned from black to red. We used the reverse side of the canopener to break them open and a fork to do the rest. They tasted pretty good. What an experience.
And today, Chris played a rugby game in Boston. Do you know the history of rugby? It started in a soccer match at Rugby Boarding School in England in 1823. A player picked up the soccer ball and ran then the other team said Hey, you can't do that and tackled him. Later, they said Hm that was fun and started rugby. American football is spawn of rugby, of course, but we lost awesome words like "pitch," "scrum," "ruck," and "maul." Half of Chris' teammates have gnarly Brit, Scot, Irish, or New Zealand accents. BTW I thought my stubbly-faced husband looked pretty good standing there with mud all over his british-looking jersey and rain and sweat rolling down his face and hair tips. The rain made it more fun (only bc it was 65 deg.)
Chris gets back tomorrow. He left last Thursday to sail the boat down to Florida for renovations. When he was leaving, I watched them launch the boat from a park on the other side of the Piscataqua River, then as the tug boat pushed them harbor ward, I hopped in my car and raced out to the peninsula-island of New Castle. The road runs along the waterway, so I could glance between the buildings to see that I was barely ahead of the Tahoma. I parked at Fort Constitution (the lighthouse that mom and I visited. also a small coast guard base), jumped out of my car, ran through the gate, and climbed up on top of the old wall. Perfect timing. I sat and watched the boat then walked along the top of the wall with it until a coast guard officer stopped me and told me to go back. I told him that my husband was on that cutter then another coasty came out and asked me
I climbed an aspen tree. The sun shone through the bright yellow leaves and made me feel like 
