Post Travel Day

Finally home again - one of the things mom remembered this week was the rhyme: To Market, to market to buy a fat pig - home again, home again, jiggety-jig. Turns out that isn't actually the wording. I thought it was too - but it is "dancing a jig" apparently. I thought there was one about buying a fat hen. But no, not the case. Memories continue to be strange and wonderful things.

Yesterday was a travel day. We got up really early - well, I got up earlier than normal for me - around 7:15 I think. Packed my room up first - took apart my game, put my clothes back in the suitcase, stripped the bed. Then I headed for mom's room - woke her up and started to pack up her stuff. She had more than she came with - Juliet provided lots more clothes and a lovely Thermos bag for mom for late birthday presents! How generous and thoughtful! Mom was much better dressed over the week than I usually put out for her! Anyway, that went quickly enough. Getting mom moving was slow going, but eventually she got up and got ready to go. I really didn't want to leave anything behind - so did a good job of looking in closets and drawers and under the bed to gather all of mom's stuff together. One thing had been missing for a few days - mom's angora "chest" sweater - a sweater that she typically uses to place on her chest at night for a bit of extra warmth. A search of the house revealed nothing. As I was packing, Juliet mentioned that one of mom's sweaters was drying in a room on the first floor - I went to get it and discovered mom's chest sweater on the back of a chair in there. Yay! I do hope that nothing got left behind.

We got out and on the road around 9. It took a while, a few stops and 2 of my mix CDs to get us home around 7 pm - through a bit of a deluge near Albany, over hill, through dale, a teeny bit of traffic and a good amount of clear sailing. Yippee!

The day before - Saturday - was definitely not a travel day. My last day of semi-autonomy for a long while, I got up and got out and drove to where we were meeting later in the afternoon - when I am not familiar with a place, I like to check it out, when I can, ahead of time so I am not unpleasantly surprised. Found the place - in the middle of nowhere - and then stopped to figure out my next move. I guess I sat there a little too long as some guy came up and asked if I needed help. Not in a mean way, but I could tell he was not pleased with my sitting in the parking lot of his (closed) establishment. Whatever. I moved to the parking lot of a building that was under-construction. Only to find that the beer place I wanted to check out was only open on Fridays. Ooops. So I decided to go get a bite of lunch.

On my travels I finished my audio book - Seabiscuit! Great stuff and very glad I listened to it. Now I think I might want to see the movie again...

For lunch, I chose a place I have visited in the past - The Whale's Tooth. Good food - some local beer. I had an Andrew's beer - the place I had wanted to visit. And I had a ham and cheese melt with house made chips. Wow! It was really, really good! The whole schmoo. The house made chips were about the best I have ever, ever had. I wish I could make home made chips like they made those. Sigh.

Then off to rendezvous with my mom and sister at Hope Elephants, in Hope, Maine. I had read a little about it on the internet, after Juliet mentioned that we were planning on going to visit. But it didn't really prepare me for the experience. The deal is that there are two ex-circus elephants being looked after by a one-time circus worker who later became a vet in order to continue a life taking care of elephants. It is a small place - with a decent sized enclosure for the elephants to wander in and a specially built building for their indoor use. The main man, Jim, had worked with these two particular elephants back in a circus many years ago. He had done various elephant related activities in his life and then chose to help one particular elephant, which meant - for her health, that he needed to have two elephants. He told us all sorts of interesting facts about elephants in general and the two he had in particular. Fed them lots of carrots and some sticks (which they actually do a decent job of digesting apparently) and answered questions. We got to hold one of their old molars (wow - they have huge teeth - only four of them at a time - but still huge)! All in all, good stuff. Then a short visit to the inside building and suddenly we were done. I would recommend the visit to anyone who likes the idea of pachyderms. I think they ought to reverse the order of the experience because I, for one, would rather end up with viewing the elephants...

I think mom enjoyed the experience a little. Hard to tell recently. She is not doing that great. I know that she was eager to leave Maine starting about Wednesday. Sigh. I don't think we are going to be doing much traveling ever again. Double sigh.

Anyway, our next rendezvous was at 7 for dinner. I said "ta-ta" and headed off - ending up at Front Street Pub having a happy hour beer. Played a game of pool with a nice young woman, gave her a ride back to her abode and zipped back down to Lincolnville for dinner with Juliet, Paul and Mom.

Chez Michele is open only during "the season." Good food, decent atmosphere - I can see why Paul and Juliet like the place. I had duck and ordered a seafood combination dinner for mom. Lots of food! I felt way too pudgy at the end of the meal.

Good day - and a great way to end our week's visit to Maine! I have posted pictures on Facebook of the whole trip. Yippee!