Old neighbors and new neighbors

The family unit travels minus one again. Mariah is off on her great adventure with my mother to Europe. We miss her but the show must go on.
Every once in a while in your life you get to go back in time, not just in memory but actual time and you feel in your mind and heart like you were when you were “young” and had no worries about the future or the past or the current. I was lucky enough to have this experience when we were in Burlington, VT. I visited my first love and it really felt like no time had passed between us. The beauty of it was that as much as we had changed, we hadn’t changed at all. It is rare to find and lovely to experience. The best part was that my friend Alan and Mark got along great. I enjoyed sharing my family and meeting his mate and his friends and his life.
Sadly we had to leave to wind our way to Massachusetts to visit a neighbor who lived across the street in Socorro. Saskia and John belong to the liege of people who come to Socorro, steal ours hearts and then leave. The fun part is that we feel at home whenever and wherever we get to visit them and be their neighbors again as we camp in their front yard interfering with their electric dog fence (whoops!). They have two handsome boys that are much bigger and more mature than I expected. We arrived on Saturday and Mariah had to leave on Monday so she got to visit a little but not enough. In our quest to try more amusements parks, we tried to check out Six Flags on Father’s Day. Now I know what people in downtown New Delhi live like everyday. It was such a mad house we decided to try again another day. Talk about a well disciplined teenager, the next day while we tried again to enjoy Six Flags, she stayed in the camper to finish her schoolwork so she wouldn’t have to take it on her trip with grandma. Wow! It was sad to put her on the plane but I know she will have fun and learn a great deal.
When in New England do as the NE’s do. I guess that means we have to eat fresh lobster and fresh clam chowder, rats! One of the historical trips you can take when in this area that doesn’t involve large cities or downtowns with to many people is go to Salem MA. The Salem Witch Museum is a testament to the wrong that can be accomplished when fear is used as a weapon. I particularly enjoyed how the museum showed how we refuse to learn from our past and keep using the same techniques to manipulate and stereotype.
You can’t go to New England and not enjoy the coastal villages that make it what it is. We had the pleasure of watching a man in his boat go out and get his dinner from a trap in the water and then seeing all his lobsters in a box. The dinner was set and now Olivia got to see how to put a lobster to sleep before putting in the water to cook. I bet she never forgets that! On our way home we had the pleasure of getting lost in downtown Boston. There was an adventure. The computer which I have been using to navigate with MS Streets and Maps with GPS decided to run out of battery and so we had to wing it. We got to the Sommer tunnel which as it turns out doesn’t allow campers through. Whoops, back up, try to cross four lanes of traffic coming into the tunnel and then look for the entrance to a bridge we can see but seems to be 50 feet above us. Oh and by the way, it would be nice if Boston would put some street signs up so you could at least know where you are so you can try to explain to someone on the phone how lost you are! We did make it back but only after some hair raising passes under very low bridges. Thank goodness the beer was cold and the seafood medley delicious.
Once again we were on the move and we decided to stop and see some friends we had made in Florida. It was a quick stop but enough time to tour downtown Hartford which was very nice. They have a spectacular rose garden and a very clean downtown. The first statehouse has been well preserved and it set the tone for everything else. One of the days in the MA we spent trying to see a museum in Kent CT. After driving 3 hours to get there we found out it was closed. We couldn’t leave well enough alone and decided to try again and this time met with success and the effort was definitely worth it. Mark and I both share a love for tools so the Sloane/Stanley museum was a must. I don’t want to go into great detail about who he is but if you haven’t heard of him (Eric Sloane), you should look him up. He was a very interesting collector, artist and author. The icing on the cake was that the Connecticut Antique collector park was next door where volunteers have preserved relics of the evolution of the industrial revolution. Everything from steam railroad engines to early oil pumping equipment that used the steam engine but was powered by natural gas can be seen in the 10+ buildings, all in working order and mint like condition. The people who are there are all volunteers and very motivated to educate one on what each machine does and what role it played in the industrial revolution that shaped the northeast. There was a mineral museum where they are creating a coal mine and showing a dynamite blast in sequence. They have the best fluorescence display I have seen yet and I have seen a few now. We really hated to leave there but westward we must travel. Our destination is Chicago for the 4th so we can pick up Mariah and my mother who wants to experience the adventure in the flesh. It is not for everyone but it sure is fun! That is the newsiest news there is from the Meanderthals.
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