Tag: Maine

But cold is different

Well the rain has all gone now and the skies are clear. With clearing skies the temperature has dropped. Overnight it was 19°F (-7°C), it is currently (10am) 34°F (1°C) and temperatures are supposed to be staying low for the next few days. Still at least we are not on top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire – yesterday it was 4°F (-15°C) with the windchill taking it down to -28°F (-33°C).. brrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The other big difference is that the humidity is very low – often below 50% which means everything is very dry and the amount of static you can build up is pretty amazing.

Just relaxing doing nothing

Sue and Jeff live outside Hallowell, and even though the interstate is quite close there is no direct access and its not actually that noisy

[Embedded Canalplan Map for Sue and Jeff’s]

As you can see from the photo the neighbours are slightly further away than they are at home. When we aren’t here we are spending time over at Kathy’s parents who live on the other side of Augusta. Her Mum makes a mean mug of coffee and always has lots of food to nibble on.

[Embedded Canalplan Map for Kathy’s Parents]

The big tree on the corner of the property by the turning into Sparrow Drive has recently come down as it was leaning dangerously, and the small shed in the garden has also gone.. actually its been gone for a while now so I guess the satellite image is quite old

Flying is never a really good experience

I don’t care what any airline claims – flying is not an overly enjoyable experience : well not in economy any way.

We got to the airport, dropped off our luggage and went through security. All remarkably painless and as we didn’t have to be there 3 hours in advance as we were already checked in we didn’t end up kicking our heels and getting bored sitting in the departure lounge for hours.

Boarding was remarkably painless, probably because the flight was only about half full, but of course we ended up with people sitting in the two seats in front of us: two people who were complete pains – they reclined their seats the minute they got into them and never put them up again (even when food was being served). The woman who was sitting in front of me just didn’t sit still for the entire flight, if she wasn’t going to the toilet she was moving round in her seat making the back move all the time which made watching any film just about impossible as unless you leant forward and twisted your neck it wasn’t actually possible to see the screen properly.

The flight left late but managed, due to 75mph tail winds, to actually land on time at 17:05 EST. Immigration, baggage claim and customs was the quickest it has ever been and we got out of the airport at 17:35, just in time to see the Concord Trailways bus for Portland just leaving…. oh well.

So we waited for the next bus at 18:30 which was a couple of minutes late (if only the previous one had been) and headed for Portland. The movie on the coach was Evan Allmighty, not a film I would have chosen to watch due to the fact that the previous film in the”series” starred Jim Carey and I find his manic behaviour extremely tedious. But it wasn’t a bad film and it filled the two hours of trip up the interstate.

It was about 10:30 by the time we had arrived at Sue and Jeff’s and I have to say that it wasn’t long before I headed off to bed.

Look out Maine, here we come

Well I’ve started my holiday today, not that we’ve gone anywhere yet: Kathy is working today so I’m finishing off the packing, getting the car ready, taking some rubbish to the tip and doing some last minute shopping for things we’re taking over which include hot paprika and Paprika flavoured Pringles which for some reason you can’t actually get in Maine.

We don’t actually fly out until tomorrow but we headed down to Heathrow after supper this evening as we’ve got a very good park, sleep, fly deal at the Park Inn which is right by the airport.

[Embedded Canalplan Map for Park Inn]

We’ve started using these park, sleep, fly deals due to the rather odd concept of a bus service that National Express run (or as is the case of morning buses from Heathrow to Cheltenham, the Service that National Express DON’T run). It also gets rid of the early starts from Cheltenham (6am-7am) and the worry of what happens if there are any hold ups on the way.

The Hotel isn’t bad – its a huge place as you can see from the photo. Inside its quite smart, but I think the interior designer had watched just a few too many episodes of StarTrek – The Next Generation as the corridors look like they could have fallen right out of the enterprise. The mattress was extremely soft and Kathy was worried about her back but it didn’t seem to cause too many problems.

So we can have a nice long lie in tomorrow, take it easy and get to the airport in plenty of time for our flight as we are already checked in and have our boarding passes (oh, the wonders of the internet)