Just like boondocking

So we survived Irene!

She started raining & blowing

her wind around 2 am.

Left a lot of leaves & twigs everywhere..

At about 10:30 am, 

we suddenly lost power.

Not a problem, as it is Sunday,

not night time YET.

Kept up on everything

through my smartphone.

After a couple hours, 

George decided to take

a spin around the blocks

to see if he could figure out

why the power was out.

Part of a big tree had split

and fallen on the wires.

This is the road leading back

to George's house.

When the power hadn't gone on

for the 4th hour..

George got his generator

out and plugged it in 

to the fridge, to keep it running.

He was just plugging in the TV around the 6th hour, 

when the power was restored.

I thought it was a nice day!

No power, so no TV,

no computer..

just reading the old fashioned way.

and napping ;-)

Now we know what it's like to boondock!

Waitin' for Irene

Since we may see some of Irene

later tonight and all day tomorrow..

we decided to do our normal Sunday

things today...

...grocery shopping, wash,

the normal domestic stuff.

Since George's daughter, Heather

celebrated her birthday on Monday,

 we chose to take her out to lunch today.

She picked a great little

place called

Canteen 900

George being a goof!

 

The food was terrific. I had a

Canteen 900 Signature.

 This was only half!

 

We celebrated with coconut cream

& peach cream cupcakes. Yum!

Now we're home,

watching the Weather channel

for Irene updates.

We took the hanging plants,

windchimes, and

decorative flag off

of the front porch of the house.

Tomorrow morning, 

we should have lots of rain & wind!

Stay safe everyone who is in her path..

Earthquakes to hurricanes

Incredible how Mother nature works.

A 5.8 earthquake in of all places

Virginia!

Now, on the heels of that..

Irene...

She's packing a punch..

with evacuations already in

parts of NJ and points south.

We should only get

about 2" of rain, and 40 mph winds

on Sunday..

...so far...

The media is in a frenzy already.

Time will tell.

I'm getting calls already

for bottled water for 

hurricane relief.

We hope that all our blog friends

in the south..

will be ok.

Hang on!

Albany, NY

As too often happens, the weekend flew by.

Harry made us a terrific breakfast

of  eggs, home fries, and toast.

We lazed around, reading blogs, etc,

then decided it was time to head

off for more sightseeing.

Harry took us around their

neck of the woods, 

seeing where Jessica works,

and ending up in downtown Albany.

We walked around the Empire State Plaza..

 The buildings are really nice, 

for such a small sized city.

Harry pointed out his building..

up on the 10th floor...

corner office ;-)

 We walked down the street to

see the New York State Capital building.

It was getting close to lunchtime.

Of course, we had to find somewhere to eat!

Jessica suggested 

Albany Pump Station

where we had terrific food, 

and local beer.

Soon, it was time to head back

to their house and get going 

back home.

Harry took us through the 'town'

of Castleton-on-Hudson.

Sounds like such a quaint place...

but..

not so much :-)

It's ok, it sounds good, anyway!

We gave hugs, and we were on our way.

I think we all had a great time,

and can't wait to spend time with them again.

G'bye Ariel & Crookshanks

Castleton, NY

Friday we headed up

to Castleton, NY,

where our friends

Harry & Jessica Riker

live.

We drove through a huge

thunderstorm along the way!

Hard to get the lightening on camera :-)

We finally made it to their house.

Got to see the fiver!

We had some good pizza & wings,

and some nice drinks!

This morning, 

we had a nice breakfast, 

cooked by Harry!

Then we headed up to Lake George.

I haven't been here for a long time, 

but it's a great place.

We walked around a bit,

but before that, 

we bought our tickets for

the boat cruise

on the Mohican.

We walked around the village of Lake George..

and popped in a shop to

do some wine tasting.

Not bad!

We grabbed a bite to eat, 

then off to our cruise on the lake!

We boarded the ship, 

and climbed to the top level.

The ride was 2.5 hours long, 

and approximately 16 miles one way!

We saw parasailers...

lots of mansions..

and the Sagamore hotel..

a little too rich for our blood!

We had a great time, 

and got a little crisp..

no pictures of our nice sunburn :-)

At the end of the day..

ice cream was in order..

I don't know why we didn't get pics 

of the ice cream cones,

they were great!

Tomorrow we're going

to take a spin through

Albany.

Having a great time!!

Lazy weekend - but some preparations made

Saturday & Sunday.

Our days off,

which end with the dreaded

feeling of Monday & back to work.

We had nothing planned to do

this weekend.

Our bikes were calling us

to go for a ride..

but the rain yesterday and today,

shut us out.

Yesterday, I got all my CD's

and burned them onto a flash drive.

I can play all my music off of my laptop.

Now I can box them up and

sell them on Second Spin.

All you have to do

is enter the CD title (or UPC)

on the site, and they

pay you for them plus shipping.

It's not much, but more than yard sale :-)

This will save lots of room in the rig.

Today was spent addressing

invitations to the wedding.

We're not sending a lot out, 

as the ceremony will be in California.

We're getting married in my 

old home church, my parents still attend there.

They will put an open invitation in the bulletin

right before the wedding.

I called both  my sons to find out

about their plans.

We can't believe it's almost here!

The other exciting thing we did

was to make hotel reservations 

to stay in Hershey, PA

for the RV Show

that is in September.

Although we don't plan on buying one THERE..

we will be able to look at some more

models, and especially the Montana

model that we think we want to buy.

We're also looking forward to

NEXT weekend, 

and visiting Harry & Jessica!!

Nice night for a walk

Stress.

The thing I long to 

get away from.

We've been walking again.

I put my Droid in my pocket, 

and log in our walking on

Run Keeper

thanks to Linda of RV Dreams.

It tracks your strides by GPS

on your phone,

and tells you your miles/minute.

It's pretty cool!

Tonight was cooler,

I think summer is waning :(

It's nice sleeping weather.

but...

I digress.

We walked tonight

with a little stress reliever..

we put a little bloody mary

in our bubba kegs

while we walked..

If we walk around the 

3 blocks surrounding

the neighborhood,

it's exactly 1 mile.

The industrial park

It's perfect for a mile a night!

Tonight is the peak

of the Perseid meteor showers.

We'll hopefully see some, 

if the mosquitoes don't chase us inside!

Happy birthday Lucy!

Today has been a quiet day. 

We started out with a good house cleaning.

It's been pouring rain outside all day, 

which we really need.

It makes it dark and dreary, however.

We decided it was a good day

to veg out and watch TV.

Lots of 'how-to' shows,

and a couple movies on HBO.

I was flipping channels, 

and couldn't figure out

why there were so many 

Lucille Ball shows on.

Ah ha, today would 

have been her 100th birthday!

They showed 'Long, Long, Trailer',

which I know most RVrs have seen...

but I had not.

I had to laugh!!

We also have some sad news to share.

My cat, Milo, 

had to be put down yesterday.

He lived a good life,

almost 15 years.

He was very weak toward the end,

losing a lot of weight,

and sleeping most all the time.

We thought it was more humane, 

than to let him slip away.

We will miss him dearly.