May 2025We took a short trip to Austin in April followed by a few days in Auburn. The trips are numbered in my logbook and this was trip #30. I think that was the first time that I have booked airline tickets by selecting "multi city". Flying first to Atlanta on the early flight from Portland, we changed planes with no time to spare and arrived in Austin just before noon. The Delta flights were very good. The weather in Austin was often overcast but there was also good weather that allowed for time to play outside with the grandkids. About a week before we left Maine, I shipped a box of wooden blocks to Paul's, and they arrived the day after we got there. They were a hit and very soon their living room was covered in wooden blocks. The blocks are made of poplar and required hours of sanding by hand followed by staining with butcher block wax. I also made a set for Sarah's kids a year ago. After a few days, we caught a flight back to Atlanta for the Auburn leg. I had forgotten that the Masters Golf event in Augusta causes rental car shortages in Atlanta, and we had to wait for a car. The wait time was a little over an hour. It was a Monday, and we had the traditional dinner at Venditori's. Everything at the house was fine. I mowed the yard and trimmed some hedges. The weather was perfect. I was able to get two motorcycle rides. A short ride over to Beauregard and a much longer one around campus. It is easy to daydream while sitting at a traffic light and think about my student days at Auburn. It was about 47 years ago that I was probably sitting at the very same traffic light on my old Honda watching the students walking to and from classes. They sort of look the same, but they are very different, and I am older than their parents. The Friday before we left, I opened the security camera app on my phone, and I saw that our beloved cat had died. The neighbors were there dealing with it. We were concerned that his health was waning, and we took him to the vet four days before we left Maine to get an opinion. The vet said not to worry, and he should have plenty of time left. It was so hard to process seeing him dead on the floor. He was our child of 16 years. I tried not to think about it because I had to focus on the trip home and shutting the house down. The shut down checklist is long and takes several hours. We left the next day, Saturday, and got on the road about noon. Traffic on I-85 was very congested. I have never seen such traffic that far south of Atlanta. It is also very dangerous traffic. Why do people drive so poorly with no consideration for others? We got to Atlanta eventually and I filled up the rental at the little Chevron station on Riverdale Road. The flight back was the late flight that left at 9:30. We had hours to wait so we went out to Terminal F to get some dinner. That late flight arrives in Portland after midnight, and we usually scoot over to the Garden Inn for the night and drive home in the morning. But the hotel was sold out and we had no reservation. I stopped making reservations for the return trip because once the flight was cancelled and the hotel has a policy of charging if you have to cancel at the last minute. Now I call two days before the return trip to check availability. I was told on Thursday that there should be plenty of rooms available. So, it was almost 1 AM and we had no room. The Embassy Suites next door was also sold out. I decided to get on the road and drive 20 minutes North to the Freeport Hampton Inn. They were sold out too. It was now 2 AM, cold, raining and very dark. I just got back on the road and headed towards Bangor. I could only drive 45 miles an hour. The road was slippery, and I saw a lot of deer along the roadside. I just kept going. There was absolutely no traffic - just us and the deer. What a contrast to a few hours earlier in Atlanta. We eventually got home at daylight to a cold, empty house. No kitty cat to greet us and no sleep in 24 hours. It is now May, and we are planning the next trip to Auburn in about four weeks. It will be a sixteen-day trip with five days in San Diego on the tail end. I am sort of looking forward to it, but I would rather just stay home in Maine and get some things done. We really need to see our oldest son, Dave and I am sure we will have a good time. San Diego has plenty of fun things to see and do and I know the weather will be perfect. October, 2024The summer is finally coming to an end. It was a good summer - not too wet and not too dry. But, after September, fall moves in pretty fast on the coast of Maine. We began the year with a return trip from Auburn and then dealt with two brutal storms a couple of days apart in January. We went to Topsham in February and Austin, Texas in March to see our new granddaughter. In mid-May we went to Auburn and returned to Maine right at the beginning of Memorial Day weekend. On August 2, we went back to Austin where it was delightfully hot and dry. There is something about that Texas dry heat to I like. Three weeks ago we flew back to Auburn but not without a little problem. I always take a bag of my favorite coffee on these trips and the TSA folks in Portland always pull me aside to inspect the coffee. But this time after inspection, they did not properly close my case and it popped open on the escalator and my beautiful Nikon 810 rolled and bounced down the stairs damaging the lens to the point of being unusable for use at the Fraternity event the next night. The first two days in Auburn were consumed by repairmen at the house to fix the three heat pumps that were all on the fritz. On Saturday morning I took the camera to the shop, Cameragraphics, and they were able to fix the lens while selling a new camera to me. They have been telling me about mirror-less cameras for a while and they finally sold a new one to me - the Nikon Z6II. It is a nice camera but quite different because it is small and has a tiny video screen for a viewfinder. The auto-focus is different and I have not yet figured out hot to use properly.
So, now we are preparing for another winter and perhaps one more trip to Auburn in December. Looking ahead to Spring, I think we may try to get out to San Diego to see Dave and Carla. It has been years since we made that trip. Traveling with the new, smaller camera will be nice. February 2024A friend recently told me that her mother used to say that "February was not necessary". Despite being a mild February for Maine, I will be glad when March arrives this week. Last month was also mild except for the two brutal storms on January 10 and 13th. Both storms, just a few days apart, were basically cat 1 hurricanes. We had roof damage and we lost a few feet of shoreline from the tidal surge of both storms. We spent last weekend in southern Maine and drove home yesterday on a clear, sunny but cold day. Soon, we are off to Austin, Texas to see the newest grandchild. It will be a direct flight from Boston, but getting to Boston from here will be a tough choice. I really don't want to drive, Cape Air is sold out, so that leaves Concord Coach. Is looking like the Coach will be the choice. The next Auburn trip will have to be squeezed in sometime in April or May. We were last in Auburn for New Years. It was a great trip with warm weather. Our son Paul brought his two year old son, Henry, from Texas. Sally's entire family was there too. Last summer, I had the firmware in the Nikon D5 upgraded to accept the new memory cards that replaced the XQD cards that the camera has now. The newer cards are extremely fast but very expensive. Maybe I will get some later this year. Eventually, I plan to switch that camera to RAW. My home computer will not handle the RAW files from the D5 so I have to shoot in JPEG. I think tomorrow will be a bit warmer with temps in the forties. But Wednesday looks like rain followed by a temperature drop on Thursday. The groundhog predicted a short winter - hope he was correct.
November 2023The last post was a year ago. Last Sunday, I was fortunate to photograph the Bold Coast Bash again this year. That event is growing and getting better each year. Cutler, Maine is so beautiful and somehow "different" than here just an hour away. We made five trips to Auburn, Alabama this year - trips #19 through #23 and we will make one more before the year is out. We also made a trip to Arlington in March to attend a funeral. We saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and we found Margaret's parents and grandparents graves. Arlington in the Spring is really spectacular. Auburn is growing and changing. It is slowly loosing the little town feel with all of the new high-rise construction. We had drinks on the two rooftop lounges and found our pictures in some old Glomeratas at the Whittle Hotel which used to be a dorm. Margaret lived there briefly as a freshman. I went to my fraternity's annual reunion last month which was combined with parent's weekend. The weather in Auburn was perfect and I rode my motorcycle almost every day. We have two new grandchildren on the way. One will be born in Texas which means a Spring trip to Texas. I am looking forward to that. Even though we had everyone here in Maine for a June family reunion, I still have the urge to visit our firstborn and his family in California. Maybe we can squeeze in a trip this year. 2024 is looking to be a busy year for us! November 2022A lot has happened since the last post in December of last year. We made five trips to Auburn and a side trip to Rosemary Beach this year. We were blessed with two new grandchildren, one in Texas and one in Maine. The June Auburn trip began with a few days in Texas to see the new baby. I had lunch with brother Bud Powada at the Salt Lick BBq in Driftwood, Texas. Paul went with me. I bought a rebuilt Nikon D5 last Spring. A very different camera, less resolution but great speed and low light ability. It has been my go-to camera despite the fact that I can only shoot in Jpeg for now. A new computer is on my list. All the digital darkroom software is by subscription now with a higher version of windows. Raw will have to wait. The Topsham Fair sort of finished off the summer. The garden is done, the boat is prepared for winter, firewood is in. We went to Auburn last weekend - just for the weekend, but Thanksgiving is on the horizon. Hard to believe snow is ahead when it is almost 60 every day. A photo shoot in Cutler next weekend. Maybe I won't hurt my back this year.
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