I had a couple of different topics to which to pick from for tonight's diary. I first thought about writing about my birthday since it's a couple of weeks away. But considering the day of my birth is always one of if not the worst days of the year for me, I figured it would be too depressing for summer. I could write about a new venture I am undertaking with my family, but I think that needs to wait until things are more certain. So I am going to write about what I did on my summer vacation.
But First, A Word From Our Sponsor:
Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top™ to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top™ to pop up in diaries posts around Daily Kos.
Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist poster reserves the right to edit all content.
Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...
|
My family and I travel a lot. Not always all together but as often as we can. One thing we try to do every year is take some sort of road trip. There really is no better way to see a place then by driving around it. My mother has always wanted to do a cross-country trip like she had done a number of times while growing up. It hasn't happened yet, but I believe it will at some point.
I know how many of you on this site feel about cruising, but we like the ease of traveling it provides. We booked a cruise to Bermuda that left out of Boston for the last week of July. Our previous trip to Bermuda had been scuttled somewhat by Tropical Storm Irene, so we were anxious to get back there for the full visit. My sister also has a college friend who a native Bermudan, and she didn't get to see him the last time we were there. Plus the ship docks there for about 56 hrs, ergo it's easy to come and go without having to pay for a hotel.
In early June, when we were planning the trip to and from Boston, I figured why not take two days on each side of the cruise and spend some time in New England. After posting about my trip in Top Comments, commonmass said to let him know if we went to Maine because he would love to meet me. I had not been to Maine since I went to New Brunswick a few years ago, so I told him I'd let him know once I spoke to the fam. Everyone else was on board, so we had our plans for the couple of days pre-cruise. Post cruise we decided to spend the weekend in Boston.
On July 24, we picked up my sister from work and began our trip to Maine. Portland is about 5 hours from her workplace, so we decided we would stop for dinner somewhere around the CT/MA on I84. When we take road trips we like to find local places to eat. Also, we try not to eat at the same place too often. thanks to Yelp.com, we've had some good luck finding good places to eat. About 4 miles before the MA border, I began scoping Yelp for a place to eat. I found a place called the Traveler Restaurant. The reviews looked good and as a bonus the restaurant doubles as a bookstore. According to the reviews, anyone who buys a meal at the restaurant can take up to three books off the shelves. (The bookstore is downstairs.) I had what would be the first of many fish/seafood meals over the next 10 days. After eating, I scoured the shelves for books to take. There wasn't much interesting to me, but I did find a 1962 accounting textbook.
Afterwards my sister and I went downstairs to check out the bookstore. This was more my style as they had many older and interesting books. I ended up purchasing a couple of early 20th century children's books and a couple of leather bound Agatha Christie stories. My sister wanted to purchase a Stephen King book, but much to my surprise they did not have much. I suggested she buy The Bachman Books. I've read it and liked it. Plus, the stories are shorter since she couldn't understand how I could read Under the Dome (I brought it on the trip) which is about 1100 pages. As we left, we made a mental note to stop here on the way back because there was an antique store across the parking lot.
We got to Portland around 9pm, and I made my call to commonmass to arrange the plans for our meet-up. We decided he come to our hotel and then we'd follow him into Portland to wherever he picked to go for lunch. I think he took us to J's Oyster, but if I am wrong he'll correct me. The food was great. The chowders were fantastic as was my lobster roll. My sister said her mussels great and mom's steamed lobster was great too. The only downside was the corn, but it's a little early for corn up here. I sampled a local root beer that I liked a lot. After lunch we went back to commonmass' house to check out his collection of Edison phonographs and get a little history and technology lesson. What wonderful sound they made.
After saying our goodbyes, we headed back into Portland to go to an ice cream shop not too far from the restaurant. I believe it had a pirate on the sign outside. Inside they had a few interesting flavors. I had something called Seabiscuit which had Bischoff cookies in it; my mother had Green Monster which was something with mint. They also had a soda called Moxie which commonmass said was more bitter than root beer. It turned out to be a lot like birch beer but with a tremendous amount of carbonation which I love. My sister OTOH hates when I drink a lot of soda.You can figure out the reason. After getting ice cream, we went to Orchard Beach to play Mini-golf. Unfortunately, it was raining but we toughed it out including climbing a large mountain to get to one of the holes. I got a hole in one on one hole which was good for a free game: hopefully I'll get to use it one day. No trip to Maine would be complete for my mom without a stop at L L Bean. After dropping way too much money there, we headed back to the hotel to sleep.
We got up bright and early (although the weather was less than optimal), to drive into Boston for board the ship. Due to bad traffic on I93, we tried to take the back streets to the pier. Bad idea as we took a number of wrong streets. Not unusual for people driving in Boston. We got to the pier and got on the boat to have a nice lunch. One thing I always do on cruises is attend the trivia games. I love games and have a ton of useless knowledge crammed up there. The first game was set for 6pm on embarkation day. Did well on the first night but did not win. Oh well, there would be more games during the week.
Since we tend to cruise once a year, I found a website called cruisecritic.com that a message board where people gather to talk about cruising and even set up meet and greets on the ships. Because the site is well known in the cruising world, the senior staff on the boat usually attends the meet and greets and usually gives out their on board extensions in the event people have issues. I rarely have any issues, but it's nice to introduce myself to them just in case something major goes wrong.
The first sea day relaxing. Attended the meet and greet where I met a very nice couple who had cruised a number of times to Bermuda. They gave us a ton of good information and some tips and tricks. We ended up spending one of the days in Bermuda with them. I went to two more trivia games striking out both times. Still there would be more. Surprisingly, I skipped lunch and really didn't eat much any day until the end of the cruise.
The next day we would arrive in Bermuda, but I'll save the rest of the story for later this month.
Diarist reserves all rights to his original writing only. Community material is not covered by this ©
Now onto the real reason you came:
TOP COMMENTS
August 12, 2013
Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU
when you find that proficient comment.
From your somewhat ill diarist:
I don't normally nominate comments in troll diaries, but this thread was too funny not to highlight it. It all starts with Empty Vessel's comment about how you cannot mock her/his username. It gets funny quickly.
I am nominating this comment from webranding in David Harris Gershon's diary "The Idiot's Guide to Embarrassing America". Like webranding, I too, do not know many Jews who aren't for a two-state solution and are hardline Israel can do no wrong people.
This comment was flagged by commonmass who must not have known who was hosting tonight's diary. As it says above, the night's poster has the right to edit all content. I won't name names, but you can read the brilliance of the comment yourself.
|
TOP PHOTOS
August 11, 2013
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
|