Light At The End Of The Tunnel

I'm waiting on one answer from an exec and then I'll be able to hand off my budget plan.  That'll mean an end (hopefully) to the long hours and working on weekends.  Sweet!

So what do I have in store for this weekend to celebrate not having to work?  Not a thing!  I tried making an appt to bring my bike in to Boston Harley this weekend to have the 35k service done but they have an event tomorrow and a huge run going on, on Sunday, so they're pretty tied up.  No to say they couldn't do the service, but they probably couldn't get it done within 24 hours, and that's where the problem comes in.  My "priority" service plan alots me a free rental bike for 24 hours, so I ordinarily would be able to drop the bike off tomorrow, take the rental home, then go back in on Sunday, return the rental, bring my bike home.  I will try again for next weekend.

The weather looks like it might be halfway decent so I'm going to see about taking the new bike out - the mountain bike, that is.  Having weighed myself in the gym the other day and finding that not only have I regained all the weight I lost in the Spring, I'm even heavier than I was, originally.  So burning off some calories via pedaling won't hurt me a bit.

I'll probably take the real bike out some as well, even though I'm 300+ miles over the service interval.  It's all synthetic fluids, though, so I imagine it'll be fine.

Not much else is going on.  Kinda looking forward to having a drink when I get home; a luxury I haven't afforded myself in some time, due to the long hours and fried brain cells of late.

I'll try and find something fun and exciting to do this weekend and bore you with the details about it on Monday.  Have a great weekend.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Bentley's 2016

The weather was calling for absolute ass (heavy rain) but to hell with it.  My work schedule was about to drop into overdrive and I needed one last getaway before the suck set in.

Loaded up and ready for departure…

We arrived dry, if not a tad chilly, and got camp set up.  Two tents with one tarp to share, above them.

 

At least it would give us decent protection should the elements turn against us.  And it also provided protection from the acorns.  Yes; the acorns!  These things were rifling down through the leaves with what seemed like way, WAY too much force than they should have had, just from detaching from a branch.  They were slicing through the foliage and hitting the ground with loud “Whump!” sounds.  I looked around, expecting to see squirrels hurling them at us, but couldn’t make anything out in the thick canopy above us. 

(The tarp worked well enough to keep the insides of the tents dry, but it rained so hard, there was a ton of mud splatter all over the tents.  When I got home, I had to hose everything off.) 

We  needed some lunch and found this place.

 

BYOB?  Damn.  But the food was so good we came back here on Saturday (even though my omelet with salsa arrived as an omelet with a side order of sausage). 

Off to the beach!

The rain hadn’t hit yet but you could see it was coming…

 

Yes, there’s a reason I posted a pic of this sign.  You’ll know it when you see it.

 

This crab had a bad day…

 

We found lots of these poor dead crabs over the course of the weekend.  I’m not sure how the seagulls are able to finagle these things onto their backs – some of them were good sized.  But finagle them they did, and then dissected, disemboweled and digested them. 

Here’s a lineup of the villains, waiting for their next victim…

 

For some reason, I was struck with a need to stack some rocks, so I did…

 

From there it was off to a brewery to check out their products.  And just for us; special parking out back with the rest of the trash…

 

I really liked these mini windows in the converted factory building we were parked up against.

 

Ta da!  Beer, courtesy of Banded Horn Brewery!

 

It was the only stout they offered and was an Imperial.  Oh, and it was very sweet (as expected) and I didn’t really care for it.  They did have a nice back deck to hang out on.  Very industrial setting, as you can see in the background. 

I thought these star-shaped anchor plates were pretty cool…

 

As was the decrepit area below…

 

We only stuck around for one beer and had decided to head off to the one to check them out, when we happened to spot…

 

That’s right; a distillery, right next door to the brewery!  Unfortunately, they didn’t open for another 20 minutes, but since the next brewery (Publik House) was only 0.2 miles away, we figured 20 mintues was plenty of time to head over, try a beer or two, then come back.  As it turns out, we stayed for a couple beers then decided to head back toward Bentley’s and the party waiting therein.

But…there was still a bit of daylight left in the sky so we decided to hit the shoreline one more time.  The tide was on its way back in but hadn’t reached my stack of rocks yet.  The stack of rocks that’s right over…what the...?  They’re not there…?  Walking over to the spot, I found that someone had actually destacked my rocks.  They hadn’t been knocked over because they were all in a pile at the base of the boulder I’d stacked them on.  Who does that?  So I figured I might as well restack and go even a little higher this time…

 

From there it was off to Bentley’s for the evening.  The weather outside was cold and drizzly so most folks were hanging out inside, and that’s where we hung our hats for the evening.  It was raining pretty well by the time we turned in, and I could hear the rain coming down in buckets over the course of the evening.

The next morning, it was still raining pretty well.  Not quite as hard as it had been overnight, but still enough to dampen my spirits (which is probably why I didn’t take any pics from Saturday).  We showered and headed off to Mike’s Diner again for breakfast.  When that was done, we walked back outside to find it was raining pretty good again, and we still didn’t have a plan for the day.  Looking at the weather on our phones, it looked like it was going to be ass all day. What to do?  Well, inland looked like it was missing the rain so we opted to point our tires westward, and head toward the house in Wolfeboro.

 

As it turns out, we found some decent roads; great scenery but the road surfaces weren’t always that great.  We hung out at the house for a bit, I napped, Greg watched some tv.  Checking the weather again, it looked like things would calm down in the amount of time it would take us to get back, so we headed back eastward.

 

After getting almost all the way back and finding the rain had become just an irritating drizzle, I suggested we head back to the shoreline one more time while there was a bit of daylight left.  So off we went.  No sooner had we ridden about a half-mile past Bentley’s, than the drizzle turned to full-fledged rain again.  We continued on to the shore, did some walking around, I tried stacking some rocks again but gave up since they weren’t cooperating.  (Oh, my second stack of rocks was left alone for the tide to knock over, as the stones were scattered all about, on the far side of the boulder I’d stacked them on.)  We saved a small crab who was stuck out of water (found a nice tidal pool with lots of hiding spaces for him), looked for some more flat stones for Patty, and called it a day.

 

We arrived back to camp, got showered and cleaned up...so of course  the rain started coming down in buckets again.  What the hell.  Since all we had was our two small tents and no standing room between them, there was no place to hang out, so there was nothing to do but head up to the bar as quickly as we could before getting thoroughly soaked again.

 

The rain kept coming down so folks who would ordinarily be all spread out outside were instead; all crammed inside.  We lucked out in that a couple got up from the bar shortly after we arrived so we parked our asses and took in the sights for the night.  One of the best sights was the barmaid who kept leaning over the beer cooler in front of us.  No complaints there!

When the night was running late we headed back – and it was raining even harder now.  All through the night, it seemed to rain harder and harder and each time I woke up (my back and neck are becoming less and less agreeable to sleeping on the ground), I could hear the droplets pounding the tents and the tarp.  At least the sound was loud enough to drown out the acorns which were still hammering down, too.

The next morning, the rain had let a smidge.  We cleared camp as quickly as we could and hit the road.  Fortunately the rain clouds thinned a bit and we pretty much had just a very thick mist/drizzle for most of the ride home.

It felt so good to roll in to my driveway; thank God, I was done with riding in the rain for the weekend.  Tenting gear was hosed off, laundry was set into motion, and then it was my turn; a nice hot shower to warm the body back up.

A quick run to the food store for supplies, then it was back to make strombolies for Bill and Zach who came over to watch the Pats game with me.  (No need to go into any detail on that, it was painful enough to watch just the one time.)

Greg and I talked it over quite a bit and have come to a unanimous decision; from here on, trips to Bentley’s will entail renting a room.  My first year here, the temps dipped into the 20’s – not excellent for sleeping outside.  On top of that with all the rain this year, it just makes sense to go with a room.  Less to pack on the bike, less to worry about in terms of the weather.  Which of course means the weather will probably be dry and in the 80’s next year, but if that’s how it turns out, it’ll be worth it.

There you have it; Bentley’s 2016.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Absentee...

Same story every year at this time (budget time); too busy at work and too short on time to post things. That's partly a lie because I have time to do other things in addition to work so i guess it comes down to a matter of prioritizing.
Anyway, things are gonna get even busier at work, starting on Monday, so let's get you caught up on what's occurred on this end recently.
The Riders have attended a few runs, and they went well and were good exposure for the group. We're still a small fish in a small pond but we're growing.
We ran the annual Shayne's run without issue, despite some unexpected surprises (by definition, are any surprises ever expected?). The one that puzzles me the most is who the fuck was the guy who was staged with us (the blockers) who pulled out of formation and into the roadway, stopped traffic and convinced the family bikes to pull out, causing the rest of the blockers to pull out? I kept hollering "No! No! No!" but they couldn't hear me. The cops weren't even ready for us to start so of course it caused a pretty big hiccup.
After the run, I tried to find out who the guy was but nobody claimed any knowledge. I guess we just have to chalk it up to one more thing to add to the list for next year. (Every year, ya think you've got every possible shithead move covered, but then some shithead comes along and throws a new wrench into the mix.)
What else...The bicycle I bought on line arrived safely. I figured; it's a bike, I used to work on them and rode them before, how hard can it be. Well, I didn't take into account that it's been about 39 years since I owned one (don't do the math, it's just depressing) and that all kinds of technological advances would be made in that amount of time.
After a couple weeks of trying to figure out how to assemble the stupid thing, I finally gave up. (It was the derailleur that ultimately beat me.)
I gave in and brought it to the local bike shop, the2 employees of which managed to politely keep their snickering to a minimum. I picked it up tonight and then spent the next 20 minutes riding around in my back yard, getting acclimated to it. (I dared not do it in public for fear of falling on my face.)
I suppose it shouldn't have been surprising; everything came back just like the saying says (just like riding a bike). It was exhilarating, and I can't wait to get out there again and really burn off some calories.
That's gonna have to wait a bit, though. I'm off to Bentley's tomorrow morning. Yep; despite being jammed at work, I managed to take a day off. (No offense, but I guess this is where "prioritizing" applies.)
It was originally 3 of us as definites, with 5 additional possibles. We made our reservations months ago, and then went on with our summers.
And now the time is near, and the forecasts haven't been kind. We've had weekend upon weekend upon weekend of fantastic weather but now that it's time to go camping, the much-needed rain has seemed intent on returning.
In turn, that has led to the dwindling of our attendees. What was once a potential 8, dropped to 7, then to 4, then to 3...and then at noon today, it dropped to 2. But it will drop no further. It's down to Greg and myself,  and we're gonna see it through.
Besides, tomorrow night is Angel Night at Bentley's. :-D
You don't know what Angel Night is?
Well, you need to come up to Bentley's with us next year...

I think this about catches you up on things. It may be a while before I post again, so until next time; get out there and get some miles on.

Daylight is getting shorter, temps are getting lower.

Don't waste the time we have left in the season.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Happy Birthday, Russ

We had a nice Labor Day celebration this year, Russ.  It's definitely not the same party it used to be, but we had a lot of fun - and did talk about you a bit.  All good stuff, so no worries.

Still wish like hell that you were around to share the laughter with us.

Victrola, Brother.

20 Years!

What a refreshing change; something in my mailbox that wasn't a bill!

Ok, so now my phone is fucking with me, too. (I swear I'm not doing the sideways-pics on purpose.)

20 years. Hard to believe I've had that much fun. Looking forward to the next 20!!

Ride Hard, Take Chances

2016 Labor Day Maine Event

 

McCarthy and family were heading up on Friday morning, as was I, so it just made sense to go up together.  We went back and forth between leaving super early to beat the traffic, or wait a while and let traffic die down.  Well, when Thursday came and we were both excited about the weekend and wound up staying out late (not together, we each had our own plans), so it was agreed that we’d go with the later departure.

We agreed it’d be easier to meet up along the way so I sat on a 95 overpass and waited for them to come along.  Before long, there they were so I shot down the on-ramp to catch them, assumed the sweep position, and off we went.

The only section of heavy traffic we encountered was at NH, at the tolls.  This may initially make sense but wait; the lanes which were crawling were the high speed EZ Pass lanes.  You know; the lanes that are sectioned off and have signs posted to maintain 65mph?  Yeah, those lanes were traveling at about 10 miles an hour, for several miles before the actual toll spot.  The other lanes?  The ones which lead to the manned booths, where you have to stop and pay?  Those were zipping along at full highway speed.  Awesome.

After we finally got clear of that nonsense, traffic moved pretty well for a Labor Day weekend Friday.  We arrived in Rockland and headed to the Trade Winds and got Steph and Ally settled.  They’d be hanging at the clearing with us, but then coming here to sleep in comfort.  No rain to worry about, hot showers, soft beds.  Smart girls.

After that, we realized we were pretty hungry so I suggested Waterworks.  I thought this place brewed their own beer but that was not the case (it’d been a while since I’ve been here).  They had a semi-decent selection of brews so all was not lost.  The menu was so-so and the food was road worthy but that’s about it.  (I think I’m going to scratch this place from my Rockland rotation.)  But the beer was at least good...

A quick stop at the Beverage Barn for some hard stuff and we were off to the clearing!  Aaron, Chrissy, and his daughters Skylar and Jayden had arrived the night before, as had Dave, Karmen and Olivia.  The NY crew had arrived earlier in the afternoon and Rob was there with Kyle and Natalie.  Oh yeah!  Brian (Sir Curious George) was there, too!  It’s been 23 years since he’s attended and it was great to see him.

So with so many people already in attendance, suffice to say we were a bit late to the camping party but we found decent spots to set up and were soon settled in and kicking back for the night with good friends, good stories, lots of laughter and even a bit of a fire to complete the atmoshphere.

 

Almost as soon as I arrived, Natalie came up to me with some Shrek Cotton Candy (a stick covered in spider and caterpiller webbing) so of course I pretended to eat it.  Then she threw one of those plant burrs at me which of course stuck right away.  I managed to peel it off and toss it back, and it stuck in her hair.  Oops.  So a couple of us were gently removing it when Kyle appeared with a humungous clump of them!  He lobbed it at me, I dodged...and well...now Natalie had an even bigger issue...

Fortunately, we managed to get her untangled completely.  The only down side was that these things leave little barbs in the things they get stuck in, so there were a bunch of them stuck in her shirt, which was aggravating her skin.  Once she changed shirts, she was good to go.

Saturday, we milled about, got some cleanup done on the clearing (most of the stuff had already been done before we arrived but there’s always a few small things to touch up when you’re out in the woods).  I hadn’t packed well for the trip; I’d neglected to pack snacks on the bike and had been pretty starving the night before, so I headed out on the bike to find me some breakfast and then hit the grocery store for supplies.  I tried McDonald’s first but the idiots in line annoyed me too much (the first guy went back and forth with the amazingly patient and polite young man behind the counter.  The patron kept questioning his order, the kid kept politely explaining and listing out his order, even printing the receipt and showing the patron each item in order, but the guy was too frikkin’ stupid to understand that everything he’d wanted, was on his order.  That took about 10 minutes.  Then up comes a lady fresh from Walmart (judging from her outfit), wanting to buy a coffee and charge it to a gift card.  Ok, no problem.  Then she wanted to recharge the gift card.  Ok, no problem.  She’d used something like a dollar for the coffee, but wanted to charge $10.97 on her credit card and put that on the gift card.  No, wait, she wanted it on a different credit card, and wanted only $9 and change.  No, wait, the first card, and now it’s back to $10.97.  After about 5 minutes of this (all while the kid was again patiently smiling and being helpful), I gave up and went across the street to Burger King and went with the 2 for $10 Whopper meals.  (I ate them back at the site, and yeah, all that fat and crap probably took a year off of my life but man was I hungry and man did they taste good.)  After the BK stop I hit the food store to stock up on snacks and ice for the cooler, and headed back to the site.

 

I did stop to snap this cool pic along the way...

Here's a swing that only Dave and McCarthy could put together...

The wheelchair has been foating around the clearing for years and years, and between the ropes that Dave and McCarthy had with them, they were able to rig up this scary looking thing.  I kept waiting for one of the kids' heads to bounce off of one of the support trees but it never happened.  I even took a turn (for weight testing, of course) and while it did twist a tiny bit, it remained straight between the trees.

 

Around 1, the crew was hungry again so we jumped on the bikes and headed to The Slipway for the traditional lunch on the pier.  The place was jam-packed!  I’ve never seen it so busy, and we actually had to wait for a table to open up but it wasn’t too long of a wait and we were soon seated, libations in hand and food on the way.

Our view from the parking area...

 

After that it was back to the site where we pretty much settled in for the rest of the day, played lots of cards with the kids, and had a truly enjoyable, relaxing Saturday.

 

Oh yeah!  Remember my boots?  The ones I'd left here (on purpose) about 15 years ago?  They were pretty worn out and I didn't need them for the ride home, so I'd left them on a big rock just to see what would happen to them.  Each year, I'd go check on them and even snapped a pic at one point (which is down on the basement wall).  Then one year, I went to look for them and they were gone.  I asked around and Karmen said she'd found them when cleaning the area and had tossed them out.  Damn.  Oh well...

 

But then this year, Dave found them!  He was off....seeing a man about a horse, and happened to stumble on them.  He didn't know whose they were but did comment to the group about having found an old pair of boots.  No way!  Could it be?

 

Yep!  It's them!!

 
My phone is still playing games with me (sideways pic) so here's another one.

Karmen must have not tossed them but just moved them, instead.  These are absolutely my boots!  I thought this was all kinds of cool and now the experiment can continue.  Let's see how many more years they will last.

Sunday was breakfast on-site, courtesy of Master Chef Robbo, and some more cards.  We kicked around for a little bit, getting things ready for the Sunday Feast.  Soon the lobsters had arrived and too many chefs (myself included) set to trying to help Charlie, Dave, Rob and McCarthy get the food all cooked and served.  The feast was as awesome as always and our bellies were completely happy.  After cleanup, and with a good solid base in our stomachs, we set to emptying the coolers with reckless abandon.

When the sun began to settle, we got the chairs gathered ‘round the stage and the torches set and lit...

 

 

King and I had discussed things earlier and there was to be a knighting this year.  Also, Jerry had elected to pass the Sheriff torch to someone else, since he is no longer able to attend in person (we miss Jerry!).

The ceremony began with the usual greetings and salutations, followed by a moment of silence.  After that was the presentation of all knights and ladies to the group, followed by the knighting…of Aaron!  His given name shall hence forth be; Sir I Got A Guy (Aaron usually is “the guy” to get stuff done but whenever something comes up that he can’t take care of, “he’s got a guy” that can).

Next up it was time to announce our new Sheriff…it’s Olivia!  Jerry had written her a letter to let her know ahead of time, and he also sent out his official sidearm, and a new badge, just for her.  It was pink, and looked very cool.  Oliva was pinned, handed her weapon and given her charge (both for the pistol, and for her duties).  She took them quite to heart and without much encouragement, went on to shoot McCarthy 8 or 9 times during the night (he’s apparently very resilient).

From there, we invited folks up to share stories and memories of Labor days past.  We had several takers and while there weren’t a lot of stories told, there were many laughs in the group as well as many fond memories stirred as well.

Lastly, the closing of the ceremony.  We all gathered ‘round for The Toast, gave a hearty rendition of it to the sky and woods around us, and then disbanded to continue the revelry long into the evening.

For some reason, this apparently seemed like a great pic to take at some point in the late evening...

The next morning, we got off to a slightly later start than usual.  Rather than the normal 7am departure, it was about 8am when our tires were rolling along toward home.  McCarthy’s son and I were able to make a little better time due to being on two, and were soon skimming around cars when chances would allow.  We hit some traffic at the Maine tolls (to be expected) and into NH (also expected) but aside from that, made decent time despite the solid volume of vehicles sharing the pavement.

It was another great year up in the woods of Maine.  We actually had a larger group than last year.  It didn’t rival the heydays of when Russ was alive, but it was definitely a good showing.

I already wish it were time to do it again.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Illumination Night

Matt, Rex, Kim and I went down to Kim’s family house in Onset this past weekend, to do a pub crawl.  Saturday morning departure, Sunday mid-day return; with a healthy dose of liver abuse mixed in between.  The official crawl got off to an early start on our way down as we stopped in for a quick beerfreshment at a restaurant that Matt had wanted to check out for some time.  From there it was on to the house in Onset for more libations (bikes were parked) and then off to the crawl (on foot).  We hit a number of the bars that Onset has to offer…maybe even all of them, I’m not too familiar with the area.  The one whose name I paid attention to was Stevie B’s, all the way on the other side of town, which wasn’t worth the trek.  We had lunch at Marc Anthony’s which was very definitely worth visiting (good food, and served pitchers).  We ended the crawl at the Stonebridge bar, our on their patio.  Yeah, we kind of took  over the good side of it (we had a decent sized crowd with us), but we made some friends and enjoyed some shots on them.

The highlight of the evening was the event which Onset (and surrounding towns) put on each year; Illumination Night.  I’d never heard of it prior to this weekend but a friend from work had told me about it; the beaches surrounding the bay are lined with…flares?  Something.  Not sure what they were – they looked like flares but I didn’t see the normal residue that comes with highway flares, so maybe these were a different kind; ones that didn’t leave a lot of debris/soot/chemical pollution behind.

At any rate, I was happily involved with several conversations on the patio when someone happened to comment about the lighting had begun.  I turned to look out over the bay…and was immediately entranced.  It was amazing!  The lights weren’t all lit yet, but all around the waters edge, for as far as I could see, the mini fires were appearing.  Sometimes a couple at a time, sometimes a whole stretch would light up at once (how?...I don’t know).

I excused myself and went down to the beach to see these things up close, and to try and take some pictures.  My camera had moderate success, so here you go;

 

When the flares were just about done, I headed back up to the patio and rejoined the group.  Looking out over the water, I could see the various lights begin to flicker out, and soon the continuous line of lights began to display ever-grown sections of darkness.  There were a few last minute holdouts here and there but eventually the spectacle was over and darkness had returned to the shores.  We hung out on the patio for a while longer and then headed back to the house for a nightcap…I think.  Things were kind of blurry at that point.

The next day’s ride home was uneventful, save for a lengthy delay in receiving our lunch orders at a restaurant we stopped at, but aside from that it was a great day, and a great weekend.

One could say it was very…illuminating, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

Ride Hard, Take Chances