Stonington
An old granite quarry town?
Now the center of the Maine lobster industry?
Who knew?
I suppose we could have looked it all up before hand, but the discovery was kind of fun.
– b
Maine Vacation 2016
Tried a different island this year – Deer Isle.
Spent nearly a week staying up till midnight to pack for the two week vacation.
The drive was horrendous. What should have taken 11 hours took 13 because of traffic in Connecticut.
Wasn’t really impressed with the location (the house, not necessarily the island). We should have done more research. The house was too close to the main road, so it wasn’t very quiet. The water access was complete mud at low tide. The internet access completely sucked. There’s hardly any cell service (2g at best) within a half hour of where we’re staying. The house doesn’t have curtains.
Lobster price was $7.75/lb. Not sure what we’ve had in the past, but this was the most expensive.
Still Sick
Since initially getting sick the 4th of July, I still have symptoms.
What’s up with 5 – 6 week summer colds?
No fun.
– b
Dirt Bike July
Got some good riding in over the last couple of months.
The shut down of the mountain we had been riding didn’t slow us down at all. In fact I think it gave us the right shot in the arm to take our riding to the next level on harder mountains. The places we’re riding now are vastly larger in area as well as the size of the rocks. It’s forcing us to ride better and advance our skills faster.
Take sitting vs. standing for instance. Sitting seems easy – comfortable – safe. It’s not. We’ve known for a while that standing is better. Standing gets your weight on the pegs and off the seat. Having your weight on the pegs puts it below the suspension, therefor allowing it to react more positively to the bumps, and there are plenty of bumps. Sitting makes the bike behave in all kinds of unpredictable ways. The question was how high should you stand? After this weekend, I’m standing nearly straight up and down. We first started kind of hunched and bent over with our butts floating right above the seat, but that wasn’t enough. Standing straight up down makes the bike behave in all kinds of ways I couldn’t imagine. It makes the impossible seem possible – the bumps seem smoother. Of course it comes with a price. It’s extremely tiring to stand all that time, but that will get better with time.
Overall the bike is great and the riding fantastic.
– b
Kubota
Got a hand-me-down electric ride-on. For whatever reason we’d been resisting these things, but getting one for free seemed ok.
It’s a Peg Perego John Deere Gator, but the girls call it a Kubota after their trip to Julian last year and riding a real Kubota.
It needed some new parts, but it’s all real easy to work on and fairly inexpensive to keep running.
After getting it together and spending time with it, I realized we actually had one of these sitting in the office at work.
It had been converted to run automatically with our software for a demo, but would no longer run for a child. Since that demo 3 years ago, it’s sat around collecting dust. Knowing how easy these things are to work on, I decided to take it home, strip out the automation pieces, and return it to its child readiness.
I should have the parts soon, and we’ll have two of these ripping around the yard.
– b
Glass Cutting
Everything on the internet is true right?
Read a couple of pages saying you could soak a string in lighter fluid, tie it around a bottle, light it, cut the bottle cleanly, and have an interesting drinking glass.
Not so much.
There were stress cracks and jagged edges beyond just sanding clean.
Will have to try an alternative if we want to pursue this.
– b
Holy Pressure!
Started having water pressure issues at home. Had the plumber out to take a look.
Turns out the pressure tank, switch, gauge, and valve were all kind of done.
Replaced it all and our water pressure is better than it’s ever been.
Totally worth the work.
– b
We Went Again
So we went again, but got Abigail her own boat.
She did awesome. Paddled the entire length (about an hour) without issue.
Meanwhile Lauren found a new way to be close to mom in her kayak.
Looking forward to the next trip.
– b
Father’s Day Paddle
For Father’s Day we went for a nice paddle down the Brandywine.
Went with the neighbor and his daughter. He paddled a canoe solo, while I took all the girls in mine. Jen kayaked.
It was a good time. The girls loved it and want to go again.
– b