O'Boisies

Two Northern Towns

My first trip through New England involved two distinct and contrasting views of life in autumn.  The company I joined for the weekend arrived at night so I enjoyed my first glimpse of my surroundings when I awoke.  Outside the borrowed cabin, the tranquil serenity of rural Maine tucked in the mountains standing low in the foreground masked the distance, the nearest town, the distant coast, and the rest of the world.  The same cozy exteriors of West Virginia two decades later reminded me of this scenery in Maine not too far from the Canadian border.  Every year, Rangeley triples in size when the snow melts and returns to its true size when its loyal residents brave the dark, cold winter.

Alternatively, the brief weekend ended with a return flight through Logan airport.  Unlike the peacefulness of my host town, the construction, the population, and the congestion of Boston contrasted the bucolic landscape.  In Beantown, the glass, concrete, brick, and steel structures blocked the view of the harbor scenery in the same way the Maine mountains hid the outside world.  The one quick glimpse out the car window at “Old Ironside” provided all the sightseeing afforded to me in the Massachusetts capital.  On my next voyage to Boston, I saw about the same amount of the historic city.  One of these days I’ll stay for more than a few hours.

Think Smaller

In Franklin County, Maine, the petite grocery store stocks just enough of the most essential items to provide a plethora of consumable options to a snow-bound resident’s pantry, but with just four or five aisles, the shop easily ranks just a step above big city corner market attached to a gas stations.  I purchase bread and condiments to serve as a handful of supplies to prepare breakfasts and lunchesfor the weekend. I know to keep it simple both to avoid wasteful leftovers and to stay within 

my travel budget due to more expensive wares in this more remote location.  The quaint general store offers just enough provisions for the weekend.

Having grown up in the suburbs, and having lived in a time of considerable choice, I rarely shop in bodega-sized stores, but even I know that this town of just over a thousand residents cannot provide every delicacy, brand, or selection.  So while I walk the handful of aisles in this little store in this little town, I forego my favorite peanut butter and I make do with the most simple of breakfast cereals.  And yet a woman three times my age asks the cashier at the store’s single register if the store has O’Boises potato chips – a brand limited to a brief period of time in a smaller segment of the country.  From a woman born before the Great Depression, whose family rationed its food during World War II, and who only knew a generation of excess in her later years, perhaps she should choose another brand of snack in this meager market.  Sorry, they just don’t have Super Wal-Marts in Rangeley; maybe you can pick some up in Boston.

Four Old Rolls Of Film

An Old Roll Of Film

Don’t Throw That Away

In the battle of hoarder versus purger, I will throw away just about everything.  I like the material goods around me that brighten my world, but if I had to give them all up, say for a lifetime driving around the country basking in the natural beauty of the fifty states, I wouldn’t blink an eye.  Everything would go.  So during a recent move, I pat myself on the back for not throwing away four old rolls of film that I expensively dropped off at the local camera and hobby store – the last vestige of celluloid transfer from image to negative to prints.  And all four rolls could not have been more different.

During his sophomore year of high school (yes, high school), Son #1 took a band trip to Dallas, Texas, including Six Flags Over Texas (see “My Son’s Mecca” from February 2012).  Faces, some of which the names have faded, appeared on the variety of images from one canister of 35mm memories.  Son #2 used a disposable camera on his trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s house and the second roll of film from his solo Midwestern adventure proves my parents were caught red-handed in their spoiling with an outing to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

Five Years Later

My friend celebrates his 35^th birthday this week [insert appropriate birthday sing-a-long here], but it seems like just yesterday that he turned thirty.  Of course, the fact that I finish developing the photos from the outing five years ago may affect that perception.  My tardiness also reminds me of how swiftly life passes.  And as I thumb through these pictures, part of me reprimands myself for waiting so long to develop these images, but part of me also appreciates that I can see us all as we were half a decade ago and appreciate that the same wonderful people continue to be a part of one another’s lives.

This summer marks the five-year anniversary of our grandest family vacation: a circle tour of the American Southwest including New Mexico and Arizona, culminating at the Grand Canyon National Park.  The final roll of mysterious film, slightly yellowed from age, captures the day we reached the North Rim of the canyon.  Even better, the pictures remind us of a time that has passed, when Son #1 and Son #2 still lived at home, still vacationed with their parental unit, and still posed for photos on demand.  Who would have thought that this Emptied Nest Adventure could be found in a cardboard box?

Almost Heaven

Hand Selected

Knocking off another state in the quest to see all fifty, I enjoy the views of the West Virginia slopes as I gently sway through the roads over the Labor Day weekend.  Unlike the jagged rocks of the western states, the ancient Appalachian Mountains curve gently over one another, all covered with trees and growth and greenery.  The sun casts down through the leaves, but with the road so close to the narrow valleys, the mountains often block the direct sunlight.

I depart Pennsylvania and scoot through the oddly shaped tip of Maryland, cruising into the cozy hillsides of my destination.  And after peaking over a mountain top, I find myself in the footsteps of a giant wind turbine.  I love these guys (see “Breathing Windmills” from December 2011), so I pull over to take in its enormity and its clever ability to hide behind a mountain.  The tranquil sound of the rhythmic, powerful mechanism touches me, inspires me, and as I glance up toward the sky, blows me away.  When I finally pull my gaze away from the window, I reach down at my side, pick up my iPod and scroll to the last few songs to find “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”  Of course I plan ahead to have this song at hand, but I had no knowledge that I would find such technology on these country roads.    When I pull away continuing down the winding pavement playing the song to fit my surroundings, I think life isn’t so old here.

An Added Bonus

Practically, I rent vehicles in conjunction with the duration and complexity of my expedition, and this single overnight excursion certainly doesn’t merit a high-end vehicle.  But when I pick up my little blue mobile, I delightedly discover the economy car has an extra bonus: a sun roof ideal for the bright, sunlit, weekend drive.  When I leave Pittsburg, I make a point to have the ceiling window open and the midday sun streaming through the car’s roof.  The only previous time I enjoyed a similar perk, a sporty convertible upgrade, I drove it for two days in the Maryland rain and never enjoyed the sunshine on my shoulders.

Back in the car and weaving between the hills, the sun roof loses my affection.  The homes of West Virginia, nearly at the road’s edge due to the deep slopes immediately behind them, dart in and out of my line of vision as the bright sunlight alternately streams in the sunroof and then hides behind the mountain sides.  I squint and lower my sunglasses, then less than a mile later, raise them back into my hair as the sun ducks behind a mountain.  Additionally, the trees blink and flash the sunlight through the sunroof so I finally decide to turn off the natural strobe light and close the extra window to the sky.  If West Virginia is almost heaven, I’ll need to get better sunglasses before judgment day.

Florida's Interiors (Part 2)

Florida's Interior

Not on Vacation

In need of a short-term escape from single parenthood, I planned a drive from the Space Coast past the Treasure Coast, around Lake Okeechobee and on to the Lee Island Coast.  In between the beaches, the non-coastal land contains the inside of Florida, the economic and historic heart and spine of the state.  The space and theme-park industries transformed Florida expanding and exploding into the twenty-first century, but the true tourism of Florida predates themed roller coasters, and the soaking sunshine does more for Florida than simply grace its coastline.

Traveling down the Atlantic shore, vacationers at the beginning of the twentieth century benefitted from the work of Henry Flagler and his railroad into the land of palm trees and resorts.  However, the swampy, mosquito-heavy interior areas didn’t hold the glamour of the beach-front property, so those tracks skipped the portion of the state that worked rather than vacationed.  Even today, Florida bumper stickers read, “Not all of us are on vacation.”

Ft. Pierce to Ft. Myers

But somewhere near Sebastian Inlet, almost literally on the other side of the tracks, lies the eastern edge of Florida’s citrus industry.  Rows of orange and grapefruit trees grow from Indian River County westward, and the history of Florida’s famous crop and its current agricultural economic resources weave through the green groves.  During the blossoming seasons, the fragrant blooms on the trees sweeten the air; and if heaven has a smell, it is orange blossoms – so special!

Cattle ranches behind simple post fences with parallel lines of barbed wire define the simple views of the state’s beef industry.  No longhorns or ten-gallon caricatures here.  As the keepers of the Sunshine State’s livestock livelihood, Florida Crackers identify themselves as historic ranch hands and associate themselves with its inland industry.  Originally known for sound their whips made while corralling their herds, more often the term identifies someone truly born and raised in the Florida culture, like “buckeyes” of Ohio and the “hoosiers” of Indiana.  In the native-Floridian sense, Son #1 and Son #2 both qualify as Crackers.

Continuing south of Florida’s central lake, the ranches change to swamps.  Below Okeechobee, the tall grasses benefit from the gradual trickle of water that sloughs its way to the Florida Keys, dragging through the sugar cane fields.   The densely-packed, pancake-flat cane fields offer no distant views, unless driving along one of south Florida’s lengthy canals.  These irrigation waterways, where the true lengths of the sugar fields are visible, parallel the straight roads just outside the busy beach-front cities.  After crossing Alligator Alley and the Tamiami Trail, the water continues to inch its way to the Florida Straits, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Ocean having nourished the industries up the peninsula.  The tourists splashing in the ocean’s waves don’t think of the fields, the ranches, or the groves upstream feeding the waves; we Crackers keep that beauty to ourselves.

The Ice Machine In The River

Preparing for the Storms

Natural disasters come in three categories: fast and furious, drawn out and excruciating, and well-planned.  Earthquakes and tornadoes both qualify in the first category while floods, blizzards and brushfires fit into the second category.  Hurricanes, while equally threatening, at least offer the element of no surprise.  I have watched storms on satellites developing over weeks (I see you out there Ivan) and have prepared for storms that swerved and headed north (Yes, I’m talking about you Floyd) and storms that slowly hovered overhead for days (Really, Frances?  The entire Labor Day weekend?).

The storms that head northward smack into Cape Hatteras or Charleston, sometimes swirling out to sea like a drive-by mooning by Mother Nature. 

Forecasters make these storms more manageable and my sons and I have even enjoyed a round of mini-golf between feeder bands as a last opportunity to get out of the house before the real threat arrives (take that Jeanne).  During the trifecta of storms in 2004, we purchased a medley of disaster films and watched the Poseidon Adventure and Twister during our confinement.

In the Aftermath

Isabel hung around in the late summer, practically autumn, of 2003 plodding across the Atlantic for nearly two weeks and then storming in the front door near the Carolina and Virginia border, but the storm surge to the north forced the waters of Chesapeake Bay much farther inland.  As one of the biggies for the year, her acclaim remains in the mind of the region’s population more than the nation’s because the following year’s hurricane season packed a wallop blowing through the entire alphabet of names.  And the next year Katrina swallowed up New Orleans and most of the central Gulf Coast.

But I remember Isabel.  On my trip to Annapolis, I cross the Bay Bridge and visit southeastern Maryland.  Once I find the outdated hotel, I scavenge for a local restaurant in search of fresh crab because that’s what one does in Maryland.  The waterfront establishment appears surprisingly empty for a Friday night.  My server shares that the entire lower level of the restaurant spent the week prior submerged in the tides of the Chesapeake.  She reappears with photos documenting the high-water mark, the clean-up efforts of the past week, and the ice machine previously chained to the downstairs porch stuck under one of the wooden bridges along the Chesapeake.  Even with advance notice, you cannot plan for everything, including ice machines floating upstream.