Meandering on the Way — August 6 to 16, 2022

Saturday, August 6, 2022

E has already started packing for her Wednesday trip to New York. She has several places she wants to visit and communications are flying as she tries to finalize dates and places. M is planning a solo camping excursion closer to home. He’s not at the packing stage, but earlier this week he had a vision of packing, which revealed to him that he needs a new duffel. That arrived today. 

Sunday, August 7, 2022

Dinner with B and B at Momiji in North Albany. They’ve been busy as usual, with guests coming and going. Momiji is nice, and their menu has lots of photos to help you make sense of the sushi selection. E and M shared a large bottle of Kirin. Does everybody know that the Kirin logo was based on a long ago traveller’s description of a giraffe? Doesn’t look like a giraffe…

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

After spending an hour at the dentist, M went out to visit K and L and see about buying their old suitcase style solar panel. They don’t need it anymore since their new travel trailer has built-in panels on its roof. But will their old one work with M’s new Jackery battery pack? Initially it refused to cooperate, but M took it home anyway to fiddle with it.

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

M got the solar panel working by asking the Internet for advice and getting a simple answer right away. E finished packing, which was not simple but was very organized. Now she has to actually travel. There are all kinds of air travel horror stories going around. Airlines are cancelling 900 or 1,000 flights a day and apparently there are vast numbers of bags out wandering around trying to catch up with their owners. “Damn the torpedos,” says E, “I’m going to the lake.” Her first flight leaves Portland at 11:00 P.M. We put her on the Corvallis to Portland shuttle at 5:45. 

Thursday, August 11, 2022

M packed up the new duffel and threw it in the truck along with the refrigerator, battery pack and solar panel. He headed east toward the Maury Mountains. He’s just guessing, but he expects that the Maurys don’t attract many visitors. He also expects that his route will take him right past the Sisters bakery…

While M was still in range of a cell tower, E texted to say that she was safely ensconced at Mrs. H’s place in Glens Falls and eating cookies. Both her flights were on time and no luggage was lost. 

M was in Prineville at this point, where he stopped for gas. Yikes, guess what else stops at the Prineville Sinclair?

It’s a Hispano-Suiza, H6B. H6B’s were made between 1919 and 1929, so this car is at least 93 years old and possibly 103. It was running quite nicely. In 2020 a car very similar to this was sold at Amelia Island for about $250,000. Is the owner a movie actor or other celebrity? This being Prineville, probably not. More likely a tech nerd with heavy responsibilities  in one of the cloud server barns just west of town. 

From Prineville M heads for Post, Oregon, which is said to be the geographical center of the state. There are no giant server barns in Post, and no cell service either. And in fact there are no actual residences. At one time, though, it appears that there was food::

The first two lines say HOME MADE and FOOD. The third line could be AND. But that last line is tough. What goes with homemade food? Is it A) supper, B) supplies, C) supermarket, or D) strippers?
The featured dish sounds good to M..
And there it is: the Post, Oregon house of meatloaf! But as we might have guessed…it’s been closed for a while. 

From Post, M went up into the mountains and found an out of the way spot to set up camp. The solar panel worked like a charm, putting out enough current to run the refrigerator and re-charge the Jackery battery at the same time. Once the sun went down the battery took over and kept things going till dawn. With this system, a person could just hunker down there on the mountainside and run that little fridge forever. Of course that’s about all a person could do. No water, no bathroom, no cell service, not very many stars

The solar panel is in the middle there, sitting up on a pack box, generating its last few watts of the day. The fridge and battery are in the back seat of the truck.

Why not many stars? Well, the night of Aug. 11-12 was a little strange in that it never really got dark.

The sun went down in the west like it was supposed to….
…but then the east started to light up as a strange looking cloud wafted in from the south.
And soon enough, the moon appeared. It must’ve stayed up all night…
….because there it was in the morning.

Saturday, August 13, 2022

M is home now and having a hard time putting away his camping stuff. There’s no room in the garage. He needs to clear some space for his new stuff by getting rid of some of his old stuff. He starts making Craigslist ads for a car cover, an air mattress, and a radio controlled tank. 

Sunday, August 14, 2022

E travelled with Mrs H to what they call the north country–the area not far from the Canadian border–to visit E’s aunt. She reports a wonderful visit with N, D and H in Malone, NY. Cousin H made the world’s most delicious cake in honor of her visit. One key to its success was an enhanced proportion of light fluffy sweet frosting.

After that, E and H also visited their long-time friend S, in Saranac Lake. 

Monday, August 15, 2022

E arrived at the hamlet of Huletts landing on Lake George today, just in time for a happy hour reunion at Baby Brother’s cabin. Niece M served sumptuous hors d’oeuvre on a century old tea wagon. Nephew J and his wife L were also there along with A&A. After a lovely time, E and the two A’s headed back to their rental cabin, which is down by the post office.

In case you’re wondering if we’re making all this up, here’s a picture of Baby Bother himself at his actual house.

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Lots of swimming today. A swam from BB’s dock all the way around 2 peninsulas back to her rental cabin. It was an hour’s swim, with Andy paddle boarding along beside her. E swam over to the dock at nephew T’s rental house, but there was no one there; so she started swimming back to BB’s dock, only to be overtaken by T in a kayak, who accompanied her the rest of the way. They sat on the dock and had a long catch up chat. Soon E noticed another figure swimming towards them. It turned out to be T’s 16-year-old son, H, who came to join them.

After all that exercise and chatting, E took an inspiring nap in the loft of BB’s new cottage. Here’s a photo of the view from the loft bed. In the background is the main house.

E committed a serious error by not texting her whereabouts to her daughter, who became worried and issued a silver alert to various family members, one of whom reported that E was safely napping on the loft bed.

E contritely walked home and upon arrival found best son-in-law in the kitchen preparing dinner. Not a bad day: family, food, swimming and beautiful scenery. Meanwhile, M’s Craigslist offensive has stalled. The tank went fast, but no action on the other things. 

3 Replies to “Meandering on the Way — August 6 to 16, 2022”

  1. it was so wonderful to see Honey and Mrs Hopper!!! I do wish we had gotten to see you, though!!
    Your adventures also look fun…thanks for sharing!!

  2. Hahahaha the story about Mommy taking a nap instead of texting me – such a teenager thing to do!! But she did point out that I was acting too much like a mother hen, and her son-in-law reassured me that the likely reason for her disappearance was biblical rapture. Logically.

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