Last of the fesh veggies

 My buddy Ben brought me a bag full of fresh veg....he was afraid the frost/freeze would zap everything, so he picked the last of his peppers. 

These greens were fabulous.  I just put some salt/spices in and boiled them down.  He said they were a "medley" of seeds.  Not sure what all they were but they were tender and good!

And he tossed in a bunch of peppers too.  These were particularly yummy - I ate them all raw over a few days.  They were a little thick-skinned and had so much more flavor than storebought.  Yum.  I'm a lucky duck!

It's NC State Fair Ham Biscuit Time Again!

I got "invited" to help out at the Kiwanis ham-biscuit booth again this year....it was a beautiful day. Parked near Carter-Finley stadium in the "free parking" and hiked over to the fairgrounds. Not a bad walk on a cool morning!

The booth is pretty much always in exactly the same spot, so easy to find amongst the 100's of other booths.  Big crowd on a Thursday!

I took my usual spot at the window.  Chilly outside, but toasty warm inside the booth.

Neighbor Dick loves to treat everyone to ice-cream.  He went to the NC State creamery booth and got us all our favorites.  Mint-choc chip.  Hmmmm.  It was waaay too much!

The rest of the crew.  We worked well together!

A lady from the funnel-cake booth came by and handed us this ridiculous pile of flour/sugar/grease.  Yummm!  Well, it was yum until it got a bit cool, then it was just yucky...haha.  We would have eaten more of it except we were all full of ice cream!!   What's a fair trip unless you eat disgusting gooey stuff, right.  Oh yeah, we were supposed to be working!  Never fear, no one walked away from the booth biscuit-less if they ordered one!

That's about it for the day...another crew came on-board at 5pm, so we were free to leave.  Sights and sounds leaving the fairgrounds in the evening were very true to the State Fair theme.

A lovely day indeed!!

New Hangar Construction at Siler City Airport

It always amazes me how quick and efficiently a metal building can be erected.

The same contractors (Robinson's Welding) were hired to put this new hangar up at the airport over the past few weeks.

Concrete poured and ready for the installation process to begin.

Steel going up!!

Getting closer! 

All done!!  They're still working on the inside so we'll see airplanes going in an out a little later.

Tractor!!

I am so out-of-the-loop!! The other day, Richard asked to borrow one of Duane's pieces of equipment. I said, "well, you know you need a tractor to use that?"....and his response was "well, I have a tractor!" See, I'm out-of-the-loop!

He's clearing out some of their property behind their house to enlarge their yard and put in a larger fenced area.

It's not the prettiest, but it does appear to run really good.   Boys and their toys!

Finishing up a wonderful "substitute" trip!

We weren't going to let "no stinking government shutdown" deter us from hiking in a National Park!!!

Acadia Park adjoins the town of Bar Harbor and is known for a hike up to CadillacMountain overlooking the bay.

Many other hikers had the same idea....so we pulled off and parked on the side of the road...hoping that no-one would mind!

Good choice - a nice long hike - to ever-increasingly beautiful views of the surrounding water.

See the three of the mammoth cruise ships in the distance? You could see the "shuttle" boats moving the passengers back/forth into the town of Bar Harbor.

At the top of Cadillac Mountain, this birdie thought Duane's apple looked good.....

Almost glad the park was "officially" closed.  There is a nice winding road that also goes to the top of Cadillac Mountain.  If the park had been open, this area would have been covered with visitors.  It's a 4 mile hike - so that significantly limits the visitors!!

We did drive thru the actual town of Bar Harbor - but it was apparent that the cruise ships had invaded. Absolutely not our idea of a good time....so we quickly headed for the coastline!  Quaint town and some beautiful houses.

That about wraps up our trip....the lady at the hotel desk suggested a local restaurant (in Bangor) called Schooner's....a fabulous find.  My meal was just perfect -  1 1/2 pound lobster, Caesar salad, asparagus and a 22 ounce beer.  Amazing price too - $21 for my meal and $2.99 for my beer.  Try to find that in N.C.!!!

Gotta get back home and rest.....

This is all I can say about the flight home!!  Rainy and cloudy - didn't see the ground from Pennsylvania all the way back to about 3 miles north of Siler City!!   An excellent adventure!

Grafton Notch State Park, Table Rock and the B52 Bomber Wreck near Greenville, Maine

One of the locals at a store in Bethel told Lindy and I that we shouldn't miss Grafton Notch State Park and particularly a trail called Table Rock.   The trail is a side-trail off the Appalachian Trail.  Good advice!!!

Here we are at the entrance - note the "A" and the "T" - for the Appalachian Trail of course....

Yes, it is an extraordinary view!

Another challenging trail...

Beautiful view - we're nowhere near the top yet....

A good warning!

View behind the "drop off" sign.

We sure picked some steep trails (I'm sure there are steeper ones!!)

At the top!

Lindy taking a water break.

By the time we had made the loop around Table Rock and headed East, we were ready for a light lunch....we were passing thru a very small town - Mexico, Maine....and spied this sign.  Of course, we had to eat there!  Nothing special except the name!

Did I mention that we were always on the lookout for MOOSE?  We must have seen a thousand Moose Crossing warning signs.  My neck hurt from turning to see if there was a moose in the distance while driving....never did we see more than a warning sign.  I think they lie.

Next up was a planned visit to the site of a B52 bomber wreck that has been preserved in the woods near Greenville/Moosehead Lake.   The site is maintained by a group of volunteers and the paper company that owns the land is reserving the land for that purpose.

It's a somber site - on Elephant Mountain.   2 officers survived and 7 perished in the in-flight structural breakup of the aircraft on a training mission.

As best we could understand, the wreckage was given back to the group of volunteers and they replaced it at the actual crash site.

Leaving the area, we were treated to a brilliant sunset across Moosehead Lake....I must get a better camera because this photo does not do it justice!!!

More New Hampshire Hiking and a Bed & Breakfast

We set out on a hike in the edge of the White Mountains (most of these hikes were piked out by simply pulling over and investigating a "hiking" road sign!!)

Lindy spotted this innocent creature.  We let him pass on by!

Beautiful Day!  I looked up and thought this made a nice photo!

Near the end of the hike, we spied an old car in the brambles.  Dick being silly,  haha.

We were near an old homestead or orchard.   Couldn't help myself but to brush off a fruit and try it - it was yummy!

We all had one!  Hundreds more on the ground, so I don't think we hurt the eco-system!

Always the gentleman!

Beautiful sky too!

Night was upon us - we opted to stop just in the western edge of Maine - in a little town called Bethel.

This was home for the night - no chain hotels in these parts!

Sorry, forgot to snap a photo as we entered...it is true to the name - a bed, and a breakfast.  Very adequate.

Dick and Lindy relaxing in the lobby.

Actually cozy if you're into that sort of thing...