Well, you can go to...

Didn't take many pictures today, but I did go to Hell, MI (that's what the title is referring to).  I am SO TIRED.  I waited until the very last minute to get a hotel room, and then stressed about it, but everything worked out fine.  What I'm saying, though, is that I think I'm going to sleep and post in the morning!  I hate to do that, because I've got a gaggle of new people who are checking out my blog (I've got to tell you about that, too!), and I fear they won't tolerate boring entries like this for long, but I've just got to get to bed.

My New Favorite Things

Didn't have internet last night, so I've got 2 days to catch you up on!!



When I checked into the hotel in...New Hampshire?  Two nights ago?  The receptionist said she had 2 more rooms to rent and then she was done for the night.  Well, she rented them alright...to SIX HARLEY RIDERS!!  Now - before I offend anyone - I know and love at least 3 Harley riders, and they are fantastic people, but they are also...fun loving people!  I heard these guys come in at 9:30, and decided to try earplugs, and they worked!!!  I heard nothing until I took them out at 1:30am and realized they were still partying on the patio.  One in particular kept saying "Whoooo", kind of like the Marine "Hoo-ah", but without the 'ah' part.  Anyway, I put the earplugs back in and went back to sleep, which is why earplugs are my new favorite things. 

 Can't see, but there are cans and bottles.  I hope they picked them up before they left.



Right around the Maine line, I SAW A MOOSE!!  People just pulled over on the highway.  Can't seem him, but I swear he's there.  I also saw a deer and several turkeys!

RoadsideAmerica stop #31 - Transmission Shop Victim in Bethlehem, NH.  How funny is this??

Stopped at Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory in Waterbury, VT to get a smashed penny.  It was like an amusement park, and they were charging $4 to do the factory tour, so I got my penny and left.

I stopped in Burlington, VT to see some winged monkeys on top of the train station and the monument to the Lake Monster, but couldn't find parking anywhere close to them.  However, I did see this, and since my friend Bob calls me "Sailor Jerry" (I can't even remember how that started), I wanted to take a picture.  I ended up walking aound their cute pedestrian only street.

They've got a bear thing going, with a decorated bear on every block.

This was one of the bears on display!!

Took my 3rd ferry of the summer from VT to NY, and there was a wedding party on board.  Has anyone watched "Harper's Ferry" on Netflix?!  Starts out the same, ends up with just about everyone DEAD.

 Me on the ferry.

Me at Lake Placid.  Had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant.  The waiter reminded me of a young Rocky, and gave me a great deal on a burger and a Bud.  (Because he swapped out the Bud for something that I could actually drink!)

 Funny name.



My room last night.  It was rainy and dark when I pulled in, but the room was nice.

There was no lock on the door other than the hotel key?!  So this was my burglar (that word doesn't look right?) alarm.

So this is where I stayed!

 Different, but fine.  On this return trip, all of my rooms have had real keys (rather than cards).

Only picture worthy site I could find in Rome?

Unexpected stop - NIAGRA FALLS!!  Took about 100 pictures, chose this one for the crazy hair.

RoadsideAmerica stop #32 - Where the Ducks walk on the Fish, Linesville, PA.  Carp in a manmade lake that gather to eat bread, and there are so many of them, ducks are able to walk over the collected fish to also grab the bread crumbs!

Ok, I know I have some other stories to tell, but I'm tired.  Hope everyone's well -

HEADIN' WEST!!!

Left Concord this morning.  ...sigh...  Lots of hugs.  Who knew that in such a short time I could grow to like a family so much?!?

On my way out of Concord, it was recommended that I stop at the Cultural Arts Center, and omg - more cool statues!!!  This is me and a Great Dane.

 LOVE THIS!  Someone put this bust on the OUTSIDE of a window, looking in!  If my office wasn't on the 2nd story, I'd do something cool like this.  And of course I'd need a window...

 Just him.

 I would like to know the who/how/and how long of this one - it's just string wrapped and wrapped and wrapped around the branches on this tree.  Not just ON it, but wrapped around.

 First stop of the day, Salem, MA.  I got a cool smashed penny, but otherwise Salem was not as cool as I thought it would be.  Granted, I only had an hour on the parking meter.

 It was recommended that I add several RoadsideAmerica stops to my day, and for the most part, they were all BUSTS.  And for the most part, it was all my fault.  At one stop, I was looking on the wrong side of the road, and I'm not really sure what happened here.  I was looking for something presidential, and some chain-smoking scabby guy who lived across the street swore to me that it was the rock.  It wasn't.

 YAY!!  At 6:30pm, I got lucky with a RoadsideAmerica stop, #30.  There are several towns in the area that share names with large, international cities, so this guy put up the standard roadsign, but THIS one shows mileage to the smaller, lesser known versions!  Oh, and at 6:30pm - after starting at 9am - I was only 126m from my starting point according to GPS!!  Now, I had done lots of curving and twisting and totally changing directions, but still...

 The whole yard was neat.  I would have loved to explore, but a) it was raining, and b) there was a sign up saying that while we were allowed and encouraged to take pictures, we couldn't trespass.

Ugh!  Can kind of tell, but that's a life size Sasquatch statue in front of the cabin.

Had 2 more smashed penny opportunities.  One was at a wildlife park in their "Snack Shack".  The Shack was closed, but I could hear someone inside so I knocked.  A voice yelled that they were closed, so I yelled back that I didn't want anything to eat, just a smashed penny.  She opened the door, I repeated myself - while looking at the machine behind her - she yelled, "It's broken!", and slammed the door in my face.  Must not have been a good day in the Shack.  THEN, there was another one 8 miles out of my way in horrible, terrible rain.  I mean, windshield-wipers-on-high kind of rain.  I shouldn't have gone.  But of course I did.  I pulled in the parking lot of this...I don't know?  Ski lodge?  At 6:51, and they had CLOSED AT 6:30!!!  But I saw a ranger in there, so I knocked on the door and she let me in!  I had run to the door in the rain with only 51 cents on me, and once I got inside there were actually TWO designs that I liked, but a) that goes against my penny smashing rules (to get 2 pennies from the same machine during the same visit), b) I didn't want to run in the rain again, and c) I didn't want to make her get up and unlock the door for me again.  So I got one with a moose on it, because I saw lots of "Moose Crossing" signs today.

I started looking for a place to stay soon after.  I could have driven a little further, but the rain was HORRIBLE.  After 3 no vacancies, I found a family room with 3 beds for $129.  I'll tell you what, I thought about it, especially after he told me I was heading to a remote area, but I lucked up and found a room at the very next place!  So I'm at the Moose Brook Motel in Gorham, New Hampshire.  There are only 12 rooms, they all have screen doors, and if the rest are like mine, they have ceiling fans and HUGE bathrooms!!  Now it's quit raining, so I can run out and get some stuff from the car.

Last Day in Concord!

Visited this museum called deCordova, which I have the hardest time pronouncing, because when I first heard it, I thought someone was saying "THE Cordova" and that just threw me all off.

Anyway, they have this sculpture garden, and you should know by now how much I LOVE sculptures!!!  I will call these what I would have named them, not what the artists called them.

But first, here's a picture of East Coast Bridget and me -

 Isn't she adorable?!?

We were at a Bonsai nursery, and I had NO IDEA how expensive they were!!  Guess how much this one is (it's maybe 2 - 3 feet tall)?

$7500!!  That's right - SEVEN - FIVE - ZERO - ZERO!!! 

Ok, now I'm at the sculpture park...

 "Fun Music Maker Thing-y"

You could walk/run/trot up and down this line of upright pipes while banging a stick against it, and it made beautiful sounds (or noise, depending on your point of view).  I did it about 10 times.

 "Two Big Ol' Hearts"

(sometimes I'm not real creative with my naming)

 "TRASH!!!"

Close-up view of "Trash".  This is one of those exhibits I see where I think, 'Really?  This is ART?!?"  Just lots of piles of old newspapers.  And my hair.

 "Toy Soldiers"

Looks likes they're made out of natural materials, but they're really metal.

 "Five Guys"

(My big head is blocking one.)

 "Chicken"

"Breakfast for 2...HUNDRED" 

 "Ohm"

This one was really called "Humming", and I may or may not have been the model for it.  I'll never tell.

 "I'm a Goofball"

Named moreso for my attempt to recreate than for the sculpture itself.

 "Bubbles"

Hard to see, but it's HUGE metal circles piled on each other, rolling down the hill.

 I don't know what to call this one.  It's a HUGE head, so I could name it based on that, but because I couldn't get close to it, it doesn't look big, but instead looks like he and I are of equal size, so I could name it something about that.

 This is a view of "Bubbles" from the top of the hill.

 "Creepy Stalker Guy"

This one really was creepy.

 "Pop Beads"

"Secret Keeper"

I was trying to take a picture that looked like I was telling this guy a secret, but it kind of looks like I'm licking his ear. 

Different view of "Secret Keeper".  This was the one sculpture that I wish I could have asked someone else to take the picture, because it was hard to get both of us in the picture, but I was one of the only people in the park at the time.



Guess where??

Ok, so this is unexpected, but I'm still in CONCORD!  Yes, still with the family that I didn't even know 2 days ago!  But it's all good - there's a TON of stuff to see, and we get along!

 Went to the North Bridge, which is the site of the first battle of the Revolutionary War.

 Me and a guy in garb.  You know how the Lincoln Memorial is my favorite memorial in Washington? Well, this statue was done by the same guy, but years earlier when he was TWENTY-THREE years old!!

 Then I went to the Concord Museum, and they had some CRAZY paintings that reminded me of the one from "Pet Sematary".  This one - and don't tell my sister-in-law - but this one looks just like my youngest nephew...IN A DRESS.

 I think the artist for this series got lazy and just painted the same man twice, and put a dress on him in one of the paintings.

 Went to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and saw the graves of some famous people.  They were all decorated, but I didn't leave anything.  This is Lousa May Alcott's...

 and Ralph Waldo Emerson's...

and Nathaniel Hawthorne's...

and Henry David Thoreau's.

This didn't have an inscription on it, so I don't know if it was a grave, but I thought it was interesting.