A Bit of Minnesota

So I know it's been a while a since I posted. Unless you blog, you might not realize how long it actually takes to write a post. I suppose if I wrote more often it wouldn't take as long. I digress- I should tell you about my last couple weeks.

A couple weekends ago my friends Josh and Amy Johnson came out to New England for vacation. So Saturday I drove down to Rhode Island to meet them and hang out for the weekend. We met at a Polo match which was pretty cool as none of us had ever been to a match. It is definitely an upper class sport considering the rest of the crowd and the spreads that brought to enjoy during the match. It was interesting to watch nonetheless. At "half-time" between the 3rd and 4th chukka, you can go onto the field and help replace divots. If you ever decide to help make sure to watch out for the horse apples that were left on the field. After watching nearly a full game, I still have no idea what the rules are. I did eat a pretty tasty sausage there though. They really decked the thing out too.

We left at the beginning of the 6th and final chukka and went to check out the mansions of Newport, RI. You should see these places. They are ginormous and to think that most of them are second or vacation homes. We then drove along the oceanview road and finally went downtown to grab a bite to eat. Josh and I each ordered Quahogs (aka clams) and Josh has an Oyster. The waitress thought it was pretty odd that we only ordered one of each, but hey!, they're expensive. We also had some pretty stellar clam chowder. Finally we drove up to Plymouth, MA to spend the night. We woke the next morning to walk down and see Plymouth Rock. Not to burst anyone's bubble, but it isn't overly exciting. The history of it is really the cool part. There is also a replica of the Mayflower, called Mayflower 2, which was built in England and sailed over. It is pretty cool to tour. We then went to the Plymouth Plantation which is similar to a live museum-type thing. For those of you from Northern Minnesota, it is sort of like White Oak Society. I learned a lot about the real story of the first Thanksgiving. After the plantation, I went back to Maine and the Johnson's headed to Vermont, the Green Mountain State.

I was able to see them again later in the week up in Boothbay Harbor which is a beautiful place in Maine. They were staying at a Bed and Breakfast that had one of the most amazing views I've ever seen from an Inn. It was called the Topside Inn if you are ever in New England and looking for a great place. The bathroom in their room was about the same square footage as my whole house. Amy and Josh were also kind of enough to share some of the tasty fudge they had bought earlier that day. You should also join them for breakfast sometime as not only is Josh a really good cook, but they bought a bunch of delicious syrup. We went out to eat again that night. Josh and I split a tasty crab cake appetizer and I finally had the lobster roll I'd been craving.

Last weekend, while the Johnson's were wrapping up their trip in Boston, I headed up to Katahdin for another take at the mountain. Again I made it up to the top, but alas the weather was again crappy so I was not able to get much of a view. I went with a group of people who I didn't really know. Out of the 9 people who also went on the trip, I knew Peter and had met Jenny once before, but I figured it is always good to get to know more people. We rented a bunkhouse so we had hard bunk-bed type "beds" to sleep on, but more importantly we had a fireplace which came in very handy after we got back from hiking all day in the rain on Saturday. Sadly Friday and Sunday were beautiful days, but I didn't hike either of those days. On Saturday, it was raining as soon as we woke up. The hike up went quite smooth. About half of the group, including myself, decided to hike to the top of Hamline Peak rather than Baxter (the tallest that I did last time). I am determined to get up there at some point and check out the sweet view that I'm sure awaits me up there. Nevertheless, I did manage to get a few cool pictures. The leaves are starting to really change here. I'm pretty excited for the fall foliage, but not the soon arriving winter and cold weather that accompanies it. I saw part of a Maine moose. Sadly, it was disappearing into the woods before I got up to a point where I could see it in the middle of the trail. Sunday morning, we took one last small hike to a pond to see if we could catch a glimpse of any more moose. We didn't see any large animals but caught a pretty nice view anyway.

In other news, I've started watching more movies again which was quite rare during PT school. I've played some more tennis. Got paid again (always exciting). Worked a lot. I'm getting used to the 10 hour days. The extra day off is quite nice. Got to know some of my friends out here a little better. All-in-all I've had a pretty good couple of weeks. It's always good when I get to see Minnesota people out here though. I also bought an antenna (bunny ears) for my TV so I now get a few channels. PBS comes in the best. I will hopefully have my DVD player all lined up soon so I can watch some movies here. Not that there is anything wrong with watching them on Sarah's 13 inch TV. That's about it for this posting. Plus I'm close to falling asleep.