Mark Queijo brought his spud gun on our camping trip, and we used it multiple times during the day, and once at night. For those who don’t know, and since this video has mostly audio, a spud gun is a bazooka-shaped thing made of plumbing pipe and one flint igniter. You cram your potato down the barrel, just as you would shot into a musket, and then you spray a combustible propellant like AquaNet into the back end. As quickly as you can, you screw the plastic back on and flick the flint. If all goes well, the spark ignites the hair spray, the hair spray goes kaboom, and the potato goes into low earth orbit.

Here’s our only night time test. If you listen closely you’ll hear quite a few laugh out loud lines (at least I did), and you might even get the gist of what happened when the back end blows off .

Here’s Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish singing Sloop John B. We first caught their act on the Vineyard at the end of the summer and now I see they’re coming to The Acton Jazz Cafe, Saturday, November 17th. Anyone want to join us? Anyone besides Mr. and Mrs. BirdBrain whose attendance is mandatory.

These people no longer have to guess why their water bill is so high, and if you want to donate some rice and improve your vocabulary, try this site. Both sent to me by Matt who tells me he just woke up from a twenty-four hour nap. For whatever it’s worth, my average score is 41.

From the Providence Place website: “Providence Place is the ideal venue for tour de force shopping excursions, family outings and intimate rendezvous. With more than 170 stores, eight restaurants, and entertainment venues, you’ll find something for every age, taste and style.

This shopping, dining and entertainment destination is the centerpiece of a downtown Providence renaissance. The impressive line-up of retailers includes Nordstrom, Coach, The Apple Store, The Cheesecake Factory, Sephora, J. Jill, Sony Style, Ross-Simons, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Dave & Buster’s and Feinstein IMAX Theatre. With its stunning architecture, a downtown location, a lively streetscape and carpeted floors, Providence Place provides a one-of-a-kind shopping experience.”

We’re not here shopping or shilling for the mall, but it’s gratifying to see such a vibrant downtown. I wonder why it took us thirty-five years to find this city, only an hour from our house.

BirdBrain sent me this and said she thought of Matt. I thought of Matt, too, but when I saw photo # 11 I thought of Adam.

   

The guy with the rose tattoo has been doing some more serious climbing. I wonder how his mom sleeps at night.

 
Michael,

Well, we found white pumpkins right here in Colorado.  We were way out on the plains near where Nebraska touches our north eastern border, and found a farm stand with every color available–orange, red, white, blue, green, and various mixtures thereof. So of course we had to have at least a white one.  (See a carved white jackolantern in daylight, and the same one at night on our front porch.)

On the same trip we saw the Pawnee grasslands,  old-fashioned  windmills, new-fashioned  windpower  mills, decaying  remnants of the old plains farms, and many a tumbling tumbleweed (movie), all coming to the blog as soon as the blogmeister gets a good fraction of his stories out of his craw and onto the screen.

–rakkity

This was a carefully crafted trip which allowed easy communication home, and which included two guys who long ago bailed from our group. Bill Lewis who’d finally gotten a real job teaching fifth graders and Dan who’d spent so much time in a sitting position that moving about, even as little as we do, pushed his limits.

So, we headed back to First Debsconeag which tested our four wheel drive vehicles more than our flabby arms, and which has a primo view of Mt. Katahdin.

Our late night swim ranks as one of the best. The water was cold enough to make your skin feel like it was on fire, but a warm breeze meant for once we weren’t first taking off layers of cotton and down before our plunge. But the best part was soaping up under a full moon with wisps of white clouds and faint stars.

No stars, no clouds, this shot was taken earlier in the evening.

There’s lots more to tell but Adam’s been busy at work.

I’m way behind posting every little detail of my life. How do I know? Matthew told me so.

Our trip to Kansas to meet family and friends and tell stories and see my father’s headstone exceeded even what I could have imagined. And the guy’s camping trip to Maine, though intentionally shortened, was liberating.

I think I’ll start with the present and move backwards, which means the camping trip comes first. I’ll cheat and use Adam’s email to the missing member, Mark Schreiber, whose workload forced him to remain in Boston.

“Lewis got a little too intimate for the big fella {a meandering moose}, who decided to keep things strictly intra-species, but he did give ’em a nice dance before departing, we’re told … (Dan and I stayed back at camp and readied the poles and ropes for the firepit tarp the boys were fetching).

Weather was a Cliff Notes of all camping trips — brilliant, lazy sun, endless drizzle, howling gale with a whiff of the Arctic, in that order (with 5:00 a.m. the nominal average changeover bell). And the trip might’ve felt too short but for the last condition, which made “we’re outta here!“ more than acceptable. A good time, though, with a smattering of most of everything from moose to midnight swim, potato launchers, slingshots and LED Frisbees — except for food and alcohol, of which there was rather more than a smattering … We toasted you at first lunch with a tipple of Seksti!

More when Mike has edited up our movie — circa 2008 …”

Adam

Adam is wrong about the date. 2009 is more like it. I brought both my movie camera and my DSLR, but shot more film than stills which is okay, but it does require far more effort to assemble something viewable.

I’ve plenty more of that moose but here he is ambling into the woods (yes, we are way too close)

and here he is before his dance,

and one last photo after his dance, still looking back at us, wondering whether we’ll take the hint and leave.

Believe me, his dance, though majestic and seen mostly through my lens, made my heart stop.

Here are screenshots of two desktops showing very different working styles. To show us yours,  save the photo to the desktop or anywhere you might have prayer of finding it (I’m thinking of PC users), then click the upload button on the gallery.

As many of you know last February I had my father buried in his hometown cemetery in Latham, Kansas. I didn’t have the time to have the headstone installed and my brother, Brian, suggested that we do so in the fall.

Six weeks ago I began calling monument companies to get the stone cut and engraved. I found an online company that required two months advance notice, and I called the guys who provided the burial vault, but they wouldn’t sell the stone to me directly. They only did business with funeral homes. I finally found a company in Wichita who not only promised the stone in less than a month, but also had no problem dealing directly with me. Selling retail if you will. Last month I sent them our design and six hundred dollars and they had it set in place on Thursday.

Originally the plan was to come back with Brian, Diane and Peter, but the event quickly grew to include relatives and close friends from Evansville. We’re here in Wichita now and tomorrow we return to Latham for a second goodbye.

Here’s a short video from last winter. We’ve rented the Town and Country and we’re picking up my father from the funeral home. You’ve got to love the Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper jacket.