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Published: September 14th 2006
August finds us still in Maine, and working at the RV camp ground. Here's the latest updates.
We had an series of international visits. First our first exchange student (from Sweden) Kristina came to vast for 2 weeks. We had to drive into Portland, Maine to pick her up at the airport; 11pm at night. She was almost exactly the same as when we saw her last in 1996, just a little older and a little skinnier. She was a great help in the campground, she didn't have a real vacation because she helped Mike with his campground clean-up. Her favorite part was getting to ride on the ATV motorcycle as Mike sped about the campgrounds. The 2nd day of her visit she and Mike were playing badminton and she sprained her ankle. That put a bit of a damper on her activities. The next day was spent in the recliner with an ice bag on her ankle. After that we tried to find activities that didn't require much walking. Kayaking!!!!! You sit on your butt and let your upper body do all the work. So off to the river we went. She got in quite a few river trips
Lunch
Kristina & Mike take a break after a morning of cruising Antique shops.and enjoyed them all. We saw bald eagles and osprey flying around. We also finally saw a moose. We took a road trip up though one of the lake regions and a female ran across the road in front of us. So far that has been our only moose sighting, but our boss promises a moose sighting in the campground before we leave.
While Kristina was here we took another road trip to Montreal in Quebec, Canada. Two of our previous exchange students from Quebec are now living in Montreal with one of them being very close friends with Kristina and we are only about 5 hours away, so we couldn't pass up the opportunity for the reunion. Marie was in our group the first year (with Kristina) and even though she didn't live with us, she spent alot of time with us and we included her on all the trips we took. She and Kristina had not seen each other since about 1998 and Marie had no idea that Kristina was even in the country, so you can imagine the surprise we sprung on her. She thought she was just going to be seeing Mike and I. The
other student is Julie who was in our group from 1999, and one of our favorites (we have so many favorites).
Montreal is a fascinating city. Like a french San Francisco except there are a lot less hills and it's cleaner. Lots of different districts with each a different flavor, subway system and lots of bike paths. It is very normal not to own a car in Montreal. The parking is very scary. There are parking signs everywhere that limits the hours of parking on certain days. Very confusing. An example is you can park here only between 7PM and 6AM tuesdays and fridays, on mondays, wednesdays and thursdays you can park from 7PM until 9AM. That was a simple example. You need a day planner to figure out your parking. Julie and her boyfriend don't have a car or even a bike, they use the Metro or roller blade everywhere using the bike lanes. We had a great visit, ate some awesome food, and got the grand tour of Montreal and Quebec City.
Julie was a wonderful tour-guide and made sure we saw all the cities highlights. Montreal is sure a wonderful city and the
Julie
Doesn't she look like Liv Tyler? food was wonderful. Everyplace we ate just got better then the place before. And lets not forget about the famous "squeaky cheese". We couldn't leave Quebec with out trying it. Thank you both Julie and Marie for a wonderful time!
We plan on going back the end of September for another visit and to enjoy the fall colors
Mike is taking me to the coast for a long weekend, the first week in September for my birthday. We are leaving the trailer behind and will stay at a nice hotel for some much needed pampering. Should be a wonderful time for both of us.
That's it for this time. Need to get this out to all of you who are wondering what has been happening in our exciting new life of the retired! Enjoy the pictures!
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