So last night we stayed at my 92-year-old grandmother Romey's house in Rockingham, North Carolina. We parked our camper hidden behind her house, because she was worried people might drive by, see it, and try to break into the camper.
Little did we know we parked right on top of a huge colony of red fire ants.
I wake up at 9:00, and Lily is still fast asleep so I lounge around for an hour, reading a magazine. Lily wakes up at around 10:00, and Romey "asks" us if we want breakfast. Apparently cereal isn't good enough for Lily and me - she practically insists cooking us eggs, sausages, grits, toast, and coffee. We appease my 92 year old grandma by accepting the offer, but only under the condition that I help her, to which she replies, "Now don't you worry baby I'll fix it, now sit down with 'ya girlfriend and read your magazine."
Lily and I sit down with Romey and enjoy our wonderful breakfast, and after I am able to sneak next to the sink and start cleaning the dishes. She notices the second I turn the water on, and she demands, "Oh baby I'll take care'v those." Like an offensive lineman protecting the quarterback from a blitzing linebacker, I cut her off, "Romey I'll take care of these finish your breakfast!" She's the boss and we're the guests, but I'm three times her size and there's now way she's doing these dishes. I'm relaxed, enjoying my time with Romey, and now I'm helping.
Meanwhile, Lily sneaks out to the camper to grab her deoderant. She opens the door and sees an ant crawling across the step. Then a few more on next step up, then...
"Uh honey we have red ants in our camper," Lily says as I'm scrubbing away. I shrug, figuring it's just a few and we just need to clean up a bit and they'll go away. "Lots of ants", she says, sensing that I don't understand the urgency of the situation. "Like, all over the place." I walk out and jump in the camper. She wasn't kidding. They're crawling everywhere - on the floor, on the stove, in the stove, in the oven, on the cushions, under the cushions, in the sink, on the walls...everywhere. Red ants bite. And when they bite, it hurts...a lot.
Lily jumped in the driver's seat and moved the camper out of the yard and into the driveway. Romey points out the huge anthill we accidentally parked on, and covers it with sawdust-like at poison in a bag. We finished the bag in the camper - we put the stuff on every surface, in every crevice we could think of. It did a pretty good job of shriveling up those pesky little things. A couple hours later, with nary a single little ant left in sight, we vacuumed and scrubbed the place like crazy. Now we're on the road, and it's a lot better, but we've seen and killed about ten more ants since the first monstrous onslaught. There's bound to be some stragglers, but hopefully the vast majority met their maker.
Still, our short stay with Romey was great. We spent some quality time with her, and she taught me how to make her southern fried chicken! She sent us packing with a fridge full of food...chicken, sweet potato pudding, cake...I feel like I'm being fattened up for Thanksgiving. Now we're headed through North Caroline, South Carolina, and Georgia on our way to my sister's house in Atlanta, where I'll be cooking up a storm in preparation for the arrival of Mia Heather, my neice-to-be. And then...who knows?!?!
-Wax
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Capital City adventures
Yesterday we left the Washington DC area, after spending four nights. We arrived pretty late on Wednesday night, after driving the entire way from New Rochelle, NY, an all-day drive. Ben's cousin Josh and his wife Stephanie very kindly let us stay in their driveway on really short notice. Thursday was spent not doing a whole lot, and in the evening we had a nice dinner with Josh and Stephanie, and their kids Elizabeth and Matthew. Ben made a baked penne dish that came out quite tasty. Friday we went into DC very early. We meant to go to the zoo for just a couple hours, but it ended up being more like five or six. I got some good pictures which I will be posting in the next couple of days. We relaxed for a few hours, and then met up with Allison to walk around DC and go to dinner. We went to Jaleo, a tapas place owned by Jose Andres. It was pretty good, but not outstanding; the tapas we had in Spain were, of course, way better. We were truly disappointed by Andres' rendition of patatas bravas, but the sangria was really good. More about that on Ben's food blog.
After dinner we went to a bar called "Poste" which is located in the old post office building (so shouldn't it be called "Post"?). They looked like a kind of trendy place, but they had a huge outdoor seating area and lots of home-infused liquors. I got a faux-Dark and Stormy: instead of ginger beer and rum, I got ginger-infused rum and ginger ale. It was really really good. I can't remember what Allison and Ben got, but they both ordered drinks with some of the infused vodkas. After a couple drinks, we wandered back to Allison's and got some sleep.
Since Ben and I only got to the zoo on Friday, we wanted to make sure we caught at least two museums on Saturday. The first one we went to was the National Air and Space Museum, where we again spent a lot longer than we expected. We paid way too much for McDonalds lunch (the only food available) and spend another hour or so there. I was originally really excited to go there, but I realized that I'm a lot more interested in where people go into space than how they get there. Some of the shuttles and satellite displays were pretty cool though. After taking in as much as we could handle, we made our way to the International Gallery, where they were having a special exhibit on Jim Henson! It was the coolest exhibit I've ever been to. Even though I didn't grow up watching Sesame Street or Fraggle Rock or The Muppet Show, I've seen the latter, and I was able to appreciate most of the exhibit. Henson was a funny, creative, and wonderful artist and person.
Last night we stopped at Misty Mountain Camp Resort around 7pm. Ben grilled some sausages, onions, and potatoes over the fire. Today we got on the road around 1pm and are now heading down Route 29 in Virginia on our way to Ben's grandma Romey's house in North Carolina. We drove about 50 miles through the George Washington National Forest, which was a really pretty drive, though a very gas-guzzling hilly drive. Every gas fillup is getting cheaper and cheaper, per gallon anyway. We just filled up for $3.459/gal, and not five minutes later passed a station listing $3.359/gal! Our current trip stats are about 1900 miles, about $1000 on gas, and 9.33 overall mpg.
-Lily
After dinner we went to a bar called "Poste" which is located in the old post office building (so shouldn't it be called "Post"?). They looked like a kind of trendy place, but they had a huge outdoor seating area and lots of home-infused liquors. I got a faux-Dark and Stormy: instead of ginger beer and rum, I got ginger-infused rum and ginger ale. It was really really good. I can't remember what Allison and Ben got, but they both ordered drinks with some of the infused vodkas. After a couple drinks, we wandered back to Allison's and got some sleep.
Since Ben and I only got to the zoo on Friday, we wanted to make sure we caught at least two museums on Saturday. The first one we went to was the National Air and Space Museum, where we again spent a lot longer than we expected. We paid way too much for McDonalds lunch (the only food available) and spend another hour or so there. I was originally really excited to go there, but I realized that I'm a lot more interested in where people go into space than how they get there. Some of the shuttles and satellite displays were pretty cool though. After taking in as much as we could handle, we made our way to the International Gallery, where they were having a special exhibit on Jim Henson! It was the coolest exhibit I've ever been to. Even though I didn't grow up watching Sesame Street or Fraggle Rock or The Muppet Show, I've seen the latter, and I was able to appreciate most of the exhibit. Henson was a funny, creative, and wonderful artist and person.
Last night we stopped at Misty Mountain Camp Resort around 7pm. Ben grilled some sausages, onions, and potatoes over the fire. Today we got on the road around 1pm and are now heading down Route 29 in Virginia on our way to Ben's grandma Romey's house in North Carolina. We drove about 50 miles through the George Washington National Forest, which was a really pretty drive, though a very gas-guzzling hilly drive. Every gas fillup is getting cheaper and cheaper, per gallon anyway. We just filled up for $3.459/gal, and not five minutes later passed a station listing $3.359/gal! Our current trip stats are about 1900 miles, about $1000 on gas, and 9.33 overall mpg.
-Lily
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Great time in New York
After a short layover back in Waltham, and more than a few hundred dollars spent on brake repairs for our camper Inigo, over the past few days we stayed in New Rochelle, NY with my brother Aaron, sister-in-law Diana, and nephew Seth. We were really spoiled in New York - we got our cute kid fix playing with Seth, our doggy fix playing with their dog Missy, and we ate lots of great food, including a really top notch meal at Craft in Manhattan (more on food blog). Last night, Aaron and Diana sent us to a really fun outdoor theater (Shakespeare's Twelth Night) on a cliff overlooking the Hudson River, where we drank wine and ate a nice picnic dinner before the play. The play itself was a riot - great actors, great music...just a lot of fun all around. It was really a treat.
Today we drove all the way to Washington, D.C. from New Rochelle. It was probably too much driving in one day for us. We really want to make the most of our time in D.C. though so we wanted to be here all day tomorrow. We drove through New Jersey where we got gas for $3.51/gal compared to $4.17/gal in New Rochelle. If only we had some kind of reserve tanks that we could fill up in Jersey.
We're staying with our cousins Josh and Stephanie for a few days a little bit outside D.C. We'll be spending time with my friend Allison whom I haven't really seen in a few years. Then we're off to Atlanta to visit my sister Carrie, possibly through Charlotte, N.C. where we might stay with my grandmother Romy for a night or two. The camper is really chugging along great, which is a turn in the right direction!
-Wax
Today we drove all the way to Washington, D.C. from New Rochelle. It was probably too much driving in one day for us. We really want to make the most of our time in D.C. though so we wanted to be here all day tomorrow. We drove through New Jersey where we got gas for $3.51/gal compared to $4.17/gal in New Rochelle. If only we had some kind of reserve tanks that we could fill up in Jersey.
We're staying with our cousins Josh and Stephanie for a few days a little bit outside D.C. We'll be spending time with my friend Allison whom I haven't really seen in a few years. Then we're off to Atlanta to visit my sister Carrie, possibly through Charlotte, N.C. where we might stay with my grandmother Romy for a night or two. The camper is really chugging along great, which is a turn in the right direction!
-Wax
Saturday, August 2, 2008
The end of our stay in Rockland
Right now we are heading down rt. 95 back to Boston for a few days. We had such a great time over the past few weeks in Rockland, and we'll miss everyone at Primo.
Yesterday we spent the day at Old Orchard Beach. We got caught some rays, swam in the ocean, rode on some fun rides, and walked into some cool shops. The night before we had dinner at Bresca in Portland on recommendation from a couple Primo employees, and it was excellent (for more detail, check out my food blog). Last night we stayed in Biddeford again and saw another movie (Hellboy 2) at Smitty's Theater, which is just about the coolest movie theater ever.
Once again we quietly stayed at the Walmart in Biddeford overnight, and Lily and I are both annoyed at how many other campers use Walmart parking lots as their own personal campgrounds. Walmart is very generous to allow RVers to stay overnight in their lots free of charge, but visitors are expected to be quiet and only stay for a short time. Last night there were about 20 RVs staying at Walmart. Some of them were running their obscenely loud generators. Some people were outside in the parking lot playing music and drinking beer. This morning before we left, the parents of a few families traveling together decided it was okay to let all of their kids run around and play in the parking lot. On our way out, we saw a few trailers unhitched with their pick-up trucks or SUVs gone, probably out on a day trip. It's horrible how disrespectful these people are. And to top it off, most of the RVs are big and expensive, so why can't these people just pay the $40 for a spot at a campground and do whatever they want?
After our few days in Boston, we're off to see Aaron, Diana, and Seth in New York for a few days. Then we're headed to D.C. to visit Matt and Allison, and then we're off to Atlanta for a couple weeks.
-Wax
Yesterday we spent the day at Old Orchard Beach. We got caught some rays, swam in the ocean, rode on some fun rides, and walked into some cool shops. The night before we had dinner at Bresca in Portland on recommendation from a couple Primo employees, and it was excellent (for more detail, check out my food blog). Last night we stayed in Biddeford again and saw another movie (Hellboy 2) at Smitty's Theater, which is just about the coolest movie theater ever.
Once again we quietly stayed at the Walmart in Biddeford overnight, and Lily and I are both annoyed at how many other campers use Walmart parking lots as their own personal campgrounds. Walmart is very generous to allow RVers to stay overnight in their lots free of charge, but visitors are expected to be quiet and only stay for a short time. Last night there were about 20 RVs staying at Walmart. Some of them were running their obscenely loud generators. Some people were outside in the parking lot playing music and drinking beer. This morning before we left, the parents of a few families traveling together decided it was okay to let all of their kids run around and play in the parking lot. On our way out, we saw a few trailers unhitched with their pick-up trucks or SUVs gone, probably out on a day trip. It's horrible how disrespectful these people are. And to top it off, most of the RVs are big and expensive, so why can't these people just pay the $40 for a spot at a campground and do whatever they want?
After our few days in Boston, we're off to see Aaron, Diana, and Seth in New York for a few days. Then we're headed to D.C. to visit Matt and Allison, and then we're off to Atlanta for a couple weeks.
-Wax
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Garlic, Garlic, and more Garlic
I've been working in the vegetable and herb gardens at Primo. Emily is the head grower, as well as the bee-keeper and pig feeder. It's been fun learning about planting, and I've been doing a lot of weeding as well. Last Tuesday was my first day, and I just did a few hours. I watered a bed of newly planted peas and prepped a bed and planted some greens. I got to pick some raspberries, which were really tasty. On Wednesday, I started at 9am, which is a little early for me (understatement of the year?). I picked fava beans. And I picked more fava beans. For about three hours I picked fava beans. They're really hard to to find, because the pods look the same as the stalks and the leaves. My back hurt a lot after doing that, but it was lunch time by then.
After lunch we started the immense amount of garlic harvesting.
There were three sets of beds full of garlic, I'm guessing at least 400 bulbs altogether. The steps for harvesting garlic are:
1 - pull up garlic bulbs from ground, keeping roots and leaves intact (pretty tiring and back-breaking, especially in the hot hot sun)
2 - clean bulbs by pulling off one or two layers of skin/paper/leaf (fairly tedious and time-consuming)
3 - tie together in bunches
4 - hang bunches for about two weeks to dry out and cure
The garlic has to be kept cool while doing this until it's time to hang them. As soon as the bulbs are out of the ground, they have to go in the shade. All the cleaning and bunching has to be done in the shade. I worked with Emily and her assistant Kelly on Wednesday pulling up three beds of garlic bulbs, cleaning and bunching them. It's actually pretty gratifying work to harvest garlic. After dying in the sun while pulling it up, it's beautiful to see the bright white bulbs all cleaned and tied together.
Thursday I had the day off and decided to bike to downtown Rockland and Walmart. I was incredibly pooped by the time I got back, but I love riding my bike so much. Ben and I went to dinner at the bar at Primo on Thursday night, and the food was pretty awesome again. And again it was comped, which is such a great way to get paid.
Friday I worked in the gardens again. I picked a bunch of edible flowers for the kitchen. It's incredibly how many different types of edible flowers there are growing here. I can't remember all the names of them, but I remember having seen some of the at dinner the night before. Around 10 or so, I started on pulling up three really long beds of garlic. All by myself. By the time they were all pulled and I had brought them into the shade, Emily came over and said it was lunch time. After lunch the two of us cleaned all of it. We just finished cleaning it around 4:15, so we had family meal (Primo's staff meal, around 4pm every day), and finished bunching it afterwards. This afternoon I saw Kelly hanging them beneath the porch of the restaurant.
Yesterday and today Ben and I both had the days off, so we've been taking it pretty easy. Last night we realized that something was going on with our fridge - it was not keeping cold anymore! Since this is a new fridge, and it's been flashing "lo dc" we figured something funky was going on with the batteries. We checked them, and sure enough one of them was really low on water. For more information about why this is bad, go to wikipedia, but the basic story is that if the plates in the battery are exposed to air, the battery will kind of fry itself out or something. This morning we went to Autozone and traded in for two new batteries. We now have to see if this will completely solve the problem; we're not sure if the batteries are getting charge when we're plugged in, but we got one thing taken care of.
In a few minutes we're planning on biking to the next town over to see "Dark Knight" - if the rain doesn't come down any harder...
-Lily
After lunch we started the immense amount of garlic harvesting.
There were three sets of beds full of garlic, I'm guessing at least 400 bulbs altogether. The steps for harvesting garlic are:
1 - pull up garlic bulbs from ground, keeping roots and leaves intact (pretty tiring and back-breaking, especially in the hot hot sun)
2 - clean bulbs by pulling off one or two layers of skin/paper/leaf (fairly tedious and time-consuming)
3 - tie together in bunches
4 - hang bunches for about two weeks to dry out and cure
The garlic has to be kept cool while doing this until it's time to hang them. As soon as the bulbs are out of the ground, they have to go in the shade. All the cleaning and bunching has to be done in the shade. I worked with Emily and her assistant Kelly on Wednesday pulling up three beds of garlic bulbs, cleaning and bunching them. It's actually pretty gratifying work to harvest garlic. After dying in the sun while pulling it up, it's beautiful to see the bright white bulbs all cleaned and tied together.
Thursday I had the day off and decided to bike to downtown Rockland and Walmart. I was incredibly pooped by the time I got back, but I love riding my bike so much. Ben and I went to dinner at the bar at Primo on Thursday night, and the food was pretty awesome again. And again it was comped, which is such a great way to get paid.
Friday I worked in the gardens again. I picked a bunch of edible flowers for the kitchen. It's incredibly how many different types of edible flowers there are growing here. I can't remember all the names of them, but I remember having seen some of the at dinner the night before. Around 10 or so, I started on pulling up three really long beds of garlic. All by myself. By the time they were all pulled and I had brought them into the shade, Emily came over and said it was lunch time. After lunch the two of us cleaned all of it. We just finished cleaning it around 4:15, so we had family meal (Primo's staff meal, around 4pm every day), and finished bunching it afterwards. This afternoon I saw Kelly hanging them beneath the porch of the restaurant.
Yesterday and today Ben and I both had the days off, so we've been taking it pretty easy. Last night we realized that something was going on with our fridge - it was not keeping cold anymore! Since this is a new fridge, and it's been flashing "lo dc" we figured something funky was going on with the batteries. We checked them, and sure enough one of them was really low on water. For more information about why this is bad, go to wikipedia, but the basic story is that if the plates in the battery are exposed to air, the battery will kind of fry itself out or something. This morning we went to Autozone and traded in for two new batteries. We now have to see if this will completely solve the problem; we're not sure if the batteries are getting charge when we're plugged in, but we got one thing taken care of.
In a few minutes we're planning on biking to the next town over to see "Dark Knight" - if the rain doesn't come down any harder...
-Lily
Monday, July 14, 2008
Driving up the coast of Maine
Right now we're headed towards Rockland, ME up route 1. Last night we stayed at a Walmart in Biddeford, ME and decided to see a movie at a theater close by. We saw Hancock, which was great, but real story is the theater we watched it in. Smitty's Theater isn't the typical theater, it's set up for "dinner and a movie" with long tables flanked by columns of the most comfortable reclining chairs we've ever sat in in a movie theater (they were basically really nice office chairs). A waitress comes by before the movie and during previews and takes your order for some decent food (think Friday's or Chili's) at very good prices. We split a large soda, a big chicken quesadilla, and a brownie sundae for $13. Plus we were able to get in for $5.50 each using our now void-but-nobody-knows student I.D.s . We're totally going to another movie there on our way back down the coast!
Yesterday we stopped at Kittery Trading Post to get a couple camping and RV things and some kitchen equipment. I can't believe how big the outlets at Kittery have become. I don't remember so many outlet malls when my family would go to Kittery when I was little. The Trading Post hasn't really changed, though.
We're starting to feel pretty comfortable with the camper, especially after being home for a few days and taking care of a few little things. Today will be our first day in Rockland, and I might be working my first day at Primo tonight. Needless to say, we're pretty excited.
-Wax
Yesterday we stopped at Kittery Trading Post to get a couple camping and RV things and some kitchen equipment. I can't believe how big the outlets at Kittery have become. I don't remember so many outlet malls when my family would go to Kittery when I was little. The Trading Post hasn't really changed, though.
We're starting to feel pretty comfortable with the camper, especially after being home for a few days and taking care of a few little things. Today will be our first day in Rockland, and I might be working my first day at Primo tonight. Needless to say, we're pretty excited.
-Wax
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Honk Honk - Camper Updates
Yesterday we got to Waltham to stay for a few days and do some stuff on Inigo. One really important issue was not having a horn. We played around with it for a few hours today, and with a little help from my dad, we finally figured out how to get it to work! We totally high-fived each other when we fixed it. So now we can honk at the idiots that think it's a good idea to cut off a 10,000 pound vehicle going 60 mph. Another mechanical thing we wanted to do was change the oil and oil filter. Of course that took longer than expected, but it was really quite simple. And messy.
We're still having problems with the inverter, but we're trying not to get too depressed about it. It just means we can't watch TV when we're not plugged in. Or we can shell out an additional $140 for a bigger inverter. We don't really like the idea of spending more money right now. We will probably wait it out and see how we deal with our current inverter (...no pun intended).
-Lily
We're still having problems with the inverter, but we're trying not to get too depressed about it. It just means we can't watch TV when we're not plugged in. Or we can shell out an additional $140 for a bigger inverter. We don't really like the idea of spending more money right now. We will probably wait it out and see how we deal with our current inverter (...no pun intended).
-Lily
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