Passing through Bangor, Maine, we were surprised and delighted to find our visit coincided with the (free!) National Folk Festival. We weren’t familiar with the festival, but evidently it moves to a new location every three years. Bangor’s a small city, or maybe just a big town, with some real economic problems. The festival didn’t seem any bigger than Seattle’s annual Folklife, but it was a big deal for little Bangor, bringing in much-needed tourist dollars and sparking revitalization of their waterfront.

At first glance, I didn’t see familiar names in the program. Then we sat down in the shade (92 Fahrenheit, so it was the only hot day in Bangor all year), listened to a Grammy-winning Dobro player, and read the program in depth. Henry Butler! I’d heard Henry play the piano live, on the radio in New Orleans, and I knew we were in for a treat. Then I saw that Solas was a band formed by Seamus Eagan — I knew him from his solo album. He was a child prodigy who won the all-Ireland prize in just about every Celtic instrument. A Tejano band called Los Fantasmas del Valle* consisted of three guys in their 60’s who’d been playing together for 40 years, and their new accordionist, at 20, younger than the band itself.

It was a memorable musical day. The Tejano band had us up on the floor dancing, and I could see why they recruited that young pipsqueak for the squeezebox. He was great, and he carried the melodies flawlessly. We were way at the back of the tent for Solas, but I could see which one was Seamus Eagan — he was the fellow who played three different instruments just during the first song. And Henry Butler was just fantastic. He’s totally blind, so he looks a little awkward when he’s sitting on stage and not playing. But once he starts tickling those ivories, it’s like magic. If I wasn’t sitting on the ground, I would have been on the edge of my seat. We gave him a standing ovation, which he couldn’t see, but a number of us (including yours truly) were shouting, “We love you, Henry!” which got his attention.

After the show, we stood in line to get Henry’s autograph. He wrote his full name out, very slowly, with a black marker on the disc itself. I told him of my brother, who’s also blind and named Henry. But he cheats and just writes “Hank” — four letters, all upper case, easy! Henry laughed. I got the feeling he likes taking his time writing his autograph, because he gets to flirt with the ladies. Lucky for me!

*Author’s note: When we get good Internet access, we get a little too excited. I wrote the above entry and published it without checking it over — I accidently sent it out to a bunch of readers without replacing “???” with “Los Fantasmas del Valle!”

**Another author’s note: One reason I love Henry Butler so much is that the following quote is attributed to him: “I decided, after listening to much of the jazz music that was coming out on all the labels, that something wasn’t right. I believe that jazz, generally speaking, is going into a tank … I think I have a chance in my life right now to push the envelope in the blues arena. I was starting not to have as much fun [in jazz}, not because I could not play, but because I was feeling the whole thing was more limiting. I just wanted to have fun and gig.” Right on, Henry. I am sooooooo with you about jazz vs. blues!

When we were driving through New Brunswick in the Squid Wagon, we saw these ladders several times, and we don’t know exactly what they are for. You can’t see it clearly in this picture, but there are some ropes which would allow the height or angle of them to be adjusted somewhat.

This picture was taken on Deer Island, in the Bay of Fundy in a little cove. I think that there is still some commercial fishing going on there, so these might be for fishing. They definitely are in the part of the Bay that has pretty big tides, probably 25 or 30 feet.

If you know what these are, leave a comment…heck, even if you have a decent guess, leave a comment!

I’m sitting in a city park in Bangor, Maine. We’ve become fans of such parks, places where we can stay for hours and write, picnic, use the bathroom, and meet interesting people. Some things are still free.

A garrulous fellow stopped by to chat while we were cooking breakfast. He would have been an interesting companion for our meal, except that his choice of topics was a little too gross for the breakfast table. He got onto the subject of his adult bout with chicken pox and all the complications of it. When he started describing a rectal exam, I wished we’d picked a different park.

Back in upstate New York, we’d stopped for the night in a place called Sharon Springs. It had a number of old hotels, huge multi-story edifices with historical plaques — this one was built in 1910, this one in 1920. Things were always burning down; one block had a plaque saying that it had held the biggest hotel of all, but it had burned down and the block had sat almost vacant for almost a hundred years. It had the feeling of a resort town that had gone under before the Great Depression, and was only starting to come back.

Looking for a quiet place to park for the night, we chose the vacant block, across the street from the Hotel columbia, a small, old hotel. Sitting in the van, invisible behind our tinted windows, we noticed that the folks going into and out of the hotel were all dressed in black. The men had long beards and hats — presumably Orthodox Jew — and drove mini-vans with New Jersey license plates.

In a city park in Canajoharie, a few miles down the road, an older lady with a portable oxygen tank stopped to talk. I asked her about Sharon Springs and the Jewish connection. “Oh yes,” she said, “in the old days — this was before your time — all the Jewish folks used to come up here from the City, on the train.” I thought her topic was wandering as she started telling me about the park in Canajoharie, how it used to be different before it was fixed up, it used to flood a lot, but there was always a lot of fishing there. But she was just setting the stage.

“The Jewish ladies used to sit up here, where the parking lot is, in their long black dresses. When someone would pull in an ugly old carp — you know what a carp is, don’t you? Nasty old bottom feeders — anyway, when someone landed a big old carp, the Jewish ladies would start to clap their hands. Then they’d rush down to the bottom of the hill and try to outbid each other to buy that ugly old fish. They had to take it back to the rabbi, while it was still alive, you know, to be kosher and everything.

“I asked one of those ladies, once, how they cooked the carp. She told me they gutted it, then boiled it until the bones fell to the bottom. Then they fished out the bones and added potatoes and carrots, and made a kind of fish stew.” She made a face at the thought of the stew.

“The Amish used to fish here, too; sometimes you’d see a half a dozen buggies parked here. They never had fishing licenses, and a friend of mine decided to have a little joke once. He drove a volunteer ambulance with a loudspeaker. coming across the bridge, he saw a bunch of Amish folks fishing. Over his speaker, he announced, ‘THIS IS THE GAME WARDEN. I’LL BE COMING DOWN THERE IN FIVE MINUTES TO CHECK LICENSES.’ Well, those Amish folks just went nuts. They grabbed their stuff and ran for the hills. They thought he was for real.” Chuckling at the memory, she went on her way, leaving us to our breakfast picnic.

Yesterday, we spent hours in the city park in Rangely, Maine. It was a beautiful place, just down the road from Mooselookmeguntic. Our Kerry bumper sticker initiated a conversation with a fellow there about books, politics (he saw our Kerry bumper sticker), places. He’s a cross-country ski racer who’s been in Rangely for 45 years, admitting that he came, “before everyone else was here.” When he recommended that we visit a certain part of the Maine coast, we decided to head there next. Given where he lives, he’s a well-qualified judge of beautiful places.

Inertia has this way of grabbing me and Barry. When we travel, we just keep going. When we stop, it’s hard to get going again.

We were sitting in a Wal-Mart parking lot in New Hampshire, discussing our options. To get out of inertia’s grasp, we’d just driven out of Moose River without making further plans. Were there things to see in New Hampshire? If so, what, besides the cheapest liquor stores in the U.S.?

Barry surprised me.

“You know that ‘Old Man in the Mountain’ that’s on the New Hampshire quarter and all their road signs? If we passed within ten miles of it, I’d like to stop.”

I looked at my guidebook (copyright 2003) and my road map (one index finger = 10 miles), and right there at Wal-Mart, we were less than 10 miles from it.

We drove to a special “viewing area” at Franconia Notch State Park. There was a massive, multi-level parking lot with hundreds of parking spaces. I thought to myself, “Must be off season; there are only about six cars here.”

Skipping the museum and gift shop, we headed down the quarter-mile path. At the end, a sign dramatically pronounced, “Here above your heads…” We looked up. Above our heads was a green mountain, no old man. I turned around, looked all about me, craning my neck. Then the other, newer sign registered on my consciousness.

In May 2003, the old man’s face fell. New Hampshire lost its proudest landmark. This, despite almost a century of work to shore it up with cables, cement, and fiberglass. Time — and acid rain — weakened the chin, and it tumbled off, taking lips, nose, and forehead along with it.

And now, New Hampshire is a state with lots of parking, restrooms, a gift shop, and a nice trail. But no face. The face now resides on mugs, quarters, t-shirts, road signs — and postcards. Strangely, none of the postcards show the place as it is now, despite having a year to get new ones printed.

Nobody, except me, wants a postcard of the Old Man Whose Face Fell Off the Mountain.

Soon after we arrived in Vermont by ferry, we visited the Vermont Teddy Bear factory, but that is a story for Frankie, and I won’t tell it for him.

But after a day in Burlington and a night in a small town nearby, we found ourselves driving all the way across the state (OK, so that’s only 75 miles) to the Moose River Campground. They were the only campground in Vermont that advertised wireless internet.

Of course technology doesn’t always work as it should, and it wasn’t working when we showed up. We spent the morning at the most amazing library we’d ever seen (the St. Johnsbury Athanaeum), and when we returned, laptop in hand, the Wi-Fi was working again.

We decided to stay for a week. For the first time since early June, we didn’t do much, which was a very nice change. We hadn’t really had downtime since before we bought the Squid Wagon and started travelling–we had mostly been visiting great people or hurrying off to the next great people to visit.

So we enjoyed being able to check email and surf the web again … and we added fun stuff for the website, including photos (yes, we will get a bit more in that section sooner or later) and recipes. Plus finishing our migration out of www.brigup.com and catching up on my favorite internet comic strip, Sluggy Freelance.

Since the campground had lots of seasonal folks, their pace was relaxed, and we had time to get to know some of them. There was a Hawiian Luau, with a roast pig and pina coladas, Karaoke and limbo. There was laundry, of course, and reading and van projects (now we have screens for our windows!). We met motorcycle campers from Minnesota, a bicycle camper from New York City, Newfies who gave us tips on our upcoming trip to the Maritimes, and a number of “fulltimers” in RVs.

Mac and Linda, from Kansas City, have been traveling around for three years, and they’ve seen the whole country. From Alaska to Baja, they’ve seen it all, though, as Linda admits, “My husband used to be a truck driver. So we’ve driven through it all, but we don’t always stop and see things.” They’re planning another winter in Yuma, Arizona, before returning and buying a house where she can do her stained glass art.

The couple who own Moose River, Mary and Gary, are “people people.” Their whimsical presence was felt across the whole property, from moose signs to moose sculptures to moose silhouettes, a moose flag, moose license plate, moose bumper stickers, even moose wallpaper in the bathroom. When she wasn’t mowing or registering campers, Mary spent a lot of time on the big porch between their tiny house and the office. Folks would drift over from their RVs, sit in one of the Adirondack chairs, and enjoy a “bull session” with her, full of laughter.

We didn’t want to leave Moose River or St. Johnsbury, but we finally had to move on. We headed east, having added a bumper sticker, a yellow one that says, “Got Moose?” And just the next morning, on a lonely Maine road, the answer was yes. A cow and calf stopped in the road, then walked to the side and disappeared into the brush. Finally, after trying so hard to see them in Yellowstone and Grand Teton, we could honestly say, “Got Moose!”

I have a confession to make: I am an Olympics junkie. Despite the fact that I never owned a television in my adult life, every four (and later, two) years found me scrounging up a borrowed set to watch all my favorite sports.

My favorites are the ones that defy gravity, like gymnastics, diving, ice skating, and ski jumping. When I was little, I cared little for baseball, basketball, or football. My heroes were Dorothy Hamill, Mark Spitz, Nadia Commaneci, Greg Louganis. When Finland declared a national holiday because their ski jumper won the gold medal, I cheered — and wished fervently I was Finnish.

I love the pageantry of the Olympics, the way the whole world comes together for a short time and declares the “Olympic truce.” I love the fact that there are people devoting their entire lives to little-known sports, like curling or pentathlon, which most of us know nothing about. Can you even list the events that make up the pentathlon? I remember the Olympics before rhythm gymnastics, moguls, and skeleton, and I love the fact that there are new sports to discover.

So it’s probably no surprise to hear that while the XXVIII Olympics were getting under way in Athens, Barry and I were at Lake Placid, New York, home of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics.

I’ve seen Olympic venues before — Montreal, Atlanta. Those were just facilities, where the tour guide’s narration echoed across an empty gym or swimming pool. Lake Placid is a live training venue, full of athletes, where even at the height of the summer, there is plenty to see. We sat in the ice rink until our lips turned blue from cold, watching tiny girls in short velvet dresses practicing their double axels. One fellow was doing triples, nearly spraying us with ice as he landed on the other side of the boards.

From there, we passed the rink where the USA upset the Soviet Union in hockey in 1980. Hockey fans stood in the doorway, gazing at the ice in wonder, as if they thought that one spectacular game won the Cold War for the USA and caused the fall of the USSR.

We took a drive to Whiteface Mountain, where a quiet gondola took us to the top. Only a handful of tourists wandered about, snapping pictures, a far cry from the armies of support people, camera crews, and athletes who were there for the 1980 Olympics.

The 1932 Olympics were on another mountain, and the spectacular Whiteface Mountain venue was developed just for the ’80 games. Seeing these places in the summer, with their naked infrastructure uncovered by snow, brings home the realization of just how much is built for the Olympics. In ’80, the Federal Government chipped in to build the Olympic Village that housed all the athletes, on the condition that it would be turned over to them afterwards for a minimum security prison. I’m not sure where they would house the athletes if they hosted another Olympics — perhaps move the prisoners elsewhere?

The combined track for bobsled, luge, and skeleton was on another mountain. We didn’t opt for the 60 mph wheeled bobsled ride down the old track, but took a bus tour to the top of the mountain. Without its snowy winter blanket, the track is ugly, miles of refrigeration pipes covered in orange insulation. In keeping with the desire for more challenges, the new run is an eighth of a mile longer than the old and has four more curves, one of them 23 feet high. It has a section known as “The Devil’s Highway,” where athletes get up to four G’s of centrifugal force, and the poor skeleton fellows can’t even pick up their heads from the ice.

But for me, lover of things that defy gravity, the best part of Lake Placid was the ski jumping complex. There, on the 90-meter tower, skiiers slide down high-tech tracks and launch themselves effortlessly into the air, landing 100 meters down the hill on Astro-turf. They held a competition the Saturday we were there. I can still hear it in my head: Skis whooshing down the hill, cheering crowds, and that distinctive clatter of cowbells. I’ve only heard that particular combination of sounds on TV — during the Winter Olympics.

After watching Jonathan Kling match the summer record for the 90-meter hill (104 meters), we spent a few hours sitting at poolside. Wearing skis, boots, helmets, swimsuits, and PFDs, the aerial skiiers slide down a hill, are launched into the sky, and perform amazing feats before landing in a deep aerated swimming pool. We first saw small children who were there for a four-day camp. After only a couple of days, they could all march up the hill, ski down, and do flips and helis and split jumps into the pool.

But my eyes were drawn to the steps beside the taller hills, where tiny figures marched up carrying their skis over their shoulders. Finally, someone took off down the big hill. Down, down, down, then up the ramp at the end. He flew over 50 feet into the air, performing a triple somersault with so many twists I couldn’t count them. The spectators roared in delight, and I was left breathless.

This was the gravity defiance I had watched on TV for years, right in front of (above, actually!) me. And the next time I have a chance to watch the Olympics on TV, I probably will. But I’ll get just as much pleasure out of watching my own little videos. Because I was there, and I saw it, and heard it — in person, at Lake Placid.