Maine in January

A five day, 900 mile long weekend road trip to visit friends in Maine.

Chris Koch and Tim Spaulding are long time friends, both originally from Gouverneur.  Chris was Kathy's best friend in High School while Tim and I were classmates.  It was time to catch up with them.  I last saw them this past August when they rented a camp, along with Chris' sisters, at nearby Sylvia Lake.

Chris and Tim are both still working, so the visit was scheduled around a weekend.  Chris is a teacher and has Saturday and Sunday off, while Tim is an occupational therapist and has Sunday and Monday off.  The original plan was for the three of us to downhill ski at Sunday River Ski Resort on Sunday and then Tim and I would go back and ski again on Monday.

However, Mother Nature had other plans.  The weather forecast for Sunday River on Sunday was clear, but wind chills of 25 below zero.  Yikes!!  So we ended up going hiking with the dogs at the Bowdin College Coastal Studies Center.

   It was sunny, cold, and the wind was raw off the bay, but we, and especially the dogs, had a great time.  Zoey and Dooley, much to our chagrin, even went for a dip.  The cold icy water didn't seem to phase them a bit.

After leaving the the Coastal Studies Sanctuary, we decided to further explore the peninsula.  During the drive, we happened upon a really unique bridge, the Bailey Island Bridge.  Come to find out, it is reportedly the only granite cribstone bridge in the world.

The weather warmed, so Tim and I went skiing on Monday.  It turned out to be a great day of skiing.  Sunday River is huge, at least by my standards, and the the crowds were small.  The runs were long and challenging.  It was a GREAT day!!

One of the wonderful things about the South Portland area when Chris and Tim live is the large number of recreation and park areas where dogs can run and play off leash.  One of these areas is the Bug Light Lighthouse, only a five minute drive from their house.  We went there several times.  One morning we caught the sunrise over the harbor, which is not just a tourist attraction, but an actual working harbor.

Chris and Tim both went to work on Tuesday, so I decided to spend the day with old friend Mark Woodward and his wife Joanne.  We went for a walk at Cresent Beach State Park.  The park is technically closed for the winter, but many people still hike the beach during the winter.

It was great fun catching up with Mark.  We shared old travel adventures and discussed the trials and tribulations of retirement.  Mark and Joanne are heading to Florida to play golf and beat the winter blues.  I, on the other hand, have been beating the winter blahs by skiing, traveling and catching up on old friends with trips to Wisconsin and Maine.

I drove back to Gouverneur on Wednesday, and arrived home with a temperature reading of 60.  Wow!  But it didn't last long.  By the next day the temperatures were back to the traditional teens.  Mother Nature does control the rules.

Wisconsin in January: Home Brewing

Saturday night was Packer Mania night.  Wisconsin is Greenbay Packer football country, and the Packers were in the playoffs, pitted against the San Francisco 49ers.  Dave, Ann and I met up with Dave's brother  "Crow" and his wife Jennifer at a local bar that is a football hangout.  I was about the only one there not dressed in the obligatory green and yellow.  The game started out well for Greenbay, and the locals were going crazy.  However, the tempo soon changed.  The hot shot young quarterback for the 49ers soon started to run all over "us" and the bar crowd's mood turned glum.  Greenbay lost.

Not one to cry over spilt beer, Dave had a project for Sunday to lighten to mood.  We were going to make home-brew.  Now, Dave is a bit of a traditionalist.  He likes to do things the old fashion way.  In this case, that meant we would not use some fancy brew kit, but instead we would start with the raw ingredients.  So, with some hand shelled Indian corn from the garden, yellow corn from the feed store, and some rye and barley from a brew store we started our concoction.  First we had to hand grind the grains.  Dave has an antique coffee grinder that fit the bill.

Antique grinder.

Ground Indian corn, barley, dark rye and light rye.

With the ingredients ground and measured, we mixed them in a large pot (actually the pail portion of an old milking machine that Dave found at auction) and added enough water to create a mash.  The mash had to be heated to 145 degrees for about two hours for the carbohydrates in the grains to be converted to sugar.  See, there is real science going on here.  Dave has an antique wood fired cook stove, and so we had to use that to heat the mash.

Checking the temperature of the mash.

Keeping the heated mash stirred.

Grain mash.

Grain mixture in the mash.

After the proper period of heating, we strained the liquid from the mash and added the yeast.  Then we racked the mixture into a glass carboy for fermentation.

Separating the liquid wort from the grain mash.

Checking the sugar content of the wort.

Racking the wort into the glass carboy to be fermented.

Wort starting to ferment.

Over a period of five or six days the yeast consumes the sugar and produces carbon dioxide and alcohol.  The carbon dioxide is vented off through an air lock and the resulting liquid contains alcohol.  I think Dave has aspirations of further "processing" his mixture to create something called "product."  I can't swear what that is, but I did see a show on TV once where moonshiners created something called "product."

This project took most of the day, so now I know one more way that Wisconsinites pass the time away in the winter.  Hard to predict what Dave has up his sleeve next.

Wisconsin in January: Ice Fishing

You can either complain about winter, or embrace it.  One of the ways to embrace it is to go fishing, ice fishing that is.  My buddy Dave and I decided to spend Friday afternoon ice fishing on nearby Skunk Lake.  Skunk Lake is a cold, clear,  glacial kettle lake.

The good news is that we didn't get "skunked."  :-))    We caught one nice largemouth bass, which we released.  The bad news is that conditions were not ideal.  A minor January thaw was occurring and it had rained the night before.  While the ice was still thick enough to be safe, the rain had nowhere to go, and thus there was a good two to three inches of wet slush on top of the ice.  That did not deter us from having a good time.

I have to confess, I have never ice fished before.  Once the holes are drilled, the lines baited, and the tip ups in place, you sit and wait.  And wait, and wait, and wait.  Had it not been for the beer, passing the time would have been right up there with watching paint dry.  Dave and I decided that fishing is a lot like being addicted to the lottery or attending casinos.  You hate to quit, because the very next minute might bring in the big one.  As the catch line in the New York State lottery commercials goes, "You never know."  We did had one diversion.   Zoey was with us, and she provided constant entertainment with her antics, such as watching the tip up flutter.

We were the only ones on the lake that day.  I'm not sure if that makes us tough, or dumb.  As we left later in the afternoon, the fog started to roll in, creating a mystical mood.  It was a great day!

More to follow...........

Wisconsin in January

1239 miles and staying at the home of David and Ann Wright, Amherst, Wisconsin.

This is the second winter I have been retired, and to be honest, I get really bored and antsy during January and February.  I think it's the lack of daylight.  I can always find things to do during most of the year, but these two months drive me crazy.  On a side note, I just read a column by Timothy Egan in the New York Times where he maintains that writers are more creative in Seattle in the winter.  He said that because winters are so dark and dreary there, writers have nothing else to do then but write.  Unfortunately, I'm not an author.  :-)

Anyway, Zoey and I decided to escape for a brief road trip to refresh our spirits with close friends who are a hoot to hang out with.  While Wisconsin may be the wrong direction to get warm or find increased daylight, Dave and Ann did promise a roaring fire, a stocked fridge, intellectual stimulation, and a ton of laughs.  So here I am!

I decided to travel light and not bring the truck camper.  We over nighted at my sister Mary Ann and her husband Eric's home in East Lansing Michigan.  Their place is about the halfway point.  Zoey and I arrived in Amherst about 4:30 Wednesday afternoon the 9th.  We took the long route, traveling south of Lake Erie instead of going through Canada (I was traveling with a case of wine and didn't want to deal with customs) and then driving north of Lake Michigan instead of south (I didn't want to deal with Chicago traffic).

The drive was especially pretty along the north shore of Lake Michigan.  The beach was snow covered and the ice was starting to build up along the shore line.  Zoey and I stopped a couple times for short walks.

Amherst, Wisconsin is a really neat town.  Stevens Point is about ten miles away and is the home of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.  So Amherst is essentially a small town suburb, with shopping and academia only a short drive away.  The Central Waters Brewing Company is just a couple miles down the road.

On Thursday, Ann and I took Zoey for a walk at a nearby recreation area called Skunk Lake.  Dave's brother, "Crow" joined us with his Black Lab, Buddy.  The trail was packed enough so that we did not need snowshoes.  Zoey ran wild and got thoroughly exhausted.  She, as well as I, needed the exercise and fresh air after two long days of traveling.

Later that evening I went with Dave and Ann to a practice session of Irish music with a group of local musician friends.  It was a real treat to watch, listen and join in the conversation.

I guess that's all for now.  More later............