On the Move Again

Day 26, Saturday, July 5

Last morning at Ross and Lorna's house. We were up early doing laundry, packing, refilling the cooler, rearranging our gear so we'll have what we need for the next week, and then taking down and hitching up the camper. it sounds like a lot of work, but in true Shirer fashion, we had to insert our share of hilarity in among it all. Patty wanted Curt to give her a lesson on the washtub bass. (Oh...I forgot to mention in last night's blog that Curt and I played music and we all sang songs and rounds yesterday at our Fourth of July celebration). Curt was pleased...Patty really caught on to the bass quickly. She was practicing as we sang "You Are  My Sunshine." Enter Ross, the lifelong choral conductor, classical musician and musicologist, with, of all things, a nose flute! Now I've heard of them but I've never 

seen one, so I wasn't sure there was really such an instrument...if you can call it that. But trust me, there is indeed such a thing. (Google it if you don't believe me.) And you do, indeed, play it by blowing through your nose. Although Ross, ever the intellectual, insisted that we call it by its proper name, knaselfluchen. Throughout the morning we enjoyed several different song sessions, which I captured on video, between bouts of hysterical laughter. Fortunately for you, I don't know how to put a video on the blog, so you'll just have to use your imagination with a couple of still photos. My stomach still hurts from holding in so much laughter in order to keep my iPad still to video Curt, Ross and Patty. This footage will go into the family archives, for sure.

You can buy nose flutes on Amazon, but I don't necessarily recommend it if you're trying to impress your friends. And if anyone asks me for knaselfluchen lessons, the answer is no. Go to Massachusetts and talk to Ross Shirer. 

Before we left, I also took a few pictures of some of Lorna's paintings. She's a very talented artist. She works mostly in oils, but also enjoys pastels. She paints a wide variety of subjects. I'll show you a few of my favorites:

 

Wish I could stick around and learn from Lorna! But we needed to start for the next chapter of our trip. 

I don't remember much about today's drive, because I slept through much of it. These late nights blogging are catching up with me! But I did wake up for the crossing of state lines: we nipped off a tiny corner of New Hampshire, and then 10 minutes later crossed into Maine,

 

Crossing the bridge into Maine:

This was a momentous occasion for me. It's one of the items on my "bucket list" to visit all 50 states. Maine is #49 for me! Now I just have Alaska to go, but I think we'll probably wait till next summer for that one. 

We've been hearing about lobster rolls from all the New England Shirers, so tonight we celebrated our first night in Maine by ordering them for dinner. Wow! I'm going to enjoy this part of the country!

Tomorrow morning we plan to get an early start so we can reach our destination of Lubec, Maine, early in the day. That's where we'll spend the next week. I'll be attending a mandolin music camp put on by SummerKeys. I'm a little concerned that I'm in over my head skill-wise, but that pretty well guarantees that I'll learn something, doesn't it? If you're interested in reading about what I'll be doing, look up www.summerkeys.com., and then click on Mandolin Workshops. Their Mandolin week runs concurrently with the Classical Guitar week, and we each have private lessons and classes in our individual instruments, then we come together each day for ensemble work. it'll be fun and different for me...I'm really excited!

Since I'll be doing mostly the same thing every day next week, and Curt will be wandering around Maine having adventures that will probably much more exciting to read about, I've asked him if he will do some of the blog posts next week. He's considering it.

Lubec is the easternmost town in the U.S. And it's right on the Canadian Border of New Brunswick. In fact, the literature I've been reading says that there's a footbridge where you can walk across into Canada. We'll be staying out over the water on a wharf...in an old sardine factory that was converted into an inn and restaurant. Check out theinnonthewharf.com to find out more about it, if you want to see where we'll be staying. This is going to be so different than anything we've experienced before. So I'll touch base with you tomorrow when we're in Lubec!