Jolene's & Jeff's place

Pelham

Sat. June 26

Saturday, June 26

We made it up to Maine and joined the family in celebrating birthday of 2 of Jeff’s girls, Mike (Jennifer’s fiancé) and Jeff. As you can see from the pictures there’s a lot of family here. A great time was had until 11pm, when the mosquitoes got the best of us.

Friday

Friday, June 25, 2010

Today is our 33 wedding anniversary. We have received calls and good wishes from family and friends. It made the day very special and thanks all who called.

We moved to a new campground about a half mile from Joyce’s house. We had been invited over for diner again. Two of Joyce’s sons that we had never met and their wife or friends came for diner. Of course Charlene and Joe (Char & Joe are Joyce’s parents) were there and we celebrated Chars upcoming 80 th bd, our anniversary and several other birthdays.

Thursday

Thursday, June 24

We lived in Pelham for about 11 yrs., so driving to Pelham N.H. was a look back in time for us. When we were dating we ate at some of the restaurants we passed and found that Benson’s Wild Animal Park where we use to take the kids is no more. A small portion is a regular park but most of it is all grown over. Keyes Hill road had a multitude of roads spurred of it. It use to be a single long hilly road. There are houses everywhere. For our kids the first pictures are of where we lived. All the trees and bushes are so big and our old house does not look anything like the house we left. It was a brown house and the new owners made it white and there is a chain link fence across the back and side of the house. There is a brook out back.
When we got to our friend Anne’s house her daughter Diane was there too. Diane and Anne prepared a wonderful lunch and then since we had our rig with us, Diane took us over to Mercury Lane to take pictures of the houses.
Leaving Pelham and headed to a Northwood campground. After hooking up we left the trailer and went down to Brentwood to see Gene’s Sister Charlene & husband Joe. They are staying at their daughter Joyce’s. We enjoyed a great fish diner and good company with Joyce, her granddaughter and Joyce’s friend Ted and headed back to Northwood.

Leaving Becket

Goodbyes were said again as Jackie and her kids, Gene & a friend Bill wished us well on our journey.
Gene picked the stop for lunch at a little place called the Box Car Restaurant in Erving MA. It was the best hamburger & fries lunch we had in a long time. It was not greasy and was hand made. We split the lunch which was enough to eat but we both said we could have eaten a whole burger. There were only 4 booths and 5 small tables in the place. The waitress was great. Both of us were to full to eat desert.

We are seeing the stimulus bill at work on the roads we have traveled in both MA & NH.

The Field & Stream RV Park is in Brookline, NH. We came up rte. 91 to 2 to 13 after leaving rte. 20 from Becket. I will try to remember to put the routes in for those who asked.

There was a 5.5 earthquake felt in the northeast. We did not feel a thing here in Brookline, NH.

Herman Millville

Tuesday
It is our last day in the Berkshire’s. We drove to Pittsfield and did shopping and filled up the fuel tanks. Diesel fuel was .12 cheaper and we carry over 90 gal., plus we had .10 off the first 20 gal. I have wanted to go to the Herman Melville’s Arrowhead home. So we set our Tom-Tom and actually found his home. He only lived here for 13 years as he wrote his most famous novel "Moby Dick". In 1850 he moved his family from New York City to Pittsfield, MA looking for a quite place to write. He purchased the 18th century farmhouse that he named Arrowhead. Most of his productive years were spent at Arrowhead, developing many close literacy friendships with other Berkshire authors including Nathaniel Hawthorne. His writing table faced Mt. Grey Lock the tallest mountain in MA. Melville, Hawthorne and others love to hike in the area.
When Herman Melville was 21 he signed onto the whaling ship “Acushnet” for 3 years. His early books talked about his adventures. The travels on the South Seas, from whaling and whaling ships to the Polynesian culture, tools and weapons give a glimpse of what inspired him to write these first books. He never made a lot of money on the books because there were no copyright laws at the time.
I will go to half priced books when we get home to see if I can find some of his books.


We came home and the two Gene’s went to a town meeting in Becket. They are having problems with the town administrator similar to the situation in Highland Village some years age, so big Gene was lending some of his wisdom.

Becket last days

A great week came to an end on Monday when Danielle went home. Mark & Gene treated us to lunch with Danielle. Then we did the laundry and went to the Lee Library to download emails and send the blog. After the laundry we stopped by Gene’s work place and chatted for about an hour then went back home.
I would have loved to go to the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival or to The Tanglewood Festival but the timing wrong. They open next weekend. We will try again next time.
We are now planning our route to New Hampshire when we leave on Wednesday.

Pics of grad party

June 19.
We had a great party for Danielle & her friend Shannon in Jackie’s back yard. The attendees where; Jolene & Jeff with Denver,and his friend Zack, Neighbor Joan, Friend of genes Bill, along with Norene, Laurie & Krista, Bambi and her fiance Jim and their two kids Abrianna and Jovie, Jackie & her two kids Calib & Esther, Mark. We brought hula hoops, water guns and yoyos. These kids all had a great time. There is a brook behind Jackie’s house and the kids collected frogs, fish, and crawdads.
I think Danielle and her friends had a great time, with the hula hoops, yoyo’s, dinosaurs squirt guns and other games.
Jolene & Jeff came down from Maine and Jeff made a round trip on Saturday on his motorcycle so he could be at his Daughters kindergarten grad. Jolene drove her PT Cruiser. Needless to say a great time was had for all.
Fathers Day we all met down Jackie’s and had leftovers for lunch. Gene had a good Fathers Day getting many calls from the kids in Texas and being with the kids who are here.

Lee Mass

June 14-15, 2010
Monday is laundry day and the time we go to the library to down load emails. Today we walked around Lee and got some information of the town. The Housatonic Indians were one the first to occupy Lee. The southern half was purchased from the Stockbridge Indians. The town was named after Major General Charles Lee, a rank that placed him second in command to George Washington. Paper making was an important industry since 1805. In 1852, Charles Heebner came from Philadelphia and opened the Heebner Marble quarry.
We hiked the old quarry two years ago when we were here. There was still old rusting equipment lying around. Lee marble could withstand a much greater pressure than any other in the country and was more durable than Italian marble. The marble was used to build the Customs House in lower Manhattan, the State House Annex in Washington, D.C. and for thousands of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery. More was sent overseas to grave sites of American soldiers, sailors and Marines in the United States and on foreign soil. It was used on many building in Lee including the library that we frequent.
As I write this papa Gene is in little Gene’s house putting up rafters. Our son is building his little house. It is close to being completed.
The sun is out and it is getting warm. We are hoping for a good day on Saturday for Danielle’s graduation party. Our daughter Noreen will be down along with granddaughter Jolene and husband Jeff.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR DAUGHTER MARCI WHO’S BIRTHDAY IS ON JUNE 15.

More bird pics