Semester Break

Hi again, this year is just flying by and on Tuesday Ross goes back to university following his first semester break of 10 days. This break has given us an opportunity to travel a little further from home.

Once the snow stopped late on Monday we travelled to Bangor, Maine in the USA. Bangor is about a 31/2 hours from where we live and this gave us an opportunity to try out for the very first time a pet friendly hotel. The trip was uneventful but the scenery was magnificent with lovely little villages like this one called Lincoln.

The return was more exciting as we decided to leave the freeway and travel the back roads crossing the border at a tiny village called St Croix.

As you can see from the shots below, the back roads are only ploughed as required and therefore driving always has the potential to become very exciting very quickly as it is mostly ice under the snow.

Another thing we spotted on the return journy was our first glimpse of ice fishing on a small lake near the border. As you can see the cabins are on sleds and the guys drill their holes and then push the cabin over the hole and the fishing and I daresay drinking begins.

As many of you would know in Australia we are not as ‘pet friendly’ a society as North America tends to be and further when we travel we usually leave our little ones with our lovely Vet, Kaz. Now our two are with us at all times so very quickly we have all had to adjust. We are happy to say that they have quickly adapted to car etiquette which requires sitting down when the car is in motion and getting up to gaze out the window when the car stops. They also adapted very quickly to motel accommodation and seem to take everything in their stride.

Tonight we embark on day light saving so this is an indication that yes, it does get warmer here. Certainly the shops now have their BBQ’s on sale and winter clothes are now relegated to ‘yard sales’.

We are now into + figures albeit +3 during the day and this assists in melting the snow. So today we can see the bitumen on the highway which runs in front of our house and the bitumen in our driveway is visible now under very slippery ice. Ross was out today sprinkling salt so that we do not slip and slide getting out of the property.

With the warmer weather we have had several deer in our backyard and you will see a photo of a some near the frozen pond in the backyard.

This morning we ventured to the local markets which are located down town. The reason was to place an order for plain beef sausages. Many of you would be aware that our local butcher at home has great plain beef sausages which are always a staple for Australia Day Breakfast and any other time really. Plain anything in North America is hard to find. When we placed the order we were asked “and what spices do you want added?” We said none and he said “who would eat this?”. We go back to collect them next Saturday. We hope they will be tasty as we have had to buy 10 lbs worth.

Just so you do not get the idea that we about to burst into spring and all start wearing shorts etc in the next few days. This shot is of our drive yesterday so you can see that the melt has a long way to go yet.

Best wishes to you all and stay safe, happy and well

Love Bev and Ross