Change of Plans.... and Other Plans.....

When we left Aroostook NWR to head over to Lake Umbagog NWR, we expected to stay about 2 weeks or so.  The road project finished Phase I at the end of last week, but Bill continued to do some grading and other work on it hoping to get some of the rough spots cleaned up enough for the finish gravel, which will be done at a later date.

It looked like we'd be there at least another week so I asked Ian, the Assistant Manager if I could help out in any way.  He told me he was sure there were things at the Visitor Center to do and to show up around 10:00 the next day. 

Ian asked me to do some trail maintenance...  walk the Magalloway River Trail, fill the brochure boxes, pick up litter and check for fallen trees, etc.  This is a series of trails, all connecting, that wander through a variety of habitats.  I walked about 2 miles in all, stopping at the photo blind (lower right) and just enjoying the gorgeous scenery.

 I thought I'd check in with Kirk, our "boss" back at Aroostook.  Kirk had make the contacts for Bill to work the special project and I wanted to let him know it was working out well.  Well, Kirk had been trying to get in touch with us (no phone... no internet service....  I was using the shop land-line phone) for Bill to call the special project job coordinator.  Seems there was another job that needed workers coming up soon.  Real soon...

When Bill called the special project guy, he found that the job starts this coming Monday...  at Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR.

Well now...  this would change our plans.  We'd planned to leave this weekend, head over to New York to visit our daughter and her family, then head to Pennsylvania to visit another daughter, then on to Ohio to visit our son and my siblings...  then head on to Texas.  We had to rethink our plans...  Bill wanted to work the VA job...  we have a special friend, Paul Horning, who is a volunteer there and we haven't seen him in several years.  So after talking with the folks at Lake Umbagog, we decided to leave there yesterday...  head over to NY to visit family...

Across New Hampshire, over to Vermont, down into Massachusetts, into Connecticut and across to New York....  410 miles in all!  

Bill...  wiped out after all that driving!

Me, with my daughter, Donna, my granddaughter, Heather and my great-granddaughter, Evie.  How much I treasure these times we get together!

Tomorrow (Saturday), we'll head on down to Virginia...  then spend a week at Eastern Shores NWR.  From there we'll head directly to Texas, as we won't have time to head north into PA and OH on this trip.  We have to be in Texas early in October.  We have a couple of routine doctor appointments, have to get prescriptions refilled and things like that.  

On October 23 we'll be flying out of DFW to Tokyo, Japan.  We'll spend a couple of days doing some sightseeing then board a cruise ship that will stop at a couple places in Japan, Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Bankok and Singapore.  We'll fly out of Singapore On November 24, stopping in Honolulu for a couple of days.  (I want to find a geocache there... then I'll have cached in all 50 states).  From there back to Los Angelos.  We'll stay there a couple of days then board a 2nd cruise ship that heads down to the Mexican Riviera for 1 week.  This cruise is the annual Wholly Genes (genealogy software) cruise that we go on every year.  Arriving back in LA, we'll fly back to Texas, arriving at DFW on December 6.  That's pretty much it all in a nutshell....  I doubt if we'll have internet during that time.  One of these days I'll get caught up....

When we get back from the cruise, it will be mid-December...  winter just beginning.  We haven't made any plans for this winter yet.  I guess we've been just too busy.  

We're looking forward to going to yet another refuge...  one we've visited but never worked at.  We should have internet and phone service there...  we'll see....

That's All For Today!