GinohnNews

G: It has been a very full few weeks since we last posted here. On Wednesday the 15th of August, I had lunch with John Knox at the New Deal Cafe, a fellow I used to work with at Beautiful Day many years ago. John came along, and Stacy, and John Abell. So there were 3 Johns at the table! We reminisced about B-Day.

Thursday was an exciting day:




That's me cheerleading on the right, Renee on the left, and Al Yankovic acting like Kurt Cobain in the middle. What, you didn't know I'm pals with Al and he let us have these parts at his concert at The Warner Theater on the 16th? Well, now you know.

We were told to get there early, so we had a lot of time to rehearse, and a lot of down time, because we had the routine all worked out and practiced during the week before. We saw Al and got a minute to say hello shortly after getting there, but then he was whisked off to Walter Reed Hospital to visit the Iraq soldier patients. By the time we were all rehearsed out and were trying to decide whether Renee wanted to eat in the Green Room or we should wander around DC for a little while, Al came back and we hung out with him in the Green Room until it was time to get ready for the show. And then we watched the show from the side of the stage. And then I screwed up getting our bit on my camera, but Kevin did a great job from the audience.

Everyone was really nice and said we did a great job - all the band members and some of the crew. Bermuda, the drummer and a friend as well, came over to us in the wings almost every time there was a costume change to flirt and joke around. Once as they were all going off stage, Steve Jay (bassist) ripped his shirt open at us in a humorous way. We had so much fun.

After the show we got to get pictures with Al in our costumes, and hang out a bit longer before he did the meet-and- greet with people with backstage passes. After we changed we came out too to adulations from our friends - Kevin, Alex and of course John. That was great. There were a lot of people at the meet-and-greet, mostly because they've started having local storm trooper groups come out on stage during "The Saga Begins." So there were a lot of them and they were all there to get autographs and pictures and such. So we all hung around there a long time. It was a wonderful experience. Thanks Al!

The next day John and I got ready and left for our almost two week vacation to the New England area. We left somewhere in the middle of the day (taking some books on tape with us, and listening to the unabridged 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which took nearly the whole trip) and drove up to Spencer, Massachusetts, to spend a few days with recently former Greenbelters John and Anja Bull. We almost didn't make it that day - about an hour away we were getting tired enough to stop and grab a hotel. The first one we stopped at seemed too expensive, and as we went back to the car it started pouring rain and thunder storming. It didn't seem worth it to stop again and go in and out of the rain looking for another hotel, and it kind of woke us up, so we pushed on through. It was a bit rough, though, driving through the storm.

And once we got there, we of course stayed up even later hanging out and chatting with John and Anja. The next day they took us to Spencer State Forest near their home, and it was lovely. We hiked around there for a while then drove into Worcester and went to a nice health food store and cafe called Sano. The food was very good. After that we wandered to a coffee shop to get dessert and coffee and decided there we'd like to go to a party J'n'A had been invited to that night. So we went back to their place, John grabbed a nap, and then we headed to the party at John and Billy's. We got some noodles and salad to eat, and beer to drink, and hung out around a campfire. We got some tourist suggestions for Boston from Billy. It was a nice party.

The next day, Sunday, the four of us went out, first to a little health food store that had a tiny farmer's market out front (two people). Anja bought some corn and geraniums and I got some cherry gold tomatoes - my faovorite, and we snacked on them while the guys got some coffee inside. They had a cute patio to sit out in, with a little waterfall fountain and plants and flowers. From there we went to a riverside boating outfitter (and cafe). We were hoping to take a historical boat tour, but the river was too low for the boat and we ended up renting kayaks instead. We kayaked down and back up the river for about 1 1/2 hours. That was all John and I could take, but John Bull said he could row all day long. After that we went to another park, the Rock House Reservation, which was beautiful. It had a big outcropping of rocks that were the "house," a pond with big rock islands, and a little museum that was just an open cabin with some poster displays. We also visited their butterfly garden and did a short hike in the lovely, rocky, mossy woods. From there, we made our way to a Thai restaurant that was good. Then we went to the town center park to hear some free music - The Skidmarks were playing. They did a lot of oldies and I knew the words to most of the songs. I always listened to oldies stations growing up. When we got a bit tired of that we headed off to an ice cream shop and got way too much sorbet and ate it all.

On Monday John B went to work and after a slow start we and Anja headed to Worcester intending to take a train to Boston. By the time we managed to find the train station, park, and get to the boarding area, we found that the next train was running late "due to police action." We didn't want to wait around so we left and went to a Starbucks, then a Trader Joe's. By the time we were going to get home John would be home too, so we made plans to go visit another town, Amherst, for the evening. We walked around there, checking it out, and found Anja's favorite coffee house there. John needed a lot of coffee on this trip. It was a cool place, though. We sat at a table outside and called Dorian. John B told him that there was a festival going on with girls dancing in the street. It was a callback to another joke he'd told Dorian in the past. We all talked with him and Amethyst. They are going to visit J'n'A soon, too. We walked around more, spent some time in a comic book store and I bought some things there. We looked for where to eat dinner for a while and ended up at a place that we remember as Fresh Start, but we're not sure. The menu was very exciting and some of it was very good, but some was disappointing.

On Tuesday we actually did go to Boston with Anja. We drove into Worcestor and took a train in. On the way we studied a guide book Anja had just gotten in the mail the day before, and planned our walking route based on Billy's advice. We got off at Back Bay and went up to Copley Square to a Farmer's market, which looked fantastic, but of course we couldn't buy any veggies or flowers just then. John got a coffee sample and we walked around the square there; it was right in front of Trinity Church, which was very old and cool looking. We almost went inside but they wanted FIVE BUCKS! Aren't churches supposed to be free? There was a fountain nearby that John really liked with statues of the tortise and the hare. We walked down to Newbury street and walked west, checking out shops, but there wasn't much we were interested in. We crossed and headed back east at the R2D2 mailbox. We did stop in a store called The Hempest, where Anja shopped and tried on a skirt. There was a guy hanging around there with a puggle puppy (pug and beagle mix) - so cute! And sweet.

We continued walking and found a nice restaurant - Tealuxe. I had a frozen soy chai, and we got salads and sammiches. It looked a bit like a little place you might find in Paris, dowstairs where we sat. After lunch we walked down to the Boston Public Garden, and walked through there, stopping to watch the big swan boats, filled with people and pedalled by one guy in the back. I couldn't imagine people would pay to ride around on the boat in a pond, but there were at least three of these boats going around filled with people.

We came out the other side and walked up Charles street, stopping in a couple of fun stores. At the end we turned right and stopped into a bakery for a snack. It was a nice place but I can't remember the name, and can't seem to find it by searching for bakeries on Google. But it was right on Cambridge Street, not too far from Charles. It had a polka dot theme.

We walked along Cambridge to Court street and turned left to try and find Cheers. We found Faneuil Hall Marketplace, with lots of tourists and shops. We looked around in some and found what turned out to be a fake Cheers. We didn't know it then, we just thought they'd expanded. We sat at the replica of the bar from the TV show, and John and I had beers, and he ordered a veggie burger for us to all share as a little snack. It took a while to show up, and then John cut it up and started eating. I asked how it was, and he said it didn't taste like a veggie burger. I had even remarked that it looked homemade. Anja took a bit and knew something wasn't right. Turned out it was a turkey burger. They made us a veggie burger and we boxed up my untouched piece to give away to a homeless person, as we'd seen many on the way. To a vegetarian that is a pretty bad mistake, but the staff was very nice and we didn't get mad. We knew we were at a replica of the bar but it wasn't until we were leaving and I picked up a brochure that we found out we were not at the original bar that the show Cheers was based on. We had passed it earlier in the day. Anja's book had led us astray.

We walked around the shops and kiosks a while longer, and I bought some shoes. We made our way to the waterfront, along Christopher Columbus park and up Atlantic Avenue for a while. We stopped at a little garden at one of the wharfside apartment buildings to rest (and John took a call from Thom who he'd left a message with asking what his favorite Irish pub in Boston was. By then it was too late to go anywhere else, and we were worn out.). We walked back down Atlantic to the South Street Metro and train station, handed the turkey burger off to a homeless guy, and caught a train back to Worcester. When we got back to John and Anja's place, I cooked up a stew for dinner using our leftovers from the Fresh Start restaurant and some red lentils. It was good!

On Wednesday morning we lollygagged before heading off, and read some graphic novels before driving up to Portsmouth, NH, where we stopped for lunch at the Flatbread Co. which is a really neat place, although our cheeseless pizza could have used some avocado, which they didn't have. We also had a salad that was really good but kind of small. Then we walked up and down the quaint streets of the town, window shopping. There were some gift shops with some really cool art - I especially liked some frosted glass windchimes, but they were quite pricey. We grabbed coffee and dessert at a bakery cafe before driving the rest of the way to Bridgton, Maine, and David and Toni Strother's (John's mom) summer condo there. The condo is a townhouse in a small grouping of only 16 units, right in the middle of a golf course. After we got a bit settled in I helped Toni cook dinner, which was simple and delicious veggie wraps. We rounded out the evening with chatting and reading. I got almost all the way through Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver in the days while we were there.

Thursday morningish we all went to the transfer station and took their recycling, and looked through the junk store there for a bit. Then we stopped by the health food store; got some blueberries and some vegan fudgsicles. Later we walked a neighbor's dog, Franny, who was very cute. Then we went to the local coffee shop, and while John and David fiddled around with his computer, seeing about wifi there, Toni and I walked up the street to see what else was around. We stopped in the art gallery, and John and David caught up with us there, and we all went to the book store, where we all browsed for quite a while. When we left there we went driving around to see the area, which is quite scenic and beautiful with lots of big lakes. We stopped at the home of a guy who had built his own small steamboat, and got a little tour of it, which entailed standing around it while he described everything. From there we went to a very little beach, just at the end of a road, and stood and looked at the water for a while, then went back for dinner at home, which we all helped make and was an Indian cauliflower and potato dish. More reading that night, too.

On Friday we were hanging around the house, but I was getting antsy for something to do. David was asleep or out, so we couldn't go canoeing with their canoe, so we decided to go into town and see if we could rent a kayak at a place that had them lying around. Turns out we could for pretty cheap, so we got a two person kayak and took it on the roof of our car a couple of blocks down to Highland Lake. Soon we were paddling out toward a tiny island. There was a sign on it that said Pine Island. We paddled further and saw a couple of loons nearby. As I tried to get my camera ready they dove under the water, and we never saw where they came up again, although we waited and looked for several minutes. We paddled on down the lake and came to some more little island, but one had a little cabin on it. As we always do on vacation, we talked about what it would be like to live there. It was beautiful, but I think living on that little island cabin would be too isolated for me. Besides, it wasn't for sale. We went on, and on, going by lots of little islands, and not enjoying the speedboats andwave runners going by over and over. It was a big lake, but not so big that they weren't going by a lot making noise and waves. We saw a house on the shore that was displaying a Maryland flag. Toni and David didn't know who it was from our description of the location. But it's a small town so they might have... We paddled probably well over half the length of the lake and then turned around and went back. We saw more loons. It was tiring and lovely.

After we returned the kayak we strolled down the street and I did a little shopping - bought a tank top in one store and cool earrings in another. Then it was time to meet up with Toni and David at the gallery for an art reception. We met some nice people and saw some cool art and ate some yummy ors de'vours. Then we went down the street to a Thai restaurant and had a yummy dinner.

[Oops, ran over the deadline and still have much to report! Please reload this page later for more details; in the meantime you can peruse our cryptic notes and pictures (left sidebar) regarding the rest of the trip.]

On Saturday we left thre and drove on North - stopping in Augusta at Koffee Plus (which had free wifi). We hung out and ate and drank coffee and John played a game of poker wihile I read my book. Spent couple of hours there. Then we drove the rest of the way to Mount Desert Island campground on Mount Desert Island, known for containing Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor. We hada  grorgeous spot in the woods with a lovely view of the sound. We watched the sunset after setting up tent. Then we used Tomtom to get to Eden Vegan cafe in Bar Harbor - which turned out to be terrible. Expensive and terrible. Each thing we got, we thought it would have to be good - appetizers, main dishes, even dessert. All terrible. Worst vegan restaurant evar. They even use locally grown food! Huge dissappointment. After that, we walked around town. We saw many people were walking around with their dogs, even thought it was a touristy shopping area. We found out later that the area is very dog friendly and is aka Bark Harbor. We missed Katy.

On Sunday morning we went to a Farmers market, so we could have some fresh food at the campsite. Then we drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain inthe park and walked around. It was lovely up there. Then we drove to the visitor's center and took a hike around one of the lakes near there - the Witch Hole. Then we drove over to the Jordan Pond house, where they have tea and popovers and expensive lunches. It was good that day, though. I wanted to get back to Bar Harbor for a 4pm or so whale watching trip, but when we go there that particular cruise had been cancelled. So we walked around Bar Harbor more and saw more sights, stores, restaurants, bars, and dogs. We stopped and chatted with a nice young woman with her dog who was there on vacation. She didn't live as far away as we did and said she often vacationed there with her dog. From there we walked across a sand bar to an island tha was part of the park. You could only walk across during part of the day when the tide is low. We saw millions of snails and a seagull eating a 5" red starfish. Once we got across to the island we started hiking up a path. We saw deer in the distance on our way up, and someone said they aren't very afraid and aren't easily spooked by hikers. We hiked the short hike to the top of the island and from there called Uncle Dennis to see if we could arrange to see him in NH on our way home, and enjoyed the view of Bar Harbor and the ocean and sky. On our way back down the trail, we did see some deer up close who didn't seem to mind our presence - there is no hunting allowed so they haven't much reason to fear man, I guess. It was took dark by then for my camera to get any good pics, though. We went back over the rapidly shrinking sand bar and really barely made it back (without getting our feet wet) across as the water quickly rose. We went back to camp to cook dinner there. I made a new stew out of the leftovers from the terrible restaurant and veggies I bought. It wasn't bad. We roasted corn in the campfire too. Oh, and we'd bought blueberry beer and drank some but I didn't like it much.

We'd only rented the campsite for two nights but had decided to stay two more - but when we checked in Monday morning, the space was still free so we didn't have to move to another campsite. Nonetheless, in the future we'd pick a site that wasn't so close to the main road - there was a lot of road noise where we were. We went into Bar Harbor and got tickets early for whale trip at 1pm. While there we saw a cruise ship unloading into town. So we got out of there and went for a hike around bubble rock, and Jordan pond. They claim it might be the cleanest lake in the country, and it did indeed look very clean and beautiful. After that we went on our whale watching cruise and saw a few finbacks and three right whales. On the way back in we met a nice old man from Silver Spring who was 92 years old. We walked around town and found an inexpensive dinner at a Thai place that seemed to e a gay hangout. Then we drove to another part of the island - NE harbor - which didn't have much and everything was closed except for a neat looking restaurant but we had just eaten. So we went back to Bar Harbor and went to a movie theater and saw The Borne Ultimatum.

On Tuesday we rented bikes and biked around the Acadia carriage trails all day. We had lunch at Jordan pond house which was expensive again but the food we chose this time was not very good. John compared his pasta dish to Chef Boyardee and I don't even remember what I had. Probably the house salad - which was pretty small and cost $9. We rode a lot more after that - up a very very long steep trail with beautiful views. But I had to stop often to rest. The payoff was a long coast down, of course. Still, by the time we got back to town I was wasted. We rested in the town park and then returned bikes. John deciede he wanted a beer so we walked down some street and found the Dog and Pony Tavern. We went through the archway and up a couple of steps to thier extensive deck with trees growing up through the floor and a bar under a roof - a beer garden if you will. John ordered a beer and I asked if they made mojitos. The girl behind the bar said yes but she had to go inside to make it. I said I could go in and order it there, but she said she would make it better. So after a while she brought one out and it was pretty good, and strong. There was a couple with thier two dogs there so we met the doggies and chatted with them. John and I got another drink each and before I knew it I was really drunk. - walked around more Lompac restaurant -Reel Cinema and saw Golden Door.
Wed: Portland on way home. Granny's burritos. John played poker at Javanet Wifi, I shopped and bought fake sea glass jewelry. Walked around. Drove on and stopped some trucker hotel in CT.
Thu: 30 - state park - witch hollow Connecticut, Bloodroot feminist bookstore & restaurant.

J: According to the latest research (Oct. 1993 issue of Scientific American*), any time a politician pushes some homophobic agenda, this indicates that he's most likely gay— or bi, or very very curious.  By my careful calculations, the chance that a sexually prejudiced politician is struggling with his own personal sex issues is greater than 69%.

I am hoping and eagerly waiting for the near future, when any anti-gay speech by any politician is seen immediately, even by right wing Christian conservatives, as a cry for help from someone stuck in a closet or stall. Then politicians will all think twice before picking on the rights of adults to enjoy consensual sex— for fear that their own behaviors will become apparent to their audiences.

* IN MY DREAMS