Miles Today: 504
Trip Total: 3740
Weather: Overcast all the way. Rain most of the day. High 80F in Albany NY.
Roads: Wet. Minimal delays. One hour at border. $41 in tolls.
Today’s Song: "Autobahn" by Kraftwerk.
Rodgerism: "Why can't we have two stomachs? One for the meal and another for dessert."
Rachionary: "stummy" [stuhm-ee] noun, Your stomach's tummy, where there is still room for dessert after a big meal.
AWTY?: 8
Today's Lesson: There's no place like home (unless it isn't home).
After a Walmart run, we got in line on the Rainbow Bridge to re-enter the USA.
There are two lanes, and a sign that says "Buses and RV's right lane only" so we got in the right lane behind about ten tour-buses.
It was taking about 10-15 minutes for them to clear a bus, which didn't seem too bad considering all of the passports to check. We calculated that we had about another two hours or so to wait when a NY State Trooper rescued us by blocking traffic in the other lane so we could go straight to the front of the line.
It's quite expensive to drive the New Your State Throughway (Interstate 90) from Bufallo to MA. But the roads were excellent. Smooth and well maintained. Even with the rain we managed the speed limit the entire way. It reminded me of driving the autobahns in southern Germany, except that the RV doesn't scoot along quite as swiftly as a Porsche or Audi.
It was only 500 miles today, but with the rain it seemed like forever. I couldn't interest anyone in visiting such cultural icons along the way as the
Jell-O Gallery near Rochester or the
Salt Museum in Syracuse. Without much to look at out the window other than rain, the kids and Teresa occupied themselves in other ways.
We arrived in Gloucester at about 7:30pm and were immediately whisked to the best Portuguese restaurant east of Yakima Washington.
Keep in mind that Gloucester has a large portuguese community, but this isn't just a peixe e carne cozinha. First class cuisine all the way.
Teresa and her Padrinho, Tio Mario
After dinner, the kids lost no time making themselves at home in Tio Celestino's studio, and are excited to record tomorrow.
Today's lesson: We drove through rainy Auburn today, but we weren't home.
Auburn Washington was named after Auburn New York. Someone thought it would be fun to do that since the big city north of us was going to be named "New York" (they seattled on "Seattle" which was an attempted translation of chief "Si'ahl"). Auburn's original name was "Slaughter" after Lt. William Slaughter who was killed in a skirmish with native residents. When they built a new high-school a few years ago, there was a lot of effort to name the school "Slaughter High School" but political correctness prevailed. But just imagine the pep-rallies.
ISpeaking of home, it seems a tree has fallen at our house, and although no one was around to hear it, the driveway is still blocked. I need to find someone to cut it up or move it out of the way before Avo's come to pick up Rachael in two weeks.
Free firewood for anyone with a chainsaw! (It's about 150-feet or so from the nearest outlet, for you electric-types.)
The kids used the opportunity to catch up on facebook and do a little swimming in the Atlantic Ocean.
My favorite Portuguese dish is Caldo Verde (Green Soup) which is potato and onion based, with portuguese cabbage called couves (similar to collards) that are sliced into thin ribbons and added at the very end just long enough to make them tender. It includes a few slices of linguica sausage and a little olive oil. Everywhere I go someone makes it for me. I've gotten pretty good at it myself, but it is never as good as when my mother-in-law or Teresa's tias make it. Here is a variation of the recipe.
