August 3, Day 19: Manhattan, New York

• Miles Today:   0
• Trip Total:   4050
• Weather:  High clouds.  Humid.  High 78F.  Rain in PM, but not on us.
• Today?s Theme Song:   "Goodbye Yellow-Brick Road" by Elton John.
• Rachionary:   "Pukumber" [pyoo-kum-buhr] noun, Those huge east-coast deli garlic-pickle spears.
• Rodgerism:   "Who would eat a piano sandwich?"  (it was a "panino")
• Lesson:   There's one in every crowd to keep a reputation alive.

Marianne provided us with transport to the bus-stop and a fistful of tickets for our visits to Manhattan.  (Thank you very much!)  It was just over an hour ride on some very nice commuter buses.  Once off the bus and out of the terminal, it was a loud and disorienting experience for the kids.  Sirens, horns, construction, and lots of people walking very fast.  But by the time we got to the Empire State Building, they were seemingly acclimated to the hustle and bustle. 

We got there early enough that the lines weren't bad in my opinion.  Including the time we spent being routed through security, the ticket lines, the map vendors, first gift-shop and elevator line(s) we were on the 86th floor observation deck within about 30 minutes. 

One thing I have always enjoyed about NYC is that at the tourist attractions, the people are probably the most friendly and helpful of any area in the USA.  They patiently give clear directions that even the non-english speakers understand, they see you approaching with a question and ask "How can I help you, sir?"  and they often try to make your visit fun by engaging with you in jokes or conversation.  But I experienced the oddest thing today, that I would expect more on the NYC streets.  Among the gauntlet of map-vendors, "express-pass" upgrade offers and while-you-wait gift shops, we approached the green-screen photo area to hear the photographer scolding people to "keep the line moving" and some not-so-subtle insults.  He would only pause to actually take a photo when someone insisted on it (which we didn't) and then tell them to "get moving" as well.  I mentioned this at the exit of the observation level (through another gift-shop and the photo vendor) where the girl was asking for the numbers to see our photo.  It didn't look like business was so good today. 

After an early lunch (beat the crowds) we had a casual walk up Broadway through Times Square on our way to the theater. 

As hard as it has been to get Rachael in a photo or a dress, she chose to be in both today, just for the show which she has been the one thing she has been most looking forward to for the entire trip.

Last summer, Rachael played the Wicked Witch in the Auburn Avenue Kids production of OZ  and Rodger was one of her minions, among other roles.  He tried to recreate that relationship for this photo.


It was a great show, and the story of "the making" of the Wicked Witch adapted from the classic story of The Wizard of Oz took a lot of creativity to turn the classic villain into the sympathetic protagonist of the original story.  (Now I want to read the book.)

The bus didn't get out of the station before Rodger crashed.

Marianne picked us up where she dropped us off this morning, and we got to see the rest of Teresa's
cousins and most of Tia Marina and Uncle Stan's grandkids, many of whom live in the area.

August 2, Day 18: Manalapan NJ

• Miles today: 310
• Trip Total: 4050
• Weather: Scattered clouds. 88F in Providence RI.
• Roads: Minor traffic problems, terrible road surfaces in CT and NJ.
• Theme Song: "On Broadway" performed by George Benson.
• D-oh!:   22mm socket.
• Lesson: Stick to the plan, ignore the GPS re-routes.

Short driving day, so a late start out of Gloucester. We had to re-arrange the contents of the aft storage compartment to accommodate several pieces of gear that Tio Celestino donated to the fledgling Silent Knight Studios.

Back to collecting "Welcome" signs. Teresa wishes to apologize for the obstructed "Welcome to Rhode Island" sign, as she had to immediately get ready for the "Welcome to Connecticut" sign which suddenly appeared in the median.

This was our second entry into New York (the sign is exactly the same) but we couldn't find a "Welcome to New Jersey" sign as we crossed the George Washington Bridge. I wonder if that is intentional.

We are staying with Teresa's cousin Marianne and her family.  Teresa's tia Marina and uncle Stan are living there as well. Teresa and I haven't seen them since they visited Yakima about seventeen years ago.

This will be our first night outside of the RV since we left. I anticipate some disorientation.  When I was travelling a lot for business, I would sometimes wake up with an adrenaline surge wondering just where I was.  The RV has been a familiar "room" as such, during this trip.

Today's lesson is to completely ignore the GPS traffic advice away from home. We learned earlier that some areas provide reports but don't update them in real-time, and that Navtech gets their (specifically erroneous) data from google. We nearly lived the ultimate RVer's nightmare today when it re-routed us "around"  New York city rush-hour traffic.  It took us off of Interstate-95 just north of the city and put us on the nice and scenic Pelham Parkway.  Everything was fine until it re-routed us again, and we almost got stuck. It took us through The Bronx (Past the Zoo and the Conservatory) and then wanted us to turn LEFT on Broadway up ahead. (They say the neon lights are bright.)

When I was in the early stages of planning this trip, I read the horror stories of RVer's ending up in Manhattan, and while it might make it easier for us to get to the theater tomorrow, I was fairly sure we wouldn't have much luck finding parking for a 35-foot monster in Times Square. Some quick map-work by Teresa and some helpful advice from a nice NYPD patrolman got us back onto I-95 and over the GWB with no further drama. By the time we were through, I wonder how bad the traffic actually was, because it didn't seem nearly as bad as I ever expected. We arrived at our destination only about an hour later than this morning's original ETA.

August 1, Day 17: Boston Massachusetts

Miles Today: 0

Trip Total: 3740

Weather: Clear and hot. High 90F in Boston.

Today’s Song:  "Foreplay - Long Time"  by Boston.

Rachionary:  "Cubular" [kyoo-byuh-ler] adjective, In the shape of a cube.

Rodgerism:   "Mom just told me to cut the cheese!"

AWTY?: 8

Today's Lesson:  Please hold onto a handrail.

We took the commuter train into Boston and the subway to Boston Common for a partially guided tour of the Freedom Trail and then hoofed it on our own to Paul Revere's House and the Old North Church.

Along the way we stopped at Cheers for lunch, but I was a little disappointed.  I asked several people and nobody knew my name.

Tio Mario won a special award when he finished the eNORMous burger.

His name is not yet on the website hall-of-fame, but there should soon be online proof of his accomplishment.


While we were having a good time in Boston, Tino was slaving away in the studio, because he didn't want us to leave without a final cut of "The Dragon."  I think he did a great job.  Listen to it here and let us know what you think.

When I rode my motorcycle through Gloucester in 1994, Tino's son Tony was Rodger's age (I think) and he washed my bike for me [edit: photo added below].  I hope I wasn't a bad influence, because now he has several bikes and a detailing business.

I was hoping he would wash the RV, for old-time's sake.

I told you there would be more food, and of course, more ways to eat lobster.  Rachael liked Tia Ana's lobster, shrimp and scallop linguini so much, she whipped up some scampi for her on-the-spot.  There was also alcatra, which is best described as portuguese pot-roast.

Muito obrigado a senhora Alice for allowing us to use her driveway for the RV.  It allowed us easy access to the houses of Tio Mario (2 short blocks) and Tio Celestino (3 short blocks) at any time.

That's it for today, except for thanks and congratulations to Shannon Fernandes and Evonne Pollard for identifying Rodger's caterpillar as the White-marked Tussock Moth.

July 31, Day 16: Gloucester Mass (parte tres)

Miles Today: 0 

Trip Total: 3740 

Weather: Clear and hot. High 90F.

Today’s Song:  "Rock Lobster" by B52's. 

AWTY?: 8

Today's Lesson:  Dieting is pointless when visiting Portuguese relatives.

What did you have for breakfast today?  We had lobster sandwiches!  No kidding.  Have you ever heard of lobster leftovers?  It also makes a terrific lobster salad, and I'm not talking about a little meat on lettuce.  I'm talking about adding some garlic, cilantro and other secret things to 95% lobster.  Awesome!

I spent the morning in the studio with Tino editing the recording from yesterday.  Unfortunately we didn't get it finished.  It was a lot of fun in the studio, but being a perfectionist, it is too easy for me to get stuck in there.

The kids used the opportunity to catch up on facebook and do a little swimming in the Atlantic Ocean.












During this time, Tia Liduina and Tio Mario made another feast. 

Check out the rotisserie that Mario built.

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.

Tino and I went back to the studio for a few hours while Rodger and Mario went back to the beach, followed by a good nap. 





Tomorrow is a visit to Boston (and more food, no doubt).

July 30, Day 15: Gloucester Mass. (parte dois)

Miles Today: 0 

Trip Total: 3740 

Weather: Sunny and beautiful.  High 88F.  

Today’s Song:  "Water From a Vine Leaf" by William Orbit and Beth Orton. 

Rachionary: "confuzzled" [con-fuhz-uhld] adjective, Being extremely puzzled and confused.

AWTY?: 8  

Today's Lesson:  Old school is the best school (if you want to learn something).

Rodger got a moped ride down to the Gloucester waterfront.  Everyone in the USA will recognize this statue (although I will give no hints) which memorializes lost fishermen; a continuing problem in New England.

The kids got right to work in Tio Tino's studio. 

After laying down a great reference track, they then got to experience the disorientation and seeming insanity of studio recording.  But they got the hang of it once they understood that they didn't need a perfect A-Z performance and it wasn't a failure at all if they made any mistakes because we would piece together all the best takes into the final cut.

We will do the mixdown tomorrow, but today's lesson ties into yesterday's (and today's) theme music.  Did you listen to "Autobahn?"  The entire 22 minutes?  That's ok, I didn't expect you to.  But if you did attempt a small part of it you will hear the obvious influences on today's theme.  The differences are that in the 1970's there were no sequencers, digital-effects-processors, auto-tune or graphical recording software.  It was analog synthesizers with lots of knobs, spliced tape-loops, notepads, stopwatches and all manner of springs, tubes and miscelleni for special effects.  While it still takes an amount of creativity to record modern electronic music ("techno", "trip-hop", whatever) much respect is due to the pioneers like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, John Cage,  Robert Fripp, Isao Tomita, Sun Ra, et al.

Tia Ana prepared a portuguese feast!  I can't recall how long we stayed at the table, but everything was delicious!

After dinner, Rachael and Tio Tino jammed

 while Rodger caught up on TV shows he hasn't seen for weeks.

After all that, can you believe there was more food!  HUGE lobsters!

No more work in Tino's studio tonight.  We need to sleep this off.

July 29, Day 14: Gloucester MA

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.

www.azoreanrestaurant.com

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.)