LeAnn Rimes Concert

Tuesday, July 21 - Hamilton

Last Sunday evening, we attended the LeAnn Rimes concert at the South Shore Music Circus in Cohassett. If you remember, Sunday was warm and humid. If you've never been to the SSMC, especially on a warm, humid evening in summer, believe me when I say you haven't missed anything.

We arrived in Cohassett fairly early, so we went to dinner at the Blackstone Tavern, which is located on Rte. 3A, just before the turn to get to the Music Tent. Dinner was very good, and the tavern, itself, was very new. Every waitress/waiter had a trainee working with them. The tables were set with white linen cloths, and there was also a good-sized bar/lounge area. Prices were moderate, food was excellent and well presented. Since it was early, the tavern was fairly quiet, so we were able to have conversation while we ate.

After dinner, we made our way to the tent. We arrived at the parking lot at about 7PM, and waited in the car while we finished our Dunkin Donuts coffees (they would not allow you to bring in anything to eat/drink). Upon entering the venue, we walked around a bit, since it was still early. We purchased a bag of popcorn and a bottle of water before going to our seats, and waited outside in the shade for a few minutes. When we did finally enter the tent, it was warm inside. People already seated were fanning themselves with their programs to keep somewhat cool. I was thinking about how the performers were going to handle the mugginess.


At 7:30, the opening act, Chad Berman (who, incidentally, hails from Pepperell, MA) and his accompanist took the stage and performed for 30 minutes - to "warm up" the crowd. By the time they finished their set, both were sweating profusely! The announcer informed us that there would be a "short" intermission while the stage crew reset the stage for LeAnn. I should mention here that the time was now 8:00. By the time Miss Rimes took the stage, it was 8:39! The only good thing about the wait was that, by the time she did arrive on stage, they had managed to "cool down" the stage area a bit by blowing cold air down onto the stage from above.


As I said, LeAnn took the stage at 8:39PM to thunderous applause. She opened with one of her newer songs, and it was at that point that we realized that the sound tech had the mic amps set TOO HIGH! It was almost impossible to understand what she was saying, plus she was being drowned out by the volume of the music being played while she sang. This was a big turn-off for us, because we thought that we would really enjoy the concert in this smaller venue. We had seen both Anne Murray and Trish Yearwood in small concert halls (Lowell Memorial Auditorium and North Shore Music Theater, respectively), and enjoyed them immensely. But we could not say the same for the LeAnn Rimes concert in Cohassett. Her show ended exactly one hour after it began, at 9:39PM. After about 4 minutes of applause, she re-took the stage for an encore (one song, thankfully), then bid the audience good night, and left the stage for good!

The next day, Monday, I got an e-mail from Ticketmaster asking me to write a review of the concert, which I was only TOO HAPPY to do! The review I wrote was very critical of both the theater and the sound system. What I found out, as I tried to submit my review, was that plenty of other people felt the same way we did. How did I find this out, you ask? Simple. When you write a review, they ask you to enter a "nickname" instead of your real name (for obvious reasons). My first attempt at a nickname was "Feeling cheated", which was rejected - no spaces, max 25 characters. I then tried "NOTHappy", but that had already been used! Next, I tried "Disappointed", but that, also, had already been used! I also tried "Robbed", "fleeced", "Cheated" - but all of these had already been used. Finally, I typed in "Screwed" as a nickname, and that WAS accepted! Not many happy concert attendees on Sunday night, eh?

So, my advice to all is, if you wish to see a concert/performance at the South Shore Music Circus, do it on a COOL evening, and make sure the performer does not have a LOUD band!

To top off the evening, the "cape" traffic on Rte. 3 North was bumper-to-bumper at 10PM Sunday night on our way home. Didn't really break free until we got about half-way into Boston on the "expressway?!?". Great, freakin' great! I love Massachusetts in the summertime, especially the South Shore!

Our next adventure begins this coming Sunday, July 26th, as we head down to the Comcast Center to see Toby Keith in concert. We will take the motor home down, and we have reservations to stay at Normandy Farms Campground in Foxborough Sunday night. On Monday morning, we will begin our trip down to Nashville, Tennessee for the week. Be sure to check back next week for details of our "Anniversary" trip.

Until then, Vaya con Dios!

Owl Be Seeing You....Part II

Monday, July 13 - Hamilton

Once again we were graced by the owls hunting around our house this evening. What we came to understand is that these are Barred Owls courtesy of Google and Wikipedia.

Tonight, Jen was able to capture some amazing photographs of these beautiful creatures as they hunted for and consumed their prey. From her photographs, it appears that she was standing on top of the owls, but that is thanks to her amazing equipment and photographic skills. The amazing thing is that she was able to get as close as she did, and they were not spooked by her presence. They seemed to know that she was no threat to them as they went about their hunting.

I hope you enjoy these photographs. Here is the link to the web album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/BarredOwls?authkey=Gv1sRgCO27mb6L192u8AE&feat=directlink

Owl Be Seeing You....

 
Saturday, July 11 - Hamilton, MA

We had just finished eating dinner. I was at the sink, loading the dishes into the dishwasher. Kathy and Aaron were at the table drawing and coloring pictures. Suddenly, Kathy says to me "Come over here and see this! There is an owl in the yard! Quick, get the camera!" I walk over to the back door and look out just in time to see the owl fly from the grass into the birch tree in our front yard. He is huge!

Just then, we spot another one, a young one, sitting in another tree next to the birch tree. Before I could get a picture of it, another one flew onto the birch tree with the big one already sitting there. Imagine, a family of three owls right here in our yard! I took as many pictures as I could, but I could not get one shot of all of them together.

I followed them across the street to a neighbor's yard, where a fourth owl showed up, but I still could not get a shot of more than one at a time. They kept moving to different trees, or onto the grass in the front yard. Finally, they seemed to fly off.

I went out with the dogs, and as I was walking down the road, I spotted another one in the trees across the road. When I got back to the house, Kathy and Aaron were out in the side yard. There was another owl in a tree out back. I put the dogs on the porch and got the camera. We were only able to get one picture of this owl, as he flew and landed in our yard, right next to some of Aaron's toy dinosaurs. Maybe the owl thought they were small animals.

We are not sure if these were a family of four owls, or just four random owls, out hunting for dinner.

Here is the web album with the pictures I took:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/OwlSightingInHamilton?authkey=Gv1sRgCPjOh5uQneuDfA&feat=directlink

Au Canada - The Final Days - Gaspe, PQ

Tuesday, July 7 - Hamilton, MA

The Canada trip is completed and this is the final journal entry. I have several web albums to share with this entry, so be sure to check them out at the end.

We departed our campground in Gaspe on Friday morning in fog, under cloudy skies. As we made our way up to the northern coast of the Gaspe Peninsula, we encountered more rain and road construction (and mud!). However, later on in the morning the sun actually put in an appearance and the skies were bright blue. Unfortunately, the ground-level fog hung around to spoil our picture taking. We hope that you will be able to get some idea of the beauty and magnificence of this place from our pictures, despite the fog. We made a quick stop about mid-morning so Charlie could add oil to his engine. While there, K took photos of the churchyard and church, in whose parking lot we had pulled over. I also attempted to photograph my coach and Charlie's car, just to give you an idea of how dirty they got!

We made another stop for lunch in St. Anne des Monts, where we parked in a school lot in front of signs indicating that parking was for "Students Only". Of course, since the signs were in French, we ignored them. Charlie and I went down to a Subway shop in town to get sandwiches. Unfortunately, the shop employees only spoke French, so ordering lunch was an experience. The best part of ordering lunch at a Subway shop is that you can POINT AT what you want, and they will understand. The only part we really had trouble with was that we wanted OIL and VINEGAR on our sandwiches. I had no idea how to say OIL and VINEGAR in French. We were not able to point to these items, since they were not sitting out with the other dressings. In fact, what we now know is that they DO NOT even HAVE OIL and VINEGAR in their shops. We ended up settling for Italian dressing, because that was easy to tell them.

After lunch, we continued on and stopped again in Matane, which is a rather large city along the northern coast. We had hoped to reach Matane in time for lunch, but with the rain and construction along the way, we had to stop earlier. While in Matane, we stopped to fuel up so that we would have enough fuel to reach the States, since we would be spending one more night in Canada, at Rimouski, in a WalMart parking lot.

On Saturday morning, we departed Rimouski and headed for Maine. We stopped at the Visitor Information Center as we entered the Province of New Brunswick to ask where the best point to enter the US was. We were advised to travel down TransCanadian Highway 2 and cross into the US at Houlton, ME, where Canada Rte 95 meets I-95 in ME.
Turns out that that was very good advice, since our other choice was to travel from Van Buren, ME to Houlton on Rte 1, through desolate wilderness for most of the trip. The border crossing was uneventful. While one guard asked us the perfunctory questions, three others walked all around the coach with a mirror, which they used to look up under our coach for "stowaways". After their inspection, the guard who ws asking us questions asked the three other guards if they wanted to go into our coach to inspect further. One of the guards replied, "No. We're all set. They don't look the type, anyway."! So we were sent on our way. We stopped in Houlton to fill our tanks with CHEAP AMERICAN diesel fuel before continuing on our way down to Bangor, where we spent the night in another WalMart parking lot. We also went out to dinner, since this would be our last night together on the road. Where we had stopped in Bangor, there were many great restaurants to choose from. After some consideration, we decided to go to the Longhorn Steakhouse. We were pleasantly surprised at the good selections their menu offered. And the prices were reasonable.

On Sunday morning, we departed Bangor and headed for Portland, where we stopped to empty our holding tanks and have lunch. From there, we headed to Seabrook, NH for a last fuel stop, then we parted company. Kathy and I came home, while Charlie and Kathy Burch headed to Merrimack, MA to visit friends George and Leah Desmet.

Our next adventure will be later this month, as we travel down to Nashville for our anniversary. We will leave Hamilton on Monday, July 27. We will stay in Nashville until Monday morning, August 3. We are hopeful that we will get lots of interesting photos while we are there, so be sure to follow us on that journey. Mark the dates on your calendar.

Here are the links to final the web albums from the Canada trip:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay12TravelingToGaspe?authkey=Gv1sRgCP6TiI-J9LbByAE&feat=directlink


http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay13ToGaspePQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCMrrgfGV3dCboAE&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaTheFinalDaysTheGaspePeninsulaBackToTheUSA?authkey=Gv1sRgCOKO76y6hMrspwE&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaTheFinalDaysGaspePartII?authkey=Gv1sRgCOywnLS_gOqRXQ&feat=directlink

Au Canada - Days 9, 10 and 11 - on PEI

Thursday, July 2 - Gaspe, PQ

Days 9,10 and 11 were spent on Prince Edward Island, exploring and enjoying the local flavor and history. Charlottetown is a small, cosmopolitan city filled with historical landmarks, wonderful restaurants, and lots of shopping areas. In addition, the waterfront, which is on the Hillsborough River, has a scenic boardwalk lined with shops and cafes. We also discovered a Factory Outlet Mall, but it was nothing like the ones in the States.



After leaving Charlottetown on Day 10, we headed north to Cavendish, the location of the real Green Gables, where L. H. Montgomery lived and wrote the "Anne of ...." series. Just past Green Gables lies the village of Avonlea, where the "Anne of Green Gables" movie was filmed. We stopped in to visit Avonlea, but with the rainy weather (it was pouring), we decided to move on to other things, such as "shopping" (what else is there to do in the rain?). I managed to pick up a new hat for the rain (see pictures).

Day 11 started out to be another rainy day. In fact, the only really nice day we had was Day 8, when we had "the Lobster Feast". No matter. Our plan was to visit the PEI Potato Museum in the town of O'Leary, which was a drive of approximately 1-1/2 hours from Cavendish. This was a good take for a rainy day. We learned lots of interesting information about the origin of the potato. Did you know that the potato originated in South America? The soil on PEI is very good for growing potatoes. If you notice in the pictures we took, the soil looks reddish-brown. That is due to the fact that the soil here is rich in iron oxide, which, when exposed to air, turns rust-colored. As we drove around the island, we saw potato fields everywhere. They are preparing for the July harvest (the "early" harvest). The regular harvest happens in the fall, when most of the islands potato crop is harvested. Schools close for a week for this "event", so that the children can help harvest the crop. In addition to the history of the potato, the museum had lots of other interesting artifacts. You can see pictures of what we saw in the Day 10 album.

On the return trip from O'Leary, we stopped into Summerside, the other large city on PEI. There was nothing in Summerside to hold our attention, so we cruised the main streets and headed back to Cavendish.

Here are the links to the web albums:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay9CharlottetownPEI?authkey=Gv1sRgCNne2J-J3Yn2Vw&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay10CavendishPEI?authkey=Gv1sRgCIL21If9q6OFjAE&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay11OLearyPEI?authkey=Gv1sRgCNe43Kek2dzpqAE&feat=directlink

Au Canada - Day 8 - The Lobster Feast!

Thursday, July 2 - Gaspe, PQ

As I mentioned in my last entry, this entry will be totally dedicated to our "Lobster Feast". If you remember, I mentioned that we purchased these lobsters just prior to boarding the ferry to PEI. It was less than 6 hours later when we cooked them and absolutely devoured them! Talk about fresh! If you've never had lobster right off the boat, you can't know what you missed.

As I mentioned, these were 3-pound lobsters with extremely hard shells. We steamed them for 25 minutes in the pot, then served them with potato salad and cole slaw and plenty of beer/wine and melted butter! I can honestly say that I have never tasted a lobster as sweet and tender as these were! By the time we were finished, all that remained of our feast was a bowl FULL of shells and most of the potato salad and cole slaw (we were too busy eating lobster to worry about them)! This was the only way to enjoy, truly enjoy, a lobster dinner. We had thought about going out to a local restaurant for lobster several times, but decided to wait until we could buy them fresh and eat them outside at a picnic table, where we wouldn't have to worry about getting it all over ourselves, or looking like slobs devouring them. We had a beautiful evening for eating outside, with the city of Charlottetown across the river and the sun setting over the city, it was perfect! In addition to this being a wonderful feast, it was also a celebration of Kathy Burch's B'day. It was the ending to a wonderful day. Incidentally, this was one of two sunny days on this whole trip!!! But it did not prevent us from doing what we wanted to do and having lots of laughs! Guess we did not escape the rain by heading north.

Here's the link to the web album for "the lobster feast!":

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay8TheLobsterFeast?authkey=Gv1sRgCMSq982jq5mfQg&feat=directlink

Au Canada - Days 7 & 8

Thursday, July 2 - I am finally catching up.

After several days without a decent internet connection, I have finally gotten to a place where I can upload my pictures and create a blog. If possible, I will probably do 3 blogs tonight, just to catch up. We are currently in the town of Gaspe in the province of Quebec, at the Fort Ramsay campground. This blog entry will cover days 7 and 8 of our trip, which were spent traveling into the town of Sydney in Nova Scotia on Day 7, then traveling out to Prince Edward Island on Day 8.

I don't remember why, or who told me, but I was speaking to someone about taking this trip to the Maritime Provinces, and he asked me if we had ever visited the town of Sydney on Cape Breton. We were told that it was considered a small Halifax. On that information, we did make the 1 hour drive to Sydney from our campground. Prior to leaving Baddeck, we stopped in at a yarn shop so that the girls could check out the yarns. While there, Charlie and I were sitting out in the car watching the yarn shop owner's husband preparing to mow his lawn. After spending a few minutes walking around picking up sticks and twigs, he went into the shed, checked out the level of gas in the mower, and decided to fill the tank. He then stepped out of the shed, lit up a cigarette, spotted us in the car, and came over and struck up a conversation with a wise remark about husbands waiting for wives shopping. During the conversation, we asked him if there was anything we just HAD TO SEE in Sydney. He replied that he and his wife only go to Sydney to shop at the mall, so he knew nothing about the town. Great!

Eventually, the girls came out of the shop and we got underway. We took a few pictures along the way, which you will see in the album. As for the town of Sydney, we drove around the town and could find NOTHING of interest to us. We ended up at a Subway shop for lunch, then went over to the local WalMart to poke around. One depressing thing we realized when we got into Canada is that the ONLY place to purchase beer and/or wine is at the Provincial Liquor stores (much like the State Liquor stores in NH and Maine), and, they don't carry TISDALE!!! The moral to this tale is: If you ever get to travel to Cape Breton, don't go to Sydney.

On Day 8, we left Cape Breton and headed to Caribou to take the ferry over to Prince Edward Island. The trip to Caribou was pretty much routine. We arrived at the ferry terminal shortly after 11:30AM, with almost an hour to kill before the next ferry to PEI. As we took our places in line for boarding, Charlie spotted some fishing boats off the the right of the ferry dock, and asked me if we could get over to where they were. After walking the dogs, we ventured out to the docks where the fishing boats were tying up. We were anxious to see if we could purchase "lobstahs" right off the boat! One of the men on the dock told us we could probably get them for about $4.50 - 5.00/lb. We spotted a boat just tying up, so we walked over and waited for them to start unloading their catch. We asked about buying lobsters from him and he said we could. When we asked the price, his wife quoted us prices of $5.50/lb for chix, $6.00/lb for bigger ones. We bought 4 3-pounders for $66.00, bagged them up, then had to run to our coaches to get onto the ferry, as it had started boarding while we were buying our lobsters!

After driving the coaches onto the ferry, we went top-side to make the 75 minute trip across the Strait of Northumberland to PEI. See the web albums for pictures of the trip across. You'll have to wait for the next blog entry for details of the "Lobster Feast"!

Here are your links to the web albums for Days 7 & 8:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay7ToSydneyAndBack?authkey=Gv1sRgCPWOwbbF_Iif9QE&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay8TravelingToPrinceEdwardIsland?authkey=Gv1sRgCPuW0ZH5t-i-KQ&feat=directlink