The Word Cloud

Dear friends,

Having gotten over the hair-raising experience of a ‘no visibility landing’, our stay in Boston turned into a very pleasant one indeed. We took in many of the sights including the ‘Boston Legal’ building, though we were disappointed not to see the two concrete chairs sat upon by James Spader and William Shatner at the end of each episode.

Talking of William Shatner, we plumped to hire a car from ‘Enterprise’; humongous mistake. Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Trekkie, but for the last three to four hundred miles, and having assumed captaincy status, Mike’s instructions have consisted of “Engage” or “Make it so”. Those two interspersed with “Fascinating” every five minutes  proves to make for a very long trek methinks; still only twelve hundred miles to go. Beam me up Scotty.

We can’t quite decide whether our small black Chevy has been rejected by the Ant Hill Mob or is a hearse designed with humpa lumpas in mind. Still, she goes and has gotten us as far as Kennebunkport and north to Bar Harbor, Maine. I can’t begin to describe the autumnal colours. I won’t bore you with the palette save to say that we had not expected cerise pink to be among them. Wow, absolutely stunning.

We’ve been quite surprised too by the American’s devotion to their four legged friends. Dedicated shops, boutiques and even a do-it-yourself dog wash adjacent to a Doggy Day Care facility are only some of the services offered along the roadside. Talk about pampered pooches.

We’d also been under the misapprehension until now that natives to these fine shores had picked up one or two snippets of our English language over the past couple of hundred years. We have to inform you that we no longer understand this to be the case; they have a whole language of their own. Having required directions to somewhere and having tried to enter into conversation with one lady, I enquired “Hello, excuse me.”

Before I could proceed she replied “Sorry?”

“Hello, excuse me,” I tried again.

“I’m not quite catching you” she responded.

Make it easy, I thought...”Hello.”

“No, I’m sorry, it’s your accent.”

Maybe the line in Jerry Maguire should have been - “You lost me at hello.”

Onto Jackson in the White Mountains. Catch you there.

"Have a nice day!"
 

Love

Kim & Mike. x