My Trip To Augusta

                                                               lovely rotary

Yeah today was a fine trip to Augusta, which just happens to be our state capital. What precipitated my trip to the great city of Augusta? I needed to buy a new laptop. I cracked my screen on my laptop, let's just say don't ever put anything on your laptop then close the cover, not even something very small. An expensive lesson.
It was a perfect Maine day, the clouds were hanging in the blue sky like gigantic puffs of cotton.
The trees are fully leaved out and are interspersed with the pine and spruce, which stay green year round. I never used to appreciate living in Maine, but it's something I have come to love. Augusta is further inland and I live close to the coast. One of the things I really appreciate is the ocean, you can smell the salt in the air. It is a smell like no other.
Back to my lovely trip. No one in their right mind likes driving in Augusta, there are rotaries, 2 to be exact, one just before you cross the bridge and the other on the other side of the bridge. Basically you pull up, stop, then drive like hell to beat the car coming around the rotary. It can be slightly nerve racking, but if you do it enough you get the hang of it.
I got in and out of Augusta without any problems, big relief. As I drove home, I turned off Rte. 17 in Washington, I started reminiscing. I passed a farmhouse I used to go to with my grandmother. An elderly couple named Carlton and Elizabeth Weaver used to live there. I loved going into their kitchen, she churned fresh butter and the kitchen always smelled like butter. She and her daughter were always making some craft, a new blanket or quilt and they would always get out their project and show us what they were working on.
Then I turned onto the Old Augusta road and as I drove I passed the Robinson Rd. It's the road I learned how to drive a standard car on. My brother-in-law, Chuck, first took me out there and let me drive the VW, later on I bought myself a Triumph Spitfire, I still didn't really know how to drive a standard, but I took that Spitfire out there and practiced. I got so good at driving a standard that when I lived in Orrington and I would drive to Bangor I had to stop on a huge hill in city traffic, I always slid that clutch out enough that when the light changed I could pop it out the rest of the way and never roll back. Quite a feat on a steep hill with cars right behind you.
That's about all the reminiscing I can take for one day. I just want to close my blog entry by saying this, I always love to watch a movie or T.V. show that is supposed to be set in Maine, you can be sure one of the characters will murder the way we talk by trying to imitate a Mainer, Ayuh. A quick lesson in how a Mainer talks, never pronounce your R's, harbor becomes harbah, car is cah. Another thing that amuses me is when you hear a person in a movie giving directions on how to get from one place to another, those people need to get a map because if you live in Maine you can't get there from here. So ends my rambling rant.