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Bear stuffs
Jul. 8th, 2013 12:39 pmHere's a silly little video just in time for Bear Week in Provincetown next week, from local artist Tom Goss.
Who else is heading to PTown?
Who else is heading to PTown?
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And, we're back!
Jul. 17th, 2011 12:55 amYou probably didn't take notice, but there has been an extended period of radio silence on this here bloggy-poo. The reason? Some much-needed vacation time. It was actually a two-parter, the July 4th weekend was spent up at Hillside for 4 days, a return home for us so Jeff could do some worky-worky stuff for a couple days, then a return to the road for a trip to Provincetown for Bear Week. I set the controls at the House and Garage of Mayhem on full auto, the antipersonnel laser vaporizing a trespasser (or it might have been the meter reader, I'll see what the electric company says) but apparently missing the sly groundhog that took liberties (and big bites) with some of the garden veggies.
The Hillside trip was nice. We had on board with us a couple friends, one we knew for years on and offline (former LJer Aaron/"fredneckteddy") and a buddy of Jeff's all the way from North Carolina, Tony, whom Jeff had been conversing online for a very long time and met in person for the first time upon picking him up at the train station on Wednesday. A good time was had by all, lots of good food was cooked and eaten, and, as is apparently an unwritten law for Hillside camping, at least part of the time spent there had us rained on. Tony, being a Hillside "virgin", had a lot of fun despite being at times overwhelmed by, well, the people and things going on there. Hell, he's ate it all up and had a blast. Aaron was last at Hillside maybe 8 years prior, and had no trouble adjusting (yeah, that's what I'll call it for now, "adjusting"). Once the extended weekend was over, I towed our 26 ft home back to its summer parking spot at Jeff's parent's place, leaving it connected to the truck and driving home in the car that we also brought up. This allowed us a substantial fuel savings, and the convenience of having the rig all ready to go again in three days.
We headed up to PTown at the crack of dawn on Thursday, arriving about mid-afternoon. After setting up and a bit of a break, we headed into town. Of course, our first stops are at Mojo's for a big cup of Cape Iced tea, and a stop at the Portuguese Bakery. Any familiar faces or "bears" had yet to make any sort of mass appearance since the bear week event did not officially start until Saturday. We were treated to lots of muscled Chelsea Boy types among other homosexual subspecies. Once the official start of Bear Week approached and passed, the eye candy quotient went into orbit. Jeff and I were quite content with finding outdoor seating at restaurants, shops and the town square and watching the parade of hair humans, many quite familiar from years past. Several of our well-known friends popped up in all the usual places once again, and I got to meet quite a few LJ peeps for the first time, more so than in previous years. There were apparently some missed opportunities as well as outright ignoring by a few people, a major (though not entirely unexpected) disappointment,
Our extended week had us doing our traditional whale watch boat trip, typical shopping sprees and general lolling about town, not to mention eating some of the most awesomest food around every day. We took Kodi with us into town every day, where he soaked in rockstar-like popularity heaped on him by dozens of people at a time. It didn't help that, in addition to his adorable doggy-ness, he would ride in Jeff's bicycle basket through town or carried in a over-the-shoulder sling pouch, both of these carriers designed specifically for pooch perambulating. In addition to the miles of walking, toting and riding, Kodi managed over 1200 miles of puke-free riding from Mayhem Acres all the way to PTown and back. It's like he knows it's vacation time, and relaxes immediately. If this could only be the case with every road trip! It was Kodi's first trip to the beach, where he eventually had a blast dog-paddling in the water once getting used to it.
This year, our vacation accompanies a big change in both of us, as we are officially two middle-aged men with major medical conditions. Jeff was not able to ride nearly as far on his bike as in years past, and I still fumbled my way around a bit while walking. Despite this, we both did remarkably well IMO, with Jeff taking the little rides in stride and I didn't end up falling down once. We even managed to take part in the now-standard-feature-of-Bear-Week, Blowoff. This was short lived, as the dance floor at the Boat Slip Resort resembled a sauna, with the heat and humidity oppressive to say the least. The next day Jeff was hit with a case of "kennel cough" and I still have a case of intermittent sniffles. We are either way too old for this sort of thing, or someone has to provide several thousand more cfm of ventilation to that place.
There's much more, but, sad, to say, all good things have to come to an end, after an 11-hour trip off the Cape and back to the trailer's summer parking spot, a night's sleep, then the additional 2.5 hour trip home this afternoon, our vacation for 2011 officially ended. While sad, and seemingly awfully short, we packed a lot into the time we had, and were glad to arrive home in one piece, bettered by our time spent up north. We are already making plans for next year.
More (possibly) to come...
The Hillside trip was nice. We had on board with us a couple friends, one we knew for years on and offline (former LJer Aaron/"fredneckteddy") and a buddy of Jeff's all the way from North Carolina, Tony, whom Jeff had been conversing online for a very long time and met in person for the first time upon picking him up at the train station on Wednesday. A good time was had by all, lots of good food was cooked and eaten, and, as is apparently an unwritten law for Hillside camping, at least part of the time spent there had us rained on. Tony, being a Hillside "virgin", had a lot of fun despite being at times overwhelmed by, well, the people and things going on there. Hell, he's ate it all up and had a blast. Aaron was last at Hillside maybe 8 years prior, and had no trouble adjusting (yeah, that's what I'll call it for now, "adjusting"). Once the extended weekend was over, I towed our 26 ft home back to its summer parking spot at Jeff's parent's place, leaving it connected to the truck and driving home in the car that we also brought up. This allowed us a substantial fuel savings, and the convenience of having the rig all ready to go again in three days.
We headed up to PTown at the crack of dawn on Thursday, arriving about mid-afternoon. After setting up and a bit of a break, we headed into town. Of course, our first stops are at Mojo's for a big cup of Cape Iced tea, and a stop at the Portuguese Bakery. Any familiar faces or "bears" had yet to make any sort of mass appearance since the bear week event did not officially start until Saturday. We were treated to lots of muscled Chelsea Boy types among other homosexual subspecies. Once the official start of Bear Week approached and passed, the eye candy quotient went into orbit. Jeff and I were quite content with finding outdoor seating at restaurants, shops and the town square and watching the parade of hair humans, many quite familiar from years past. Several of our well-known friends popped up in all the usual places once again, and I got to meet quite a few LJ peeps for the first time, more so than in previous years. There were apparently some missed opportunities as well as outright ignoring by a few people, a major (though not entirely unexpected) disappointment,
Our extended week had us doing our traditional whale watch boat trip, typical shopping sprees and general lolling about town, not to mention eating some of the most awesomest food around every day. We took Kodi with us into town every day, where he soaked in rockstar-like popularity heaped on him by dozens of people at a time. It didn't help that, in addition to his adorable doggy-ness, he would ride in Jeff's bicycle basket through town or carried in a over-the-shoulder sling pouch, both of these carriers designed specifically for pooch perambulating. In addition to the miles of walking, toting and riding, Kodi managed over 1200 miles of puke-free riding from Mayhem Acres all the way to PTown and back. It's like he knows it's vacation time, and relaxes immediately. If this could only be the case with every road trip! It was Kodi's first trip to the beach, where he eventually had a blast dog-paddling in the water once getting used to it.
This year, our vacation accompanies a big change in both of us, as we are officially two middle-aged men with major medical conditions. Jeff was not able to ride nearly as far on his bike as in years past, and I still fumbled my way around a bit while walking. Despite this, we both did remarkably well IMO, with Jeff taking the little rides in stride and I didn't end up falling down once. We even managed to take part in the now-standard-feature-of-Bear-Week, Blowoff. This was short lived, as the dance floor at the Boat Slip Resort resembled a sauna, with the heat and humidity oppressive to say the least. The next day Jeff was hit with a case of "kennel cough" and I still have a case of intermittent sniffles. We are either way too old for this sort of thing, or someone has to provide several thousand more cfm of ventilation to that place.
There's much more, but, sad, to say, all good things have to come to an end, after an 11-hour trip off the Cape and back to the trailer's summer parking spot, a night's sleep, then the additional 2.5 hour trip home this afternoon, our vacation for 2011 officially ended. While sad, and seemingly awfully short, we packed a lot into the time we had, and were glad to arrive home in one piece, bettered by our time spent up north. We are already making plans for next year.
More (possibly) to come...
Tags:
Social media, pictures and bears, oh my
Dec. 15th, 2010 01:17 pmWell, I was not gonna make a big deal about this, or (especially) create some sort of war of affiliate links, but despite my backing away from various social media, I did dip my toe (or, whatever, lol) into Bearbook. Truth be told, I've been having a blast. Jeff even forked over the introductory $2.95 for a year's membership and said that he's having a bit too much fun over there. There's something entirely different about the user experience, or at least so far. It's akin to the earliest days of internet socializing I used to love. Time will tell if the place devolves into another Bear411, but with a group of fair-minded guys very proud of their site and willing to put the user first, I doubt it. If you have not done so already (lots of LJ peeps there already), give it a shot.
Sign up using this link, and I get some "bearbucks", whatever those are. Being that I was a beta tester, I got in for slack. I think I can donate 'em for some good cause.
Sign up using this link, and I get some "bearbucks", whatever those are. Being that I was a beta tester, I got in for slack. I think I can donate 'em for some good cause.
I sense a disturbance in the Bear Force.
Dec. 23rd, 2009 02:46 pmIt was as if a million bearded voices cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
Hirsute couture
Jul. 15th, 2009 12:43 pmBearotic.com has a look at an honest-to-goodness "bear fashion show" (link not entirely safe for work) highlighting designer Walter Van Beirendonck's (name SO apropos) latest collection for men. If nothing else, there's bound to be some eye candy for those of you into hirsute pursuits. For those of you into the fashion scene, there's a lot here to get the comments rolling.
To make it more worth your while, (most of) the clothes come off at the end.
To make it more worth your while, (most of) the clothes come off at the end.
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The last trailer thrash
Oct. 8th, 2007 10:44 pmOur weekend at Knoebels was nicer than expected. For one, the weather was damn near perfect, if a bit on the hot side. The biggest surprise was the campgrounds. It is HUGE. There are actually two campgrounds, and between them there are over 800 individual sites. Plenty of room between the RV/trailer sites, and the tent sites have lots of room as well as platforms on many sites. Jeff and I got to thinking that we should plan a big gathering for an extended weekend if not a whole week sometime in the future. It's that good. Most of the campers had decorated their sites and the cabins in Halloween themes, and some wandered the park in costumes. Had we known, we would have brought decorations along.
As I said previously, this was the weekend of the "Covered Bridge and Arts Festival". Hundred of crafts vendors along with dozens of food sellers filled the park. Most of the rides were also operational during the weekend as well. Those two facts made for a crushing amount of people mostly milling around the crafts tents and pavillions.
Now, I am not one for huge crowds milling about. Add to it the unseasonably warm weather and that pervasive smell of cinnamon, potpourri and polyurethane that seems endemic to such venues and the result is a huge pounding headache for me. I coped with the headache, though. All told, there were eleven of us bears 'n' cubs taking in the sights, sounds, smells, food and rides along with the trinket shopping.
All was not perfect, though. The tone of the day on Saturday was set a few notches lower when Jeff and I, fresh off of riding the "Skyway" (essentially a rehabbed ski lift that takes you up and down a mountain next to the park for a scenic ride), came upon a vendor selling a huge variety of cutting boards made from a synthetic hard material similar to Corian countertops. I still had my little camera in hand from taking pictures while on the Skyway when the 'proprietress' hurried over to where we were standing. "You are not taking pictures, are you?" she loudly bellowed, holding a cutting board like a paddle seemingly ready to block my use of the camera. "There can be no pictures taken of my product. Please dont take pictures." She kept getting closer and closer and getting between me and the tables. "I am not taking any pictures, nor do I intend to. The camera is OFF, see?" She went on more and more, as if to say she does not believe me. I told this woman that she can look at everything I had taken just to be sure. She went on and on. She watched like a hawk as we looked momentarily over the overpriced cutting boards, which I was actually interested in at first before that scene played out. We wandered off, with Jeff exclaiming loudly enough and with me in agreement that we would not buy anything from that seller now if our lives depended on it. I started to stew a bit more (I dont like being called a liar) and was tempted to go back and confront the woman but decided against it. If there is one thing I have noticed regarding these 'crafts' sellers, it's that so much of it is a variant of the same old clichéd themes available from everyone. The market for $70 dollar cutting boards made from scraps of Corian will dry up rapidly once some Chinese factory starts churning them out for less than ten bux at the local Wal-Mart. No photos needed.
All of us had good fun walking around, critiquing products, buying trinkets and riding the rides later on in the day. Too much good food, lots of eye candy (Jeff really liked the guy selling bean soup with his big arms). I went back to the camper briefly to rest my sore shoulder and headache, then it was an evening of coasters and other rides in the dark. Knoebels is one of the last remaining parks that does not charge for parking or to enter the park, and you pay as you go for rides. You can also pay a flat rate and ride everything all day.
It feels kinda sad to be putting the trailer away for the winter. I cannot complain though, we had a total of five outings with it this year (Deep Creek Lake, MD, Provincetown, MA, twice to Hillside and now Knoebels). We got the thing with the thought of doing more traveling, and so far we are keeping to that promise to ourselves. Barring any problems with free time, next year we hope to get even more time on the road. I'm the type that likes to consider the journey as well as the destination as part of a whole vacation experience. And despite high fuel cost, driving around while lugging a house along behind us is still a bargain compared to flying and staying at a hotel in many cases. We are gonna do more.
( Here be pictures! )
.
As I said previously, this was the weekend of the "Covered Bridge and Arts Festival". Hundred of crafts vendors along with dozens of food sellers filled the park. Most of the rides were also operational during the weekend as well. Those two facts made for a crushing amount of people mostly milling around the crafts tents and pavillions.
Now, I am not one for huge crowds milling about. Add to it the unseasonably warm weather and that pervasive smell of cinnamon, potpourri and polyurethane that seems endemic to such venues and the result is a huge pounding headache for me. I coped with the headache, though. All told, there were eleven of us bears 'n' cubs taking in the sights, sounds, smells, food and rides along with the trinket shopping.
All was not perfect, though. The tone of the day on Saturday was set a few notches lower when Jeff and I, fresh off of riding the "Skyway" (essentially a rehabbed ski lift that takes you up and down a mountain next to the park for a scenic ride), came upon a vendor selling a huge variety of cutting boards made from a synthetic hard material similar to Corian countertops. I still had my little camera in hand from taking pictures while on the Skyway when the 'proprietress' hurried over to where we were standing. "You are not taking pictures, are you?" she loudly bellowed, holding a cutting board like a paddle seemingly ready to block my use of the camera. "There can be no pictures taken of my product. Please dont take pictures." She kept getting closer and closer and getting between me and the tables. "I am not taking any pictures, nor do I intend to. The camera is OFF, see?" She went on more and more, as if to say she does not believe me. I told this woman that she can look at everything I had taken just to be sure. She went on and on. She watched like a hawk as we looked momentarily over the overpriced cutting boards, which I was actually interested in at first before that scene played out. We wandered off, with Jeff exclaiming loudly enough and with me in agreement that we would not buy anything from that seller now if our lives depended on it. I started to stew a bit more (I dont like being called a liar) and was tempted to go back and confront the woman but decided against it. If there is one thing I have noticed regarding these 'crafts' sellers, it's that so much of it is a variant of the same old clichéd themes available from everyone. The market for $70 dollar cutting boards made from scraps of Corian will dry up rapidly once some Chinese factory starts churning them out for less than ten bux at the local Wal-Mart. No photos needed.
All of us had good fun walking around, critiquing products, buying trinkets and riding the rides later on in the day. Too much good food, lots of eye candy (Jeff really liked the guy selling bean soup with his big arms). I went back to the camper briefly to rest my sore shoulder and headache, then it was an evening of coasters and other rides in the dark. Knoebels is one of the last remaining parks that does not charge for parking or to enter the park, and you pay as you go for rides. You can also pay a flat rate and ride everything all day.
It feels kinda sad to be putting the trailer away for the winter. I cannot complain though, we had a total of five outings with it this year (Deep Creek Lake, MD, Provincetown, MA, twice to Hillside and now Knoebels). We got the thing with the thought of doing more traveling, and so far we are keeping to that promise to ourselves. Barring any problems with free time, next year we hope to get even more time on the road. I'm the type that likes to consider the journey as well as the destination as part of a whole vacation experience. And despite high fuel cost, driving around while lugging a house along behind us is still a bargain compared to flying and staying at a hotel in many cases. We are gonna do more.
.
Bear sighting
May. 12th, 2007 12:01 amMany people end up on the local news because they've spotted a bear in their back yard. But not often like this:
Bears will be bears
Nov. 11th, 2006 10:01 amSage advice from today's Pearls Before Swine:
Ironic how this matches advice I like to give. lol
Ironic how this matches advice I like to give. lol
