The McNamara Honeymoon- A tale of adventure, mosquitos, tents and deet.

WARNING: Exceedinly long tale
So as not to forget the events of the honeymoon, I will type and attempt to share with all. Please catch me on my lapses of memories my sweetest dogma. I just wish it were longer and perhaps not so mosquito filled. Ths short version was that we explored parts of New England, taking in upstate New York, Vermont and drive bys of Massacheuttus and Conneticut. Mmmmm we love Vermont and it truly sucks that there are few to no jobs there since one can get tons of land for next to nothing there. I also wish that Mozart and Draggy our minature lions came with us. Much of this trip was lots of driving but here goes.

1) Started of waving farewell to essex (yay bye bye!) and cats (boohoo I miss you little critters) and we drove, well actually Doug did, not !, we would have died if i tried. Fuelled by beef jerky and pineapple tarts we drove quite a bit (forget all the stops in between, please help me out dearest) and that first night, July 1st, we failed to find a campsite, yeppers, if you want adventure, fun and risk, do what we did, fail to book any tent space whatsoever about 5 months in advance for the damnable busy July 4th weekend. We took in some fruit stands where we bought some corn and other veggies to cook. Yay we had a cooler, a jolly good thing to have when one camps. Thanks to my dad the previous day, we had enough proscuitto ham to feed an army aka COSTCO and dined on this for dinner= proscuitto, some cheese we found at a petrol (gas) station deli and some bread also from there. It was memorable since I hate sarnies (sandwiches) but love proscuitto and it tastes so much better when you make it balancing it on your lap and making it for the man you love. We ended up in a jolly nice motel- Mountain top motel or the like and where was this again?, where we "roughed" it, complete with a top notch (but suprisingly reasonably inexpensive steak house with a band that was loud and not always playing at its best. I had the best clam linguine i've ever had, with real clams, not your clam sauce variety complemented with spinach and sundried tomatoes and my puppy (dogma) had this amazing ham bueger thingy. (I'm let him describe it, well it had incredible steak and scrumptious mushrooms) oh yes and the room had cable telly of course. Well rested we were though and the next day we drove on arriving at

2) Somewhere in the CATSKILLS mountains where we were turned down by many campsites and avioded some like the plague, RV hell. Lots of driving with astounding mountain and lake views. Stupendous! Made a few stops this day for provisions. Thank you WAlmart for cheap ass lousy firewood bonus filled with nasties and damp. Also stopped at a supermarket for some meats and spices to sustain us through the next 3/4 days.
Finally we found a nice ranger who told us of unreserved primitive campsites. Basically it was here's spot pitch a tent and truly commune with nature. This was right smack in a berry patch and boy nasties abound, = bees, mosquitos, moths, mosquitos, wasps and oh yes mosquitos. Still this was the softest tent site in the world, we didn't need our air mattress (just ask dogma okay), just as well since it was a haul from the car. Thanks to a fire ring left behind by a previous person, we had a yummy meal of meat and veggies, I think it was steak although it could have been pork, damn my memory. When it got dark it was incredibly dark and a little creepy. Thank you movie industry for all those dumb movies where people who camp in the wilderness get chopped up or posessed etc. The stillness was also wondrous though, and snuggling up with the one you love away from it all albeit plastered in deet, is great. I LOVE CAMPING deet, skeeters or nasties alike. Oh yes it was a freezing night and I need a much warmer sleeping bag, warm wuss that i am. Ah we were away from all the city noises and inconsiderate neighbours from hell. Instead there were beautiful stars to look at and insectile voices that sing to appreciate. Still striking camp was quick and insect filled since they arrived at dawn to reclaim their patch. This took us to day 3

3) More driving and we hit the Adriondacks and got into vermont. Saw millions of tiny little towns including one which had a great organic juice bar place where i had a yummy ginger and pear juice concoction. Umm it was great. We also had very delicious fish and chips and clam and chips at one of our stops. I know i'm a food monster and love talking about it. Oh here's another fruit stand run by a bunch of ladies who run a pure veggie farm. Umm they had the freshest looking spinach, squash and green beans of which we bought and paid but little. THe folks in Vermont were simply delightful, very welcoming and polite and we also managed to seek out 2 really neat things 1) An alpaca farm and 2) a natural swimming playground complete with falls and shallow water with lots of stones to hop around and get my feet wet in. We found al this info at a visitors center. It's so unfair! Canada was so close but off limits to me until I get that damn exit permit. Sigh! Still Vermont was jolly nice. The Alpacas are nice and so were the people who ran the farm, but my puppy and I still prefer llamas to them. Reason, the alpacas look fairly dinky and odd in their custom haircuts, makes them look as if they have tiny heads and a disproportionate body. They also don't come up and breathe on you lijke the llamss do with their snorting and pleasant breath. Still they were camelide and we had a nice time watching them. Only downside were these nasty horse flies that bit very very hard. Yes this is truly a biting honeymoon. As for the waterfall and stones, I had a blast, i was a kid in the candy store, hopping around, tryiing to keep my balance and not falling headlong into that shallow and cold body of water. This involved a little bit of hiking getting to the falls but not enough for me. Still water is water and i was happy as a clam, cooling off on this hot day.
We had to leave though if we were to find a place to sleep that night and again we searched with little luck until another kindly person who worked at a campground helped us. this time she actually called ahead and lo and behold we had a spot in what seemed like a family campground, still full of RVs. This was 3rd July and there were lots of fireworks let loose nearby and some campers brought their own too. And here I was thinking that fireworks were illegal in campgrounds. There was no firesticks to gather at this site and thankfully they had a wood store where my love bought enough wood to last us the night. By this time I had been bitten pretty badly in many areas and was scratching loads. All kinds of inseccts also wanted to come home with us, falling on me and the like, now do you know why I call them nasties? There was also a beach there and I really wanted to swim, however, the water was freezing with the setting sun and there was a whole line of nasties teeming at the surface of the water. I didn't feel like trying to spit them out after my swim. Dinner that night was yummy too. Both of us made bunches of marinated chicken with thyme or some herb , lots of pepper, garlic salt and chilli powder. We also had pepepr and mushrooms and that glorious spinach we bought and then had corn for pudding, since it took 9000000 years to cook them. Umm it was great. Now this was a campsite where we could truly see the stars. Amazing star filled sky, just incredible. Doug and I took a very nice stroll after dinner and reveled in the light show nature provided us. Oh hang the cities, I just want to live out on the open rural land and off it too. Wonders upon wonders this camp area also had hot coin showers and real toilets, the height of luxury after day 2 of our berry patch adventure. Still human nature struck this night when we had to deal with very noisy and drunk red necks who carried on very loudly as we tried to sleep. Damn people and this is why I love working for the animals at the SPCA. We spent a bit of that night playing some cards and of course just snuggling too. Mmm very yummy especially with NO deet. THis takes us to day 4 and the last night

4) Hmm you know the waterfall and rocks might fall on this day, oh well we did all these things just not necessarily in the right order or place. I think we ended up in Massacheutus this night and unfortunately these mosquitos had gotten the better of me this day, even with loads o deet, i was a skeeter's best friend and blood bank. My puppy too had fewer bites but had had enough of the skeeters and we thus decided to cheat and by choice find a motel to stay in. We did not like the people at this town although we liked the room and the sucky pool for its memories. We had this pool all to ourselves which we stayed for a little while. Only a whiule since it was truly FREEXING. But all this space we carvorted among the struggling nasties who lay dying in their watery demise, my love spun me and piggy backed me and splashed me and it was so much fun. I tried to do the same but he is bigger in body structure to me and i only just about managed it. Still there was no way we could do any of this in our local swimming pool in greenbelt and we just had a blast, playing like little kids in the freezing and filthy hotel pool. It was a holiday inn i think. This done we had a good shower and I called up for reservations at this Dakota steak house since I was on this seafood kick, this being New England, I wanted seafood and found it we did at this restaurant which was reasonable for what we had. thanks to our wedding gifts from friends and family! it started off with a delish salad bar with everything under the sun and we both ordered the 1 and 1/4 pound maine lobster each. wow! This is what lobsters become if they're good and go to lobster heaven. Talk about succulent, tasty, meaty the works. It was truly plentiful as well. Yum it was so so so so so so good. I think we also had some potato skins as starters or maybe not, but there was this great bread too . But this lobster stole the show and t'was a fitting end to our honeymoon nights. On the human drama front, we also watchedd this very difficult employee quit her job.

5) final day driving back, we indulged in out passion, music, stopped by some music shops and I bought these musical magnets, one of a flute and violin that looked perfect in their imitation, just scaled down versions of the real instruments and we also looked in this big music shop where I got a book of Handel's flute sonatas. Yet another music shop specialized in guitars and pianos and so puppy played the guitars and i tried out most of the pianos. It was heaven!

Still all good things had to end and we had to head back home since i had to work the next day and that was an adventure itself. We didn't get home until 2:50 am or thereabouts and I had to work 11 am the next day so much fun. Puppy was my champion for driving me to work the next day and i love him so much for everything. But this is about out honeymoon, so we came home via NY city and NJ. NY city was INSANE and this was what made us late. We got hopelessly and thoroughly lost and i swear the people in this city want to kill each other. Yikes! I thought we were going to die. Urghhhhhhh 3 hours or so we were trapped in the innards of this city, so glad we were when we finally broke free. Our final main stop was to find dinner past 9 pm in red Barn New Jersey, home of Jay and Silent Bob's secret stash. We went to this asian fusion restaurant and again a great dinner. We had the duck and mango salad, divine and not enough even though it was a big plate and then we had this incredible red snapper complete with head , lightly fried in oil and with 3 accompanying thai sauces. Oh it was great and fish are meant to be with their heads. We finished off with mango and passion fruit sorbet. YUmmers!
The only drama after this was all thanks to the NJ turnpike and this truckdriver who lost his entire tire tread. By this time I was sleeping intermittently while my hubby was driving and i awoke thinking we had gotten into an accident and to the sounds of my beloved swearing like a sailor who had lost the greatest catch of his life. THe front part of the under carriage of the car just beneath the licencse plate was pretty warped by this or at least the plate was and I'm glad the car's okay. When we stopped for puppy to get more coffee, we found out that 4/5 other people had hit this thing that was impossible to see at that hour it being too low on the road. So what an adventure and an incredible honeymoon.
I need to get my love to visit out of his country but for now this honeymoon let us just run way from it all and have a great time together. Thank you so much for it my love and i can't wait to go away with you again and next time we'd take in Singers and Malaysia okay?