Happy Halloween

We had another ultrasound made of our baby girl 10 days ago as some things where not yet visible when we did the mid-term scan at 19 weeks. Our girl is doing great and developing well. Mom is yet again not gaining any weight but feels ok and finally got writ of that cold & cough.

They gave us some face shots of the little lady. Eelco loves them but I find them a bit 'spooky', perfectly suitable for Halloween!

For those of you who are not such seasoned ultrasound 'readers' yet: she is lying on her side, the remainder of her body is off to the right. So if you tilt your head left you are looking straight at her. She has one hand near her face. You can detect both eyes, her nose and an open mouth and her chin.

Indoor Water Play

Every day when we come home I have to get Rick to walk passed the Pool without letting him stop to throw things in the pool and try to climb over the edge. After some silly work hours this week and a very humid sticky day where the mosquito's where out in full force I caved in and let Rick play with water indoors instead.

Dad was not too pleased when he came home....so Rick pretended to be Cinderella and made an effort to appear to be cleaning up the mess.

In reality Rick was doing a test to see how far into the living room he could get the water by using the green cloth. Smart boy!

Texian Market

Still in Holiday mode we decided to go to the Texian Market at the George Ranch last weekend. The George Ranch is an 'open air' type museum of Texas Ranch life. Annually they have a market with Artisans, Food, additional exhibits (like the old cars below), performances and re-enactments.

The place was packed with people and other kids. Rick pretty soon found a couple of sticks (after diving somewhere in the sand head first) and had little eye for what happened around him.

Performances of all kind where held all around the ground. This group was advertising some wonder oil with sketches and music intermezzo's. 

Rick was mesmerized.

and very happy & dirty

the sketch went on about some belly related ailment or something...so Rick checked his.

Watching some Texas tap-line-dancing mix with Papa

Eelco had been wanting to see a re-enactment for a while. A VERY American thing we think and they appeared to be as uneventful as expected but the enthusiasm of the participants is huge as expected - I guess you have to be in it?!

Chasing Chickens

amidst the camp near the 1870's Ranch (or so).

They combed his hair!!!

It was time for Rick's annual School Picture session. After last year's results (very funny & very very unflattering) we did not have our hopes up. Especially as the pictures where taken less then 24 hrs after arriving back from NL and Rick did have a jet lag and still a black eye....

So they managed to hide the black eye somewhat. But did they really have to comb his beautiful unruly curls into a sunday school do??? 

Bar Harbor / Acadia NP

Herewith the last series from our Holiday (really it was only 1 week!). We went to the most popular or well visited National Park in the US called Acadia Park on Mt Desert Island, also referred to often by the main town on the Island Bar Harbor.

The National Park appears to be made for RV tourism as the circular road through the park (printed in bold above to the right) is entirely drive-able in 'smaller' RV's and by Touring Cars.

No complaints from us if the views are like this!

The Road also of course has a trail head here and there and so we did a little hiking. Last time Rick was in this carrier was April in Big Bend - He clearly has grown loads since then and if we put him on the ground in the carrier (it has a 'stand') he tries to walk off with it on! The bright light makes both boys frown.

One of the more famous sites in the park is a particular nice white sandy beach.

The leaf-peeping in the park was actually also quite good and as you can see,....some people really appear to have it all!

Around Jordan's Pond, one of the Park's Lakes, we got a little homesick for Bonny Scotland!

The happy Campers at one of the many viewpoints. (The Jr Camper was having a little beauty sleep) Considering we both had a massive cold all week I think we look pretty good.

And so did the view from the last viewpoint.

Presidential Airtime

Interesting fact about our return trip. We had a stopover in Cleveland Ohio. When we where on approach to Cleveland Airport from Portland we had some delay. The Pilots had no idea what it was about but said that Cleveland had build up a little backlog earlier in the day and that hence we had do do a few 'extra circles'. They clearly sounded a bit miffed by the whole thing as the weather was amazing.

By the time we landed 20 minutes late we understood why. Air Force One was parked right along the Runway where we landed. The President and the First Lady had decided to visit Cleveland that same day.

The President was scheduled to leave around the same time our flight to Houston would leave. They started boarding our plane early and where in a great hurry to get us all in and seated. We could not really understand why until the Pilot clarified that if Air Force One is due to land or take off they clear the Airspace for 20 Minutes resulting usually in delays for all other flights of 45 min +. Our pilots and flight crew very much entered into a race with the presidential crew and .....they had to cut the safety message short for it and have half the flight attendants only in their seats with half a bum.....but we won. We took off and they closed the Airspace within a minute after that.

The whole plane was still cheering when they put the video message with the safety instructions on for a 2nd time - so we could actually see the end of it. We understood that the flight attendant who was still running through the isle when we started to 'lift off' also remained unharmed -;)

Guess the flight crews don't like delays any more then we do!

RV Life

And here she is, our 24ft (almost 7.5m) Recreational Vehicle on one of our pretty RV parks.

We did not make any huge distances but Rick did not seemed to mind the driving much anyway and had his own car seat parked in the rounded seating area at the back. He was driving around with his feet on the table and reading to himself.

We did not have lunch solely in the RV as there where too many 'interesting roadside Restaurants to try out.

And if Rick was done eating or playing he was happy to take his naps whilst being driven to the next venue.

Eelco did the driving happily - the V10 felt 'small' in the heavy vehicle but good in your hands and from an engine noise perspective.

We also perfected the Art of traditional RV 'block driving'. To hook up for the night the V had to be more or less level meaning we had to work with the yellow blocks below the wheels to get it level. We had worked very hard to get it organized on day 2 at the parking/camping for the Fryeburg Fair. Good thing we did as the man from the rental company also came to the Fair and happened to park in the same lot so he immediately noticed our engineering efforts and complimented us when he ran in to us a couple of hours later. Pfew!

Rick has somewhat of a Ball craze at the moment so we got him one locally which travelled next to Rick.

I also drove stretches here and there. It does not appear to be the typical task of the woman though to drive the RV,....actually most we saw where 2x the size of ours anyway!

On the Road we looked like this. Much wider then any camper homes you would see in Europe!

Occasionally on a view point or something if Rick was too far 'knocked out' we would leave him in the RV. In the back to the Right you see the build in Bathroom.

Rick enjoyed evening life in the RV very much. Great to have Papa & Mama all within arms reach at all times and he would be happy to stay up most nights way beyond our bed time!

Not too many camp grounds where still open at this time of year, most of the ones we saw where pretty big and appeared to be super busy throughout the season. By now things had calmed down and we could get the prettiest spots on the ground. Below overviewing the Atlantic.

I left Eelco to deal with the Black and Grey water management and he diligently obliged. Out of guilt I tried to use the restrooms in restaurants, attractions, museums etc as much as possible -;)

And we ended our trip with breakfast in the RV at the famous Portland Head Light at Cape Elizabeth which even outside season at 9am on Sunday Morning was already teaming with tourists. Much more then we had seen on our whole road trip together.

Then we had to return the RV and return to Texas.

Lobster Hatching

One of the days of our trip we woke up to a big storm, grey & dark skies and lots of Rain. I love that kind of weather and the good news was we had already picked some activities for the day which would be 80% fine in this weather. So we took off early and went to the Oceanarium on Bar Harbor. This is a type of Aquarium you can visit but more interestingly it is also the only Lobster Hatchery in the US.

The Hatchery is the only place that has approval to catch and keep lobsters carrying eggs (fertile lobsters). All other people who catch lobster for whatever purpose need to mark such lobster with a V shaped clipping in the tail and put them back out there. (The black stuff are the eggs - up to tens of thousands at a time).

Rick liked the lobsters too if he was not too close. In nature it takes the mommy lobster a cycle of 2 years to have her kids and her success rate from all those eggs is some 0.1% success! In the Hatchery the success rate is some 50% meaning that some 3,000 - 5,000 new lobsters can be set out for each 'birth session'. Sounds like a relatively easy way to keep the lobster population thriving! As the lobster population in Maine is doing ok it is currently not as necessary to do this as we understood but it is also not harmful to the environment to grow the population some in preparation of 'lesser years'. The Hatchery only kept 3-4 mommy's at the time.

This Mommy lobster was celebrating she had reached the 'Post-Partum' phase of her breeding cycle.

A little further down the road we also visited the Maritime Museum with a lobster fishing exhibit.

Weathering the Storm in between the buildings of the Maritime Museum.

And of course a visit to the Lobster Shack followed again a little further down the road after that. Mjummie!! Even if served in a Restaurant a fresh lobster (1.1/4 lbs) sets you back only some 17 USD including fries (for your son), veggies, butter sauce and the lot.

Mt Washington

Mt Washington is the highest peak in the US North of Carolina and East of the Mississippi. At nearly 2,000 m maybe not super spectacular but the weather is pretty erratic up there and everything around is not quite so high. The record for the strongest wind gusts measured also resides at the top.

Mt Washington is in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, in the Presidential Range, however Mt Washington is effectively the only one that is white already at this time of year.

Mt Washington is one of the US's first Tourist destinations and it has had a coach road to the top since 1861 as well as a railway (a few years after). The current road is too narrow and steep for RV's and so we use a group minivan to get to the top. Maybe for the best as we saw many a couple arguing in the car  probably about being to close to the edge of the road or too far in the middle for oncoming cars.

We had picked one of the best days to make it up there as it was the only day without much wind. Even though it was pretty chilly!

Rick was kind of interested in the ice but decided soon enough that it was much to slippery and wanted to be carried instead.

As the train option had an entirely unpredictable schedule after Columbus day (end of the season for most attractions) and also took 3-4 hrs for a round trip, was not really an option for us with Rick but it looked pretty cool! (Sorry Kees & Martijn!)

Some of the ice formations where very pretty and of course Eelco decided that Rick should taste the ice as that is something he does himself.

The view from the top was pretty spectacular and was > 100 Miles meaning we could see the Maine coast - or at least some of the sea fingers cutting into it.

And hence we had a very satisfying trip to the (local) top of the world and where chauffeured back down safely whilst being educated about Moose.