I ain't sayin' she's a gold digger ...
Well, finally I did something exciting enough to write about. Following is a rundown of my time in New England. Depending on how specific I end up being this may just be a first half. We'll see. I also apologize for any overlap with the last post.
Last Wednesday night I slept from 2:30 a.m. until 3:30 a.m. I was obviously not feeling great when my friend Matt pulled up at 4:00 a.m. to pick me up. I told him how little sleep I got and he responded with, "well, that's one more hour than I got." We were not off to a good start but luckily we were looking at a 3 and a half hour plane ride to catch up. New Balance is headquartered in Boston so after we got a rental car we headed out to the New Balance outlet. As I'm a little low on money these days I planned to buy nothing but couldn't pass up a perfectly good pair of shoes for $25. I think Matt and his parents (who were along for part of the trip) cleaned out the rest of the store. They have grandkids to buy for so they went crazy. How they got all 14 pair in a bag, on the plane, and back to Texas is a mystery to me. From there we took the scenic/lost tour of Boston to Jillian's to eat. This place is great. It has a restaurant on the first floor, pool tables and an arcade on the second floor and a bowling alley on the third. It was vacation and we were having a late lunch upstairs overlooking Fenway Park so beers were in order. As a rule I don't drink alcohol until the sun has set except for a few special occasions. I'm sure the drive from Boston to Freeport, ME was great. However, I was still trying to catch up on some sleep so I didn't see much of it. I think I've already written about the rest of the evening so I'll move on. I will however say that dinner that night at Jamison's Tavern in Freeport was quite possibly the best meal I've had in my entire life. No lie.
The next day we headed out to the Presumpscot River to go fly fishing. On a side note, the last time I used my waders I apparently had a small leak because when I took them off both legs were soaked in ice cold water. So before leaving for this trip I filled the waders up with water to see if they leaked anywhere. Let me tell you, enough water to fill 2/3 of a full grown man is extremely heavy. I found no leak so I figured I would give them a go. I wasn't in the water a half hour when I started to feel the water seeping in on the top of my left foot. The 50 degree water was somewhat less than comfortable but what are you going to do. I fished on ... with no luck I might add ... and after several hours on the river we called it a day and I was able to determine the damage. I found that apparently both legs leaked as I rung out socks and pants legs in the parking area. So that night I was at L.L. Bean again talking to the fishing guys about stragegy, equipment, etc. and asked if they could fix them. I was told to bring them in and ask for a new pair because they have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. I did so the next morning and walked out with a brand new pair. I couldn't believe it. I think this is a wonderful way to do business and creates long term rapport with customers that leads to overall long term success of the company. I didn't know anyone still had the balls to do business this way. So L.L. Bean is now one of my top 5 favorite companies and will continue to have my business for years to come. The funny thing is the next day fishing I was really excited about being able to stay dry all day until this happened ... first of all it was raining pretty hard so I wasn't completely dry but what I'm going to tell you about next certainly did not help. I was standing about thigh deep in the river casting my rod. I took a step with my left foot and did not come down on solid footing. In an effort to catch myself I naturally shifted my left foot in a position to steady my body and keep it from falling over. Seems like a logical course of action except there happened to be a large submerged boulder right behind me that I was unaware of. So when I tried to step back with my left foot it was blocked and I fell onto the rock in a seated position with water up to my waist. This was fine except the water was flowing swiftly and began to push me backwards. So my next natural move was to catch myself with my left hand. Unfortunately I was out of boulder and it was quite a drop off the back. My entire are went into the water and the current then flipped me over the back of the rock. The only things that didn't go underwater were my head and right arm. You see where I'm going with this? The top of my waders was an area that did make the trip underwater. I only took on about a half gallon but man that stuff was cold as it went all the way down to my feet. My left sleeve was also soaked and not so warm in the cold rain. I had enough and got my butt to the car. By the way, it's not so easy to change every piece of clothing in a muddy parking area while it's pouring rain. Try it, you'll see.
So that's the end of part one. If you're not into the play by play just say so and I'll spare you. If not, I'll post about the Kennebuckport and Boston portions of the trip soon. I think I'll have some pictures in the next few days. I didn't take very many but I think the few I got will be worth showing. We'll see. Also, I'll have some big news in the days to come to stay tuned. Until then ...
Last Wednesday night I slept from 2:30 a.m. until 3:30 a.m. I was obviously not feeling great when my friend Matt pulled up at 4:00 a.m. to pick me up. I told him how little sleep I got and he responded with, "well, that's one more hour than I got." We were not off to a good start but luckily we were looking at a 3 and a half hour plane ride to catch up. New Balance is headquartered in Boston so after we got a rental car we headed out to the New Balance outlet. As I'm a little low on money these days I planned to buy nothing but couldn't pass up a perfectly good pair of shoes for $25. I think Matt and his parents (who were along for part of the trip) cleaned out the rest of the store. They have grandkids to buy for so they went crazy. How they got all 14 pair in a bag, on the plane, and back to Texas is a mystery to me. From there we took the scenic/lost tour of Boston to Jillian's to eat. This place is great. It has a restaurant on the first floor, pool tables and an arcade on the second floor and a bowling alley on the third. It was vacation and we were having a late lunch upstairs overlooking Fenway Park so beers were in order. As a rule I don't drink alcohol until the sun has set except for a few special occasions. I'm sure the drive from Boston to Freeport, ME was great. However, I was still trying to catch up on some sleep so I didn't see much of it. I think I've already written about the rest of the evening so I'll move on. I will however say that dinner that night at Jamison's Tavern in Freeport was quite possibly the best meal I've had in my entire life. No lie.
The next day we headed out to the Presumpscot River to go fly fishing. On a side note, the last time I used my waders I apparently had a small leak because when I took them off both legs were soaked in ice cold water. So before leaving for this trip I filled the waders up with water to see if they leaked anywhere. Let me tell you, enough water to fill 2/3 of a full grown man is extremely heavy. I found no leak so I figured I would give them a go. I wasn't in the water a half hour when I started to feel the water seeping in on the top of my left foot. The 50 degree water was somewhat less than comfortable but what are you going to do. I fished on ... with no luck I might add ... and after several hours on the river we called it a day and I was able to determine the damage. I found that apparently both legs leaked as I rung out socks and pants legs in the parking area. So that night I was at L.L. Bean again talking to the fishing guys about stragegy, equipment, etc. and asked if they could fix them. I was told to bring them in and ask for a new pair because they have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. I did so the next morning and walked out with a brand new pair. I couldn't believe it. I think this is a wonderful way to do business and creates long term rapport with customers that leads to overall long term success of the company. I didn't know anyone still had the balls to do business this way. So L.L. Bean is now one of my top 5 favorite companies and will continue to have my business for years to come. The funny thing is the next day fishing I was really excited about being able to stay dry all day until this happened ... first of all it was raining pretty hard so I wasn't completely dry but what I'm going to tell you about next certainly did not help. I was standing about thigh deep in the river casting my rod. I took a step with my left foot and did not come down on solid footing. In an effort to catch myself I naturally shifted my left foot in a position to steady my body and keep it from falling over. Seems like a logical course of action except there happened to be a large submerged boulder right behind me that I was unaware of. So when I tried to step back with my left foot it was blocked and I fell onto the rock in a seated position with water up to my waist. This was fine except the water was flowing swiftly and began to push me backwards. So my next natural move was to catch myself with my left hand. Unfortunately I was out of boulder and it was quite a drop off the back. My entire are went into the water and the current then flipped me over the back of the rock. The only things that didn't go underwater were my head and right arm. You see where I'm going with this? The top of my waders was an area that did make the trip underwater. I only took on about a half gallon but man that stuff was cold as it went all the way down to my feet. My left sleeve was also soaked and not so warm in the cold rain. I had enough and got my butt to the car. By the way, it's not so easy to change every piece of clothing in a muddy parking area while it's pouring rain. Try it, you'll see.
So that's the end of part one. If you're not into the play by play just say so and I'll spare you. If not, I'll post about the Kennebuckport and Boston portions of the trip soon. I think I'll have some pictures in the next few days. I didn't take very many but I think the few I got will be worth showing. We'll see. Also, I'll have some big news in the days to come to stay tuned. Until then ...
posted by Craig at 8:16 PM
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