Time to Unwind

 Our time in Connecticut has been short, but it allowed us to reset to Eastern time which usually makes the transition "across the pond" easier.  We fly out today from JFK.

We've been visiting Scott's niece, Tammie, at their camp near Stafford Springs (near the border with MA, just south of Springfield, MA).  It was hot and muggy when we got here, but about three o'clock in the morning we were awakened by a downpour.  It rained most of the day Monday, then we have had two gorgeous sunny days with much less humidity.

This part of CT is mostly rolling farmland:  Farm stands at the end of driveways with fresh corn, tobacco fields and the old long tobacco barns where they dry the leaves, small towns with their church (with a steeple) at the center of town and their historic graveyards, rolling horse farms, a huge barn with a banner proclaiming it's 200th birthday, and all the red, white and blue decorations still up from last month's 250th birthday celebrations.  One town had banners celebrating local veterans - Korean War, WW II, and Revolutionary War.   We who live in the west forget the history that New England states display so proudly.  (And of course by the time we get to some of the places we are going they will laugh at us for our little 250 years of history... theirs goes back to ancient times.)

In stark contrast to the farmlands, right near the Hartford Airport is a three story Amazon Prime center and to the north, a Brooks Brothers factory.  Many of the bedroom communities for Hartford try to mimic the old saltbox houses or the New England style farm houses with their detached garages attached to the house via an enclosed breezeway.  It's funny to see the old being new again.

It's been several years since we did any "shun-piking" (staying off the turnpikes), so this was a very relaxing time.

It's a three hour drive to NYC...  off we go!

A Tale of Two Airports

With apologies to Charles Dickens, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

Ted Stevens International

On Friday when we went to pick up the rental car at 5:15 pm the car rental center was like a ghost town - no waiting in line.  So imagine our surprise when we arrived at 4 pm when the place was so packed that there we lines almost out the door to the entrance to the train station.  It became clear that at least two cruise ships had returned and all those passengers had been deposited at ANC at the same time.

Fish boxes everywhere

The problem was even worse in the check in area, because not only the cruise passengers, but all sorts of people finishing up their week-long fishing trips on the Kenai were overwhelming the bag drop area.  Fish boxes were everywhere, and the line to drop bags was all the way from the AK Air area back across the lobby almost to the security checkin point.  It took almost an hour to get through check-in (and we were in one of the shorter lines).  Thankfully we were 4 hours ahead of our flight.

rack for cell phone or Kindle

The flight was long, and the seats were VERY uncomfortable.  We did have the new seats, though, and they had the phone rack and cup holder.  Turbulence over the Rockies, and several other places, made for a long night... you'd just be drifting off and they would ring the bell to make the announcement that they were turning the seat belt sign back on.

Boston -- Logan Airport

lots of grass, no bunnies for entertainment

We arrived early, only to come to a halt out on the runway taxiway.  The pilot announced that we had to wait for a plane to clear our gate.  Then he announced that that plane was having mechanical difficulties, and we were going to shut down the engines at wait.  And we waited, and waited, and waited.  An hour and 30 minutes later they fired up the engines, and moved towards the terminal, only to get into a holding pattern while 8 aircraft had to clear before we could get to our gate.  

If we had been on time, we would have ben able to get our rental car promptly, but all the delays put us getting to the rental car area with at least three bus loads of people.  There had to be at least 50 people in line, and only 2 agents on the counter.  By 11 am they finally had 5 agents and we cleared the counter by 11:30, only to get to our assigned car space to discover the wrong car was in there.  (The guy in the garage says that summer travel is way up and their system is not prepared.  DUH!!!) 

The guys in the garage sorted it out, but as we drove out I began to wonder whether the transponder for the toll roads that I had paid for was on this car.  We went down the toll road anyway.  And finally got to our destination - after discovering that a moulding on the car was flapping in the breeze.

Matanuska Glacier - I'd never seen it from the air!

Sunset, somwhere over Canada

Winter Happenings

Moving to the city gave us more flexibility for getting around, but it meant that we had to give up opportunities to see wildlife and the northern lights.  Or that's what we thought.  

We looked out one day recently, and found we had new neighborhood tree-trimmers.

They stayed around for about 3 hours, moving among the villa backyards and bedding down to rest.

The past couple of months there have been spectacular aurora alerts going out -- and we seemed to be missing most of them due to clouds and city lights.  We did see some red aurora back in November, but we had to go to the edge of town to get away from the lights.

This week we lucked out.  This was one of the strongest fingers of energy I've seen -- overcoming even our neighborhood lights.

moon set and a heart-shaped aurora

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

With apologies to whomever first created the song "12 Days of Christmas" we celebrate our big Australian and New Zealand adventure with our version:

Departing

 

This is the Collins Street, Docklands tram stop.  This is right out in front of our building, so you can see how easy it was to get around.  We could hop on the free tram and be in the city in 10-15 minutes.

Look at how much stuff we had to deal with at every stop -- we were getting pretty good at it, so it must mean it is time to go home.

In front of our building

The Uber drivers were impressed at how quickly we couild break down the scooter, and manage to get it into the car.

This is our closing post -- half way though what will be at least a 36-hour day of wakefulness.  (We gain back the day we lost.  We leave around 10 pm 3/27 and we arrive in HNL at 10 am 3/27.)  Travel time is ten hours from SYD-HNL and six hours HNL-PDX, but there is way too much waiting in airports!!!

From the Buisness Class lounge at SYD we bid you all farewell.

Yarra Valley Finale

Before we left the Yarra Valley, we had a quick stop at Yerring Farms for a cider tasting.

Unlike the high end wineries, this was more like somebody's farm.  We drove past their apple orchard, where they have sheep munching away underneath the trees to keep the grass down.

Heading back towards Melbourne, we were driving through an area of horse farms and grazing pastures,  I spotted a mob of kangaroos.  Randy was able to double back so we could get some great pictures.

we're out-of-here

 

Yarra Valley Wine Tasting

One of the reasons for coming to Melbourne for me was to go to Domaine Chandon.  Having been a part of the original Chandon Club when Moet-Hennessy opened up the first French winery in Napa in the 1970s I knew about the Australian winery and really wanted to visit.  (It did not exist when I visited Melbourne in August 1981,)

Domaine Chandon Australia is now one of six satellites making sparkling wines around the world for Moet.  (The others are in Argentina, Napa Valley, Brazil, India and China.)

they bought an old farm and the rest is history

tasting six sparkling wines

the tasting bar

tables even look like champagne corks!

our tour guide Randy took our picture

Then it was off to Soumah Winery, for lunch.  (Oh yeah, we tasted 6 wines before lunch -- and got to choose anything on the tasting menu to accompany lunch.

this was just the appetizer --
chicken with sundried tomatoes over cous cous for lunch

the view from the restaurant

We were ahead of schedule, so we made a quick stop at Rochford, not for a wine tasting but for some shopping.  As we walked to the tasting room/boutique, we could see workers topping off barrels.

barrels

hard at work

The winery was getting ready for a big concert in conjunction with this weekend's Harvest Festival.  

Off to our third winery of the day, Helen and Joey Estate.  We started our tasting with a can of chardonnay.   Six wines later, the girls were climbing up on the unicorn.

canned wine

Pinot Noir grapes

their logo unicorn 
at the edge of the tasting area

the winery currently sits at the top of the hill
(they are building a brand new winery at the bottom of the hill)

Off again to our final winery, Helen Hill, where we were supposed to taste six wines.  We were tasting a sparkling blanc de noir, when the cellar door manager said we were close enough to 4 o'clock, that he wanted to add one more wine.  (His tradition is to celebrate RGT [Roman Grace Time], so he broke out a special sparkling wine for us.)  We also got to taste a special reserve shiraz here, so there was a total of 8 wines.  

He noticed that Scott and I were pouring out wines after one or two sips... all our practice in Napa paid off.  We never would have survived the day's 26 tastings and one glass of wine with lunch otherwise.  

their outdoor tasting area

their logo hawk

crushing operations going on
behind the scenes