The Polar Caves and Lost River

Hubby and I live in Southern New Hampshire, right at the base of the Beautiful White Mountains. We don't take advantage of this fact enough. So since we both had the three-day weekend off, we decided we should head up north and visit a couple of the attractions. The first one we visited was the Polar Caves. Neither one of us had ever been there. We kind of thought we'd be walking through some caves and looking at stalagmites and stuff. But we were wrong. It was an intricate system of caves that we had to climb and crawl through. This one was called the Needle's Eye.

The scenery was unbelievably beautiful.

We found out there is a "Lemon Squeeze" at both places. As you can tell by the sign, it's a tight fit. I took this picture for my Dad cause he loves the story of my sister when we were young. We'd gone to Lost River and she went through the Lemon Squeeze and came out with her tube top around her waist! I did NOT attempt to go through the Lemon Squeeze.

You really did have to 'bear crawl' to go through the Bear Crawl.

Almost every cave had the sign to "keep your head low".

We didn't take the camera into Lost River because the batteries were dying anyway, but it was pretty much the same thing. The idea of "lost river" is that it's partly underground so you have to go down into caves to see it sometimes. You walk along a boardwalk and there's places to go down and see the river. I only skipped one or two, including the Lemon Squeeze!

It was an absolutely wonderful time. The weather was gorgeous and perfect for hiking around caves and "spelunking".

Today is our designated day of rest and relaxation. Thank God, cause my body sure does need it!

What will I watch?

All my shows are done for the season now. * Amazing Race - The straight brother and gay brother won. I liked the detectives. * American Idol - I really, really liked Lee. After the last night of singing, I was convinced that Crystal would win it though. But she didn't. Lee won. Sorry I doubted you, Lee. * Cake Boss - Love that show. Love Buddy, the cake boss and his big Italian family. Love when his mother yells at him. * Celebrity Apprentice - I loved Brett Michaels from the very beginning and wanted him to win even before he got sick. I really think they did a bit of slight-of-hand at the end there. They had to give the title of Celebrity Apprentice to Brett or risk pissing off millions of viewers. But they couldn't let Holly go home empty-handed cause - let's face it - she deserved to win. So they either got Snapple to donate another $250,000 so they could each have a prize, or they gave the money themselves and said it was from Snapple. * Marriage Ref - a new show that was on for 6-8 weeks. Absolutely hilarious. If it comes back as a regular show instead of a fill-in, be sure to watch it. * Survivor - I didn't care who won as long as it wasn't Russell. He didn't get a single vote in the finale. Doesn't that tell him something? Now there's nothing to watch on TV. I am looking forward to America's Got Talent. And last year I got hooked on Hell's Kitchen, which is coming back on. Other than that, it looks like it'll be a lot of Netflix.

Must I beg?

All I want is a salad. A salad from the salad bar. Sure....it'd be great if I went out and spent $30 on ingredients to make the kind of salad I want. But then I'd make the one magnificent salad and the rest of the veggies would rot in my fridge. So I like to go to the salad bar. There's a Shaw's right across the street, and every once in a while when Hubby is out for the night and I'm not making dinner, I indulge in a salad bar for dinner. Now you might think eating salad is a good thing. Not the way I make a salad from a salad bar. Sure...I start out with a modicum of greens, some tomatoes and mushrooms and cucumbers. Even some carrots. But then comes the good stuff. The chopped dried fruit, the nuts, the cheeses (plural - after all, there is grated cheese and feta), the salami, the pieces of chicken, olives, etc. Those ingredients are the ones that make going to the salad bar worthwhile. Last year, I had to email Shaw's to let them know their salad bar was going downhill. There was no dried fruit, no nuts. And they responded to my email and the salad bar improved. I haven't been to the salad bar in a while. I don't know why. But tonight it's hot and I just don't want to cook. So I drove over to Shaw's after work. And I was soooooooo disappointed. Almost half the salad bar had prepared salads in it. Little plastic boxes with pre-made salads. Apparently for people who can't make a decision. Or maybe we, as a society, have just gotten so lazy we can't even put a salad together when everything is cut up and laid out for us. Whatever the reason, the salad bar was sad. Of course, they chose to remove all the good stuff to make room for the pre-made salads. There was only the basic greens, tomatoes and cucumbers. I was so disgusted I left without making a salad. Which left me with no supper. The chip crumbs from the bottom of the bag and the goldfish crackers probably don't count. Maybe Hubby will make me some popcorn when he gets home.

Finally....here she is.

Here she is folks. Finally. I know she's not wonderful or outstanding or different. She's just a sweet little four-door sedan. But she's ours - no payments - and we hope she's around for a very long time. I'm pretty sure she's going to be named Sally. Sally Saturn. Hubby wanted an "uglier" name. He thinks cars should be named something like "Bertha". (No offense to anyone out there named Bertha who might be reading my blog.) But.......when someone mentioned "Sally" some friends sang, "All you gotta do is ride around Sally..........RIDE, SALLY, RIDE!" And I think it stuck. So say hello to Sally........our new friend.

Another Nasty road trip

Jamie had a football game in Connecticut yesterday. Hubby and I like to go to the away games....it's fun to take a road trip. This road trip was.........not so much fun. We left at 2:45 to make the two hour trip to Hartford. The game was at 5:30. I'm one of those people that has a fetish for being on time for things. (on time meaning I have to be there early). We weren't two minutes down the road when Jamie called. One of the girls on the team had discovered she forgot her football pads. (are you freaking serious??? How old are you? How do you forget part of your uniform??) Would we be able to meet the girl's friend at the local mall? The friend would bring the pads to us and we could bring them down to Connecticut. I checked the time. 3:05. "We might be late for the game" I said to Jamie. "It only takes two hours to get here, and the friend will be there with the pads in 15-20 minutes." I wasn't all that excited about doing it........but.........I'm a sucker for my kids asking for help, so I said okay. Hubby and I turned the car around and went to the mall to wait. At 3:35, just as I was about to call the friend, she called me. "I'm about 45 minutes away from Salem. Can you come up and meet me at the Manchester Mall instead?" WHAT???!!!! 45 minutes????? I should have said no right then and there. Should have said there's no way I'm driving 20 minutes north to turn around and come south. But I pictured my daughter's face, and pictured disappointment when we showed up without the girl's pads, and foolishly said yes. We drove to Manchester. The woman showed up 10 minutes later. It's now after 4pm. The game is 2 1/2 hours south and starts in 1 1/2 hours. I had a hissy-fit and a pout-fest as my Hubby flew down the highway toward Hartford. Luckily, we were only scared to death by the sighting of one State Trooper. He was too busy chatting with another state trooper to notice we were 20 miles per hour over the speed limit. We pulled up to the stadium at 6:00 - only 1/2 hour late. We'd made the trip in two hours flat. As I ran into the stadium lugging the shoulder pads, I was happy to see it was only the end of the first quarter. And that the score was 20 - 0. Until I realized that the 20 was for the home team......and we were definitely the away team. Sadly, the game only went downhill from there. It kind of felt like New Jersey all over again. Terrible road trip and even more terrible game. Jamie told me afterwards that she'd only asked me to get the girl's should pads because she felt bad, but that the girl would have deserved it if she had to sit out the game. After all, she said, who forgets their shoulder pads?? She's more like me than she likes to think. The only saving grace for the trip was that we stopped at Rein's Deli on the way home. Hubby loves this place - in fact he ate more food than I've ever seen anyone eat in one sitting. He already has plans for what he wants to eat the next time he goes there. Thankfully, we have one more game to go see, and it's a home game. No more road trip games for us ...............this year.

The end is in sight!

The end of our car-quest is in sight. Hubby did a great job of talking with the salesman and got the price of the car down to $2700! Nice job, Hubby! Now we wait until Thursday night when everyone is available and sign all our paperwork and the Lovely Saturn SL1 will be ours! Hopefully, on my half-day Friday I can go get it registered and we will be on our way. Pictures will follow.

How do you haggle?

So the car we found is priced at $2995. The first thing the salesman said is, "Just want you to know, that price is firm. We bought it for $2100 and we put brand new rotors and brakes on. We can't go down on that price at all." Some see that as a roadblock. Others see it as a challenge. I'd personally like to see it as a challenge, but I'm not sure if I have the "cajones" to really haggle. Our mechanic said the car was sound, although it should have new tires. And he recommended we check the Kelly Blue Book value because he thought $2900 was a bit high. Hubby and I weren't sure what model this car was, so we did some "Hardy Boys-type sleuthing" and went up to the car dealership after they closed and used a flashlight to find the VIN number so we could check it out online. Turns out the Kelly Blue Book value is $2850 for the car in "excellent" condition. I say if it needs new tires, it's not in "excellent" condition. I say they've priced it $150 above the KBB value. I say we should offer them $2600. Of course, I say all that to myself. Now will I have the guts to say that to the salesman?