We're in Maine and the blue project is started

We left Virginia Thursday for the 2-day drive to Maine. We stopped over in Fishkill, NY the first night. We both drove because we need 2 cars here for the month. Last year I did that drive really sick and, honestly, I don't know how I did it. I must have just have wanted to prove that I could make it because, perfectly healthy, it's fatiguing. I had a good book (Homecoming by Kate Morton) so that helped a lot.

I have a few observations about the current state of Interstate driving.
- I81 is the primary trucker route in the East. It's all trucks! At one point, in Maryland or Pennsylvania, the truck right next to me blew a tire. That's never happened to me before and it was LOUD! I'm grateful that no one was behind the truck. I saw a lot of debris flying but it didn't look like anyone was hurt. But the truckers aren't the problem. They are the good drivers on the road.
- If you drive with the attitude that the roads belong to the truckers and they allow you to drive with them, your drive will be much more pleasant. Respect anything that can squash you like a bug.
- It seemed that the people who ran up on me at high speed to pass were all getting off at the next exit. It was really weird and happened a lot and was quite dangerous at times. Once a car passed me only to pass a WalMart truck and immediate cut in front of it to get off at an exit. Crazy.
- The solo motorcyclists are crazy and have a death wish. The only motorcyclists that didn't drive dangerously was one Harley group out for a ride on a beautiful day. All the others wanted to die.
- Massachusetts roads are in the worst shape of all the states we drove through.
- Maine tolls are crazy but you get what you pay for. I95 is pristine.
- Always stock up on booze in New Hampshire. Their prices are 30 - 50% less than every other state.
- My car needs a wheel realignment and I'm going to work on that this week

For my posts from Maine I'm going to alway start with my project updates and I'll have a photo or 2 or 3 at the end from the vacation. I know you come here for hobby content and not my vacation log but I like to keep the vacation notes because I often look back over them to remember what we did and when we did it.

I wanted to immediately get started cutting out the blue quilt blocks so that I could get the cutting out of the way before Laura gets here today. Last night I finished cutting all that I could and set up the sewing machine. I'm a little short on light fabrics. I need lights to finish off the block sets at the top of the screen. Those are the stacks on the table. The stacks on the cutting mat are all block sets are are read to sew. Many of my "lights" are mediums but I think it will all work. I'll see how far I get with the sewing. If I'm getting through all the blocks I'll go buy some light blue batiks to finish the cutting. 

I had a very pretty pile of tiny scraps and I did throw them out. I'll admit that I considered postcard possibilities.
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All of the rest of the leftover fabrics (only a few) and the larger scraps are sorted and packed away. I'm maybe feeling some scrappy placemats in here.

I've been doing a little crochet too and I'll share that update tomorrow or Wednesday. Our friends come in today and we'll go pick them up in Bangor so I may not post tomorrow.
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Here's the view from our cabin over Lower Wilson Pond outside Greenville, Maine. This is our third year here and we love it. This year is the first year we've actually had internet at the cabin. Previously I had to go to the library to get access to post. The internet is a treat!

We haven't done any hiking or kayaking yet. Saturday was rainy and windy. Yesterday was beautiful but quite windy. We tried to go on a  hike but someone (me) had the great idea to take a logging road to get to the trail and that was a big failure. By the time we got turned around and back to the cabin we decided to just do the 4 mile neighborhood walk and then sit in the sun and read in the afternoon.
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The weather should be good for kayaking and floating today. This is our launch point.  Sometimes it's an adventure to get in and out of the water, but it's worth it.
We head to Bangor airport (2 hours away) this afternoon to pick up our friends.
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When we are in Acadia we can get lobster every day if we want (and can afford it) but here we can only get it once a week. This year I got smart and ordered last week so I could have my first lobster dinner Saturday night.
It was delicious, as expected!
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