Back At Work!

After a quick but very pleasant trip to the Maine Coast for the weekend, I am back at the old grind again; in fact, Diane Rossi dropped me off at about 2:30 yesterday afternoon and by 3 o'clock I was working with Patty Conly on the West Danville history book. We finished going through the very last chapter today, so we have selected everything and everyone that we think needs to be in the index and then we wait for the index to be created. It is a massive job, but actually went very smoothly. We decided to be as efficient as possible it was best to stay in place, put our phones on speaker mode and just "do it." We zoomed through two chapters yesterday and two more much longer ones today. And that is it!

We are still hoping that within a week or so the book will be off to the printer, but all of this takes time, and everyone is cooperating way beyond our expectations. It is remarkable how both Linda, our editor and Peggy, our graph designer, are dedicating themselves and their time to finishing this with us. We are very grateful for their help and generosity.

While I was away, the article that Amy Nixon did on our book came out in the Caledonian Record. If you didn't happen to see it, here is a LINK. There are a couple of inconsistencies in it, but nothing terribly important, and we are grateful to Amy for doing it - and for getting it done in record time! We didn't expect it to be published quite this soon, but it has created some buzz and people are interested in getting copies! That is very good news for us, and we can now assure everyone that it WILL be published before the holidays; however, whether it will be in time for us to be able to mail it out to those who may want copies for Christmas gifts is a question. The way the mail is, and with the expense of postage, it may make sense to send a gift card instead and hand off the book later. We are considering having gift certificates available as one more option.  

As for our trip to Maine - it was a really nice getaway for both Diane and me. We had a very
comfortable room overlooking the harbor at Rockport, (photo at right) and the weather was very nice all the time we were there until Monday morning when we left in a cold drizzling rain. It was perfect timing - leaving the coast is much easier on a dreary day than when the sun is shining and you'd rather be out on the water or watching the surf break on rocky bluffs. We had the advantage of meeting up with Nancy, a friend of a friend of Diane's who lives only a few blocks from our hotel. She took us up to Mt. Battie, one of seven mountains along that portion of the coast. It was an interesting spot, and she also pointed out some of the more interesting places to visit and places to eat that were still open and good. Needless to say, we had seafood nearly every meal, and we didn't have a single disappointing experience. We took the ferry to Vinalhaven Island, (pictured on the left) but decided not to try to explore on this trip (we were on foot) as many places were closed and it would have been something of a hike to really see much. If we had taken the car, it would have been easy, but we got lunch on the island and ate it on board the ferry on the return trip. It worked out very well, but the trip back was very windy and chilly. We were glad to get back to our warm hotel. We had hot seafood chowder at a little place just up the street from our hotel, and that was perfect. Our friend, Nancy was also on this trip with her sister and brother-in-law, so she took this picture of Diane and me on board the ferry, the E. Frank Thompson. By the way, we weren't really wearing matching jeans - the pattern is from the sun shining through the grating on the boat's railings. We got several comments about our colorful jackets, especially when we were standing or sitting together. People seemed to like that color combination! I have to say - we met some lovely, friendly people, and most wore masks when inside.  There weren't large crowds, and we felt pretty safe the whole time. We were mostly outside in the fresh air, and chose any indoor activities very carefully. We are both signed up for our booster shots within a few days. 

Now, off for a glass of wine and some supper!