Skate America

   

Madison Chock and Evan Bates

   As you can see from my last post Laurie and I went to Lake Placid to watch a skating competition. The event known as Skate America is part of the Grand Prix series. There are six events throughout the world (USA, Canada, Finland, France, Japan, China). The best athletes get two assignments while skaters with zero chance to win get one assignment. The top six point getters go to the Grand Prix final. These events give athletes a chance to get some international experience. It also gives them somethings to work on if they get scored low for a particular skill or jump.

   I often get asked why I go to figure skating with Laurie. Well, she does watch football with me. Also, it is her favorite sport and she knows all of the competitor's from around the world. I watch enough skating with her to have my favorites, also so I enjoy any good sporting event.

 

Pairs medalists
L-R, Georgia, Japan, Canada

   But for the point of this post, lets look at the Skate America competition through Laurie's eyes...She is a super fan. Remember those kids in school that knew that stat of every player's baseball or football card? Laurie knows who can do what jumps, who is best at different spins, and what each skater's routine looks like. She will rewatch routines almost every night from events as far back as the 1976 Olympics to live events we watched/ recorded over the past weekend.

    For all of it's faults, social media does have its advantages. Laurie can follow her favorite athletes on Instagram and Twitter.  When they post training videos, podcasts, or even video of their dog, you get a better sense of who they are and you root for those people that much more to do well. 

   Because of the easier travel, the Skate America competition had some very good athletes from the USA and Canada including women's champion Alyssa Lui. However, the pairs world champion's from Japan were there as was the team that will probably finish second in the Olympics. 

 

French dance team Loicia and Theo 
remembering their trip to Lake Placid

     Okay, now that I have set the stage on why you can see why Laurie would be so excited to go....Thursday was a practice day open to the public. As part of our ticket package we could go. Practice started at 10 am but we missed some of it due to a three hundred mile drive starting at 6 am. When we got to the Herb Brooks Arena there was barely a hundred people watching practice. I knew this would be the most laid back day with the least rules. So I brought in my 300 mm camera lens and took photos of the athletes. Most of my photos suck but I got some half decent ones. Most of the athletes were not in full comp uniforms and went through run throughs during their allotted time. 

  A French skater named Kevin Amos is very inconsistent but when we is "on" he is great. When he is bad he completely bombs. He had a great practice and after landing a series of jumps as he skated by me I yelled over the boards "that was great Kevin". He turned around and smiled.

Kevin Amos

 Friday was the Pairs and Men's short program. It didn't start until 7 pm so we hung around Lake Placid during the day. Of all the athletes in the whole event I most wanted to see, the ones I looked forward to the most were the Japanese pairs. They are far and away the best team. They are about the only world class skaters we have never seen live.  When we got there we had what you'd consider "end zone seats". Our seats were at a far corner twelve rows up. I was squished and could not enjoy myself. Luckily the arena was about 1/4 full so we moved around and found better seats. The Japanese team had the lead after the short. During the Men's a Japanese man that is not one of their best had the skate of his life and had the lead ahead of the favorite Mikhail Shedorov from Kazakhstan

   Saturday was the busiest day of the comp. The finals for the Men's and Pairs was one session and another session was the Rhythm Dance and the Women's short. Knowing we were not going to sit in our assigned seats, we went way up to the bleachers and sat in "the nosebleeds". We watched the first group of pairs from there. I was scouting for open seats the whole time.  The arena was still only half full with most of the people sitting across from the judges in the middle (fifty yard line in football stadium terms)

 

We ended up watching from these
seats the last two days. That is the
NBC broadcast booth

We ended up getting seats near the NBC broadcast crew. We were about twenty feet away from former Olympians Tara Lipinski (gold medalist), Johnny Weir, and longtime sports commentator Terry Gannon. Behind us was the international feed announced by Ted Barton

  Both events in the first session were terrible. The Japanese team won gold but made the same mistake they made Friday. The second and third place teams (from Georgia and Germany) imploded and only medaled because of the leads they built up on Friday. None the less, we were happy with our new seats and hoped to get them during the second session. 

    We had to leave the arena between sessions so they could check tickets again. The Rhythm Dance went well and as expected USA's Chico and Bates were in first. In the ladies, a Japanese girl named Rinka Watanabe was ahead of Alyssa Lui because she landed a clean triple axle. 

   We ha to pack up Sunday before we left the motel and killed some time before the 2 pm start. We got the same seats as Saturday and the arena had less people. I suspect because Lake Placid is so hard to get to that many had to use Sunday as a travel day. So we moved around at leisure again. Alyssa ended up winning the Ladies because Rinka slipped on a combo. Chock and Bates easily won the dance comp. 

   Now as I said, put yourself in Laurie's shoes. As a superfan here is what it was like for her. On day one we watched practice from the front row. We were feet from her favorite athletes. As I said, Kevin turned around when I said "good job". 

   

Terry, Tara, Johnny

 Friday through Sunday, the arena was only 1/4 at most if you took away the two sections across from the judges. Everywhere you walked you'd walk by either an athlete competing, a coach (who usually were ex-skaters). We walked by announcers and podcasters. On the practice day, I got a photo with the Japanese pairs team though I was blinking when the photo was snapped (damn it!). Overall, we counted twenty athletes/broadcasters/coaches we either talked to, said hi to, got a photo of or with (not including while they were on the ice but when we asked if we could take their photo). 

 

Ted Barton and Jackie Wong

 When the French dance teams were done, they sat in our row to cheer on the French ladies, We were right next to them. We ended up taking a photo of them as we were leaving but somehow my phone did not save the picture (damn it!)

   I actually had a conversation with NBC broadcaster Johnny Weir in the bathroom while we were both washing our hands. He was a nice guy. Despite being extremely flamboyant he was surprisingly down to earth. Laurie took photos of her favorite podcaster and the broadcaster for the world feed. 

   Now imagine if this were a a football game an your most rabid football fan friend were there. Imagine going to the game and sitting anywhere you wanted. Players are warming up in the concourse. Players and coaches are sitting in the stands right next to you watching the game. Players are more than happy to taka photo with you. Imagine walking into the bathroom an having a conversation with Al Michaels or Tony Romo like I did with Johnny. Do you believe in miracles? because none of that would never happen at a football game but Laurie got to live it at Skate America. 

Japanese pairs team and blinky
(damn it!)

Lake Placid, NY

 

   Laurie and I went to Lake Placid over the weekend for an international skating competition known as Skate America. Competitors from all over the world compete in the four disciplines. Thursday was a practice day. Friday through Sunday there was competition.

  We had some down time each day. We drove up on Thursday morning and watched practice most of the day. However, competition didn't start on Friday until 7 pm so we had the day to explore Lake Placid. 

Obviously Lake Placid's claim to fame is hosting the 1980 Winter Olympics. This is the site where Al Michaels exclaimed "Do you believe in miracles?" after the USA hockey team shocked the Russian hockey team.

  What surprised me most was that at the heart of it, Lake Placid is really a ski and outdoors town. It is in the heart of the Adirondacks with many mountains over 4000 feet surrounding it. There are hundreds of miles of hiking trails within an hour drive. Not only that, Whiteface Mountain is a ski area that can be seen within sight of town. I read that Whiteface has the longest vertical drop in the east. It is where the skiing events were held during the Olympics.

   Between paying tribute to its Olympic past and relying on outdoor adventure to keep the economy going, it felt very much like Lincoln, NH to me but with a very large Olympic skating venue.

Memories from the USA vs Russia
hockey game

 

   In the photo above- The front stick is from a Russian hockey player

The goalie stick, blue bag, goalie pads were all worn by Jim Craig

The white elbow pads on the wall are Mike Eruzione's

The red "fence" in the front of the photo is a goalie net from the game

  The one thing we planned on doing was go to the Olympic Museum. We spent over two hours there. There is a lot of memorabilia but also a lot of reading. Many of the artifacts are from athletes that competed. By far, the coolest artifacts were from the hockey team. Jim Craig's pads and stick were there. Mike Eruzione's elbow pads were on display as was the net from the game. Jim Craig stopped and amazing 36/39 shots on goal. 

  The other thing I found extremely interesting was Eric Heiden winning all five medals in speed skating. Most athletes are either sprinters or do distance. For Heiden to win everything from five hundred to ten thousand meters is mind blowing.

   Besides the Olympic Museum we walked around town. The weather sucked and the only day that didn't snow on us was Saturday. Luckily the snow did not stick on the sidewalks or roads on Thursday or Friday so walking was still fairly pleasant. 

We tried to look at views of the surrounding area but the low clouds, fog, and snow made looking at mountains virtually impossible. Right next to the down town area where the Herb Brooks Arena and the restaurants and shops are is a lake. You would think it would be Lake Placid but it was a pond known as Mirror Lake. Lake Placid is just up the road a quarter mile or so out of town. We stopped at Lake Placid on Saturay and had a short break in the clouds. The water was crystal clear and I would be drooling over Smallmouth Bass if it was a month earlier and twenty degrees warmer.

Lake Placid

   Back in town we had to get lunch two days. The prices are what you would expect from a ski town. We got a pizza one day that was good. The other day we got a sandwich at a sub shop called Big Mountain Deli and Creperie. ( There are 46 mountains over 4000 feet in the Adirondacks. There are 46 sandwiches to choose from. Each sandwich is named after a mountain)

There is a walkway around Mirror Lake, though some of it is on street walking. The views would be beautiful if it were clearer outside. During warmer weather you can rent canoes and kayaks. There is a toboggan ramp that is right next to the lake. It looks like when the lake is frozen over you zoom off of the ramp onto the ice. 

Mirror Lake looking toward the town of Lake Placid

Outside of town is a ski jump, the one used at the Olympics. You can see it from the Olympic Center . There is a gondola up that people can get tickets for. However, it closed for the season before we arrived. 

Obviously, we went up for the skating but had a nice time in town. The Olympic Museum was great. The sandwich was a little small for my appetite but amazingly delicious.  Those mountains got me interested in hiking them and I may go back.

    There was a legit snowstorm during the skating on Sunday. When we got out of the rink there was an inch of snow being blown by 40 mph winds. We had to deal with thirty mile/hour driving on roads with a speed limit of fifty five for an hour. Luckily, when we got to lower elevations in the Lake Champlain valley it stopped snowing for the rest of the five hour ride home.

Toboggan slide

My first lifer of 2025, Cave Swallow

 

 All week Cave Swallows and a  Pacific Loon were seen in  Rhode Island. Both birds would be lifers for me. I had to wait until Friday until I had a day off. Both species were seen on Thursday so I knew when I went to bed that night I'd have a shot at two species. I was going down to South County anyway to fish but knew I had to bird first.

   Cave Swallows are a bird of the southwest. During specific wind patterns in the fall they get blown all the way from Texas into Ontario on south to southwest winds. When the wind changes to a northwest, they get pushed from Ontario to the east coast. It is a very dependable pattern and you can count on seeing the Cave Swallows if you follow the weather  pattern.  I've never had days off from work to be in the right place at the right time. I've tried on a whim many times to see them but never got lucky. 

   As for Pacific Loon they are very rare and show up randomly. It has become my nemesis bird. I've missed it multiple times. Starting six years ago, even if one was seen, it was always gone by the time I got there. On the other hand, if one was seen on a day I was working, it would be around all day and all of my friends would see it. Though rare, Pacific Loon is the easiest bird  I have not seen in Rhode Island. 

   I started Friday out looking for Cave Swallows at Scarborough Beach. I searched for ninety minutes without any luck. So I went to Blue Shutters and looked for the reported  Pacific Loon. Dipped again. So at noon I went to Charlestown and fish for stripers. I tried in moving water, the mouth, and the beach. Stripers-1 Nick-0. 

   So I went back to Narragansett and tried the beach again. After half an hour just sitting in my car I noticed a swallow fly by. I got my binoculars on it and saw enough color to know it was a Cave. Another guy was sitting in his car with binoculars and I screamed that if he was looking for it it was in front of us. He informed me he had already seen it. 

  This guy happened to be my friend Dave C's brother who I had met once or twice. He got out of the car and looked with me. I had my camera and it was a lifer for him also. I'm sure he wanted me to get a photo for proof that he too had seen it.

   I won't bore you with play by play of the next hour. But I got much better looks at it. Dave's brother left and two other birders came by. One of the swallows kept making passes by us from the jetty to the pavilion. I took dozens of blurry photos and a couple that could be considered bad but passable proof shots. Enough to confirm on ebird. The Cave Swallow is my 349th Rhode Island bird. One more for 350!

Postscript- I caught three stripers before dark. 3 pm-5pm was the best two hours I've had in nature in a long time.

Dinosaur State Park, CT

   

A diorama of Dilophosaurus

   I was supposed to go hiking up in New Hampshire with my buddy Adam on Thursday, but once again Mother Nature was not kind. We knew that in the White Mountains that cold or even snow this time of year could cancel our trip. However, three days of a (warmish) rain was not on our bingo card. So we needed to come up with a plan B. The best I could come up with was visit our old boss at his new job at Cabela's. Adam had a much better idea. He suggested we go to Connecticut and look at the dinosaur tracks.

   In 1966 while bulldozing to build a foundation for a Dept of Transportation building a worker noticed strange markings on some of the stones. Scientists were called and they discovered fossilized dinosaur tracks. The governor of Connecticut immediately named the area a state park.

   The park centers around a dome to protect the dinosaur footprints. They had been buried beneath six feet of topsoil for 200 million years. Exposing them to New England weather could and would crack rocks with frost heaves, wind, and rain. So the state built a dome to keep everything dry. 

   Inside the dome there are seven hundred and fifty footprints. They are of different sizes and some are better preserved than others. They are all from the same dinosaur. No bones were found but by the footprints it was a three toed carnivore with a sharp middle claw. It stood six feet at the hip and weighed about a thousand pounds. It was roughly twenty feet long. There are bones in the United States of a dinosaur from that time period that fits that description named Dilophosaurus. If the prints are not from that dinosaur, it would be a close cousin.

   

Fossilized dinosaur footprints

   The cost to enter is six dollars and they are closed on Mondays. The dome has a few reptiles and amphibians. There are some turtles, a gecko, and some snakes. There is an auditorium where a movie is played explaining how the park is formed and what they know about the dinosaurs. It was very interesting. There are other programs also. We sat in on an animal encounter. The two animals were a  Leopard Gecko and a Ball Python. The girl that talked about the animals was very knowledgeable. It was a little awkward since we were the only two people in the room with her. 

   Next we went to the main event, the dinosaur tracks. You walk on a bridge above the tracks looking down on them. As I said some are more pronounced than others. It is speculated they were made over the span of a couple weeks and not all from the same day. If you or I walked in soft mud today, and our friend walked in the mud a week from now, our tracks would have started to fill in or wash away, while our friend's track would be fresh. It is the  same with these tracks. It seems as though this was just a place for this dinosaur to pass through. They were not a herd because the tracks do not all go in the same direction. It is much more likely random individuals walked across the mud at separate times. On the bridge there was a short talk with a state park ranger and he answered a lot of questions by Adam and myself. 

   

A well formed example

   Outside there are hiking trails and we did hike since it wasn't raining when we finished the indoor stuff. We walked below some basalt mounds through the woods. We found a Red Backed Salamander and a dead mouse. There was a bat box and to my surprise there were a few bats in it that hadn't migrated south. 

  In all we spent roughly three hours at the park before heading home and getting a pizza along the way. Dinosaur State Park is south of Hartford. From Providence it is an hour forty minute drive. There wasn't any traffic but we hit the Hartford area after the morning rush. Without a doubt seeing the dinosaur footprints was worth doing!

More photos below

The main building built to protect the fossils

There were other fossils in the museum not from the site

This Kingsnake, and most of the animals were 
surrendered pets

Red Backed Salamander

Bat box

with bats inside. Most likely Big Brown Bats

Mother Nature kicked my ass again last night

   

Very common Black Bellied Plovers
were where the Godwit should have been

   Eric Church has a song called "Jack Daniels kicked my ass again last night". I can't help change the lyrics to the title of this blog. I am on a terrible slump when it comes to accomplishing anything I've tried outdoors over the last month.

   It all started about thirty days ago when I fished for albies. I didn't get any from either of my two shore trips. I went out on my friend Dick's boat and we blanked. I hooked one on my first trip while blind casting. Other than that, from shore, I never made a cast near an albie.

  About ten days ago a Sora had been seen at the Cumberland Monastery for a few days. When I had a chance to go see it I went. While someone saw it the day I went at the crack of dawn, I along with four other birders did not see it from 8-11:30 am. Sora along with the Connecticut Warbler (below) are two of the six species I have seen in New England that I do not have a photo of. Every other of my 348 species except for those six I have at least an awful documentation photo. 

   Since it has been so nice out, I've been taking trips to the Cape Cod Canal. Most of my fishing has been half-hearted at best. Some nights Laurie and I would walk the Canal after dark looking for mammals in the woods and fish in the water. Other days I've brought my bike down and rode it. The few times I've seen fish, they have been in the middle out of range of everyone except Ron Arra. Even if my attempts were half hearted I am amazed I have not run into fish nor saw any caught with as many times as I've been there.

Last Wednesday, I was supposed to go to Block Island with my two friends Claudia and Joe. The weather forecast Monday looked good so Claudia reserved a spot on the ferry for her car. Tuesday they predicted a small craft advisory. We checked all night Tuesday and when we got up Wednesday morning to see if the ferry was cancelled. It wasn't so we all made the hour drive from different places (Norton, MA, Seekonk, MA and Coventry, RI). We met at 7:20 am for the 8:30 ferry so Claudia could get her car on the ferry. At 7:25 it was announced that ferry's were cancelled for the day. 

 

I did see a Coyote while stalking the
CT Warbler

   We made the best of it and birded all morning. I had fun with them. After we got lunch, I went back north to Lincoln where there had been a Connecticut Warbler. It had been seen that morning. Connecticut's are one of the hardest species in America to see. They are really rare and they HATE being seen. They hide in deep underbrush. When they move, they prefer to walk than to fly so they stay well hidden. I spent almost three hours looking for the bird right where it had been seen but it never came out. Luckily my buddy Tim came to look for it so we spent about half that time together.

  I had Friday Oct 3 off from work and wasn't sure what I'd do. I figured I'd probably go striper fishing. When I woke up, there were reports of a  Bar Tailed Godwit in Plymouth. This is a European bird. It almost certainly got pulled from home by the northeast winds caused by the two offshore hurricanes. A Bar Tailed Godwit would be a lifer so I went for it. I drove to Plymouth and rode my bike up the long narrow beach as far as I could and hoofed it the rest of the way. Long story short, I was the first person to miss it. It hangs around at high tide but once the tide dropped it went out to an offshore sandbar until the next high tide (which would have been at dark). People saw the Godwit on Saturday but I worked.

    I had Sunday off also. I never get weekend days off anymore so I was excited to spend the day with Laurie. I wanted the day to be epic. The weather was perfect. I wanted to drive to NH and hike Mt. Cardigan in the Lakes Region but Laurie didn't want to. So the best I could come up with was to go seining and see if we could see some tropical fish.

   We got up early just in case someone reported the Bar Tailed Godwit early. We drove by the exit to Plymouth but it wasn't reported. So we drove to the Cape Cod Canal where we took a walk while I carried my rod and made a few casts. Nothing was going on, I never saw a bird or a fish. After we left the Canal we went to Market Basket to get a couple things for a picnic. We drove all the way to Newport and had a picnic at a trout pond. We had burgers and they came out great. This pond has Western Mosquitofish. As you can probably tell by the name they are not native to the northeast. I've seen them before but when I caught one in the net, it was a lifer for Laurie (not that she cares about lifers)

   

Pompano

   After we left the trout pond we drove to Third Beach to seine. Laurie was cranky because she really didn't want to but we were there and she never came up with an alternative. We seined the beach and the rocks but found only one tropical fish species. We caught three Pompano. These were another lifer for Laurie but I'd seen them multiple times. We got some photos and let them go.  We didn't get anymore tropicals or for that matter anything but Silversides and two baby Cunner. 

   It was really nice out and after we seined the beach Laurie actually swam in the ocean for a half hour (Oct 5!). This put her in a great mood since she loves to swim and relaxes her muscles. Since it was still early and we had time to kill before the Patriots game we took a forty minute detour on our way home and went back to the Railroad Bridge at the Cape Cod Canal. No one was fishing and I never saw anything including bait. We enjoyed our last ice cream of the season and went home. 

   I had been trying to document all of the fun stuff I'd done this year. This is why when I had free time I'd sometimes write three or four blogposts in the same day. Other than this post, it should be obvious why I have only written once since Sept 17. Nothing I have done has been productive. I really need Mother Nature to stop kicking my ass!

   

 

I got to pet a Dog

 It's ridiculous, I had never caught a Smooth Dogfish. Considering that I used eels for five years in my hardcore striper days, it is amazing that I never hooked up with a big Dogfish. This year I actively tried to catch one a few times. I used small eel chunks over the summer. A few nights ago I went night fishing with my friend Adam with squid. I looked on helplessly as Adam caught four Dogfish and all I got was a small Black Sea Bass.

   It really is weird that I have actually caught a real shark before I've caught a Dogfish. As I wrote in July, when we went shark fishing, Adam let me reel in one of his Dogfish. Pathetic.

   Finally, last Friday I caught a Smooth Dogfish. Same deal, I went with Adam. We fished squid at night. Within thirty seconds of my first cast I hooked a Dogfish. It wasn't a monster, maybe two feet and a couple of pounds. They are cute as hell, and I love the rough feeling of shark skin.

     

A Musk Turtle but not much else

 

Musk Turtle

   I had Saturday off from work. After a morning commitment I went to Trustom Pond looking for snakes. I ran into many of my friends that were there that saw two Philadelphia Vireos. Laurie and I tagged along with Allison O'Conner and a new guy named Chris and we ran into one of the Vireos along with Blue Headed and Red Eyed Vireos. 

   My real intention was to find a Green Snake. Allison came across one the day before. We looked everywhere but didn't see any. I also thought it was a good idea to walk through the four foot tall grass to flip rocks to look for other snake species. On a perfect 75 degree day I am amazed I did not find a single snake.

   Back at the parking lot Allison pointed out tick nymphs on all of our clothes. Smaller than a grain of sand they were barely visible. Everyone but myself stayed on the mowed trail but they were still covered in these tiny nymphs. Allison had a lint roller and we all took turns rubbing it against us to get them off. Because of walking through the tall grass I had them all the way up on my shirt. I was especially careful to do my best at getting them off.

   The past two years I had gotten what I thought were chiggers under my skin from Trustom in September. The bites lasted well into the winter and were itchy the entire time. I now realize that the bites were most likely these tick nymphs. To make a long story short, I still got about twenty welts on my skin from behind my ankle up to a few on my butt cheek.  I felt like it was my own stupidity from waling in the tall grass but Sue, who was much more careful than myself also has multiple bites. So word of caution, Trustom is dangerous in late summer and getting tiny tick nymphs on you is inevitable

Snapping Turtle and a few Painted

  After Trustom, Laurie and I went to Wakefield for a picnic. We love a spot near the water. The cool thing about this spot is that it has Eastern Musk Turtles. I usually (but not always) see one. Saturday we had three species. We had the ever present Painted Turtles, we did have one Musk, but there was also a smallish Snapping Turtle sun bathing. 

  We watched the turtles for a long time. Eastern Musk Turtles can climb. We watched one come out of the water and climb up a branch until it was almost three feet above the water. It had to climb right over a very agitated Painted Turtle to do so. It was really interesting to watch. 

  Later in the day we drove down the Cape Cod Canal where we did a three to four mile walk after dark looking for mammals. We didn't see anything other than two rabbits. Also of note, we did not see anyone fishing (on a Saturday night) from the Sagamore Bridge to the Fish Pier at Scussett Beach (no one on the pier either). 

   So all in all, I was surprised by the lack of snakes in the afternoon and the mammals at night. Still, it beat being at work. 

Below is a series of photos of the Eastern Musk Turtle climbing over the Painted Turtle then over a sizable cutting on the branch before finally resting three feet above the water. 

Little Lies, Sweet Little Lies

  In this summer of tribute bands, Laurie and I went to see the Fleetwood Mac tribute band Little Lies. They were playing at a club called The Met in Pawtucket. We had originally tried to see them at a free outdoor concert in Onset in July. There were so many people and cars we could not find a parking place. We tried for an hour before eventually giving up. As we were looking for parking, we could see the band playing in the park. There were a couple thousand people watching the free show. They played at the Easton Library a week later but I had to work that night.

  

   Frustrated that I missed two free shows we sucked it up and bought tickets to see them at The Met in Pawtucket. Tickets were $20 in advance and $25 at the door. I bought them in advance and requested the night off from work. Unlike the Onset concert, there was barely a hundred people in the club, maybe less. We walked in twenty minutes before show time and got a table to sit at. I bought a beer and we sat down.

   Little Lies was awesome. They had three singers each with voices much like Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and Christine McVee. They had four other band members. They sounded great. They played almost three hours with a break in the middle. They played every Fleetwood Mac song that would be on a greatest hits album. They also played a couple of deeper cuts that I did not know. 

   Really, every song was a highlight. They nailed them all. "You Make Lovin' Fun", "Landslide", "Silver Spring", Rhiannon", "gold Dust Woman", and "Go Your Own Way" were just some of the many songs they sang. 

Little Lies is a New England based band so if you like Fleetwood Mac songs it would worth your time to check and see if they are playing near you anytime soon. Link to their website below.

https://www.littleliestribute.com/schedule

Seining 2025 Part 2

 Tuesday i went seining with my friend Carlos Pedro. Carlos always picks up a new hobby every summer after the birds of spring have migrated. He has had summers where he identified a hundred species of dragonflies. Another year, he learned the safe mushrooms to eat so he was always out "mushrooming" while walking through the woods. 

   This year he has been trying to identify species of fish. He has been asking me to go seining all summer but our schedules (mine really, he is retired) have made it difficult. I went a couple weeks ago with Carlos and Sue Palmer. I found time to go seining again this Tuesday. This time it was just with Carlos.

  We hit the beach at 9 am and seined for two and a half hours. We didn't get a lot of species but he ended up getting three lifers. I didn't get any lifers but it is always fun to see tropical fish. 

   All of the photos below are from Carlos's iPhone. I held the fish and the tank while he took the photos. 

   The first lifer Carlos got was the Florida Pompano below

We ended up catching a ton of baby Menhaden. They go by many name: Bunker, when they are small they are called Peanut Bunker, and Pogy

Another lifer for Carlos was Kingfish. Usually we catch a lot at this beach but on this trip we only caught four

My favorite fish of the day was a large Atlantic Needlefish. It was roughly ten or eleven inches long. I did not realize how sharp their teeth are but they are like saws. 

A Redneck Woman at the Woodstock Fair

    Last Saturday, Laurie went to the Woodstock Fair in Woodstock, CT. This fair is actually the oldest continuously running fair in the country. A couple months ago I did a blogpost with many of the fairs that happen during the summer and fall. I wrote the post after going to the Barnstable County Fair. I hadn't gone to any of the other fairs since, however, Gretchen Wilson was playing Saturday night at Woodstock so I requested a day off from work. 

   County fairs are set up the same. There is a midway and food vendors. There are usually barns with farm animals and contests for the best farm produce. So in comparing the Barnstable Fair to the Woodstock Fair, I'd say the Woodstock Fair was way better. There were row after row of food vendors. Not only was there typical fair food but there was exotic food like Thai, Greek, and things like Strombolis. I bought some egg rolls that contained mac and cheese, another that had desert chocolate in it. I got Thai food for supper. Laurie bought a delicious milk shake. We could have gotten the typical dough boys or cotton candy but figured why not try something new.

   The Woodstock Fair had a lot of animals to look at. There was entire barn with rabbits, another with sheep, and another with cows. We saw a bunch of pigs including little piglets nursing off of their mother. Very cute. After the small amount of livestock at Barnstable, I was glad to see so many animals at the fair. 

   As for the entertainment, Gretchen was awesome. She went on at 8 pm and played about an hour and ten minutes. She started with "I'm here for the party". Her voice was still awesome at fifty two years old. She played her hits and a few covers. She played "Simple Man" by Skynyrd."  Her encore was "Redneck Woman"  and "Her Strut" by Bob Seger as he last song. For a free concert, it kicked ass. 

 

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    There are so many fairs within driving distance, that it makes since to go to ones that have a free show of someone I want to see. The reason I went to Barnstable was to see the oldies group The Buckinghams. We chose Saturday to see Gretchen in Woodstock. Sunday Uncle Cracker was playing the Woodstock Fair and honestly, I'd have taken the drive and paid the fifteen dollar admission if I didn't have to work. I don't think  I'm going to make it to anymore fairs this year because of my work schedule and other days I have to tke off for events. But I am glad I got to see the Redneck woman again.