The Trail West: An Uneventful Day

Finally the day had come to say Good Bye. Saying Good bye wasn’t easy as I knew it would be for the length of the summer. So I was sad when driving through customs. Even the friendly customs officer didn’t really lighten my mood. When being halfway down to the next village Whiting, ME I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to take the keys for the trailer with me. So I had to turn around, make it through customs (Canada this time) and roust Bea out of her chair. Coming to U.S. customs for the 2. time he just laughed and asked whether I had returned for “a last kiss”.  I showed him the keys and he laughed even more. It was raining this morning – a lot. I took coastal route 1 even though it currently is the bumpiest road in the continental U.S. But there is really not much of a choice. In Bangor I stopped by Best Buy and inquired about the Toshiba laptop. It was not on display and to begin with I feared it was just one of those internet gimmicks which weren’t really to be had, but served well to tempt people to come to the store and finally buy something much more expensive. And the fact that it wasn’t on display was probably on purpose. But I buggered the sales person until they finally sent someone “behind the wall”. He came out again with my laptop. And the price was just as advertised $279.99. It has a 4Gb ram, a 500Gb hard drive, and is HDMI compatible to TVs.  And it has a 15.6” screen. GREAT! Back in the car I fired up on our inverter and it ran. But wait…. But I had to make miles, so I continued on the long road west. Mind you I have to go south first. I went along Portland, ME, Portsmouth, NH, rounded Boston, cruised through Hartford and Waterbury and finally got myself “Upstate NEW YORK”. My GPS was set to Danville, PA, but I didn’t make it all the way as I got very tired and needed a rest. So I pulled off I-84 and found a Super8 in Newburgh,NY. It is a fairly large hotel, but also a fairly old one. I had to open the window to let the stench out and I won’t spend any much time in the hallway, cause out there it STINKS. Somebody cooking supper in his room? Gawd – so awful! Had myself a supper at DENNY’S before I went back to explore the new laptop. After much irritation about Microsoft asking for a frigging account, I finally got on the internet. But I intended to access my SKYPE account --- not possible without the d*** Microsoft account.  Microsoft is asking for a lot of personal information, which I am not willing to provide them with. Who the h** would be wanting personalized ads?? I call that spying in private affairs. Windows 8.1 is a typical Microsoft product. If Mac-books wouldn’t be so very expensive I would not have gone with another Windows product. Now I have to deal with the devil again and I just cross my fingers that I manage to get some use out of this laptop. If I could, I would wipe the entire WIN8.1 off it and install WIN XP. It was the only Microsoft operation system that ever worked. Well, let’s see where tomorrow will get me. Thanks for coming by. PS.: Oh sorry – no pictures but the rain was too bad – really!