We took a ride on the Christmas train there, only it was called the New Year’s Train since Christmas was over. But the decorations were still out, and it was delightful. A park there had about 40 trees lit up. We enjoyed driving through this town seeing the houses and the decorations. I would recommend this town for anyone to visit.

Our tax code is one of the most complicated in the world. The rich or poor don’t have a choice what to pay – the tax code (which congress passed as law) dictates what you pay according to your income. It goes from 0% to 35% depending on how you got it and how much you got with a myriad exceptions, deductions and rules that the politicians have added over the years. (Those politicians are from both sides of the aisle.) The chance of that being changed this year is about as probable as finding a cure for the common cold.

Now he (the president) wants to extend the “payroll tax cut”. That is taking money out of Social Security but he doesn’t want you to know that so he refers to this in a way that deceives the public. Taking money out of Social Security makes seniors like me nervous. It ought to make everybody nervous.

I see this as a patronizing political move by the President to gain support from a Weak Minded electorate. In essence they are taking money from Social Security to pay for something that has virtually no impact on employment or the economy. Why don’t they say that they are taking the money from the Social Security fund? Instead they refer to this as a Payroll Tax which many assume is the same as our Income Tax. It’s very deceptive as is most of what we hear from the Left.

I am on Social Security now and I don’t appreciate these politicians taking money from the Social Security fund. Many have been concerned with the way congress has spent the Social Security funds in the past and here we have them doing it right in our face and the Republicans are not calling them out on the issue. I expect this from the Democrats but I thought we had some folks in the Republican Party that were trying to stick up for us.

As you can see – I do not support this “Payroll Tax Cut Extension” nor do I support the extension of unemployment benefits. Our country is in deep trouble and yet it seems that the politicians are more concerned about their spending than the welfare of our nation.

God help us!

The second photo is a young buck – we don”t see very many bucks – they seem to be more cautious. I have seen as many as 12 doe in our back yard at one time.

When we went ashore for our tour, we were given welcome gifts– a rose and a pin. We were to visit the Reversing River Rapids, the village of St. Martins, and the Bay of Fundy caves. The Reversing River is a strange thing. The St. John River flows through the province of New Brunswick and empties in the Bay of Fund. Twice a day high tide from the bay forces the river to flow backwards, inland instead of out to sea.  We stopped there in the morning at low tide and saw a normal river flowing out as it should. When we came back in the afternoon, the level had gone up, and it was flowing the other way. Fascinating.

The river running as a river should.

At the village of St. Martins we were served authentic New Brunswick seafood chowder with lobster and scallops and given time to explore the caves made by the incredible high tides of the Bay of Fundy. The tour guide said that the tide here was as high as 14 feet.  Further inland the bay has tides as high as 53 feet! The beach was made up of rocks instead of sand, smooth rocks worn by the tide.  She said that we were walking on the bottom of the bay. There were rocks of many colors. (I am bringing some home, which does not please my husband.) I managed to walk across all those rocks to the caves. One was pretty deep. Rocks were embedded in the cliff. It was a very strange sight.

There were 2 covered bridges in St. Martins, the only place you can take of picture of 2 bridges at once. We tried to find a moose in the woods on the way back to St. John, but were not lucky enough to see one. Our guide said there were a lot of them here.

We had a great meal this evening and now are preparing to read in bed.  Maybe we can sleep late in the morning. We are now on Atlantic time, 2 hours ahead of Texas.

By the way, the golf clinic was a full hour, and the pro gave a lot of useful tips, that I might forget before I touch a golf club. He said there was a place upstairs when we could borrow clubs and practice.

The river running backwards!

Our first excursion was this morning at Bar Harbor, Maine. This little town is on a island (one of many islands here).  It is known for whales and lobster and famous people. On our bus tour to Acadia National Park, the lady told us about all the wealthy people of the past who built places here—Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan, and other famous wealthy people whose names I have already forgotten. (She also pointed out the hotel where the Obamas stayed recently.) This is truly the summer “playground of the rich.” Their “cottages” might have 30 rooms or more. She also pointed out the home of Dick Wolf, the producer of all those “Law & Order” TV shows.

Acadia National Park is very green and full of pink granite. We stopped at this place called Thunder Hole where the tide comes in so strong it sound likes thunder. It was low tide when we stopped, however. It was foggy and misty so we didn’t get the fine view that we might have had at the summit of Cadillac Mountain. Yes, it used to be owned by the French man that the Cadillac car is named from.

After our tour we had a lobster bake. I kinda expected it to be held outside under some kind of shelter, but we were led into the Bar Harbor club. We ate in a beautiful round dining room.  It reminded me of a crawfish boil, but fancy. The lobsters do look like giant crawfish. We were served boiled potatoes and corn on the cob, cole slaw, mussels and a blueberry tart. Maine is famous for blueberries, also—and maple syrup which we didn’t buy.  Anyway we were given instructions on cracking the lobster. I actually did it myself. They are soft shell this time of year, so that made it easier. Everything was so good, except the mussels. I didn’t like those very well.

After the meal we walked around the square filled with shops and tourist traps. I found a place mat. We have to be careful not to buy big stuff. We don’t have room in our suitcase. Oh, for you dog lovers, there was a store called Bark Harbor

At 5:00 we are going to take a free golf lesson on the ship. Interesting. Doug says they probably want to see us stuff, but we are able to say no.

Thunder Hole:

When we got back to Mandy’s, our son-in-law, Mark, said that his parents had climbed the Tower. His mother was the first or second woman to do that. They were in a climbing club in college; that’s where they met. Cool!

We leave here tomorrow to go back to Huntsville. We are not looking forward to getting back to the heat.

But anyway, on day 3, we got to look at the marvelous Yellowstone Falls and Canyon. The Canyon has the yellow-colored walls that I suppose gave the park its name.  We got to stand on the brink of the Upper Falls and gaze down into the river that catches all this water. The Yellowstone River flows out of the Yellowstone Lake, the largest mountain lake in North America, and flows north to the Missouri River in Montana. The Lower Falls is the tallest and is the one most often seen in pictures. As we drove through the park, we kept wondering about the first people to discover this place. I did read about a white man who was disbeliieved when he wrote about it. When we left the Canyon area, we drove through a very large thunderstorm. Fortunately it had stopped by the time we had to unload our bags into the cabin. We had to turn on the heater the next morning, but it was a beautiful day to finish our journey. We headed to the NE entrance (our cabin was more in the south) since we intended to drive toward Devil”s Tower in NE Wyoming. There were a few bison in the Hayden Valley, but we were early enough to not have a lot of cars stopped. However, we did have to stop for bison in the road. One thing we noticed about buffalo–a bull and cow will almost always be wandering around together. The male makes growls almost all the time. I took a video to record his growls. The signs say, don”t approach the bison, but people are gored every year from getting too close.

The journey to the NE entrance was scenic with some more bison in the Lamar Valley. We didn’t see any more elk and never saw a bear. There was one section called the Grizzly Area, but even with our binnoculars we didn’t see anything. They don’t let prople into this area. Right outside the entrance, was a quaint town called Silver Gate. Everything in the town was a log structure. It had a lot of hotels and outfitters for various things. However, we noticed that gas was $3,30 a gallon! That was higher than in Yellowstone. (captive audience)

On our way to our next stop, which was Buffalo, Wy, we went on another scenic road. There is such beauty in Wyoming (as well as some desolation here in various places, such as Sinclair, Wy).

Here is a picture of our little cabin:

Going south from there, we went through Hayden Valley where the buffalo roam.  There were hundreds.  It took us an hour to go a few miles because so many cars stopped to take pictures.  We took pictures, too, but we didn”t have to block traffic because so many people ahead of us were stopped.  We have to go back that way this morning to go see the Yellostone Falls.  Maybe since it is Monday, some of those people will be gone.  Also it is rainy; that may stop some people.  But if you are here, I guess you take advantage of the days that you have.