Mmmm. Brisket.

Most of the weekend was spent eating brisket (more on that in a minute), but I did pick up my bike on Thursday before going down.  You may recall that it had problems with the pedals.  Because of all the loc-tite and other various attempts to keep if from coming apart, they couldn't reuse the pedals, but they got everything drilled out and tapped correctly and new pedals installed.  Time will tell how this holds up.

 

Friday was the drive down to Long Island for the barbeque.  I decided to take the ferry.  On the way down, I arrived early enough that they tossed me on an earlier one, which was nice.  It was rather enjoyable.  Driving through CT to get to it less so.  

 

It is hard to tell from the picture, but the water was only a few feet below the surface for the cars.  If I hung off the side, my feet and probably a good chunk of my legs would have been in the water.

 

The ferry itself was actually really nice, and reminded me how much I miss being out on the open water.  When I would on cruises, I would often sit on the front deck for hours, and then follow that up by watching the waves and smelling the ocean on the balcony of the room before going to bed.  The front part of the deck on the way to Long Island I had to myself, probably since it was rather windy and cool out.  

 

It threw off some big wake, but then I suppose the ferry was probably pushing >120 tons; it had 70 cars on it, plus whatever a ship built like a parking garage weighs.  

Port Jefferson in the distance.  

 

The cookout was on Saturday.  It turned into a nice day, though it started off a bit soggy.  The brisket was excellent, and probably the best brisket I have had outside of the guys in Texas when I was at Big Bend.

 

I didn't arrive early enough to get put on the earlier ferry on the way back, so I had to wait for mine a little bit.  It was a good thing I had just eaten round 2 of the brisket, because the shrimp that they were cooking over there smelled really good.

 

I got to watch the ferry unload as sunset started.

 

It was still quite pretty when we took off.

 

The picture sucks because Google doesn't know how to stitch a panorama (thanks phone...), but one other thing I miss about being on the water is being able to see the entire horizon.  This was taken well after sunset (and at the very end of twilight), and you can see in the west the little bit of color and light, but as you pan to (presumably) Rhode Island on the right, it gets dark, it is pretty cool.  I got a bunch of pictures with the big camera too, which I haven't uploaded yet.  It should blow up if you click on it.

 

The drive back made me hate CT even more, but I made it back around 1:30AM, and pretty much dragged stuff in and went to bed.  I did have one issue with the conversion on the trip; the bungee cord across the top and the few inches of netting that went across the top were not enough to make the microwave stay on place across the terrible roads in CT.  It isn't clear, but I think just replacing the bungee with an actual strap might be sufficient to prevent it in the future, but will have to play around with it.  I haven't tried it yet to see if it was fatal.  Which would be a shame, and would likely mean I have to move my microwave back and forth instead of it just always being there.

 

I won't likely get the pictures uploaded before I go to KY for the 4th, since I was hoping to leave tomorrow, but I will try to.  This will probably be the last post until I get back though since I have a lot of stuff and not a lot of time to do it in.  I have a couple things to pick up tonight shopping since I cancelled my food service for this week.  I froze a couple of last week's meals, so I will get to see how well they handle that.  The manufacturer recommends against freezing, but the alternative was to toss them, so into the freezer they went.  So I should have something to post when I get back anyways.  But I still have to get all the sand bags out of the truck (which you saw above in the bike picture...), get the steps into the truck, and basically only have tonight to do it, and I have to go into town to pick up my prescriptions and stuff for the longer drive.  I will note that since I have gone on the blood pressure and heart medicine, I don't get as sleepy when I drive though, which is nice.  I was only starting to get sleepy when I got home at 1:30AM, so maybe I won't need to caffeinate as heavily as normal for the drive down, but I want it with me just in case I do need it.