Forest Road Rally 2013

What does every road rally need?  A bottle of homemade wine in an Allen's bottle.  

I was standing in line at Ron's Market with a 6-pack and a bottle of Allen's Amaretto (killer in iced coffee -- yum -- especially on a hot afternon).  There were these four redneck local types in line, and I pretended I could not hear them or did not know they were talking about me.

"There's a good Maine girl.  She knows.  6 pack and a bottle of Allen's.  She's a good Maine girl."

You talking about me? Oh, you are going to make my blush!

I never photograph the first few cars.  They are the fastest at the time, and they are GOING for it.  It is way more fun to watch them than photograph them.  This year we watched the rally at a friend's camp.  We walked from our camp over and then hung out there with quite a crowd.  It was sweet to see it from a different spot.  They had invited us over Thursday night for a lobster feed.  Sadly, I am now allergic to lobster!  Not fair at all.  So I brought fish, and Jay made it Mediterranean style with spinach and olives and feta.  It was not lobster, but it was good.  On Friday, the day of the rally, they made a huge batch of homemade lobster mac and cheese.  Doh!  But again, they made me my own special dish free of the sacred crustacean, and I swear, it was just as good.  It had to be...smoked gouda plus five other cheeses?  Yum.  (I am little lactose intolerant too, but whatever!  Like I was going to tell them that.  They would never invite us over again.  So weird that I am allergic to items I love and crave.)

Jim trying to figure out the burst feature on the camera.

Yeah, it was "bursting" every time we tried it.  Got pics like a flipbook.  Very cool.  This set of me is actually pretty neat to look at, as there are about 15 of them, and I go from just looking at him to blinking to smiling slightly - and it is all there.  And we got some killer ones of the cars using it.

New spot - sitting on a rock with some kids from the area.

The crew chowing down on lobster mac and cheese. 

Fucking wind farms.  Holy crap is this thing LOUD.  This pic is from our friend Jay's camp.  It sounds just like a low flying jet -- ALL THE TIME.  I was absolutely blown away at how loud it is.  I tried to take video but with the kids in the water, it is hard to separate and hear the windmills' low-grade noise.  And there are plans for so many more in our area - at least three!  They want them on every ridge around here.  Taxes on the camp (that is in Woodstock, where the wind farm is) went down slightly but I would pay double to not have them there.  So sad.

Freehand Henna tattoos at the camp, after the rally.

Also freehand.  She is good.

An excellent redneck fest (with lobster - guess it is not THAT redneck).  I missed Travis Pastrana - have missed him since I saw him that first year.  But I saw Beck live within two weeks of this, so all if very very good.