Jets Cooling In The Rain

   Today is day five we've been in Portland.  I realize I left this story unfinished.  Maybe there is no end.  This is life, after all.  Our home is with out internet access for the time being which makes keeping up with the updates a little more complicated.  Compounded with the fact that the greater part of this adventure is behind us, spread across the 3,231 miles of highway that tethers our past to the present, I will be writing less frequently here; perhaps weekly. 
   Eli and I are working on settling into our house which means daily lists of errands that have us criss-crossing the city in search of all the pieces of modern domestic life.  We have purchased a futon mattress.  Check.  We got some groceries and dishwasher detergent.  Check  We still need a dish drying rack, spice organizer, curtains, among other items.  Right now we are in The Red E cafe near our house, utilizing the coffee and internet and counter space.  Eli fills out an application for work at a nursery.  I've been researching home made bed frame designs.  Yes, we're building the bed.  This will be the 5th bed I've built.  My beds used to be six feet off the ground requiring a ladder to access to make the most out of cramped living spaces.  In the last five years I have preferred a bed I can easily fall into rather than risk serious injury falling out of. 
   We left Bob the landlord at the house to paint the second of two bedrooms.  Their standards as landlords are high in description.  But upon touring the house for the first time, a week after paying the first month's rent, after ten days of driving, left us wondering why the dingy bedroom walls hadn't been painted in the month the house has been vacant.  Closer inspection while unpacking and putting away revealed cobwebs in corners and previous inhabitants' grit in the higher elevations.  We do like our landlords though.  They remind me of our parents' crowd, like they would have fun going on vacation together in foreign countries.  Easy to get along with.  They have so far been pretty accommodating and definitely friendly.  Our second night in town we walked the 4 blocks to Matt and Elizabeth's house for dinner.  We met friends' of theirs who had lived in our house years before.  And upon talking more with Matt and a friend at the downtown Bike Gallery I found out that in my ordained ministerial role I conducted a wedding in 2007 and our landlords were in attendance. 
   I will be writing more about The Bike Gallery and the options that are opening up for us later.  For now I will just say that The Bike Gallery is where I worked from 2000 until 2007 when I moved to Maine, and the employer who generously offered me a position to return as a full time year-round mechanic.  Tomorrow I meet with my friend and manager Pete and will learn more about what my professional future holds.  Until then, just know that it is looking pretty good. 

End of an Era

   I've been living here in Kittery Point for over four years now.  The "center" of this tootsie pop of a populated area is Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  So employment in these parts usually involves crossing the state line into Live Free or Die Land on a daily basis.  The most direct means to cross the tumultuous Pascatiqua River is over the Memorial Bridge.  Since I've lived here there has been a ongoing public discussion about what to do with the Memorial Bridge.  The bridge is falling apart.  Nobody has put a coat of paint on it in a long time.  It has been publicly known that the bridge wouldn't last much longer.  And when it's useful life is expired, crossing into Portsmouth was going to get tricky.  Relying on that bridge for years to cross into Portsmouth for work, Eli and I couldn't imagine having to rely on the alternatives for possibly years while the Memorial Bridge was replaced. 
   Over the past few years during a routine inspection by some DOT inspectors, the bridge would be shut down immediately only to reopen weeks later with some get-by patch on the problem area.  This occurred a few times, three if we're to to believe Wikipedia's version of events.
   This might sound frightening to readers.  Be assured there are two other bridges to get from Maine into the Portsmouth area.  Heading West from the Memorial Bridge you've got your Sarah Mildred Long Bridge, part of the Rte. 1 Bypass, and then there's the I 95 bridge cleverly named Piscataqua River Bridge.  What is so distressing about temporarily losing use of the Memorial Bridge aside from it being the connection from central Kittery to central Portsmouth, is that it is currently the only legal passage across the Piscataqua by foot.  Every other option requires a car and driving it or hitching a ride with somebody else driving. Not only that, but the Sarah Mildred Long bridge is quickly diminishing structurally and will also require replacing in the not far future.  Leaving only the Interstate.  The idea of living way out on this giant potato farm sticking out North into Canada, with just one tenuous thread connecting us to the Lower 47, gives me a sensation of looking over the side of the ship and spotting a large opening in the hull.

   There have been endless open meetings where citizens can voice their opinion on what to do about replacing the Memorial Bridge, how the replacement can be safer, how to support transportation alternatives to driving while the bridge is being replaced.  The State of New Hampshire kept promising to pony up half of the replacement funds needed to get the job done.  While Maine politicians sat on their hands unwilling to accept any of the offers coming from across the line.  Then came the bridge inspection this past summer.  The last straw.  Without notice and easily a year ahead of optimistic schedule, the bridge was inspected and immediately closed for good to automobile use.  Since then it has remained open to foot traffic, also allowing for people to push their bicycles or scooters, mopeds across it's wooden plank sidewalks, the lift still operated to allow passage of large ships carrying scrap metal, salt, underwater communications cable and the like.  That is, until Monday, January 9th, at 8 pm.  That is when the bridge will remain in it's lifted state until the giant wreckahs come to haul it away.  We're bidding adieu to Kittery Point and Maine two days later, which feels like an appropriate time to seek life somewhere across the Piscataqua.

The entrance to the Memorial Bridge, 6:15pm Saturday January 7th