Author: backpackingbill

Went to the local Christmas Tree lighting in Bluffton. Took this photo that looked pretty good.

Having moved to our new home in South Carolina and done the necessary bureaucratic stuff:

• New drivers licenses
• Registered the cars in South Carolina
• Changed insurances
• Changed bank
• Changed address with credit cards

We are starting to settle in. Well, except for the many other things that pop up on, it seems, a daily basis.

I do not want to suggest that I do not often backward cast my eye to Connecticut and see the pleasant life that I had there. There are many things that I will sorely miss, especially friends. But , I will also miss things like the ability to go to Buena Vista for a quick nine holes, or to Ski Sundown for a few hours on skis or, especially, a hike on the Metacomet trail. But, it was time for a new adventure.

But, now we have an exciting adventure. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and the Krueger family’s first participation in the Hampton Hall “Gobbler 5K”. We:

• Have our official “T” shirts
• We carbed up on pasta tonight
• Many got new running shoes
• The alarms are set

This blog will not be published until the finish line is crossed. (It will also provide an opportunity for some photos)

It took me two tries but I finally got my South Carolina driver’s license. The first time I waited in line to get a number then waited again for two hours to get to an official. That was only to learn that one of the two proofs of residency didn’t work. “Well, it’s on the website what is acceptable”. I had looked again and all the website said was two bills with my name and South Carolina address. The club bill didn’t work for South Carolina. This is an issue because most all the bills are addressed to the LLC that we set up while renting the house, they don’t have my name on them.

I tried again this morning. I said to myself, “I will get to the DMV when it opens, it must open at 8:00 am like any other establishment.”

Well, the DMV opens at 8:30 am. After a short wait I was able to get my license. Now, after I get the car insurance squared away, I can go to the Beaufort County office and pay the taxes on the cars. Then I can come back to the DMV to register the cars: pay some more fees and get South Carolina license plates. South Carolina is learning fast how to reach into the pockets of it’s citizens.

Observing the bureaucracy involved with what should be a simple task of transferring a driver’s license, I came to a conclusion. Why would I want government to get intimately involved with my health care? I cannot fathom the mess that would be involved if I needed a hip replacement.

Sitting and waiting for the arrival of Idalia, there is not much to do. It gives me time to reflect on the last few months. The thing that repeatedly comes to mind is the strong community we have. Here I am referring to our friends, neighbors and family. When great kindness is extended to me, I admit that I do not know how to react at times. And, there have been many acts of tremendous kindness extended to Tina and I during this process.

• Neighbors helped with tasks during the packing and disposition of stuff many times. This was at times hard physical work.
• Tina and I were invited by a neighbor to spend our last night in West Hartford with them in their home.
• A neighbor stored a piece of furniture that didn’t make it into the Pod.
• Another neighbor stored a bunch of stuff for Jim as he will likely come back to New England after his internship in California.
• The pond association had a party for us.
• The street had a block party for us.

These and many other kindnesses were frankly unexpected, generous and tremendously appreciated by Tina and me.

The rain squalls have started; the tornado warnings as well.

Now we are at 4:00 pm. Some wind gusts but nothing of great note. The powers that be are still predicting life threatening winds. If we have been bypassed by the major part of the storm I hope people will not get complacent and ignore warnings next time.

But we are not yet through this adventure. High winds are still predicted through the early evening.

Well, this hurricane turned out to be pretty much a nothing burger. Fortunately so.

Yes we are anticipating the arrival of Idalia. However, looking at the last couple of months, Idalia is just the last one in a series of hurricanes:

• We sold the house in Connecticut
• We packed up a Pod
• We moved
• We unloaded the Pod

Now we are in the midst of sorting out a house full of stuff and not making it look cluttered. Fortunately Tina is in charge of design and she is good at making things look good.

So we are putting stuff away, making trips to “God’s Goods” (A Christian thrift store like Goodwill) and getting ready for the big storm. A neighbor came by to ask if we needed help with storm prep, the Club sent out a notification that all Club operations were closing for the storm and an insurance agent called to cancel our meeting. So, maybe there is something to this storm.

It has been a while since I last made a post to this blog. A lot has happened.

We sold our house in CT

We packed a Pod full of stuff

We relocated to our house in Bluffton,SC.

We are facing our first hurricane

Idelia is projected to track across northern Florida and go through the Hilton Head, Bluffton Savannah area. I usually don’t give much credence to the projections as they tend to drift over time. Also, media tends to project hysteria as that sells ad time. But, the projections are staying in place and one source is predicting a level 1 hurricane in Bluffton.

I will keep posting as long as it looks like interesting things might happen. In truth, I am not getting excited yet as there was not a run on the grocery store when we went this afternoon. And, I do not see locals boarding up windows yet.

I have become famous for proposing a means to get between Hartford and JFK. I seldom get a positive response to the proposed process. Today I have an opportunity to do a good test. I am flying home from Bluffton via JFK. Tina is flying home directly to BDL. She, on Southwest because she has a voucher; I will use Delta because it is cheaper, I don’t like Southwest and I can test my process with a control to the experiment.

I should explain why Tina and I are taking one way trips from Bluffton to Hartford. We are in the process of moving to South Carolina. One of the challenges was to get our old Jeep there. Tina and I drove it 1080 miles to get it there. That is surely worth a blog post that may follow later.

Tina departs at 7:10 am and arrives at BDL at 11:20 after a plane change and layover at BWI. I leave at 7:25 am and arrive at JFK at 9:55 am.

As my plane taxis away from the terminal, I note that Tina’s flight has not yet left.

About to land. My arrival is closer to 9:00 am than 9:55 am. But I am not on the ground yet. The next leg of my journey and the first leg of my test is to take the Airtrain from my terminal to Jamaica Station.

On the Airtrain at 9:40 am on my way to Jamaica Station. Paid the $8.25 + $1.00 for a Metro Card to get out of the Station.

Next I am catching the 10:11 LIRR train to Grand Central in Manhattan. $5.00 . Make that the 10:20 train because the 10:11 is late. Made it on the train.

Made it in time to make the 11:04 to New Haven. $11.75 one way off peak senior.

Tina won the race, if it was a race. She got home about 12:30 pm

I got to New Haven about 1:15 pm. The next CT Rail was 3:25 so I opted to go the $20.70 Amtrak ticket to Hartford on n the Vermonter that left at 1:30. Getting to Hartford at 2:11. Tina is going to pick me up.

Got home at 2:20 pm. Cost was about $22.70

We spent the day with Jim in the town where he lives, MezzoLombardo. Jim gave us a grand tour of the winery where he works, Foradori.

The winery courtyard, one of the vineyards that uses pergola style supports (the other style uses wires for a different effect on the grape), Jim in the cellar

Jim treated us and some of his friends to some sparkling wine at a shop he is familiar with in town.

We then had dinner at a local restaurant. This has been a long day.

We will be meeting with Jim today. As he will arrive about 10:30 Tina and I will have a slow breakfast, check out of our apartment and meet him in the main plaza. The apartment we rented for the night is ultra modern, electronics for everything. I am not able to figure out how to lower the blinds. It did take me two days to figure out how to lower the ones in Innsbruck. But the place in Innsbruck had a switch. This place has an electronic screen attached to the wall with instructions in Italian.

This is a holiday in Italy – Republic Day – commemorating the day they abolished the monarchy in 1946. Looks like the king went out with the Fascists. This is the second holiday that we have encountered on this trip. Although the fresh air market will be buttoned up, we are hoping that some of the restaurants and shops will be open. We also hope to see Ortzi – the guy that thawed out of a glacier in 1991. He had been frozen in place for over 5000 years. A copper age man.

Met up with Jim. Walked through a park, went to the Ortzi museum and had a great lunch.

The Otzi museum was more interesting than I had anticipated. He lived some 5,000 years ago and was preserved with all his stuff (copper axe, long bow, arrows, clothes) . To put the timeframe in perspective, this was over a thousand years before Stonehenge. Evidently he was in a fight then bushwhacked a day later. Probably a crime of passion since none of his stuff was taken. I have added a link about Otzi below.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/otzi-the-iceman-what-we-know-3-decades-after-his-discovery

After lunch we caught a train to MezzoLombardo, the village where Jim is working and staying. We checked in at our B+B, a small eclectic place where every room has a Jacuzzi. The proprietor is a fun and very enthusiastic individual who speaks no English, good thing we have Jim in tow.

Our first order of business was to break into the Foradori winery where Jim works and treat ourselves to a glass of their finest.

We went to dinner at a great small restaurant across the valley and part way up the mountain in a small village. We were joined by Eleza, a coworker of Jim’s from Germany.

This afternoon we will be traveling back to Italy. Our next stop is the town of Bolzano where we will be meeting Jim later. We are spending some time in Bolzano as it is a larger place than MezzoLombardo where Jim is working. Later we will travel to MezzoLombardo and visit the vineyard where Jim is working. But, today we will spend our last few hours in Innsbruck. Innsbruck has really grown on us; it is a truly lovely place to visit. So close to Italy yet so very different from Italy. Where there is an air of chaos to Verona there is an air of orderliness to Innsbruck. One just has to make a gesture that you are stepping toward a crosswalk and the traffic comes to a stop. One thing that both Austria and Italy have in common are the numbers of smokers. This is especially surprising for Austria due to the apparent outdoorsy and healthy nature of the population.

Made it to Balzano. The train was easy and we were able to upgrade to more comfortable seats. Balzano appears to be a delightful small city. Found our apartment and the codes to get inside, very modern in a more open way than the hotel in Innsbruck. There is a larger patio as well. As Jim had to work today, he will not be joining us tonight; however, he will meet up with us tomorrow. He has suggested a number of restaurants and will aid in a wine selection via Internet.

There is an open air market a few hundred yards from our apartment. The flowers and vegetables are beautiful.

We had an Aperol Spritz at a cafe on the main town square. The best we have had on this trip.

The town square is alive with activity and flowers. There is a statue in the town square. I do not know who the statue is dedicated to but he looks like Christopher Columbus, it isn’t Columbus.

We had dinner at a place Jim suggested. But we didn’t have Internet at the restaurant so he couldn’t help with wine selection. I think we did OK on our own.