Tom and I have returned from our great Autumn Road Adventure. We traveled 4,000 miles in 23 days and it was a wonderful—I would even say spectacular— trip. I will be writing more about it in future posts.
My intention was to blog as we traveled so you could travel right along with us. Unfortunately, our first night on the road, I realized I had left the power cord for my laptop at home. I explored getting a replacement but discovered that my laptop (a MacBook Air that is still chugging right along after more than a decade) is so old that those power cords are no longer easily available. Yes, I could have ordered one from Apple and had it delivered at one of our stops along the way, but at a cost of around $100 which didn’t seem worth it since (1) I knew I had a cord at home and (2) it is not like I am a real journalist that needed to post for my livelihood. Instead, I took it as a sign to not blog and to just enjoy and absorb the trip, to be really present as we traveled. That was a good choice (at least for me).
But I have also learned that you really do need to update your devices periodically. I don’t think I will ever be the person who gets a new iPhone with every release, but Tom and I are both still using an iPhone 6 and the latest one that was released is an iPhone13. The problem arises because at a point you can no longer get updates which protect your phone and allow you to get the updates for various applications. I’ll get a message that says, you need to download the new and updated app for xyz, but then when I try to download it, I get the message, “Whoa! How old is this phone you are trying to use?!?!?!” Actually, that is not the real message I get but if phones could talk…
But technology speak aside (and I barely speak it), let me update you on two things I wrote about before we left.
Remember my plea for help in getting rid of all the space-hogging power strips on my desk? Several of you offered great suggestions but I went with my friend Sara Davis’ suggestion. I call it my “tower of power”. It has plenty of outlets and uses a very small footprint on my desk. I am quite pleased. There is still a plethora of wires but at least it now occurs in a very compact space.
Another piece that I left incomplete was my desire to see a cranberry harvest while we were in Massachusetts. Well, I sort of got to see one. We arrived right at the end of a harvest on a rainy day; it was not far from Plymouth, Massachusetts and not too far from the road called Ocean Spray Lane (you guessed it—the Ocean Spray headquarters are down that road). The harvest we saw was just ending but they were loading the trucks with the last of that bog’s cranberries. We watched awhile and then went into Plymouth where we learned we were just a little early for a lot of the harvest. The best part was when we drove back by the bog that had been harvested, a giggling group of guinea hens had arrived and were feasting on the spilled cranberries. It was a delight to see this. Always good when even the spill is used and enjoyed.
Not long after we left Massachusetts heading to Western Pennsylvania, our daughter and two of our grandchildren came upon a magnificent harvest in progress so at least we could enjoy the photos they took that day.
We were able to purchase the Decas dried cranberries that are my favorite and returned back to North Carolina with several bags of those to see us through the winter months. Plus Ocean Spray keeps even Asheville, North Carolina shelves well-stocked with juice and berries.
Here’s to you, dear readers, for not giving up on Cold Coffee Writer, even when I disappeared for almost a month. More to come. I really am back!
I have seen many of those cranberry commercials showing people standing up to their hips in red water but I thought it was just hyperbole. But here, in living color, sent by a credible source, is an actual lake covered in cranberries! Who knew?
I was so sorry that we did not get to see a real harvest but at least our grandkids did. I love cranberries.