motor bike ride

The lawn behind Goodspeed Opera House offers a river view and most civilized surroundings. While catching rays on the lawn one can hear the surrounding dining at Gelston House & nearby bridge traffic & boat traffic. I do not find this background noise to be a distraction and the quiet busyness is actually part of the draw...been down here a few times already on the bike. It makes a worthy destination for an evening spin on the motorcycle. The 40-minute ride down from Hebron is scenic and hardly traffic.

Below is the view of Connecticut River from the lawn. This is East Haddam, CT and across the river is Haddam. The lawn is a great place to rest, catch some rays, or read before turning back.





View of Gelston House from lawn. That terrace on the right, with the tent-cover is the outdoor dining and beergarden. Unfortunately this fine establishment is too far from the office otherwise I would drag my drinking comrades here regularly.

Below, view of the swing bridge from lawn:

What is a swing bridge?? It is called a swing bridge because the bridge rotates, to let boat traffic through, by swinging on a pivot.


Photo below, lawn, & opera house in background. Can you imagine taking a boat to the opera? These premises were built in the mid 1800s. The aristocracy along the Connecticut river no doubt lived well.

Where to dock for the Goodspeed!

Goodspeed Opera House is a neoclassical Italianate marvel on CT route 82. Connecticut river in background.

Gelston house, next door to the Goodspeed and of the same vintage.

Approaching the swing bridge. It is a steel-deck bridge, which causes a weavy feeling on the motorcycle. Takes getting used to.

Map of places talked about in this Blog:

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Before the Canterbury tales, a little bit about motorcycle controls

Most of the motorcycle controls are on the handlebars, except for the rear brake and gear shifter. Those are controlled by foot pegs. Turn the right hand grip (throttle) to speed up.

Friday afternoon up in the Northeast Corner:

View from downtown Scotland, CT

Scotland General Store. That is about it for destinations in Scotland Center. A few towns in eastern Connecticut still have general stores.

Photo below, Route 169 between Canterbury and Pomfret is scenic. The road is usually scenic before you see these signs, so my reaction once was something like "this gets even better?"

cornfield, Canterbury CT

Brooklyn, CT

Brooklyn Ct

Before heading home, lunched at Vanilla Bean Cafe, Pomfret. It is biker-friendly and a guy there tried talking me into riding in the Hoka Hey Challenge, a bike race from Key West to Alaska with a $500,000 purse. It's $1000 to enter and there's no second prize. I had to say no thanks!

antique door hinge replacement

In this post I prepare an antique door to replace a hollow-core door. This door will go in an upstairs bedroom. The house came with all hollow core doors and this is the final hollow-core that I want to replace.

The antique I got from New England Salvage & Demolition, New Bedford MA. Their long aisles of old doors were organized by number of panels. As you can see, this is a four-panel and it was $80.

The antique was 1/4 inch too narrow so here I prepare to widen it. First I fill in the old hinge mortise. A mortise is just a cut in the wood so the hinge fits flush, see?
Here in photo below, I'm raising the hinge location using a mount that I cut from a piece of scrap wainscoting.

In photo below, can you see how I raised the hinge?

I used really long screws for the hinges because 1) screws that came with the hinge are too short to go through both the new mounts and then anchor into the door itself. And 2) shorter screws loosen more easily, 3) the door was manufactured as an exterior door and is therefore very heavy; 4) the hinge area already had many holes in it due to past re-hinging. Here I use 2 1/2-inch long deck screws to firmly seat the hinge.

In photo below, I widen the rest of the door using lattice wood (1 1/2 x 1/4 inch), which makes the door 1/4 inch wider.

Currently I've sanded and primed the door. I will paint it a historic cream color.


Part 2: Garden

The rose bush is blooming like crazy. There's the famous motorcycle behind the roses.

Below is the layout of the garden. I have been fastidiously weeding by dragging a large hoe over the soil 2-3 times a week.

From another angle...

Kale from mom's friend, just planted

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