Year In Review (2015)

    A year ago I vowed to do anything in my power to make 2015 as good as 2014 was for us. 2014 was the first good year we’d had in a long time, maybe the first ever. You see, I’ve always been plagued with bad luck which makes it hard to have a good year. I’m beyond overjoyed to say 2015 was just as good as and perhaps better than 2014.

    It started off when we bought a car from Jaime’s father. Only having one vehicle was getting rather tough with us working on opposite sides of town. In the summer I walked to work which sucked because I would sweat before even starting my shift but in the winter walking wasn’t safe with the snow and ice so I would call a cab. I hate having to rely on other people and using a cab is doing exactly that, so sometimes they’d forget to come or show up late. When her father was getting rid of his second vehicle, we jumped on it and I now drive my own car to work, back to relying on no one, the way I like it. It gives us so much more freedom and makes life a lot easier.

    But this year’s adventures truly began when the snow finally started melting in April. We took a trip down to CT to visit my family for Easter, not realizing it was Easter when we requested the days off. We went to a couple flea markets on Easter Sunday, didn’t actually buy anything but it was cool nonetheless since one of them was a huge indoor flea market we’d never been to before. Later that day I did my first hike of the season, an off trail variation of one I’ve done dozens of times. My family started doing the Bailey’s Ravine trail in Franklin CT back in the early 90’s, a nice loop hike with a steep hill at the beginning before leveling off, crossing a small waterfall, going down a steep hill and then ending beside another more impressive set of falls. One time we followed the brook downstream from the smaller one heading towards the larger waterfall at the bottom of the ravine but had to turn back when there were ledges on both sides of the stream with no way to cross it. This time I started at the larger waterfall closer to the road and traveled up the ravine, avoiding pockets of snow and ice, rock hopping across the water, tight roping back and forth over logs, and eventually coming out at the smaller waterfall at the start of the ravine. It was a great way to start my hiking season, completing an off trail adventure I’d always dreamed of doing.

    We also spent a day with my parents going to a couple malls in Massachusetts and Rhode Island so I could go to the Toy Vault, a store that carries old action figures. They have three locations in Southern New England and we visited all three of them on our Easter trip. I bought some awesome figures that are still on display in the living room. The MA and RI ones are a little difficult to get to but the other one is in the Crystal Mall, just a little ways down the highway from my grandmother’s house.

    Myself, Jaime, Dad and my Uncle Paul went to check out a place called Devil’s Hopyard not far from my grandmother’s house in the Norwich area. The waterfall was raging with the melting snow but what we were really looking for was a cave known as Devil’s Den. As a kid I remember crawling into a small circular cave with my Castle Grayskull flashlight along a steep hillside. We thought this was possibly the one judging by the pictures I found online but it turned out to barely even be a cave. We had fun anyway. And as it turns out, the waterfall was one I’d remembered from my childhood and had been searching for.

    I woke up early one morning and couldn’t fall back to sleep so decided to hit the streets of Willimantic to take some pictures for my website. I’d been wanting some artistic pictures of the streets of my hometown for one of the poetry pages on my website and I got exactly what I was hoping for. I got some great photos of the foot bridge, Main St, Cameo Drive, Chapman St and the Ivey Garden projects. I also got some nice pictures of Windham Middle School where a few pivotal scenes in my Poverty’s Poetry novel take place. Overall it was a fantastic trip back home and a great way to really start the year.





    A few weeks later Jaime and I were at the theatre watching the new Fast and Furious when we decided to take an impromptu trip to NH for a night to see the waterfalls. Even at the tail end of April, the snow there was intense, some of the ponds were still completely frozen over. One of the waterfalls wasn’t even visible because it was covered in ice and snow. But the ones we did see were absolutely amazing. We started off by returning to Grafton Notch on the border of Maine and New Hampshire so we could try to find a few waterfalls we didn’t know about the last time we were there. Step Falls was gorgeous with a well maintained trail but the true gem was Jail Falls located down an insanely steep embankment just off the side of the road no longer marked on any maps or trail guides. Beside it was the ‘jail’ the falls got their name from which was an enormous pothole with twenty foot high walls smoothed out from years of rushing water. We were blown away by it and had quite the adventure climbing over snow and ice on the riverbank on our search. We had supper at our favorite pizza place, Mountain Fire Pizza in Gorham NH, a place we fell in love with on our vacation six months earlier and had been dreaming of ever since.

    We spent the night at Woodwards motel in Lincoln NH where we enjoyed the indoor pool and hot tub after a long day driving and hiking. The next day we visited a few waterfalls in the Lincoln area but the best was an unnamed one located on what I believe to be Waternomee Brook. I felt that if I were to follow a stream uphill I would find a waterfall before long and man was I right. It’d always been a dream of mine to follow one of the brooks that pass under the highway. In 2014 I got hooked on off trailing, in 2015 I got hooked on following streams in search of waterfalls and this was the one that truly started it.

    Two months later, towards the end of June, my parents came up to visit and we went to Acadia in search of some lost trails, something we fell in love with a year earlier. It poured on us but we didn’t let that stop the adventure as we found a hidden waterfall, a cave, a beach used by the locals and made it to the second summit of a forgotten mountain.

    A week later Jaime and I woke up early one day and decided to go to Acadia, purchase the park pass and begin our search for the Hanging Steps. It took all summer, we had tons of adventures, found lots of amazing places and finally found the steps about 100 feet away from the first place I searched. But we had a blast on all of our expeditions. We went to Acadia more times in one summer than we have in the eleven years we’ve lived here. I also went a couple times with our friends Brian and Stephanie who we split the park pass with.

    Over the summer we had a weekly cookout every Friday with friends. We got a woodchuck to move under our shed and enjoy the forest I’ve been growing in the backyard which to us is great because we absolutely love woodchucks. We bought some really nice things at yard sales, put it in a new ceiling fan in the living room, I lost close to twenty pounds through dieting and exercise and we got some cool hiking gear.

    On our weekly trips to Acadia I’ve discovered two waterfalls off trail, three boulder caves, two real caves and one on the side of a mountain with a view of the ocean, a giant tower of rocks, a dry waterfall bed through a ravine, a crumbling stone staircase with a boulder suspended above it, two trail-less mountaintops with jaw dropping views, a hidden beaver pond, three abandoned trails, a rockwall waterfall and the elusive Hanging Steps. It was one hell of a summer.



    To end it with a bang, we decided to finally pull the trigger and get a new car stereo and speakers for Jaime’s car. We’d always wanted to but were worried the car would crap out as soon as the system was installed. But one of her friends was willing to put it in for us which was more difficult than it should be because that’s just how our car works. So he did the stereo, we had Best Buy do the speakers and finally after all these years we have a booming car system. Ours was down to one working speaker so it was pretty bad. It was all installed just in time for vacation.


    Our yearly vacation to NH was almost two weeks this year. My parents came with us for the first week and the second was just me and Jaime. To sum it up, I got to go behind my first waterfall, climbed up a rockslide to a gated off mine, crossed a river and got to go into a different mine beside a waterfall for the first time in my life, went back to a cave I couldn’t make it down into nearly twenty years ago, went to an abandoned park to see a breathtaking waterfall, discovered a huge cave below a rock cliff, found a series of waterfalls along a mountain stream, climbed around on a rockslide I’ve wanted to visit since I was a kid, rock hopped up a river to a two tiered waterfall, did some free climbing on a cliff for the first time in my life, and perhaps the most exciting, started looking at homes in the White Mountains.

    After going back and forth on our decision to move to NH, we decided to stay here in Maine a little longer. Once we made that decision, we went out and bought a new sectional couch to replace the recliner we got five years ago. We’re still looking to move to NH but aren’t going to rush into it just yet for the simple fact that we’re doing so well financially here. I’ve started writing again, both books and songs. My new Stone Stairway novel is about three quarters of the way finished. I’ve written enough new songs for two albums and have started producing again, working on tracks for Gambino, Santo and Concept as well as myself. I’ve also started writing this blog as a way to record what’s going on in my life, mostly for my own benefit since no one else is going to read it.

    In mid December we took four days off to head down to CT to see my family and friends for the holidays. With Gambino coming close to getting a record deal, I decided to give him my digital recorder so he can drop more tracks to help him seal the deal. Once he signs on that dotted line, I’ll pass it on to Concept next, a way to repay them for accepting a white, insecure loser from a middle class family into their society and making me something great. They’ve stuck by me even after being gone for over a decade now. True friends are hard to come by and I’ve made some incredible ones over the years so despite them telling me I don’t, I owe them for that. I was fortunate enough to get to hang out with both of them for a night and remind me why I had friends once, why I do what I do, and to be proud of everything I’ve accomplished.

    With Jaime and my parents, we had a repeat of Easter and went to the malls again to visit the Toy Vault stores. I had birthday money to spend as well as a bonus check from work so money wasn’t an object, a far cry from the first time we stumbled upon a Toy Vault and had to use a credit card. I say had to because Jaime made me buy what I wanted there even though we really couldn’t afford it but that’s the kind of wife I have. So I bought toys at two of the three stores and had a great day with my family. Jaime bought a bunch of new clothes and boots at stores we don’t have up here in Maine and we all had hot dogs from Spike’s Junkyard Dogs at the mall in MA. In April when we came, only Jaime got one because the rest of us just ate and we’d been thinking about them for the past six months. The hot dogs were hands down the best I’ve ever had and well worth the half a year wait.

    With my sister finally being back from the mid west where she works at National Parks, we all piled into the car and went searching for a cave above an old train tunnel beside the highway. I always thought that the rock cliffs would be cool to explore and looked like they should have a cave in them and sure enough, they did. My dad had recently heard about the cave and it was indeed there, a true cave in the side of a cliff, not just a hole between boulders. We ate at Jaime’s favorite sub place which is in CT so they’re called grinders, and of course I got food from my favorite restaurant, the Cajun Grill which is really just Chinese Food in a mall food court but it’s the best ever, so we brought a few to-go boxes of it back home. We went to visit my grandmother and uncle and ate the food Grandma force fed me because that’s what grandma’s do but I didn’t mind. We had fun in CT and enjoyed the near 60 degree weather.

    So when we got back to Maine to find snow on the ground we were not impressed. But with Christmas right around the corner it was okay. We decided not to go all out like we did last year because we were in the mind frame of getting rid of stuff rather than getting new stuff, plus we were kind of out of ideas after last year. But we still both went just a little bit overboard and had a great Christmas. I bought myself a new digital recorder with a CD burner and USB port built right in. Jaime got me some Transformers, some awesome t-shirts like the ones I used to wear back in high school which yes were very cool so shut up, a new MP3 player, some geode cabinet knobs which I love because of my weird fascination with pretty rocks, and the two best gifts, a leather jacket and a Snake Armor He-Man figure. One of the presents I got her was an Amazon Firestick with a subscription to Sling TV, so we now have twenty cable channels, including her, favorite, okay fine our favorite, HGTV. I’ve never had cable before so it’s kind of a big deal for me. It’s pretty much been playing non stop since we got it.

    I didn’t think it would be possible to make 2015 better than 2014 but somehow it happened. So here’s to 2016 continuing the trend. After so many rough years, I’m grateful to be where I’m at. I don’t really feel the need to make any resolutions, I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing, live the best life I possibly can and have fun doing it.