Philip W Holland

Turns out the suspension clunk was the loose top nuts on my struts. Having installed them myself, I erroneously ruled this out as the source, but somewhere in the interaction between the quality of the car parts and the terrain of my journeys, things got loose and boogered out.

The old tubes of JB Weld I brought a long quieted her down across Maine, but once again, New England road management standards have ate up the half expectedly insufficient quantity of JB Weld. After escaping the nerve wracking and suspension wrecking streets of Boston, I was able to grab a couple more tubes at the Lowe’s in Dedham.

After fishing a bit in Mother’s Brook off the Charles River and talking with another night fisherman, a veteran also with traumatic brain injury, my plan was to make the repair, crisp up this pound of bacon, and settle down for the night, letting it cure for twelve hours. Saw a couple dudes doing gay stuff in the open, and I’m not the type of guy to stop anybody from doing their thing but I took that as an indicator that attention may be unnecessarily drawn to my area, so I moved elsewhere. All I want to do is some light, non lascivious rule breaking. Hope that guy was making good money.

Elsewhere happened to be Seekonk, MA, a mile or so from the Rhode Island border. Since JB Weld recommends 12-24 hours full cure time, I have taken the opportunity to cross that border on foot. Just got back to my thankfully unmolested car, with 4 hours to go before minimum full cure time of 12 hours. Locals fishing the bridge crossing the border say night parking is no problem, so I may move my car gently there later and take the kayak to the Huck Finn Island I spotted, after I chill here and cook this bacon.

Gotta have pork products to throw in beans, and crisped bits are my spoilage workaround until this runs out. Gonna save a strip for catfish bait on the island.

Good time to get into highlights of this leg of the journey, as one thing I have been able to rightfully prioritize is good eating. My logical waypoint in New Hampshire towards Maine was Lake Winnipesaukee (not the filming location for What About Bob unfortunately) which was littered with wild low bush blueberries. I have been caramelizing these with my onions.

The goal for Maine was to see my first real life lighthouse, which I found at Portland Head Light. An aimless drive south got me to a moderately busy combing-beach. Despite being well picked over, I found a handful of mussels, and also gathered lots of periwinkle snails after talking to some Asian ladies who were harvesting grocery bags full.

I am no gastropodiatrist, more accustomed to fungi, but remember something about terrestrial snails being edible but sea snails containing some of the most lethal toxins known to man. The ladies said they eat them all the time with lemongrass, turmeric, and coconut milk. I worked with the ingredients on hand, so it was a little more Indian, and had blueberries in it. Served with Melba toast from my brother’s everything but the bagel sourdough.

Definitely will repeat the clam digging once I hit saltwater again. Now to crisp up this bacon.

Live carelessly pwh 07-02-25