A walk home from the Archives and what I saw.

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 The impressive plaque in the hall way of the Archives building. It reminds me of the tag on the pillows and quilts - do not remove under penalty of law or perhaps even death to those who dare! I really think that Art the Archiver would eat people alive if they were caught defacing the archive holdings.

 The foyer of the Archives.  these are plat maps of civil war graves.

 This impressive gentleman was an officer in the civil war.

 The hallway leading to the search room.

 These boulders are leftovers frm the age when a glacier covered Maine.  The snow in the picture has been here for so long that I am not so sure it is not a glacier of sorts.

 this is the road we usually take on our way home from the YMCA.  Just ahead, and across the river is a very picturesque collection of buildings that give some idea of the opulence of life as it was lived long ago.

 getting closer to the opulent scene.

 Another view of the opulent and idyllic scene.

 As I turn the corner these houses come into view.  At one time they must have been beautiful but now they are pretty run down.

 Across the street, more run down houses.  at the end of street ahead is the bridge across the river to our side of the city.

 At the bottom of the hill more boulders surrounding a small park.

 Houses at the top of the hill close to the bridge.  even more run down than the last ones.

 Looking towards downtown Augusta while crossing the bridge.

 A view of the idyllic scene from the bridge.  I poked the Iphone up to the wire and got a clear shot of the river and the rails to trail walkway on the bottom right of this picture.

 Another view of the Kennebec.

 This is cony street - the houses are very old and quite small.

 Not all the houses are in good repair.  This one looks pretty terrible.

 The building across the street is a laundromat, but  you can rent the tanning bed while your clothes are processing in the washers and dryers.  I think this is rather an odd combination myself.

 I love this house.  It is about 3/4  of a mile from our home.  The man who lives there is very old and rather crabby.  I met him one day when I first came here.

the people in this home always seem to decorate for the season.  Now they have their bush in front of the house shaped like a heart and have lights on it and in the night time it looks like a wonderful lit up heart.
I know this picture collection resembles the Suess story "And to think that I saw it on Mulberry street".  The streets of Augusta  are not quite Mulberry Street, but they are just as interesting.

Today was quite a day.  We are always anxious to get our report from Salt Lake.  Last week we had trouble with the shuttle and so we could not download the instructions from SLC onto our computer.  The wizards sent me a blow by blow description on how to do it, but after step 3 I gave up.  There are some things that should be left to die a natural death, why hurry the process and get frustrated with it?

So today the results from the auditor came…………..OOOHHHHaaarrrhhh  out of 14 folders he failed 4.  I dared ask this guru what should we look for and he said that we had bad focus.  Well we focus in the morning and do not re-focus until the next day.  This smart camera we have is good for 10 hours before we have to refocus.  I asked for specifics from the auditor and he said that the top left hand corner of each page was out of focus.  This just made us scratch our heads.  Since we do a double capture, how come just the top left hand corner of each page is out of focus?  It did not sound right.  So, I called for a second opinion by writing to Terry Vowles with a copy to Manuel and Rose.  I explained about the auditor and his assessment of where the pages were all out of focus, and so Terry Vowels went back and looked at the film and said – well, you are blurred rather than out of focus.  Even Manuel asked for clarification – he even said he sided with the missionaries because the description by the auditor did not look correct.  Now that TRULY is a first……to have Manuel side with us.

So, the first part of next week , we will launch out into space and do the reworks.

I look forward to lunch time.  I get to spend a whole hour with Anne and it is pure delight.  If she is one of the reasons I had to come on a mission at this time, then I shout hooray!  We talk like we have known each other for years and years and it is pure heaven to me.  Nina, on the other hand is about as easy to get close to as someone trying to hug a porcupine.  She has a fluid retirement date.  By fluid I mean, it changes daily with the tides of the Kennebec River.  One minute she is retiring in October, and the next it is April this year and a few hours later it is in 14 days time.  I will believe it when I see it.

Anne asked me a question today that required more than a yes/no answer.  She asked what it took for our young men to go out on a mission.  She said that she thought young girls did not go because she has not seen any.  I explained the age difference of the lady missionaries compared with the young men.  I prefaced my answer with “Well, since you asked I will tell you.  Is that ok?”  She said yes.  I did this because we are not allowed to talk about the church while in the Archives  doing the digitizing.  I talked about being baptized at 8, ordained a Deacon at 12, a Teacher at 14, a Priest at 16 and an elder at 18 and at 19 we send the off to the MTC in Provo.  We discussed it a little further before a new subject came up – like what did we have to do to come, so I told her about the endless papers that we had to fill out and the medical tests we had to have.

I told her that I am glad that I got to meet her and become her friend while here in Maine.

Bill has been doing  some continuing education classes for pharmacy because he has kept his license active just in case he has to go back to work even on a part time basis for a couple of days per week.  This is wisdom.  Another pharmacist we know let his license lapse and now they are retired with no hope of part time work due to no license.  Live and learn I suppose.  He needed to take one of the classes so he went over to the library section of the building which closes at 5pm and he stayed there and worked on his class.  We decided that I should walk home since I really wanted to do some sort of exercise and walking is the exercise of choice for me.  So I started off from the Archives and the pictures on this blog are of places along the way.  I left the archives about 3.45pm and Bill left at 5pm and he picked me up 7/10^ths of a mile from our apartment.  I wanted to walk the last 7/10ths but he insisted on driving me the rest of the way.  I was not dragging either.  One of the church members saw me walking and she turned her car around and stopped and asked me if I needed a ride.  I was 1 ½ miles from home at that point but I told her that in Arizona I walk 4 to 6 miles or more a day and she was amazed.  It was only 40 degrees and really quite a wonderful temperature to be out walking and I really enjoyed it.  The only scary time was when I tried to cross the roundabout.  They have the pedestrian crossing well marked but people still honked at me.  I guess 5pm in the afternoon is not such a good time to try to cross in the roundabout.