My Weekend: Mom, 3 Strikes, Brews, 7 Hr Drives, and Night Photography

I'll start with Mom. Connie is 89 years old - and Valerie and I took her and my dad out for dinner on Saturday night for Mother's Day to one of our favorite restaurants, Diverge in Dover NH (which happens to be owned by my nephew TJ and his partner Shannon). We had a great meal and a nice night out, so Happy Mothers Day to my Mom, my wife Valerie, and all of you who are Mom's out there!

For the rest of the weekend, lets back up to Friday- our Brew Tour Night-

We headed to Pipe Dreams Brewing in Londonderry and had a great time! Im pretty sure the beer I had was called "Bitchin Blonde" (or something close to that) and it was very good! It was #64 on our brew tour list, which keeps grown every week!

We went home after that because I had an early start planned for Saturday. THAT - also prevented me from shooting the most incredible Northern Lights display in New England HISTORY!

I'm happy all of you got to see the most magical of all displays Mother Nature has in her arsenal - but I was sleeping. Ugh....hahah - and I was because I was getting up at 3am on Saturday to head up near Bar Harbor to photograph some bald eagles feeding on the run alewives (a fish) along a small river. Last year when I went- there were about 25+ bald eagles in one location and it was awesome to see!

THIS time, however - I travelled all that way (and MISSED THE NORTHERN LIGHTS - haha) - only to get there and see 4 or 5. Ugh. SEVEN hours of driving- for almost nothing!

Still - as bummed as I was, I did get a few shots....

And I told Roadkill - THEY EVEN HAVE ZOMBIE BALD EAGLES!

And even though they may try- they can't hide from me - hahah

And I have to say - even though I didn't get the results I wanted, I still enjoyed it because when you're out there - you just never know what you'll see or encounter. In that regard, it WAS fun!

Saturday night - as I said- we took my Mom and Dad out for dinner, and I was trying to take a pic of Valerie- and she wouldn't let me, she kept making faces. Finally, I asked her - "Cmon, smile!" - and this is what i got...

That's why I love her!!! Haha -

We figured after we dropped my parents off, we'd head out to see Round 2 of the Aurora that was being caused by a huge geomagnetic storm. We cruised up the coast with our eyes to the north - but alas- they didn't show up. No Northern Lights for us! Strike two. We got home at 11:30p and she says "Hon, Im beat, Im going to bed...." - and I just looked at her. She says - "You're going back out with the camera, aren't you??"

What can I say? She knows me - check out this video -

Here's a better look at a couple of photos I got instead of the aurora -

Nubble Light - a famous lighthouse in Cape Neddick Maine - was a shit show. TONS of people everywhere, there to see the Northern Lights. Hundreds of cars, headlights sweeping over the ocean and lighthouse (which makes night photography challenging), their brake lights turning everything RED!

But as soon as I saw that the Northern Lights weren't happening - I just turned my focus to what the light from the unusual heavy traffic created on the scene!

Kind of a funky, psychadelic scene, right?

Then it was over to the Wiggly Bridge- a suspension bridge in York Harbor (as seen in the video above)

All in all? Not a bad night. I made lemonade and vodka out of lemons!

As for what I did for Valerie on Mothers Day? All I can say is - ITS THE MOST CHERISHED GIFT ANY MOM COULD EVER ASK FOR!

I got her flowers, and then we headed to......

Ocean State Job Lot! Haha- It's one of those discount stores that gets stuff all the other stores can't sell! We were looking for chairs for the deck at the house (we struck out on that too!)

After that, we had dinner with the kids - and the weekend ended too soon. But it was a nice day with family-

Hope you all had a good weekend too!