It's a long, boring trip from New York to Portland, Maine.

 I guess they were trying to make the road beautiful, but it was nothing but trees.
 The same trees, mile after mile - that's all there was.
 At least out west, you get mountains and valleys and rivers and creeks.

 Radio really sucked, too.
 We searched and we searched - AM. FM, there was nothing.
 I would've figured the northeast would have some hip radio stations,
 but it was the worst collection of small-town radio horseshit you ever heard.

 We'd catch some Floyd or Aerosmith on some station, and think we'd found a winner.
 Then the DJ would come on and ask his listeners to call in with their favorite Mothers Day gift.
 What a bunch of crap!

 Is it possible K-Drag radio is better than New York radio?
 Better than Connecticut radio?    Better than Boston radio?
 I was surprised how incredibly bad the FM waves were.

 We kept driving, wanting to get the boring part over with fast.
 Spent the night in Portland at the Motel 6 at Exit 8.

 What a bummer, an old friend - Braintree - owns a girlie club just blocks away from
 the Motel 6 at Exit 8 in Portland, but he never gave us the club name or phone number.
 We were playing phone tag, and he'd always say, "Leave a msg on my machine,"
 instead of giving us the name of the club, so I never got to see any hot babes.

 Tuesday morning we were off for Acadia National Park in southeastern Maine.

Of course, Maine was closed until next week.

 We ended up in Bar Harbor (Bah Hahbah) which is run by small tin men.
 Here's a family standing on their front porch.

 Don't know if you can see it, but "Dad" on the lower left
 has a tin penis, and "Mom" in the bask has tin breasts.
 The one on the right had no sex organs, like Larry Klayman.

 We grabbed lunch at King Eider's Pub.

 My nine-dollar "roast beef" sandwich had less meat than an Arby's Junior,
 but Mrs. BartCop's crab balls were pretty good, she said.
 I don't think the state of Maine knows what to do with beef.

 We got a great deal on a hotel room, since the state was closed.
 The Park Entrance Oceanfront Inn gave us a room with a view for $44.

  This was the view from our room - can't beat that for $44.

 Acadia is a big park, and it's beautiful, but you know what was weird?
 We didn't hear any birds in the park.

 It was like that Star Trek when Charles Bronson's wife made Spock smoke the spores.
 ...everything was beautiful, but there were no signs of any animals.

 I know Acadia is way north and way east, but bird's can fly, y'know?

 Anybody have a clue?
 Mid May and no birds chirping?

 Trying to hurry the story along... We saw lots of this:

 You know what these are?

 Those are lobster traps, we saw plenty of those.
 But don't you think they'd work better in the water?

 More fishing boats and a lighthouse.

 As we were leaving town, we drove down by the beach.

Bah Hahbah

Our last night in Bar Harbor, Maine, we figured to do a "big" meal.
The first two places we went to weren't open, then we found Rupununi's.

 Sidebar:
You won't believe this, but I saw a black man in Maine.
 I didn't get to hear him speak, but I know it was a black man.

Besides expensive, I'm not sure what kind of restaurant it was, but it didn't matter,
because the cute lil' waitress handed me a tequila menu when she seated us.
I tried to kiss her, but she pulled away.

I saw one I hadn't tried before, the Porfidio Cactus Bottle Anejo.
It was high, I think $16 a shot.

In order to make my $16 pay off, I had to have something to compare it with,
so I asked for a shot of Herradura Anejo and Patron Anejo.

Cute lil' comes back with,
"We have the Herradura, but no Patron.
  We have some Chinaco, tho.
   Is that a good brand?"

I asked, "Is it the Chinaco Anejo?"
She says she'll find out.

It wasn't, it was Reposado, which isn't the same.

So I just had the two shots - they were nice.
The Porfidio Cactus Bottle Anejo was plenty smooth, but there's no there there.
Smooth is one thing, "nothing there" is another.

Like OJ, I think I''m going to stop my search for the "real killer"
tequila,  because we have a clear winner with The Gift of Canaan.

They also had food at this place.

I went with the salad, the Prime Rib Au Jus and the baked potatoe*

Mrs. Barkley had the Lobster Fettacino, is how I think you spell it.
Ohhhh, the lobster was Belize-style, with coconut curry sauce!

ha ha

No wonder I don't eat that weird food.
What the "F" is coconut curry sauce?

What? ...short on time? ...pick it up?

OK OK, the meal was the best ever.
Great salad, the steak was great, but the best part was the baked potatoe*

Y'ever notice how the baked potatoe* always tastes better at the restaurant?
I have a theory that the longer they sit, perhaps in rock salt, the more the flavor of the
potatoe* skin osmosizizes (homage to Smirk) its flavor into the spud, thereby giving
greater flavor than home baked taters which you'd eat shortly after preparing it.

This potatoe* was that good.
To make it even better, ...towards the end, ...when every little bite is extra good?
I poured the last of my Au Jus on it.

ha ha

Ohhhh, it was reeeal good.
I'd take a little bit of the Au Jus-soaked potatoe* (I'm getting real tired of that)
and I'd savor the taste then follow it with a sliver of pink Prime Rib, and then chase it
with some high-dollar Anejo, ...and the exhale alone is worth twenty bucks.

ha ha

I must be going to hell.

Later, Cute Lil' asked me what the deal was with the different kinds of tequila.
She asked me to give her a tequila education.
I did what I could.

So, Mrs. BartCop drove back (drinking and driving is bad) to the PEOV Inn.
We settled into a little TV, knowing tomorrow would be a busy day.

Sidebar:
Channel surfing, I caught The Madonna Story on VH-1.
Some lady said the reason Madonna was so screwed up sexually is because she was
brought up Catholic, where french-kissing and murder are both equal sins.
We could spend a week on that craziness, but this report is already too long.

We watched a little Dave, and I was shocked by something he revealed.
Remember this, from Smirk's disasterous 2000 visit to Dave, pre-theft?

President Weak, Stupid and Heartless was caught wiping his glasses on a staffer.
I, perhaps like you, assumed the staffers was a Smirk staffer, but noooooo.

But Dave revealed last Wednesday night (the 16th) that it was Maria Pope,
....the lady who introduces the Survivor rejects, ...the Campaign 2000 lady,

...SHE is the young lady who Smirk just decided to wipe himself on!

Can you believe that silver-spooned son of a bitch?

Wiping himself off on whoever happens to be nearby?

And to think this prick got within 500,000 votes of winning the presidency!

Isn't that scary?

(Back after this)

Will this story ever end?
   Koresh, I hope so.

That Wednesday, as we finished watching the West Wing finale in our fine view motel room,

Mrs. BartCop suggested we might hit some Acadia early the next morning,
then start the trip back toward THE City a day earlier than we had planned.

This was strange behavior for her.
For the 29.7  years I've known her, she's always been very afraid of New York.
She updated her will before we left, in case she was murdered on the streets.
(She watches Law & Order and NYPD Blue every week...)

But here she was, ...asking if I might be ready to go back a day early.

Hmmmmmm.......

Hell, I thought Manhattan was pretty damn impressive, and since the airfare to New York
is DOUBLE the airfare to Las Vegas, it might be a while before we come back,
so I agreed with her (never a bad move, trust me) to go back to the center of the universe.

...but it sure seemed out of character for her.

Thursday morning it was back to New York for super Thursday.

 Back to today's New York Special