... this afternoon i went for a little wanderabout down thru augusta to hallowell and gardiner, then headed east towards china ... on route 17 outside of togus i was held up several times by construction crews installing great lengths of piping along the highway ... i stopped to ask what i was, and found that it's a 10" coated-iron natural gas pipeline ... they weld as much as 700 feet of it into a single section, then lower it all at once into the pre-dug trench ...
... the supervisor was very nice answering my questions. but he still busted me for being in a construction zone without a hard-hat and steel-toed boots ...
... at the green bean in china i enjoyed a cup of coffee and a wonderful mini lemon-meringue pie ... one of my favorite coffee houses, the green bean is run by nanci dorrian rodrigue—who once survived my classroom—and her husband, jake ...