Guest Dogger

I'm a fan of The Ben Spark blog; I have been featured there in the past and I've gotten to know Drew- the author- a bit. He's an avid photographer and he takes a Photo a Day as a feature on his site. We have been exchanging emails and when he said he was going to be in Framingham, we decided to meet at the Trolley Stop for a few dogs and some good blog talk.

I have featured the Trolley Stop on Hot Dog Stories before, so I knew the food was going to be good. Make sure you check for a new installment on the Trolley Stop on Hot Dog Stories soon.

In this super electronic day and age where everybody "tweets" and "IM's" or texts each other, it's good to get together face to face with folks (especially "internet friends") every once in a while. What better way to "ketchup" with someone than over lunch at a hot dog joint?

Drew and I shared some ideas and we may be doing more joint ventures in the future.

You can see our hot dog story in a few weeks (there's a 3-4 week backlog on the Hot Dog Stories site). In the mean time, you can be safe in knowing Drew gave the Trolley Stop TWO THUMBS UP!

Poutine

For the uninitiated, poutine is french fries topped with gravy and cheese curd. It's most commonly found in Quebec, but you can get it in other places too. Like many regional delicacies, folks have their own "favorites."

The wife and I get poutine whenever we are in Montreal for a visit or when we stumble across a place that has poutine in the states.

We recently found some poutine at Big Bellies Deli in Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

These were very good-it was enough for lunch for both of us!

We also had some at Lafleur's in Montreal.

Also very good!

In Montreal, even McDonald's has poutine.

These pretty much sucked! 

The happy meal toy had more flavor!

Not Too Appetizing

Like most tourists, I travel with my camera. I also get hungry from time to time. I happened upon this sign while traveling in Montreal recently.

It looks like dog poop on a roll!

We didn't eat there....

Whale Tails in Burlington, Vermont

I have been driving up to Montreal from Boston 2-3 times a year for 15 years. We head up route 89 and always watch for this unusual sight in between exits 12 and 13 on the north bound side in Burlington, Vermont.

Out in the middle of a field next to the highway, there are two whales "diving" into the grass. It's a landmark moment of every trip; someone ALWAYS asks, "how long until we're at the Whale's Tails?"

The actual name of the sculpture is Reverence. It's an apt title, we've been revering this for 15 years.

On each and every trip I say to myself: "Self, you ought to stop and snap a picture." This was the year!