It WAS my packing thumb! I'm currently training my left hand won the Three Level Method with mixed results but I'll be keeping the nail and, as a matter of fact, the only real damage is a superficial laceration on and around my cuticle. It could have been much worse and I should be ok in a jiffy. We were on the Northway so it only vending machines. If it had been a Roy Roger's stop, I could have gotten ice. Instead, I got a sideways look from the lady behind the tourism counter for coming in bleeding.
So, to finish my story (which at this point now continued into Sunday), we drove down from Lake George on Route 9 instead of back to the highway because of bridge construction between Exits 7 and 8. Everything was going fine, despite driving through the middle of the Glens Falls Soup Festival and the general carnage of Saratoga Springs, until we got down by Clifton Park. Park Lane is on my list of shops to visit but it wasn't on that day's itinerary. Well, near Clifton Park, traffic started to back up and it started to rain and then hail and our lane was about to expire so we panicked and turned right instead of merging left. Luckily, the road we turned onto lead to the highway exit- directly to the highway exit that we were attempting to avoid. That's life though so we toured the countryside and through foggy memory and random guessing we made it to Central Ave and then to Habana Premium.
At this point, I have to say sorry to rickpal because I must have missed him as I over shot my ETA by 2 hours or I just didn't see him. So, sorry rickpal. As is my custom, I walked around the entire pipe section of the store and, seeing nothing new or nothing within my very meager price range (especially after my extravagant $33 purchase earlier) I asked the gentleman behind the counter for 8 oz of my regular tobacco, which is Cornell and Diehl Three Friars. He got it for me, end of story. Alls well that ends well.
Not exactly. My sister also needed to go to the mall, so we got back onto the highway and started to make our way over there when my nose could tell that something was not right in the bag of tobacco I bought. I pulled the bag out and without having to open it, I could smell the latakia. Three Friars is Virginia, Burley and Perique. No latakia. I figured, no big deal, must be some sort of aroma exchange between bags in the warehouse. Opened the bag, it was worse. Filled my pipe, lit up, everyone tried to jump out of the car. I was disappointed that something like this would happen. I love that tobacco and even despite the fact that it's medium strength, something is so satisfying about it that I only want to smoke that. Not even cigarettes. After the mall, everyone was too tired to go back so we drove home back to the Mid-Hudson Valley.
So I called up when I got home, they said they would exchange it for me, no problem, so I got up the next day early, got waylaid, left late, drove past the store and arrived. Come to find out, there wasn't a mix up in-store but rather Cornell and Diehl either mislabeled the shipment or changed the blend without telling anyone. I hope it was a labeling mistake because if the blend changed, I will be heartbroken. I took home 8 oz of Night Train as a consolation and it seemed pretty close.
Does anyone know if Three Friars is a rubbed out version of Night Train? I havn't smoked enough of the Night Train to decide. Also, does anyone know if Cornell and Diehl changed that blend? Alex from Habana said he would e-mail me after he found out but I'm just wondering if anyone would know off hand. I might repeat this question in a separate post, so those of you who have had the fortitude to read this novel, please bare with me if I start repeating questions outside of this thread.
When I got home yesterday, I packed the new Calabresi and it smoked really well. The pipe was warm but not hot when I had finished and I only had to swab it twice for a gurgle. This means a lot coming from a wet smoker who was watching his football team barely win in OT.
And that was the rest of the story.
