Maine-ly Magical Times (Wednesday, August 8)

Our last day in Bar Harbor and Acadia. What to do, what to do? Well, for sure, no sleeping in—can’t waste any of the last day lying in the sleeping bag. Well, really, I could. Laying down in the tent at night with the last of the campfire smells still wafting in, with the wind moving the leaves in the trees, with the kids already sleeping deeply around me, with a book and a clip-on booklight in hand, all is well. And when I wake up, my youngest is laying next to me, many times greeting me with a sleepy smile as I turn over and all of us just closing our eyes again and drifting back to sleep. At some point, someone will be up for good, and they’ll pick up a book and wait for the rest of us to come around. The sun starts to make its way into the open screens, birds trill and call, and blue sky awaits the sound of our zipper door. Mmmm.

But we do have a few things to do yet. And so, we pour a bowl of cereal for everyone, brush teeth at the mediocre bathroom facility, and off we go. Today’s agenda: the Wonderland trail and Echo Lake.

The Wonderland trail first takes you on a very short hike out to the ocean, where tide pools are again spread out across the rocks for our inspection. When we’ve had our fill of tramping over rocks, searching for something we haven’t seen before (today it was evaporated puddles that left behind salt crystals on the rocks), we took the rest of the nature trail. One thing we noticed today is how strong a current the tide creates—the water coming into a small inlet looked like a river carrying large chunks of seaweed and shells with it. This time, instead of losing one or more children as we have on 3 previous hikes, we lost Kurt. He caught up with us eventually.

A bit of a drive later, we got to Echo Lake. Echo Lake is one of the inland lakes, gorgeous and surrounded by trees. It has a sandy beach that many, many people seemed to be enjoying. But someone had told Kurt, Katy and Dave about a short hike out to the lake from a different spot, which would bring us to a rock ledge good for jumping into the lake. We found it, and it was wonderful. What could keep 8 kids entertained better than jumping off rocks into a great swimming hole? The water was the perfect temperature, there were a couple of people on little Sunfish sailboats in the distance, and a grandfather and grandson pulled up in their brightly colored kayaks. Looked like a picture from a magazine.

This is the same spot where Katy, a long-suffering middle child, decided it was time to celebrate National Middle Child Day—a very important holiday on her calendar. She organized the other middle children of our tribe (her daughter and ours) to join in a National Middle Child Day “frolic”. They all jumped together to celebrate. This is the best day of the year for Natalie, as she finds community with Katy and Elise. Brian’s the oldest, I’m the youngest. We have NO IDEA what it is like to be a middle child, as Katy frequently tells us, because the oldest gets coddled up front and the baby gets babied eternally. Oh puh-leaze. But at least Natalie had her moment.

Dave and Brian and I went back with some of the kids to the campground for some down time. Translate that as me doing laundry (for some reason Brian packed 4 shirts for 2 weeks, aside from the 2 collared polo shirts that he brought perhaps to serve as usher at the campground church service or maybe to run for mayor of the campground) and Dave watching the remaining kids swim in the pool. The rest of the group went on the Precipice trail, which seems named in honor of the fact that all of the hikers spent some time hanging from iron rungs over a precipice. Glad I wasn’t there. When Natalie came back, I asked her how it was; she responded with a huge smile and the words “I bled.” Some things that would not freak me out to do on my own are not made for me to do with my children. What might not scare me much for myself gets way too scary when I watch them do it. I stayed out of the whole thing.

We made pizzas over the fire. Some of us did some souvenir shopping in Bar Harbor. We decided it would be prudent to pack as much as possible this evening so that we could be ready to go first thing in the morning (Kurt, Katy and Dave are heading to Cape Cod via Boston; we are heading to the Montreal area). We of course did not do any packing. Instead, we made sure everyone got a last shower, and then the adults sat around the fire until midnight talking about the most inane things possible, which is exactly what is so great about camping with other people. Yes, we’ll have to be up at 6:30, but at least we got to shoot the breeze in the dark by a fire the night before. Good times.

Popular posts from this blog

[British] Open Minded

Image
About a year ago, a friend asked us if we’d be interested in going to Scotland for the British Open if he won the chance to buy 4 tickets in the ticket lottery. At the end of October he found out he’d won. For a few hours I was celebrating my opportunity to see top-notch tennis players, until my ignorance became apparent to the rest of the foursome. Turns out it’s a golf tournament; I offer that tidbit for anyone else out there like me. After 9 months of anticipation and almost 2 weeks of touring Scotland, the big day was here. Our fellow traveler not only won the chance to buy tickets, he won the chance to buy them for the final day. Again, for those like me, that means they have already played a round of golf for each of the first 3 days, and those that made the cut play a last round on the final day. The excitement of it was heightened because it was the 150 th anniversary of the British Open, and it was being played—as it is every 5 years now—at the birthplace of golf, St Andr
Read more

[Wander] Lust in the Time of COVID, Part I: Fennville and South Haven

Image
It may come as no surprise to find out that I’m afflicted with itchy feet. In normal times, I will seek out any way I can to explore via planes, trains or automobiles. Of course these are not normal times. But the point of travel isn't only to see far-away places. We travel to experience the joy of new  places.  For Mother’s Day this year, I gave out a few copies of books about traveling in Michigan.  Rebel , a fun gift store in Grand Rapids, put many of their products online so you could order curbside when retail was still shut down. One book was  Backroads and Byways of Michigan,  and another focused on hikes in Michigan. I gave myself the Backroads book, and this summer Brian and I have been exploring some areas we haven’t before, or finding new ways to enjoy places we have been. We avoid crowds, watch for well-spaced outdoor dining, and stay masked up whenever we get near other people, which puts us in the majority in some places and the minority in others. Most of the places
Read more

Little Earthquakes Everywhere

Image
This morning, just before 5 am, a 5.0 earthquake somewhere northeast of us made a Tokyo’s ground tremble. I happened to wake up to the bed shaking a bit; this is the fourth time I’ve felt one in my life. Three of those four times I’ve wondered what Brian could possibly be doing in his sleep—a constant leg twitch? a terrifying nightmare?— to cause our bed to shimmy this way. One of those times was three days ago in the middle of the night in the same hotel room, but it didn’t occur to me then what it was. This morning I heard the wall shift slightly as it was happening and it became clear. Japan has small earthquakes almost every day, so this should be no surprise, but of course my nighttime self is not the most reasonable version of me, so I lay in bed another half hour wondering what might come next. I am the family seismograph—everyone else slept through both tremors this week.  This echoes my function in our family in real life. When one of our children is going through
Read more