The rain in Maine stays plainly as a pain...

One thing that Maine is known for is its blueberries. Here's one, from a single bush that grows along the lake shore amidst large rocks.



More importantly, though, is where we were. The lake is Upper Sysladobsis Lake in eastern central Maine. My grandfather built it (the cabin, not the lake!) in the 1950s, I believe, after their older cabin burned down. There's no electricity, but most everything runs on gas. There's a fridge and stove/range that haven't changed in fifty years, easily. Gas lamps that you have to be careful lighting, not to blow out the glass mantles. A couple of years ago Erika tried to make me a cake in the oven but it didn't cook very evenly. But it's easy to fry stuff up on the range part. I made bacon and eggs and pancakes Saturday and Sunday, for instance. Something about being at camp lets you say, "screw eating healthy!" although I did bring some fruit and nuts for snacks.

This year's birthday cake was finished off in Connecticut, but by the time she'd frosted it, it was like 9:30 pm, and the kids were in bed because we were getting up around 1:30 am to start driving. We took off around 2:10 from home and stopped in Augusta, Maine, at around 6:30 for breakfast at Friendly's. We got up to Lincoln, Maine around 9:30 or so and hit the grocery store for some last-minute beer. It takes about 45 minutes from Lincoln...the first 15 or so are regular road, but the last half hour is on unpaved dirt roads. It was dry up there, so even though I was in a little Nissan Sentra, I had no real issues with clearance over some of the rocky parts. A couple of loud bumps on the bottom of the car, but at 20 mph, they don't do any real damage.

So the kids changed out of their PJs and into their bathing suits. They have life vests that keep them afloat while swimming. I don't think they NEEDED them, but they don't have to worry about the depth of the lake or the gunky mossy bottom of the lake touching their feet that way, either.

On Friday the kids and Erika swam about a third of a mile and back with vests on to this island at the top.







Anyways, I had to help with yard maintenance. The original septic tank has rusted out, so there was a sinkhole that needed to be filled....a few trips in my uncle's pickup to haul dirt from a nearby quarry-like spot. In addition, I was finally instructed how to operate a chainsaw, as I was in charge of slicing up a cedar tree that was impacting the ability to pull down the driveway, and may also affect where the replacement septic tank goes once the permit is obtained. (I'm not sure how much of the operation is impacted by the Penobscot Indian sovereignty in the local areas. My uncle seems to be in okay with them.)

Anyways, we were all exhausted most of Thursday, so the good part of vacation started Friday. My uncle left, with instructions for cleaning up and locking the place. I took the boat out on the lake....there are a couple of clusters of cabins in spots, but mostly only a few isolated ones, or none at all. Very peaceful. There was a loon in the lake, I only got a half-decent picture of it....its song greeted us each morning. Friday evening, thunderstorms rolled in and rocked the place. The skies kept changing color from bright orange to purple to gray, and then once the really dark clouds came in, they opened up. High winds led me to need to bail out about 6 inches of water (mostly waves crashing in, rather than actual rainfall) the next morning.

Saturday we did a little day trip to Bangor. In part to re-load on things we needed -- paper towels, dishwashing soap -- stuff we didn't know that the camp was out of. Also, to see how much rain had collected on the dirt roads. Several puddles of varying sizes that required me to swerve back and forth on the roads....A guy on my fantasy baseball team who lives in New Brunswick and I had discussed meeting for lunch, but Canada had a three-day weekend, so he'd made other plans. Still, we got to see Stephen King's house in Bangor. It's nice, but very centrally located in the city. My camera batteries died out the first time we swung around the block (the master of horror strikes!!!), so we did swing around again and take a shot from my new cell phone. Erika was surprised someone of his stature chooses to live in a non-secluded area. I say, good for him! Between the two of us, we've read all his books. I read his book "Faithful", a running dialogue with the co-author about the 2004 Red Sox, and Erika's read everything else :) -- in fact, she's just re-read 1408 after seeing the movie.

Sunday was mostly cleaning, and we left around 11. One of my contacts had ripped Thursday, so I spent the rest of the weekend with my glasses on. That meant no sunglasses for the drive back west. Interstate 95 is also a nightmare in southern Maine and New Hampshire on Sunday afternoons, we learned last year. So my bright idea was to cut through northern Maine on back roads -- Route 2 from mid-Maine west through New Hampshire and Vermont, to cut down Route 91 south as the sun was setting. Much less traffic, and since the last 4 hours would be south, the sun wasn't an issue. All that was true, except the lack of a high-speed freeway added 2 hours to the middle of the trip! Ugh. Anyway, home around 9:30 for a well-needed shower and bedtime....and slice of birthday cake!