The Way we are on vacation (part II)

August 16-19 AM

We've been doing a lot of nothing...swimming, reading, coloring, fishing, frog catching, walking, blueberrying, puttering, ice-cream eating, bubble blowing, rock hopping, marshmellow roasting, sand castle making...and plain old just hanging around.

I'm at a breakfast spot in Farmington called the Homestead. Neil and the kids are running around in the rain, and once I finish this, we'll pile in the car and head for Massachusetts. It's the first summer that we're not heading to the Portland area to see my Grandparents...

We've got five more days of exploring to do...and more expressions of freedom to find. 

All the fun at the fair!

Friday, August 15, 2008

Since 1818, Skowhegen, 20 miles east of Farmington, has held the oldest continuous fair in the country. We spent the afternoon walking around the 4-H fairgrounds, trying out various rides (Alex and Eleni!), watching the horse races, and checking out the big top! We didn’t watch the entire Circus performance, but we saw enough for Eleni to want to be just like the Hula Hoop lady when she grows up (thankfully not the frightening tight-rope walker or the woman who flipped herself through fire).

The fair was rather expensive: $8 for each adult to get in, $20 for 20 ride tickets (around 3 rides for each child), $5 for a doughboy (fried dough), and $4 for a 2 minute pony ride. There were many apologies and explanations for the price of items due to the high gas prices this summer, but even with high prices, the fair was packed with people from all walks of life. We helped Alex fit in and bought him a NASCAR hat (sadly, we lost only one thing on this trip (so far) – Alex’s Red Sox hat).

The pony ride of a lifetime!

Right...what don't you see in Maine every day?

Alex before his new hat (sporting Neil's hat!)

And another pony ride! Faster and longer and very exciting for a three-year-old!

A range of exhibitions here...

Eleni on a very pink car (followed by a Dumbo the elephant ride)

My Dad bet on this horse (Alex and Eleni's came in last!)

A true 4-H fair!

Complete with fiddle-heads and blueberries!

A ride we did not go on!

And games we did not play!

Horrible for you, but very fun at a fair! Complete with cotton candy, too!

When we returned to the cabin, my Dad kindly watched the kids for two hours while Neil and I celebrated our ten-year anniversary with a dinner at the Granary Pub in Farmington. After two months of 24/7 with the kids, it felt rather odd to be on our own (but reassuring to know that after spending so much time with each other this summer, we actually wanted to celebrate our relationship!).


And, while we are celebrating…

Happy birthday Uncle Jon (and belated birthday greetings for Pam, Marco, Anouk, and, for next week – Sandy and cousin Abby!)!

Maine potatoes

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Little known fact: earmuffs were invented in Farmington. Today it is a college town housing one of the University of Maine campuses, and it is home to many farmers. Unlike the cooks we overheard in New Hampshire, the farmers in Farmington, Maine don’t need anymore of this rain. Several of the locals we’ve met are desperate for some sun for their drenched potato crops.

Geographically, Farmington is also the decision point on Route 4 to Saddleback or Route 27 to Sugarloaf. And, twenty miles north of Jackson, Maine, you are pretty much assured a Moose sighting.

Two traditions that we’ll have to live without: visiting the thrift shop, the Farmington Diner. Well, I’m dramatizing the thrift shop. They actually moved two stores down, but it doesn’t have the same feel to it. And, the Farmington Diner? Rite Aid bought out the Diner, and was going to have it demolished. Locals tried to rally and buy another property space for it in town, but they couldn’t raise enough interest or, more importantly, money. Finally, just before demolition, someone bought the Diner and it is sitting on a piece of property 10 miles away in Wilton awaiting some TLC.

For me, the removal of the Diner is just another tragedy in the life of a small town. It’s adding to the dependency on the Walmart, McDonalds, Burger King that lie in wait five minutes outside of the historical town – the new Main Street of the 21st century. So, it’s out there (if you hadn’t perceived this yet), I don’t like change and I’m extremely sentimental.

Instead of the Diner, we had breakfast at the Homestead. The Homestead has its own weekly Red Sox trivia newspaper – who knew Curt Shilling is originally from Alaska? Our waiter was a native Mainer with a wicked sense of humor, “Ladies first – that’s just a guideline.” I tried out their Wi-Fi afterwards and posted a few blogs while Neil and Eleni got the oil changed and my Dad and Alex went foraging for Legos.

We puttered around town and then returned to the cabin where we continued to do a lot of nothing. Neil finally got stir crazy and played golf, my Dad and Alex went off to buy lobsters, and Eleni and I hunted for slugs.

We met a family down by the lake that was visiting from Rhode Island. They bought some property near here five years ago and they drive up every winter to snowmobile. This is the first time they have risked coming to Maine in the summer, but it was just as they expected, “there’s nothing to do here.”

What? I may be passing judgment here, but…what? Isn’t that the point?

Maybe it’s just that after our summer of constant purposeful activities, I’m a bit protective of doing nothing. In fact, this might be the one summer where I’ve not read a single book.

I had high hopes of reading several books, but life has been so full in other ways. I also didn’t want the travel writers’ ideas to inadvertently become my own; Steinbeck, Twain, Kerouac, Frazier, Least Heat-Moon will be read after the fact. While we are at it, why are the great USA travel writers all men? Plenty of Pioneer women kept journals and their reflections have helped shaped historians’ understanding of the west, but where are the women who purposefully wrote books about the USA experience in the 20th century? Or, have I just missed something…

We walked to the one store in Industry, just next to the lake, the Ugly Moose. We picked up some Bear Foot Brownie ice-cream and, in three minutes, we were back at the cabin.

Heavy rain again. Drowning Maine’s potatoes.

Clearwater Lake in Industry

The monkeys playing with Eleni and new doll from my Dad

The lobsters before their death...sigh. They were named, even.

The monkeys helping Alex put together his Legos!

Playing cribbage...

And writing these blog postings...again, sigh.

Learning to be still

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

How to unwind…

No photos, no car rides, no maps.

Swim, eat Giffords ice-cream, sleep, read books, spend an hour jumping off and on rocks, read the paper (leisurely), swat mosquitoes (knowing you can safely jump inside a house rather than a tent), and…

Watch your Dad spend half the day fixing the kitchen sink. After one neighborly “do you have this special sized wrench?” and four trips into town later, my Dad dismantled, reassembled and finally fixed the leak in the faucet.

And that was our day.

Coast to coast and back again!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

After a yummy breakfast of blueberry pancakes, we borrowed the Inn’s life-jackets and oars and canoed on Echo Lake. The lake was just waking up – carpenters putting the final shingles on a new home, two girls in a diving competition off their dock, and a man fly-fishing near the river (he caught and released two small mouthed bass while we were there). It was a perfectly tranquil hour, as we watched the birds dive and glide across the water’s surface and the kids “fished” with lily pads. Paddling across Echo Lake was also the closest we could come to what we were sure my grandparents must have indulged in during their courting days.

Neil planning our route 

Leaves are changing color here! Already?

Goodbye Echo Lake Inn

Then we piled into the car and drove the longest 100 miles of our trip; we stopped for Eleni’s excuses three times.



Recently covered bridge along the way

Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System!

Our route twisted and turned around the White Mountains until, out of desperation, we found just the right spot to stop in Littleton, NH. Neil and I had visited Littleton eleven years ago when my friend Terry was living here, and happily, not much had changed. The Littleton diner is almost 80 years old and it prides itself on the quality of its food with good reason. We sat close to the kitchen and we could hear the conversation about the Olympics and the French (“Do you remember when everyone was boycotting French Fries? I don’t remember them getting uppity about us being in their air space when we liberated them in WWII.”), bad weather (“We got more of it coming tomorra”), and the great blueberries, squash and tomatoes that have come of it (“And you know with the produce problem, it’s good we got those gardens”).

The kids were bursting out, under, and over the booth by the time our waitress asked us for our order. She was a quick study and she gave us some friendly advice, “I have four of my own. It gets better.”

We rarely buy things for the adults on this trip, but I got overly excited about being back home in New England, so I bought a Littleton diner t-shirt. On the back it says, “Recipe for an American Renaissance: 1, Eat in Diners, 2. Ride trains, 3. Put a porch on your house, 4. Shop on Main Street, and 5. Live in a Walkable Community.”


The diner in Littleton, NH

Main Street, Littleton, NH

The ubiquitous New England sign...

Route 2 on the New Hampshire side already had its fill of Dunkin Donuts and Moose Crossing warnings by the time we hit the border, so it all happened so naturally. But still, there was something magical about seeing the sign for Maine.

We stopped for supplies at Hannafords in Rumford and readily escaped from our car only to get completely drenched by the rain. We fit in perfectly, as the rest of the customers were weather weary, too.

In the summer in Maine (and now we know, as in any small town near potential campsites), the front of the grocery stores are well stocked with Hershey’s Chocolate Bars, marshmallows, and graham crackers. We stocked up on food that wasn’t just car-ride friendly because we were close to our destination.

Oh yeah! 100% Lobstah!

Farmington, Maine is around two hours north of Portland. My family has been visiting this area for many years after one of my Dad’s friends bought an old barn in Industry, ME, just down the road from Farmington. Around twenty years ago, my Dad spent over six months turning the barn into a livable cabin, and in return, my Dad’s friend has graciously let us spend a week or two here every summer.

So around 5PM, my Dad, who drove up from Rhode Island, met us here at the cabin. We’ve balanced on the old stonewall, looked for frogs in the pond, made a house for slugs, and played some cribbage.

And this is the way we are today…feeling very at home. Twelve more days to go.