Exactly one month ago, the beginning of August, we left on an early Monday morning to take a short trip to Maine before our summer intern, Katelyn headed back to college.
We left early in the morning so that we could go to Kittery and see the Nubble lighthouse before heading up inland to Lincoln, Dan's hometown as a child. We were planning to stay at the house where Dan grew up since my father-in-law was up there staying for a short time.
We stopped at the Quechee Gorge in VT to take this photo
In Kittery, we went to the Kittery trading post. We brought the dog with us since we were taking the truck anyway, and it would save some $$ with not having to board her at the vet.
Lucie and I enjoyed seeing all of the wood carvings on the front porch at the trading post.
Eliza didn't enjoy it so much.
From there, we drove to the Nubble lighthouse, where we managed to find a parking spot.
It was a windy day, but beautiful. I loved the sound of the seagulls.
The rest of that day was spent driving up to Lincoln, settling in to the house, and then we took my Father-in-law out to eat.
Before we left to go into downtown Lincoln to find a restaurant, Dan put our dog in the barn behind the house, uncrated, so she could have a little room. While we were in town, we received a phone call from the neighbor who informed us that Chula had broken out of the door, cut herself on glass, and was roaming the neighborhood. We rushed home, proceeded to clean Chula's wounds, which took Dan and Dad the rest of the night. It was at this point I started wishing we had left Chula at home and just paid the vet fees.
The next day, Dan and dad went to Walmart and got bandaging supplies for Chula, cleaned and wrapped her leg well, and then we went to the park at the Lake in Lincoln.
It was very nice that they had kayaks they would rent for free. I do not know how to swim, so I declined to go out on one. Also, the girls weren't allowed to go, so I stayed with them.
The girls enjoyed soaking their feet in the water.
I thought this water and the sunlight was so mezmorizing!
The park even provided sand toys and noodles for the kids to play with.
We took a few photos before heading back to the house after having a picnic lunch.
The Shedd tribe.
When we got home, Dan and Dad cleaned and re-bandaged Chula's wounds. They did the same thing when we woke up the next morning, early.
It was Wednesday and we needed to head home early so that I could make it back for my ladies Bible study at 4PM. We got on the road by 7am, and made it in pretty good time to New Hampshire. We saw a roadside hotdog stand, so we pulled over to grab a hotdog. We were set to make it home by 2:30.
After leaving the hotdog stand, we merged onto a highway and right away noticed this loud clunking noise in the truck. Dan pulled over, and found a tree branch stuck up under the truck. We started off again just to have the sound get MUCH worse: more like a banging.
We pulled over right at the off ramp, so our truck was in the triangle of free spot and to the right was the exit and to the left was the highway traffic. As soon as we pulled over there, Dan called a local mechanic who said he could come look at it in 10 minutes. As soon as Dan hung up the phone, a police car pulled up behind us. The police captain stayed with us until the mechanic showed up. It was blistering hot at this point.
I was starting to get annoyed, but also tried to have a good attitude, so I was trying to laugh the situation off. The girls took a nap while we waited. It took the mechanic about 35 minutes to come, but when he did, and looked in the hood, he immediately saw that one of the spark plugs blew out of the engine. It was dangerous to take it any further than absolutely necessary, he said. SO we followed him slowly to his garage with a police escort.
At his shop, his office was air conditioned, but absolutely filthy, so we (the kids and I and Katelyn) went inside. I desperately needed to feed the baby. We were all starting to get a little cranky, AND the place was so full of filth that it was hard to maintain a cheery disposition frankly.
As soon as I started feeding the baby, the whole town of Littleton apparently decided to come to this mechanic's office- or so it seemed.
One person after another after another, until the office had about 7-8 people in it. One lady whom I didn't know at all (of course) asked if she could hold Eliza while taking her from me. I was trying not to worry that she was going to bolt out the door with the baby... She finally gave Eliza back to me after kissing her and holding her for about 10 minutes - by the way, don't do that in case you are tempted to take a strangers baby. Okay, if you're holding the baby...but don't kiss them! So gross.
Anyway, I digress.
Dan pulled me outside to tell me he thought we should take the truck to another mechanic because the one where we were was looking up YouTube videos on how to fix the problem. It became clear that this was not a small fix, and that we could potentially be stranded in NH for a day at least. I texted the ladies in the Bible study and re-scheduled for the following evening, only to then have to text them again and cancel completely when it became obvious we wouldn't make it back by the next evening either.
I called my friend, whose husband is a pastor in Vermont. They offered to come and pick us up and take them to their home for the night. Dan needed to stay with the truck, so the plan was to take the truck to another mechanic while we waited for our friends to come pick up Katelyn, the girls and I. This shop where we were also served as a U-Haul rental, so we rented a U-Haul van so that Dan could drive around while the truck was being worked on.
Managed to get the truck over to this other mechanic, who said he might be able to fit it in the next morning.
Our friends came and picked us up which was SO KIND of them because they had Vacation Bible School at their church all that week and even that night! We made it back to their church literally one minute before the program started.
The girls enjoyed being in a semi-familiar environment. They love our friends and Amy always has the neatest toys and games for them to play with. As much as we could, Katelyn and I helped the following morning with cleaning their church, and helping preparing lunch. Dan called and let me know that the mechanic (bless his heart) stayed up late and pulled our truck in and started working on it, fixed it, and Dan was on his way to pick us up.
We managed to make it the rest of the way home without incident. By this time though, all of us were dead tired and stressed. When we got home, Dan took the dog to the vet. Good thing too, since she had the beginning of an infection in spite of all the cleaning and bandaging we'd done.
I was ruing the day that I started planning that trip to Maine, wishing we had never brought the dog, who also ended up staying with Dan in the U-Haul van, and wishing we'd never brought the truck...
Let's just say that the trip ended up costing more than we ever planned to spend between the gas, the dogs vet bills, and the truck repair. It was clear that Dan was coming down with something and I was beginning to get it as well. Because in addition to everything else, we also got sick on this trip, Dan wasn't able to preach on Sunday and we had a guest preacher fill in for him while he stayed home.
If nothing else, this disaster of a trip made us soooo thankful to be home. And it satisfied my longing to take a trip for a good while. :)
