What an Interesting and Eventful trip to Maine!

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.  :)  

Mini Vacation to Maine

In July we planned a short trip to Maine for August to visit Dan's extended family.  Dan found an off-the-grid cabin in Maine which the owners allow to be used as a sort of rest spot for families and couples serving in the ministry. 

We planned to stay there for three nights.  The drive up to Maine consisted of a lot of random stops every time I saw historical landmarks and every time Dan saw a Farmall tractor- particularly the cubs. 

 

We stopped to see this Quechee gorge.  It's very deep as you can see, and there were signs tacked and tied with zip ties to the bridge begging people to seek help and reminding readers that they were loved.  I found out later that it's the number one spot for suicides in Vermont.  Pretty crazy. 

 

 

When we continued our drive, we went on the back roads mostly and we were starving hungry (despite the fact that I packed a lunch for us).  After looking for a place to eat for about two hours, we found this little gem. 

 

We indulged in some amazingly greasy food.  Gwen enjoyed watching us eat.  Until we were nearly finished.  Then she cried until Dan took her to look at the gift shop. 

 

We stopped to take a picture of this dam and beautiful covered bridge. 

 

And we finally made it to our cabin after getting lost a little bit.  Neither of our cellphones worked the entire time we were there in Maine.  At least the Data.  Mine didn't work for anything but a camera.  Dan could sometimes have enough service to place a phone call when he was in town or something. 

This is the cabin where we stayed.  It was very nice.  Very, away-from-it-all.  It ran on solar panels, so we took short showers and were very careful to not waste any water.  Since it was off-the-grid, there was no internet, TV's or electronics.  It was nice.  When we were there in the evenings, we spent time playing monopoly and banana grams.  I also read four Louis L'amour books since they were on a bookshelf. 

 

The first night we arrived, Dan just HAD to try lighting a fire in the firepit, which was actually a wheelbarrow! How neat!  I will say...considering I don't normally like s'mores, those were AMAZING.

 

 

When we woke up the next morning, we did a little searching on the Maine Atlas that was provided for our exploring needs.  We saw a few attractions in the area, so headed towards the first, the oldest wire bridge in the US. 

 

I'll be honest, just walking across it was scary a little because the whole thing was giving and shaking with just me walking!  I hate to know how it would have felt if a car had driven across. 

 

It was neat though. 

When we finished looking at that, we headed to Farmington, where Dan insisted he would be able to find the house where we were to meet up with his family the next day.  Since we went to Farmington, we stopped at McDonalds (to use the wifi primarily) and found a church to attend the next night (Wednesday evening).  I told Dan that we should just text his aunt and ask for the house address, but he insisted he could find it based on his spectacular memory from childhood.  We searched on every street in that town...(or that's what it felt like at least).  Dan would tentatively turn the car onto a street and say "Oh, YES, I remember now!  Its this street for sure.  Middle street.  I remember it...we'll drive up here and the house will be on the left...and its yellow..." and there'd be a dead end with no house.  I got a good laugh out of it, and didn't mind, since we didn't have anywhere else we needed to be.  We did finally find the house.  It wasn't yellow though.  :D 

 

As we were headed back to the cabin for the evening, I saw a brown sign indicative of a historical site ahead.  We followed it and drove up a driveway to a homestead.  This homestead was where Lillian Norton (Nordica) was born.  I had no idea who that was, so we just walked in and paid the small fee to do the tour.  Apparently, Nordica was a world famous opera singer in the 1800's.  Our tour guide was very well-informed and made the tour fun.  The house was full of antiques and the photos and paintings of Nordica as well as her costumes and dresses for the different roles she played in operas in Europe and America.    

 

 

It happened to be the hottest day of the summer that day, so our tour guide gave me a fan to use.  Gwen was thrilled with the tour. 

 

This was a fan Queen Victoria gave to Nordica as a gift.

 

It was neat to learn something new.  I definitely enjoyed the tour more than Dan.  He liked seeing the old stove and examining how someone restored the house and put drywall on all the walls and things like that.  He wasn't so much into the opera singing- fancy dress-wearing Nordica.  I got into it though.  Our guide was so happy we stopped that she gave me a free Nordica tee shirt. 

 

We went back to the cabin and that evening it was SO hot in the cabin.  To save money, I had brought along a pre-baked lasagna (a big pan), eggs, squash, and things for s'mores.  So we only ate out that one time when we were driving up to Maine. 

 

The next morning, we referred to our Atlas yet again, and then drove to a hiking trail and hiked to the waterfall.  This is me, wearing my Nordica shirt. 

 

 

After we finished that hike, we were driving around, simply exploring, when we drove by this tiny sign that said "Cemetery" with an arrow.  Dan knows I love visiting old cemeteries, so we parked at the locked gate and walked back a pathway til we got to another pathway, slightly overgrown. 

 

We kept seeing more signs for the cemetery, so we kept walking further and further into the forest.  

 

Sadly, we had to give up because we came to a giant sign saying that it was a wetlands.  I nearly stepped into a boggy, lily-pad covered marsh area not knowing it.  SO we turned back.  But I really wish we had found it. 

 

We saw what was left of this windmill...

 

 

And then the rest of that day we spent with Dan's family.  It was very nice to see his aunt and uncle and grandmother again.  That evening we went to a church where Dan's family used to go when they would visit their family.  The pastor still remembered him!

 

That was Wednesday night.  It was nearly 9pm when we got back to the cabin because the rain was SO bad.  Poor Gwen's bedtime is at 8, so she was in an inconsolable frenzy, screaming and screaming.  She woke up several times that night screaming as well, which is very unusual given the fact that she's been sleeping through the night now for about a month. 

 

 

The next morning, we woke up early and packed everything up so we could get a head start on our drive back home to NY.  Before we left though, Dan and Gwen spent a nice time chatting. 

 

The drive back seemed to go super fast.  When the GPS said we had about two hours left, Dan really wanted to go a little out of our way and visit the Vermont Country Store.  I didn't know what to expect because I'd never even heard of it.  But he said his mom used to order things out of their catalog when he was a child. 

 

It was really a neat store!

 

Dan got some sea-salted caramels and I got one chocolate covered cashew cluster. 

 

Gwennie got to ride her first tractor in the form of a tire swing.  Or maybe it was a tire swing in the form of a tractor?

 

 It was a neat place to get Christmas presents for kids.  I told Dan that someday we need to go there to get Christmas presents because they have old-timey games and toys made of wood and leather and things, not plastic junk with batteries in it.

 

We made it home safely, even after being pulled over by a policeman.  Dan was driving at the time and was going 65mph in a 45 zone.  The officer was extremely kind and generous in just giving him a warning instead of a ticket.  You can be sure that he was watching the speedometer the rest of the way.  :D

 

It was a nice little vacation for us.  We were happy to be home after it though.  

That's the last of our adventures in August.  I'm very late posting this. Today is the first day of AUTUMN!!!!!

Crazy how time flies.  Soon, it'll be snow that's flying...