98% Prepared

Elliott's observation while we were maplessly boating around the lake looking for the island beach

I was certain I could dead reckon us to the beach. That didn’t happen. I was, however, able to find sudden shallow depths and scrape the prop over a VW bus sized rock that appeared within two feet of the surface near a small island we had just passed. Made sure to go even slower (we were already going very slow) and stay even further away from shore (we were pretty far off shore!) as we cautiously proceeded. We came around the point of on an island to our left and passed another island on our right as a bald eagle was coming in for a tree top landing.

Couple of minutes later we spotted a beached pontoon on an island ahead and knew that was our spot. Norris Island in Adroscoggin Lake. I cut and raised the motor while our soon-to-be beach neighbor, Jim, pointed us away from other hidden rocks to our spot. One of our top missions for Sandy Cheeks achieved! Next I’ll be talking the family in to some island camping (2nd top goal).

The lake was a lazy, winding, undeveloped mile down the river from our campsite. The feeling was remote and relaxing as we puttered and weaved around the deadfall and debris in the sunshine.

Leeds, Maine

Our campsite was well off the beaten path compared to the past couple of weeks on the coast. Our neighbors, Jessica, Nick, Evette and the rest of the family (never caught Evette’s husband name, but he was quick with the firewood and the Maine fire starter: diesel fuel) were what we believe to be true Mainers: generous, friendly, happy to help their neighbors out. They gave us great recommendations for the area, lake tips including Norris Island, firewood, bridge jumping lessons, and friendly chuckles when I tripped and dropped a bunch of fishing stuff (but didn’t spill a drop of wine) as I passed their site heading to the river. Nick, Jessica and family: you guys made the trip to Leeds so much more memorable. Thank you!

Other notable events:

• Elliott is now the fastest sprinter in the family (multiple races between all members confirmed this)
• Spotted a fella in the restaurant exercising his right bear arms (massive revolver on his hip)
• Justified bringing the sewing machine with us by purchasing feed corn to make corhhole bags. It won’t be long before we leave the new set out in the rain again to be ruined.
• Erin and Elliott went to a grocery store called Food City which landed “Fist City” into my head for days

Fishing

The river and lake are a world class bass fishing destination hosting multiple Bass Masters tournaments a year. We tried hard, but were unsuccessful hauling in anything but pan fish (still great fun, of course!). Nolan and Tucker fished a TON together. Elliott casted a few but then ended his day early after he launched one into a tree. I casted the top half of my pole out into the river and simultaneously bird nested my reel. This led to a scenario where I was casually chatting with May-May (Tucker’s grandma) with half the rod floating in the river while I picked at the mess of line for ten minutes.

We tried some night fishing at a different bank. There was a bull frog that was the size of a couple of soft balls nearby. He had to have weiged five pounds. Nolan nudged it with his his fishing rod and it took two super lazy steps forward and stopped. Then we saw a water snake and decided it was time to stop fishing. I panic-slipped while scrambling up the vertical, four foot tall muddy bank after I noticed my foot hold was possibly a snapping turtle hole (Nolan was long gone). It was an eventful five minute night time fishing trip. Oh and we didn’t catch anything.

A new paddling configuration

We also tested a different configuration for our vessels: Two in the boat paddling canoe-style, one each in the kayak and on the paddle board. This got all four of us paddling up the river together. We found out that Erin is a speed demon on the paddle board. She left the three of us in her wake as she zoomed up far ahead. We had to holler up for her to “slow it down!” Nolan did great in the Wal-Mart kayak, but seemed to be hypnotized by and then drawn into fallen trees and their reflections on the glassy river banks. “Son, you’re going to poke your eye out! There’s spiders on them there tree limbs!” I called out. Nothing could stop him. At the last second he would always snap out of it and veer off.

The birding was, as appears to be the norm for Maine, amazing. A very large heron swooped by three feet off the water from around the bend and right by us as we were paddling. We also saw multiple king fisher and big loons. Apparently I told the exact same story about loons as I did the last time we encountered them four years ago. Elliott doesn’t forget anything btw.

Here we are, 98% prepared again

The second time in as many days that Elliott was able to quantify our preparedness. We started heading back and noticed how difficult it had become to keep the boat from blowing to shore. It felt super heavy. It was taking on water. I forgot to put the plugs in! Now what? With the tubes inflated, we’ll never sink. With the boat full of water we’ll never be able to paddle into the head wind we were now facing. So we fired up the motor and puttered away from Nolan (who we refused the request to tow) and Erin to paddle back. We were waving and laughing as they disappeared around a bend. Elliott and I looked at each other with chesire grins. Happy to be under power, happy for that power to not be our arms. We also spotted a large snapping turtle swimming out of our way.

Hittin the gym

Erin used ten shower curtains to convert the Darth Vader meditation chamber/my office/screen room in to a private gym. It would be another week before I got first-hand knowledge of how roomy and not sweaty it is in there. She’s super motivated and swings the kettlebells and does cardio exercises almost daily. I’m jealous of this motivation and instruct her that it’s not good to work out that much. This makes me feel better about being lazy even though she ignores my advice to not work out so much.

Back to the ocean to visit friends from Detroit in Maine

On Friday we drove south to Ogunquit the meet with the Rickles! They were nearby doing their semi-annual Boston trip (which explains their Red Sox affinity). It was a great day at the beach! The kids disappeared immediately and we hardly saw them again for the next six hours. Us parents got caught up on everything and Joe periodically dunked himself in the frigid, low-tide waters. I stayed comfortably dry and warm on shore.

The seagulls were hilariously ruthless and snatched an entire hoagie from a woman next to us. This brought on a swarm of seagulls (Erin’s worst nightmare). Then an old couple’s beach umbrella came loose and hurtled down the beach pointy auger first. It almost impaled (and definitely would have) a woman but got stuck on a cooler or something.

Skirting the Whites

We left Leeds for Burlington, VT on Saturday. We decided Route 2 would be better because it sort of goes around the White Mountains. So this should be good, right? Wrong. Raging downpour most of the drive! We’re also currently very, very heavy and two-lane mountain driving gets old quick. I pulled over a few times to let the long line of traffic that built up behind us by. One guy honked and said, “you guys are number one!” (at least that’s how I choose to interpret that solo raised finger). Aside from that, the views were amazing. We spotted our fifth bald eagle perched on limb 20 feet over the shoulder of the highway. He was HUGE! We scanned for moose when instructed to by signs. Didn’t see any. We got terrible gas mileage but the truck always reported 10.8mpg (which is good for us).

Maine and the north east were excellent. We knocked the dust off of our camping skills, tested new (to us) equipment. Got to the ocean and relaxed like vacationers. We’ll be in Burlington for two weeks. Our longest stay yet in one location. A perfect time to start learning how to be location independent.