12 Oakdale

Acadia stuck me as a mirror to the Everglades: one has to find the majesty in subtly. Nothing particularly took my breath away, yet there was much to enjoy at a micro level. We did get up early enough to see the sunrise from Cadillac Mountain, albeit not from the top. Rather than parking in the west lot and hoofing it up to the summit, we opted to retreat a little down and used a pullout all to ourselves. We sat on boulders, having the truck as a wind barrier. It was our second time up the mountain, so we weren’t concerned about walking around on the paths at the top. We took a carriage ride with Mike as our guide and his granddaughter Sally driving most of the time. Horses Charlie and Charmer did the work, pulling the wagon on roads built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., beginning, I believe, in 1904, continuing until the start of World War II. Mike claimed his operation of 26 horses puts $100,000+ each year into the Mount Desert economy, hiring locals to work in the barns and drive the ...

We must have the shadiest campsite in the park, A10. Normally good; bad for using our solar panels to charge our Jackery battery. I said, after dealing with ice at Yellowstone last year, I was buying a Dometic camping fridge. Which we did, using an Amazon card for a 5% rebate and having a 20% off coupon. Still about $1500 for the setup. Not having soggy cold food: priceless. Fortunately, the Tacoma has an AC outlet in the bed, so we plug either the fridge or the battery in when we drive. We can also charge phones, iPads, and Grant’s hearing aides from either battery or car. Not exactly camping like my parents did. We have cell service at our site. I suspect this is more a bleed over from all the nearby towns rather than the National Park Service having added towers. This means I can read downloaded library books on my iPad while lying on my cot. Yes, we’ve added cots to our baggage, thank goodness, (even though I find mine pretty uncomfortable), because there is no way I could get up f...

New Hampshire does like their moose. Moose statues, moose paintings, moose on t-shirts, moose postcards. Just no real moose to be seen. We decided to remedy this by an official moose hunt after dinner. First up was trying to find dinner in northern New Hampshire on a Sunday early in June. So many little restaurants closed permanently, perhaps due to Covid restrictions, perhaps just normal attrition. Others take that evening off. Finally, just when Alex said McDonalds and a Subway were not too far away, and I had made whiny noises, we passed Gorham House of Pizza. Open and with cars in the parking lot. Continuing our commitment of eating fairly well, I ordered a small spinach and feta calzone for me and a small Buffalo chicken wing one for Grant. When I asked about the size, the young woman behind the counter said it was like a slice of pizza folded over. Or at least that’s what I though she said. Each actually was a small pizza folded over. Delicious, and fortunately cut into pieces, ...

From our original ten tour travelers, we have lost 5: 3 tested positive for Covid, 1 sprained her ankle badly enough to have to quit, fortunately after seeing puffins, her main reason for coming, and 1 had a sister die, not unexpectedly, but he needed to leave before we got too far from Portland and its airport. We remaining five are determined to keep healthy. We parked our truck at the Courtyard Inn near Portland’s airport and caught a shuttle over to meet everyone else at the airport. We had lunched at a Sea Dog Ale House. The others went to Subway for a sandwich. I liked our plan much better. After a couple hours of birding, we drove up to quaint Camden and stayed at the River House Inn to be ready for an 8:00 AM boat trip out to Seal Island.  Two doses of Bonine and lots of warm clothes made the 1 1/2 boat ride aboard the Periwinkle mostly bearable. Captain Dominick was a great boat driver; the seas were almost calm. But just sitting on a wooden bench, bouncing away, is boring...

I’d been obsessing about testing negative for Covid, a requirement to join our birding tour. My anxiety level went even higher when a couple were forced to drop out because he tested positive. Yikes. Finally time to test, and all good. Both Grant and I are negative. Which I was sure we would be, since we really haven’t been around anyone. Except for all the people at Bob’s funeral 11 days ago. Surely, we’d have symptoms by now. Except Patten tested positive and didn’t feel bad. Round and round the hamster wheel turned. What a relief to be done with that! We drove really long the first day and got to Fayetteville, North Carolina, staying at the Baymont by Wyndham, mostly because it claimed a hot breakfast. That is always desirable so we can eat, then get on the road, rather than spending an hour debating where to go. Evidently, Wyndham and I have different definitions of “hot breakfast”. The cereal choices were corn flakes or Fruit Loops.  Another long day to Carney’s Corner, New Je...

Figuring we would be exhausted after packing the car for our drive north, we cleverly decided to do that a couple of days before, so we had a day to rest up. Pretty dang clever of us. The next day, having hung our final laundry on the line, Grant got a call. I could hear a son on the other end of the conversation explaining he’d come down with Covid. I knew it wasn’t Patten because he’d tested positive last week after attending a Miami Heat basketball game. Spent all week at home, symptom free. Sounded like Spaulding. I thought at least he and Molly were able to go on their hike at the Grand Canyon last weekend. Starting at 5:30 AM on the North Rim, they hiked with four friends down in and across, coming up out the South Rim by 8:30 that evening. He said it was so hot that they laid for an hour in the Colorado River at the bottom to cool off.  Nope, it was Jamey, with whom we planned to spend the weekend with on our way north. He’d started feeling lousy Sunday evening but fortunate...

We had a beautiful red sky Friday morning, which indicated the proverbial storm and that sailors should take warning. A minimal yet very wet tropical storm was coming across the Gulf of Mexico towards south Florida. It boded badly for our drive over to Bob’s funeral mass, and even worse the next day for Stephanie’s end of the school year party with 2 (!) inflatable slip and slides that took up her whole back yard. For us, much ado about nothing. It was sprinkling after mass when we walked from the church over to the social hall for the reception. A few paper towels, and we were dried off. Saturday, the sky was dark gray, but barely a drizzle just a couple of times, and no lightening. The party goers enjoyed being completely waterlogged from their water play. My rain gauge showed < 1/16”. I ran the sprinklers. On the other hand, south Florida was flooded. Patten figured he got at least 9”, since he measured 2 1/2” before he emptied his gauge at bedtime. The next morning, the 5” gauge...