8/31/08 Sunday Breakfast Photos

Tracy and Randy make quite the cooking team. Just 'cuz Rodney's in the kitchen in this photo doesn't mean he was cooking this time. I think he was just getting coffee. Check out the Maine blueberries in our pancakes!! Heidi picked 30 GALLONS of blueberries at the height of the season. We went picking after breakfast but these are Heidi's gift to our yummy breakfast. Hey, who's snatching a piece of bacon?!

Mmmmmmmmm. Here's Heidi serving her yummy pigs in a blanket with brown sugar glaze. This photo is pretty accurate . . . Heidi is always on the move, even when she's sitting down.

8/31/08 The rest of a great Sunday

Aaargh. Not enough time to write about this right now but let me just put the outline here so I don't forget the highlights and I promise I'll come back and fill in details.

blueberry picking
late lunch
boat rides
power turns
Polish ping pong (I outlasted Rodney . . . once . . . by accident)
steamers
putting up the boat
kayaking
the amazing "Kodak moment"
dinner
--Mexican night: taco soup, taco salad, chicken enchiladas
group picture
bye to Shanda, Jed, Bekah, and 3 out of 5 kids
another fire--almost didn't happen, then ended up with 12 folks
--both Ray and Ron making surprise entrances (not to compare to Ron's surprise the night before)

9/1/08 Sunrise at MRO . . . a slideshow

8/31/08 Sunday Morning at MRO

I woke up at 5:15 this morning. I just laid in bed very quietly since I didn't want to wake my roommate. But soon, she got up to use the facilities, so I got up, too. I stayed very quiet in the room and worked on my iPhone and my laptop with the free wi-fi from the office in the basement of our cabin. By 6:15, I figured somebody had to take first shower so I quietly gathered my stuff and took a shower. By 7, I was dressed and ready. (It always takes longer to do that when you're trying to be quiet. Every zipper and velcro opening sounds like a cymbal crash.) I went out to the dining hall deck again to reflect and write. Even though the sun is out today, it's much colder and there was a giant bank of puffy white clouds moving very quickly from north to south. Yep, there's a norther moving in.

I headed back to the cabin around 7:40, knowing that we had to be on the other side of the camp by 8am for breakfast. There were folks stirring around but I did have to wake up Christine so she wouldn't miss the taxi to breakfast. When the 5 of us arrived at the North Lodge, breakfast was well under way. Bacon was cooked and Heidi was passing out miniature pigs in a blanket (smokie sausages wrapped in half a crescent roll) that were oozing a butter and brown sugar glaze. I'd never had anything like that before, but I will certainly have it again if given the opportunity! Yum! What we were all waiting for was the pancakes that were being cooked on the griddle. . . with fresh, wild, Maine blueberries in them. Oh my! And it turns out, we had syrup that is tapped and made right on MRO property!! What a breakfast!!

After breakfast, there was a Sunday morning prayer service in the living room! How awesome is that?!! Ray and Ron are both ordained pastors and Randy serves in church ministry as well. Actually, Ben is going to Divinity School next week and Jed is a former youth minister. Marcus is a director of a Christian camp (MRO) and gives retreats all the time. Practically everyone in this family has been on one or more mission trips and served as a Sunday school teacher. It wasn't surprising that there was a prayer service. But that doesn't diminish at all how special this prayer service was. Little ones wandered around and sat in different people's laps, Marcus played guitar, we all sang, Ron had the service planned and led it but many folks chimed in and contributed. When it was time for the service to end, Ray spoke up and asked everyone to pray for Rodney's new chapter of his life, so we all stood and gathered in a tight circle. Rodney told everyone about his journey and where it's headed and Ray led us all in a prayer for his safety, his happiness, and his strength in answering the call that is taking him to Oregon. It was very special for Rodney and for all of us.

8/30/08 Saturday Breakfast Photos

Our cooks for the morning . . . Randy (in charge), Rodney, and Heidi.

The rest of us are watching and waiting.

8/30/08 Incredible Saturday at MRO for Labor Day weekend

Wow. What a day. It started with a big breakfast for 12 (Grammy and Christine arrived after dinner last night) at 8:00. There wasn't enough room in the North Lodge for everyone, so 3 of us spent the night on the other side of the lake in a very nice "cabin" (more like a house). I woke early so I snuck out and found a quiet porch to sit on looking out over the lake and wrote. I mostly just tried to soak in all that beauty and reflect on God's amazing generosity. . . more of those "magnificent whispers".

After breakfast a bunch of us drove about 15 minutes to a dirt road and then hiked another 20 minutes into a wonderful waterfall area called Slide Down Falls. It was great! The water was sooooooo cold but once your feet got numb (which was pretty instant), you didn't mind. Some folks climbed to the top of the first falls and jumped into and off of the falls into various pools of water. Then we all went up to the next level of falls where there was a precipice that you could jump off of into a very deep pool of water 11 feet below. I just watched and took a lot of photos. My blood as a former lifeguard only curdled a few times.

When we got back it was a lunch of grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. YUM! Did that ever hit the spot. Today was cloudy and gray without the rain which didn't hamper the trip to the falls at all but was perfect weather for a lunch of hot sandwiches and soup. After lunch we sat around and yacked and played with babies and snacked on delicious homemade goodies: caramel chex mix, peanut butter crunchies, and chocolate chip cookies. Hmmmm, other people were asked (or volunteered) to bring items they cooked themselves. Rodney and I were only asked to bring items to contribute to the collective. How did they know?!

I had an interesting conversation with Jed this afternoon. He's Ron's son--one of the nephews. He's a police officer in Wilton, next to Farmington. A bunch of us were standing around and Heidi (our hostess) handed Jed a blueberry rake. It took a second, but I recognized it from having stopped to watch a group on the side of the road gathering wild blueberries when I was in Maine a few years ago with Gerald, Rhonda, and Brian. Jed didn't know what it was and I gave him a hard time about it that someone new to the state would know but a local wouldn't. He explained that he wasn't a local either, being a Wisconsin boy. But he then proceeded to give me a very hard time. The C* family is very good at giving each other a hard time--lots of kidding and razzing. And though Jed married in to the family, I don't think he acquired that sense of humor from being affiliated with the family, I think he was raised that way and just fits in well. Anyway, he started saying, "Even if I was a local, I wouldn't know things like 'this is a blueberry rake.' I'm not all about the Maine culture like you are. 'Oh, what a fascinating use of the language. I wonder why they say cah instead of car? What nationalities are contributing to the melting pot that is Maine?' No, not me. All I care about is what's to eat and what extreme sport can I participate in next." How did he know?? He nailed it! Then I said to him, "No wonder you're such a good police officer. You're very good at reading people." To which he replied, "And you're an open book." ROTFL!

Next on our agenda was Polish Ping Pong. What a hoot! And as long as you have enough paddles, you can play with as many people as you want. It involves everyone only playing one volley at a time. You have to remember what order you're going in and when it's your turn, it doesn't matter how many times the ball hits the table, you have to wait 'til it hits the floor and you only get one bounce and have to get it back on the table and then step aside for the next person. I know my words aren't doing the game justice because when people tried to explain the game to us, it was too hard to conceptualize. Fortunately, a demonstration round takes care of it all and that's what Marcus and Heidi and a few others did. Then we played and oh my, what a fun game. The first three rounds, I was out ASAP. But the next round, I happened to get behind Rodney and he kept setting up gentle and easy shots for me. Shanda described it as, "Take pity on Texas." I liked thinking that he was being a great coach and teacher. Either way, I did get a chance to get a feel for the game. I ended up after him several more times and though it's a fun game to watch (which when you're the first person out, you get to do a lot of), it's even more fun to play. I gotta say, though, as competitive as this family is, they were very supportive of the rookie and cheered my lucky shots.

Soon it was time for dinner. We do seem to do a lot of eating, but I guess that's typical for these kinds of events. And it is a great time to yack and chat and tell stories. Tonight we had to bring out the second table onto the porch. Marcus said our count was 19. It would've been 20 but Marcus and Bekah's Grammy, who came up last night, had already left so she could be home tonight in order to teach Sunday school in the morning. Tonight's meal was homemade lasagna and barbecue kabasa. Who would've ever though that kabasa smothered in barbecue sauce and grilled would be delicious? Everyone said Bekah's lasagna was just like her mother's. Since her mom wasn't even coming down until the next day and I'd never had her mom's lasagna, I wouldn't know. But I do know it was scrumptious.

After dinner it was time for fireworks. When you're sitting on 7,000 acres of private land in the middle of nowhere, you don't have to worry about local laws regulating fireworks. I joined the gang for the first one which was an M-80 (whatever that means). We were hunkered down behind cars since the M-80 was inside a Mountain Dew can in order to see if the can could be, literally, blown to smithereens. When it went off, I realized that I don't think I'd ever heard anything that loud ever before in my life. I also had a chance to look around at all the folks who were picking up "smithereens" (shrapnel) and realized, it was all men besides me so I snuck out and joined the women and children inside. None of the rest of the fireworks were anything to look at, they were just loud to listen to and I could do that from inside.

Pretty soon, we got the word that the "pretty fireworks" were about to take place, so I did go back outside for that. In the clearing by the boat dock, Ben set up a series of sparkly, wooshy, colored fireworks that were way cool. What an appropriate culminating celebration of an amazing day. After that it was hanging out by the fire in the great Adirondack chairs (there were too many of us for the five chairs, so there were a lot of folding "camp chairs" to choose from as well, but somehow, I managed to get an Adirondack chair again. Way cool. More stars and more stories. There was a little bit of cloud cover so you couldn't see as many stars and pretty soon, the cloud cover grew to the point where there were more clouds than stars and soon, there were no stars at all. About the time that we decided to call it a night, the rain started to fall, so our timing was perfect.

Tonight, Christine and Dale joined us on our side of the lake. They both had been here the night before but pawns that we all were, they moved over. Later that night after lights out, Christine and I chatted well into the night both lying in our sleeping bags on top of our beds in the dark. A touch of slumber party was a fun way to top off the night that followed a glorious day.

8/29/08 Photos for Friday at MRO

Recognize this? It's the Rest Stop that overlooks Attean Lake. It's the last place for a cell phone signal and the indicator that you're REALLY CLOSE to arriving at Moose River Outpost. :-)

Randy is our chef and chief food organizer for the weekend. Here he is prepping his famous marinated pork cutlet strips. Yum!

Great Uncle Rodney with his youngest niece.

8/29/08 Labor Day weekend at MRO

[Note: photos related to this entry will appear in a separate entry. I'm writing this text without an Internet connection and will upload all as soon as I can.]

Labor Day is the time for the annual C* Family and Friends Celebration. I'm not sure that's it's official title . . . I've heard big blowout, family reunion, extravaganza. But whatever you call it,for several Labor Days in a row, the C* family plus their extended family and friends have gathered at Moose River Outpost for a long weekend of fun and fellowship in a beautiful setting. There were 10 adults and 4 kids at dinner last night, but it sounds like we may get up to as many as 20 at the peak. At one point there were as many as 30 coming, but plans change, so it will be a surprise who makes it and who doesn't. Folks come and go as they can. Jed and Becky with their two little ones were here last night but are leaving Sunday afternoon; some folks aren't even coming until Sunday night, and a few might just come out for the day Monday. Marcus, our host, told us that we were all pawns and he was going to move us around a lot in order to accommodate everyone, so where you sleep tonight may not be where you sleep tomorrow night based on who's in attendance and what their needs are. That's the beauty of bringing a sleeping bag . . . that kind of moving around is a breeze.

Rodney and I left Farmington at the height of rush hour Friday afternoon . . . no really . . . traffic was horrendous. And Farmington is not equipped to handle traffic. We actually left at 2, so we're not sure what all the traffic was. There were a lot of school buses but who were all the other people? UMF is having first- year student orientation but that doesn't officially start until tomorrow so it wasn't too many parents driving their college students to school. Oh well. We finally got out of town by taking a back road to I don't know where. I was driving but was NOT navigating.

The drive was spectacular. It was rainy/cloudy the only other time I've ever been to MRO. Today was blue skies and white puffy clouds. The rivers we drove next to were clear and reflecting the sky's beautiful blue color. Some turns in the river were glassy smooth, other times we saw ripples and other tomes rapids. Time flew as we listened to "mystery music"--old CD mixes that Rodney had burned that weren't labeled so we just popped them in and waited to see what would come up next . . . like a shuffle setting on your iPod the old- fashioned way. Some was new music to me, others were golden oldies that we sang along to. My sister would've been mortified . . . TWO people singing outloud in the car--her worst nightmare. Too bad--she wasn't there and I was having a blast. One of the new songs I heard had a beautiful phrase in it about God's "magnificent whispers". It was the perfect description of the drive.

At camp, our center of operations is a lodge on the north side of the lake, called North Lodge, appropriately enough. It has 5 bedrooms, a kitchen, a big living/gathering area, a porch with a picnic table, a dining room, and a kitchen. Randy is in charge of food. Oh yea! That means it will be delicious. Everyone was assigned food items to bring and all those individual components will magically combine into great meals. Tonight was pork cutlets marinated in a secret recipe (I believe there was soy sauce and oregano involved . . . don't knock it 'til you've tried it) and grilled on the giant grill. Randy apologized because we had just served it to Rodney and me when we had dinner at his house earlier in the week. I was thinking instead, "Yeehah, we get to have it again!" There was cole slaw and baked beans, pasta salad, fresh corn on the cob (that was on our list--we stopped at a roadside stand on the way up and bought it), rolls, and lots of laughter and conversation.

Earlier in the evening, folks had been disappearing to Marcus's new hideaway that he had created. My first journey out there was after dinner in the dark. Just a few yards off the back porch, past a few pine trees, was a clearing that looked out over the lake, had a fire circle (with fire already blazing when I got there), and a collection of Adirondack chairs. It truly was picture perfect. Four of the five C* brothers were sitting around swapping stories and telling tales on each other while nephews, cousins, and family friends just soaked it all in. We laughed so hard. Meanwhile, in a little circle of sky above us and a sliver of horizon in front of us, framed by majestic pine trees, the stars were out. There was no moon and the stars were like a blanket of confetti. There were SO many stars out. You could see the Milky Way and we saw several satellites and some shooting stars. I've sat around a lot of campfires in my life and I would definitely rate this as a really great one.

As the evening wore on, little ones and their moms and then a few others excused themselves. Soon we were down to four brothers, Marcus, Dale (another family friend), and me. Marcus went and stood on the edge of the lake and did a loon call. It sounded just like a loon. But what happened next was amazing. There was an echo across the lake of that loon call. And then another echo and then another. There were at least four echoes and the third one was the louder than the second. It sounded more like someone was across the lake answering back. He did it several more times, each time the echoes lasted 6, 7, 8 seconds. It was unbelievable. Then we moved to another spot on the shore line where the echoes are apparently even better. Marcus experimented with pointing his loon call in different directions and while the echoes continued to be eery and beautiful, I was distracted by something I had never seen in my life. The lake was reflecting starlight. The water was so still and the sky so clear, you could see the reflection of stars in the water. What an incredible ending to a great day. What a wondrous magnificent whisper from God.

8/27/08 45 degrees and other numbers

45 degrees. We're not talking angles here, that was the temperature when I got up this morning! Yes, I got up a little earlier than usual, but it doesn't matter. It's AUGUST and the temperature was 45 degrees . . . Fahrenheit! In Dallas, yesterday's high was 96 and the low was 76. For us, the high was 74 and the low was 46. And today's low is going to be 45. Yup. It's Maine!

BTW, this is my 501st blog entry in "Life with the Mainiacs". That's a pretty cool milestone! And the travel blog is at 234 (fun number). That's a lot of blog entries in only 18 months of blogging. Here's to another 500!

8/18/08 Autumn is coming

I'm on my way to meet my Godfamily from Long Island! We're meeting at Sebago Lake State Park in Maine. Just outside of Turner, I stopped to buy some blueberries to take to the family. They usually have pancakes one of the mornings we camp and I thought it would be fun to put some fresh Maine blueberries in those pancakes.

Check out this tree at the roadside stand where I bought the blueberries. Does that look like autumn to you? This is not a dying tree and it's not an anomaly. I saw probably 20 patches of color on the drive to Sebago Lake. Summer really is over.

So the big question is: If I'm camping with the Godfamily but we're camping in Maine, which blog should I use? Is it a Maine Adventure or a Travel Adventure??? Since we'll be camping in Maine for 2 days but then heading out to Massachusetts and on down to New York, I'll keep the whole trip together in one blog and put it all in my Travel Blog. Look for entries that start 8/18/08 to keep up with me. I come back to Maine before Labor Day and have more adventures planned, plus I plan to have many more unplanned adventures. See you on the other side!

8/18/08 They're harvesting again

This is NOT a duplicate of the photos you've seen before of the harvesting of "my field" that I watch from my verandah. We've had enough rain, sunshine, and time that whatever is growing there grew back enough that they could cut it and bale it yet again.

8/17/08 Voter Hill

I went to a whole new area today. I was mentioning to friends that I had missed the Perseid meteor shower because of so much cloud cover but had really enjoyed the full moon on the night that we didn't have cloud cover. They asked if I had gone to Voter Hill to look at the full moon. And what is Voter Hill? It's a "hill" (steep and big) south and west of town. Go towards Titcomb Mountain (which is shorter than Voter Hill) but take a right instead of a left. It's great for stargazing and for a nice overlook of Farmington.

So I headed to Voter Hill today. The directions were pretty good. I only had to make one U-turn (Lindsay). There are actually two left-hand turns to get to Titcomb Mountain, so I went to the right at the first turn and realized I was going to Temple. I knew there was nothing like they had described on that road. So I went back and took the first turn to Titcomb Mountain and then saw a road to the left called "Voter Hill". It was very near the second turn-off to Titcomb Mountain, so I felt pretty certain I was headed in the right direction. Sure enough, I had to shift into low gear (I NEVER shift into lower gear on my automatic care. I long for my stickshift car when I had control over these things.) I headed up what must've been the part that one friend described as "the winter reason for why she would never live on Voter Hill."

There was no official scenic overlook or any designated places to park for either looking at Farmington or doing stargazing, but if I knew anyone who lived there, I would certainly love to sit in their driveway. Meanwhile, here's the view:

8/15/08 a close encounter

Note to my mom: this is not a personal close encounter . . . I'm just reporting on someone else's close encounter.

See this picture of a moose? Rodney just took this and posted it on Facebook. He was at Moose River Outpost, a camp near the Canadian border that his nephew directs. Knowing that Rodney's a photographer, I figured he had his zoom lens on and took the photo from afar.

But I was wrong. Check out Rodney's description of what happened.

"A more than curious moose made its way across the lawn today at Moose River Outpost. I was about 5 feet from the nose of this moose. It kept following me. I was getting a bit uncomfortable but in the mean time getting some sick photos of it."

Below is a photo that someone else took of Rodney while he was photographing the moose.

Now THAT is a close encounter!

Photo of moose by Rodney Corey; used with permission.
Photo of Rodney and moose by Oscar Bodell; used with permission.

8/13/08 The Dairy Corner

After dinner on the beach, we went on some backroads and came out at the intersection of Route 1 with Route 9 and came to The Dairy Corner. I am getting a headstart on that ice cream quest for next summer. ;-) Grace had black raspberry ice cream. It was a hard-serve ice cream and not a soft-serve ice cream like at Dutch Treat.

But I got a Nor'Easter . . . the Cyclone / Blizzard equivalent.

8/13/08 ...on the boardwalk...

So I'm at Maine's premier beach resort and giant tourist attraction but I'm inside al day and night working. It is pretty fun, though, to sit on Grace's "deck" (enclosed patio?) with glass on two sides, looking out over the Atlantic and gorgeous sandy beach. The hardest part has been that it hasn't been raining. Two straight days of no rain and I'm stuck indoors. Have we even had two straight days of no rain since I got back in the middle of June? The good news is: we've gotten a lot of good work done. We've been working on two different research papers and some data analysis. We finished up our work on the "Tools Retreat" (all day technology workshop) that we're putting on for our department colleagues at the end of the month (this will be our 4th Tools Retreat in a year . . . we have such a great department). We met for 2 days in June and 2 days in July and now 2 and a half days in August. It's so nice to not have to try to do this part of my job by myself. I so prefer to do research as part of a team.

But it's hard to do 12 straight hours of work, so we do take an occasional break. Tonight we went down to the tourist part of Old Orchard Beach and walked around the boardwalk, up and down the pier, and into some of the shops. Here's where we picked up our dinner:

Check out the location of that Chinese restaurant. It's on the midway! See the carnies and the rides? What a hoot!

We went into a candy shop where they make their own taffy. The sign actually says, "Please try a sample of our handmade taffy." I tried the flavor called cake batter. I passed over blueberry and root beer which both sounded interesting.

When you're on the east coast, the sunrises are over the water and the sunsets are not. Here's a sunset shot as the train guards are coming down. The Down Easter train is coming through.

Well, we only thought the Down Easter was coming through. The gates went back up, we crossed the track, then the gates went back down and the Down Easter (an Amtrack passenger train that goes from Portland, Maine to Boston, Massachusetts) came through. Check out the ferris wheel and the moon rise in the background.

8/11/08 on the road to Old Orchard Beach

This is the ice cream place in Turner! It's the one that's Randy and Jenn's favorite where we celebrated Rodney's packing completion and then went to play Disc Golf. I was driving to Old Orchard Beach (100 miles from Farmington) to work with my colleague Grace for a few days. I left around 4:30 and got to Turner (35 miles from Farmington) just around dinner time. What better dinner than a Cyclone (a local version of the Dairy Queen Blizzard)?

I kept saying that summer 2009 was going to be the Summer of the Ice Cream Quest but I think I need to start early and this is a great stop on that quest. There are a LOT of local ice cream places in Maine. They're all only open in the summer (typically Memorial Day to Labor Day but some open at Easter time and some stay open through "Peeper Season" which is autumn when all the tourists come to "peep" at the changing leaves), so it will be a short quest. But oh, what a yummy and fun quest!

You know you're a New Englander when . . .

Forget Rednecks, check out this list of New Englander characteristics. And they're true! I would've laughed at this when I was in Texas but now I'm ROTFL 'cuz I know for sure that each and every one of these is waaaaay too true.


If your local Dairy Queen is closed from September through May, you live in New England.

If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don't work there, you live in New England.

If you've worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you live in New England.

If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you live in New England..

If "Vacation" means going anywhere south of New York City for the weekend, you live in New England.

If you measure distance in hours, you live in New England..

If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you live in New England.

If you have switched from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day and back again, you live in New England.

If you can drive 75 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you live in New England..

If you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both unlocked, you live in New England.

If you carry jumpers in your car and your wife knows how to use them, you live in New England.

If you design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit, you live in New England.

If the speed limit on the highway is 55 mph -- you're going 80 and everybody is passing you, you live in New England..

If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow, you live in New England.

If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction, you live in New England.

If you have more miles on your snow blower than your car, you live in New England.

If you find 10 degrees "a little chilly", you live in New England.

If there's a Dunkin Donuts on every corner, you live in New England

If you actually understand these jokes, and forward them to all your New England friends & others, you live in New England.

8/9/08 Livermore Falls and Jay

The sun did shine today! At least for a little bit. I felt like getting out in the sunshine so I headed to Jay. It's only 15 miles away but it takes "pert near" to half an hour to get there. It was a pretty drive. I stopped at Hannaford's Groceries to see if they had any of the silverware or dorm-sized cookware that was out of stock at my Hannaford's. I lucked out on the tiny pot and pan but not on the silverware. I ran into Ashley in the parking lot! I've never run into Ashley at the Hannaford's in Farmington but I run into her in Jay. What's wrong with this picture? It reminded me of the stories that my students tell about teachers they know that drive to other towns far away to buy liquor so their students won't see them. It's not that it's illegal, it's just not the image that you want. Sometimes when I'm checking out at Hannaford's and one of my students is the cashier, I take a second look at what's in my cart and worry if I'm making a good impression. Fortunately, I'm usually buying fresh fruits and vegetables at Hannaford's so not only do I not have anything that makes a bad impression in my cart, but I look like I eat a lot healthier than I really do. The stuff with preservatives and additives I usually buy at WalMart where I don't know any of the cashiers. LOL. Price and food quality is actually my motivation for splitting my purchases the way I do, but it works out well for other reasons, too.

Here's what sunshine in early evening before sunset looks like from the Hannaford's parking lot:

I didn't really know where I wanted to go next but I still felt like driving around. Just south of Jay (they practically run together) is Livermore Falls and in LF, I always take a right where Route 4 jogs across the river to go to Lewiston/Auburn. I decided this time I would go straight and get into Livermore Falls and see what it was all about. I saw the famous Chuck Wagon Restaurant that everyone refers to and to which I just nod my head feigning recognition. Next time it comes up in conversation, I will at least know where it is and what it looks like on the outside. Some day I'll even come back and eat there. I continued into LF and then remembered that Rodney's relative Terry had told us about a place in LF that she really liked to eat. I vaguely remembered the directions with landmarks that had no recognition for me, but her directions and my memory worked together to take me right to it. The Lunch Pad. I didn't stop as it looked like they were closing up for the night, but now I know where it is and it is just as quaint as she described.

I drove on a little further not sure what I was looking for and just randomly decided I should turn around and head back. When I turned around (made the U-turn, Lindsay), I saw an incredible sunset just out of sight. So I made another U-turn, headed just a little further to the top of the hill, made another U-turn (are you counting, Lindsay? That's 3 of 'em) and parked on the side of the road. I got out of my car and wandered around taking photographs of the sunset, the clouds, and the fog. I don't think the photos do it justice, but it was beautiful. There was also a nice little moonrise.

Since I didn't really have a destination in mind in the first place, I decided that this sunset was the purpose of the trip and I had accomplished it. I drove on back to Farmington and the rain started to fall. I sure hope they got a little bit of sunshine and dry air at the wedding.

8/7/08 Augusta Bound

Imagine you're Rodney, it's two days before your brother's wedding, and you need a baby blue dress shirt to wear to the event. What do you do? You drive 50 minutes to Augusta 'cuz they don't have it at WalMart in Farmington and Kohl's in Augusta is the next closest place. It seemed outlandish, though as I think about it, I've probably driven 50 minutes in Dallas to shop for something. But in Dallas, you can do that without ever leaving the city limits. We drove 35 miles on back country roads 'cuz those are the only kind Maine has. But around here, you don't think much, even at today's gas prices, of hopping in the car to go to Augusta to shop or dine out.

After his great success at finding a shirt with matching tie on a 60% off sale (my kind of shopping), we wandered through the sporting goods store next to Kohl's and then wandered through Circuit City which is next to that. As you can guess, these two techno-holics spent a lot of time and had a lot of fun in Circuit City. I bought West Side Story on DVD for $9.99 but otherwise we came out of there pretty unscathed.

And then, all in the same parking lot, we went to Panera Bread for some dinner. They have free wi-fi at Panera as well as some good food. I can't "rightly say" which was a bigger draw for us: the wi-fi or the food. I had a mango smoothie (not quite a mango margarita but very yummy) and turkey black bean chili. Rodney had soup and salad. It was enough fortification for the energy needed to make the return trip.

About 5 minutes outside of Augusta, I said to Rodney, "Look at the roads! They're dry!" Sure enough, it had stopped raining long enough for the roads to dry. Not to worry. That didn't last long. Very shortly, we were driving in rain again. Rodney's brother's wedding is supposed to be an outdoor wedding. They have a tent set up for the reception, but it looks like the wedding will take place under the tent as well. When we left they were buying up giant sheets of plywood to put down under the tent. Even though the tent has been up for 3 days, it wasn't enough for the ground to dry up. Everything is super saturated and muddy. I hope the rains will let up for at least a little bit Saturday afternoon.

8/6/08 Singing in the Rain

We didn't go to Boston today. It was too rainy. In fact, that's all it's been doing is rain. If it had been drizzly or gray (which we've had plenty of as well), we might have gone, but the drive was supposed to be part of the fun and in this kind of rain it seemed pointless to set out on a less-than-safe trip of 8 hours on rain-slick highways.

What to do instead? We went through many many alternatives and then decided to watch a movie. Went to the video store, had one in hand, looked at others, thought of some that they didn't have available, and then ended up watching this one. How perfect is that?!

It turns out that Rodney had never seen Singing in the Rain, so I was double thrilled that not only was it the perfect movie for today but that he could now cross this off his list of movies every person should see.

Then we watched Fever Pitch. How could Mr. Red Sox never have seen that one?! It was fun to watch that one again as a new Red Sox fan.

Here's the scary part. We stopped at the grocery store to get the perfect snack for movie watching in today's weather: hot chocolate and marshmallows. Yes, it's actually that cold and damp here. Yesterday I had to wear a fleece jacket and today I broke down and wore a sweatshirt. I'm actually liking that aspect of the weather. It's August and Dallas has had 22 days over 100 degrees at last count (that was a few days ago). And I'm wearing jackets and sweatshirts in August. I am a happy woman.

8/5/08 Time for a new layout

Don't panic. I only changed the look of the layout. It's still the same old blog content. ;-) As I approach my 500th Mainiac blog entry (can you believe that??!! I've posted 492 entries), I decided to give it yet another new look. This time I used my own photo taken the day we walked the dogs. It's actually from a posting that you might have missed because somehow it got lost (or I thought I had written it and I hadn't) so I just posted it today, even though it's dated 7/29/08:
http://mainiactheresa.blogspot.com/2008/08/72908-walk-in-park.html

8/5/08 Rosemary Memory

Rosemary's family asked choir members to share their memories of Rosemary. It may seem odd to post it here, but part of my life in Maine is being far away from friends in Texas. It's been harder to grieve without choir family. Our group of "strummers and singers" really knows how to share both joy and sorrow. It's been good to reflect on the many gifts that God has given me, especially when it comes to amazing friends. Fortunately, he continues to bless me with good friends here in Maine and I haven't had to grieve alone. Here's what I wrote about Rosemary:

Rosemary Stagaman: future astronaut, brilliant scientist, gifted mathematician. Of the many times that Rosemary amazed me with her insightful questions and well-thought out strategies, my favorite time has to be the "counting pretzels" incident. It was March 2006 and the choir was on its annual Beaver's Bend campout. There were at least 20 of us—all ages and sizes. It was Saturday night and we were gathered in one of the duplex cabins for our traditional potluck dinner. It's always a time of great fellowship, storytelling, and laughter. We all eat our fill of too much good food, and then the grownups sit in chairs pushed up against the wall and the kids run around busying themselves with fun games and important conversations. Dr. Mari is usually demonstrating how to hang a spoon on your nose to a generation of youngsters who are new to the sport. That night was no different as soon-to-be four year olds Walter and Rosemary giggled with glee at their newfound talent. All that fun made them hungry and their dad gave them permission to have some pretzel sticks. Somehow, Rosemary ended up near me with her plateful of pretzel sticks and I, ever the elementary school math teacher, asked, "How many pretzels do you have Rosemary?" I immediately realized the error of my ways, for she had too many pretzels, spread out over her plate like a bunch of tossed Pick-Up Sticks, for any preschooler to count. Instead of taking back the question, I was preparing to help her be successful in her counting when she started on her own, "One, two, three, four." Wow. Nice counting, I thought to myself. What was even more impressive than already knowing how to count, was how advanced her fine motor skills were as her delicate index finger pointed to each pretzel stick once and only once. "Five, six, seven, eight," she continued, undeterred by the fact that some pretzel sticks were stacked on top of others. "Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen," she hadn't missed a single number. Then she looked at me because she knew there was another number but wasn't sure how to say it, so I joined in and said the next few numbers to which she carefully echoed, "fourteen, fifteen," and so we continued all the way to 22. I was amazed. She then proudly picked up one of the pretzel sticks and proceeded to eat it with that big wonderful Rosemary smile and that great twinkle in her eye.

Ever the glutton for punishment and still in awe of the fine motor skill, eye-hand coordination, and mathematical prowess I had just observed, I then asked, "Well Rosemary, if you had 22 pretzels, and you ate 1, how many do you have left?" And she started all over again, carefully counting each pretzel as if for the first time. "One, two" and so we counted, mostly Rosemary by herself but with an occasional prompt from me, all the way to 21. And immediately, she rewarded herself for her great accomplishment by eating another pretzel stick. At this point, I'm now amazed at her persistence and patience which are really well beyond the realm of any child her age that I've ever met. In fact, she has exceeded the talents of some children I know who are twice her age. I've got a lot of patience and now am curious as to just how long she can continue, so I continued, "You had 21 pretzels and now you've eaten one. How many pretzels do you have now?" And with great delight, she proceeded to count again. This process was repeated over and over and over again, each time ending with the act that is the beginning of the next round—eating another pretzel stick. We must have spent at least 15 minutes at this game and she never missed a pretzel or skipped a number and we said over 250 numbers. I truly know no child that young with that kind of attention span. As we neared the end of the pile and the counting got shorter, both Rosemary and I were laughing as much as counting because the whole game had been so much fun. She got down to the last pretzel and gobbled it up with great delight and I had the privilege of introducing her to the magic of the number zero. There was much cheering all around because by now, every grown up in the room was watching and listening with the same awe. We all knew we were witnessing an amazing young girl with extraordinary talents. As we all stared at each other in disbelief, Rosemary disappeared with her empty plate holding zero pretzels, only to reappear with that beautiful smile and a new handful of pretzels on her plate.

Rosemary, there are infinite angels in heaven and I feel certain you've already counted them all, at least once. Our consolation, for those of us who are missing you so terribly much here on earth, is knowing that there are now infinity-plus-one angels in heaven.

Heavens to Betsy, we have pert near lost these colorful phrases!

This is one of those emails that's forwarded all around the world. They have a great point and have wonderful examples of words I don't use much anymore and hadn't taken the time to notice that they had slipped from my vocabulary. A friend sent it to me because it specifically references some Texas phrases. One of the great things about Maine is they not only cherish their local phrases, they use them on a regular basis.

I just learned a new one: "number than a pounded thumb." I heard it from one of my graduate students and have asked others about it. Oh yes! They know that phrase well and claim it's still in use today in Maine. Meanwhile, here's the narrative about colorful phrases that are going by the wayside.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The Merriam-Webster folks grabbed a lot of attention recently with the
announcement of new words being added to the dictionary.

They included such essential terms as "webinar" (an online seminar) and
"pescatarian" (a vegetarian who eats fish).

I'll let others celebrate the new words. I mourn the colorful old words
and phrases that are slowly passing from our language.

Nobody sends out news releases to trumpet that process. It just
happens. And one day there is no one left to say "nigh on to."

We're nigh on to that being the case right now.

Television has more and more people speaking with neutral Midwestern
accents. And now it seems we're all headed toward a bland, neutral
vocabulary, too.

It's been ages since I heard anyone say "nigh on to," much less "pert
near."

People nowadays just say "nearly." And that's so boring.

I'm troubled by our stunted vocabulary to describe something you don't
know the name of. Young people now just call it a "thing" or a "deal."

Their grandparents had such a richer vocabulary. A "whatchamacallit"
was just the start of it.

It might also be a "doodad," "dealybob," "doojigger" or "doohickey."

Or it could be a "thingamabob," which is closely related to a
"thingamajig."

Old-time hardware stores could always help you find the doohickey you
needed to attach to that thingamabob under the sink.

Just try doing that at Lowe's or Home Depot.

I'd like to see fur pieces come back into vogue, no matter what PETA
says. (Is it a fur piece into town? Pert near an all-day trip.)

We should resurrect "right smart," too. It has nothing to do with
intelligence. It's a useful measure of quantity -- more than
"picayunish" but not quite "boocoos."

We could use a right smart rain.

I realize that living in Dallas makes things look worse. Words that
have gone extinct here are still kicking out in the countryside.

Over in my native East Texas, people still use words like "dreckly."
That's because they don't want to lie to you.

In Dallas, the cable guy says "I'll be there between 2 and 4" and may
not show up at all. In East Texas, the plumber says "I'll get by there
dreckly" and you know he'll show up sooner or later.

I'm worried about the decline of mild oaths and exclamations. Plain old
cuss words seem to have just about driven them out.

My hometown newspaper carried a story the other day about a country
fellow hauling a load of dirt near Tyler.

One of his wheels caught fire, then the whole trailer.

The paper quoted him as saying: "I looked out the window and saw the
flames and thought 'Heavens to Betsy.' "

It's a good man who sees a burning trailer behind him and exclaims
"Heavens to Betsy."

Likewise with anyone who utters "Land o' Goshen," "Saints alive!" or
"Lorda mercy."

My grandmother's favorite exclamation was "law" -- drawn out to about
three syllables. (How was the food, Nana? Laaaaaw, it wasn't fit to
eat.)

I particularly grieve for the loss of one poetic old usage. Old-timers
would talk about doing something "of a mornin' " or "of an evenin' "
(I'll stop by there of a mornin' and we'll visit a spell.)

We're losing a little of the music to our language. And somehow gaining
"pescatarian" doesn't make up for losing "tarnation."

8/3/08 Dessert and Dinner with Randy and Jennifer

Before we played disc golf, we actually met Randy and Jenn at their favorite ice cream place in Turner. Yummy ice cream at a reasonable price. What fun! After disc golf we went to their home in Buckfield for a lovely dinner. We had barbecue chicken and a C family favorite: cabbage salad with baked beans. Now before you turn up your nose at this, all I can say is: you HAVE to try it. It was so good! The subtle differences between cabbage salad and cole slaw: the way you cut the cabbage is important and then you only add mayonnaise, white vinegar, and salt and pepper. No carrots, no spices. I was also informed that whereas you can keep cole slaw to eat another day, cabbage salad must be eaten fresh and there's no point in keeping any leftovers because they won't be any good the next day. The beans were simply Bush's baked beans out of the can. If there was any doctoring going on, I did not see it or hear about it. Then at the table, you put cabbage salad on your plate and then put beans on top and enjoy. And enjoy I did! Until Randy pointed out that Rodney had instructed me incorrectly and that it really should be beans first and cabbage on top. Twist my arm, I had to try another helping and there was a subtle difference, but I like it best the way I had it first.

That beautiful bowl is Jenn's Polish pottery. The plates and other dinnerware were of the same pattern. It's beautiful! And what a great way to end the biggest celebration of them all, by sharing it with family and friends--family for Rodney, new friends for me.

8/3/08 Bogs

Fortunately, Rodney anticipated that the course might be a little wet and encouraged me to go home and get different shoes than my favorite tennis shoes. At first I was thinking of my water shoes that I wear for boating or poolside at public pools. Rodney gave me that look that said, "I don't think that's what you want to wear." He even asked what size shoe I wear because he was going to see if he or one of his brothers might have something I could borrow. But then I remembered my Wellingtons. That, he assured me, would be by far the better shoe for me to wear. Little did I know how right he would be.

The course is already in a bog, so wooden planks to get across wet spots were not unusual any time of year:

But this summer, was even wetter than usual. Here you can see my Wellingtons in action as I retrieve my disc from a water hazard. Fortunately, discs are water proof, and though playing with a wet disc threw off some people's game, my game knew no nuances.

The last time you saw these Wellingtons in my blog, they were brand new on March 9, 2008:

Who knew that one pair of boots could serve two seasons?

8/3/08 Celebration Tour #5: Disc Golf

Whooop! We're done! And what better way to celebrate than to play a round of disc golf!

Well, personally, I wouldn't know since I've never played disc golf before. But I trusted Rodney on this one and we joined Randy and Jenn (a different his brother and sister-in-law than the ones that are moving into the family homestead) at Ricker Hill near Turner (the same place where we picked apples last fall). This is a serious sport. Rodney, Randy, and Jenn all have their own discs. That's plural. Apparently just like golf, you have some you use for distance, others for putting, . . . Hmmmm, I'm guessing this isn't like the Frisbee Golf that we set up at summer camp where we nailed bushel baskets to a tree and bought a bucketload of cheap flying discs at 3 for $1.

Jenn loaned me one of her discs. I had been warned that you had to watch carefully where your disc landed or you might lose it in the trees surrounding the course. Did Jenn really want to loan her valuable equipment to a rank amateur? Won't they rent you a disc or two at the pro shop? Wouldn't that be better. But she assured me it would be okay and we were off. As we were walking out to the course she admitted that she often doesn't go with Randy and Rodney because they're so good at it, but when she heard I was coming and had never played, she decided to come because she knew she had a better chance of not coming in last.

You can see that this course is well-established and well-marked! Here we are at Hole 1 ready for a late afternoon of fun:

Hole 2 has an interesting hazard. It's not a typical water hazard . . . it's a cranberry bog! There were signs warning us that if a disc went in the cranberry bogs we weren't to retrieve it ourselves as we might damage the cranberries. If we notified course personnel, they would retrieve it for us.

Though the clouds were dark, there was enough blue that we thought we could get in a whole round before more rain came. There's been so much rain that the course was a little wetter than usual and as a bog, it's usually pretty wet. The scenery was gorgeous but I can't tell you if the water in this photo (which was near Hole 1) is cranberry bog or just temporary "summer of 2008 bog."

Rodney in action:

Here's an action shot of me that Rodney took. When your disc hits the vertical chains, it typically falls into the basket underneath and that's the ultimate goal. For the most part, it took me twice as many strokes as the others to get to the basket. Sometimes, it took three times as many strokes. But my partners were patient and even gave me pointers on how to improve my game.

This is not an action shot of me, but check out what flew into the picture as Rodney was taking it!

This trio actually knows what they're doing when they play disc golf:

Today wasn't exactly a "Celebration Tour" like our other ones. This one just had more celebrating and less touring, but I think it counts.

8/3/08 the last of the sorting and packing

For five or six weeks now, Rodney's been gathering and sorting through his earthly belongings in preparation for the big move to Oregon. It's been as much therapeutic preparation as it has been physical preparation. It's been pretty therapeutic for me as well since I just went through this less than a year ago. It's been nice to be able to "pay forward" all the amazing help I got from friends in Dallas when I was going through this. Though our stories are different of how and where we acquired so much stuff and the stories have very different plots as to where we went and why, there are many many parts of the stories that are similar. And so off and on, inbetween Celebration Tours and obligations that we both already had on our calendar, I've been trying to help wherever I could as Rodney packed up his life in Maine to start his new chapter in Oregon.

Today was the pen-ultimate chapter of the packing story! He actually finished packing everything into a box that is going into storage here in Maine, got everything given away or thrown away that he doesn't need to keep or take, and got everything organized that is going with him. Give him about two hours to do the final packing and fitting everything into his car and he could leave on a moment's notice. Wow!

You can't tell from these photos, but this is at a stage very close to the end. Rodney's brother and future sister-in-law are moving into the family homestead and farm where Rodney's been living. One of the things they wanted to do before their wedding next Saturday (which will be at the farm) was tear out all the old carpets and take them to the dump before they started cleaning up the rest of the house. Rodney was working on rolling up the red and green plaid carpet in his room when he crawled under the bed to get the last corner of the carpet out. At first I was helping to lift the bed while he pulled the carpet out and didn't really see him go underneath. When I came around the corner and saw this, I knew I had to take pictures!

When we took a break for lunch, we stopped at Hannaford's to dump the change out of the big change cup into the machine that counts and sorts coins. We both made guesses before we went in as to what the value of the change would be. We were both off by sooooo much! Just trust me that those commercials about emptying the change out of your pockets at the end of each day really know what they're talking about.

8/2/08 Gotta be a local

Here's a sign you won't see in Dallas. :-) This was at Fountain Fortune Chinese Restaurant.