9/1/08 Happy Labor Day

I woke up at 4:40 this morning. I had the alarm set for 5:30 in order to have time to pack everything up and get to breakfast by 7 on the other side of camp, so I was thrilled to wake up earlier than that. More blogging! But even better . . . sunrise! Maine has Texas beat in so many areas of natural beauty, but it's really hard to see a good sunrise or sunset in Maine. Since Texas is so flat, we almost take them for granted. So today I can get the best of both worlds . . . Maine's finest beauty AND a sunrise! I had tried the first morning I got here to blog from the dock on the lake but the only place to sit was on the dock itself and that was too hard and flat plus it was wet. So I blogged both Friday and Saturday mornings from the dining hall porch. But this morning, I knew there were still two patio chairs down by the dock leftover from yesterday's frivolity (or observation of frivolity of others). After I settled into my perfect viewpoint of sunrise, I looked around at the rest of the sky and to the south was Orion! It was barely visible and those were the only stars that were visible, but it was definitely Orion. I don't remember seeing Orion in the morning before, so that was a serious bonus to getting up so early.

I was able to get Internet access on the dock (I'm pretty sure I'm the first ever to do that, according to Rodney and Marcus), so I checked wunderground.com. I was looking for what time the sunrise was going to happen and found out that it is 39 degrees in Jackman, Maine. And they say it's always colder at MRO than it is in Jackman. Brrrrr! I did not bring enough layers for this! But so far, I'm okay except for my fingers. I wonder if anyone sells blogging gloves--something warm enough yet flexible enough to type in. I wonder how big the market might be for that. Here's what I found out about sunrise:

September 1, 2008 Rise: Set:
Actual Time 6:02 AM EDT 7:17 PM EDT
Civil Twilight 5:32 AM EDT 7:48 PM EDT
Nautical Twilight 4:55 AM EDT 8:24 PM EDT
Astronomical Twilight 4:16 AM EDT 9:03 PM EDT

Who knew that there were four sunrise times?! I missed astronomical twilight but I was there for both nautical and civil twilight as well as actual sunrise!

Today is all about departing . . . on so many fronts. Ben and Tracy are moving to Boston area where he will start a 3 year divinity school program and she will take on a temporary career as a nanny since her counseling license doesn't automatically transfer to Massachusetts. Tasha is starting a new job. Jenn, Christine, and I are all starting new school years as teachers. And then there's Rodney. But today is also about the physical nuisance of packing up all your stuff that you've let get spread out in a giant mess around the cabin and loading up the car in time to get to breakfast at 7 and get on the road by 8 for a day of white water rafting!! At least if you have to leave, you can leave on a high note!

Rodney, Marcus, Dale, and Cuz (Heidi's cousin who arrived some time in the middle of the night just to be one of our guides to take us down the river) left at 7am to get everything ready. The rest of us said goodbye to the ones staying behind (Cindy and Carol were staying to babysit the little ones while Tracy was staying behind to hang out with kids, help clean up, and enjoy a good book and some sunshine) and then caravanned to our designated meeting spot. We left cars at the bottom of the river run and then squished into two vehicles to go to the top of the run by the dam. There were a lot of logistics involved and Marcus took care of all of them. What a host . . . what a guide. There's a reason he's the director of a Christian camp that gives retreats and changes people's lives. He is the consummate host, making people feel welcome, and the perfect guide to help you find yourself and strengthen your relationship with God in that amazing chunk of nature that he's in charge of.

The rafting. Oh my goodness. Where does one even begin??? Pictures will tell part of the story. Those are to come. The basics: we had 2 boats--smaller rafts than the typical 12-person commercial rafts that you see in brochures. They were actually "wilder" and more fun than the bigger rafts based on my limited experience (I have rafted 3 times prior to this . . . very long ago but I still remember). The part of the river that we rafted is 12 miles long. The first 6 miles are all the serious rapids with all the white-knuckling, adrenalin-rushing, frigid-water splashing you can imagine. The last 6 miles are more about floating downriver with occasional milder rapids and waves. Though I must say, we were floating pretty dang fast! The entire 12 miles had gorgeous pine trees on both shore lines, crystal clear blue skies above, and sunlight reflecting on the waters all around. Incredible. We stopped at the half-way point (distance-wise, not time-wise) and had a delicious lunch with a fire to warm ourselves. We also picked up Marcus' dad, Ron (second oldest of the 5 C* brothers), at the half-way point (he drove our lunch to us so we didn't have to have extra cargo as we maneuvered the top half of the run) and he got to experience his first white water rafting from the halfway point to the end. He was very grateful (more than he'll ever know) to only have to go on the second half. People fell out of their boats on both halves of the trip, both on purpose and accidentally; no one was injured or maimed during the experience. There was lots of laughter and stories and wonder. All in all, it was a most amazing day.

And then around 2:00, it was all over. We took a group photo and exchanged a lot of hugs, people changed into dry clothes and got into their cars, and then we all went our separate ways.

And so endeth my summer of 2008. It was an incredible summer. Think about the bookends: I kicked off the summer hiking 20 miles of the Appalachian Trail with some of my oldest and dearest friends: college buddies that I've known and loved and who have been a part of my life for over 30 years. And I ended the summer with 4 days of wild adventures, the last of which was the white water rafting, with brand new friends. I've known Ray the longest and that's only been for 18 months, the rest I've really only known for 4 or 5 months and some for only 4 or 5 days. Adventure to adventure; old friends to new friends. And that's just the bookends! Think about what kind of amazing summer was packed inbetween! God is soooo good.

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.