Back to the Grindstone

Vacation is over. Drat.

(My pretty blog background is gone.  Double drat.)
Seriously, it was so needed and so enjoyed.

Where do I begin?

With the old lady who backed into me the first morning of our vacation? Nah. No one was injured and the damage was minor, so why dwell there.

Our first night was spent on the coast in a sweet little cabin with a fireplace. Hubby brought some firewood and we had a nice cozy fire that evening and then enjoyed a well deserved sleep. The next day we got up and enjoyed a ride around Acadia National Park, going at our leisure with no agenda in mind. Well, except that we needed to be at the docks by 4:00pm for boarding our sunset whale watching cruise. I have one word to describe it.

INCREDIBLE!

We went 20 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean, beyond where the lobster boats go, right into the middle of the humpback’s feeding area. We were surrounded by humpbacks. We’d see flumes go off all around us. And then we started seeing them breach the water near our boat. On their last breach, as they were preparing for a deep dive, they would bring their tail up out of the water and slap it on the waves. As a finale, one of the younger whales we were watching rolled and slapped its tail and then was gone. The crew had an actual term for what our sweet, huge, whale did, but I forget it now. But it made us clap and do the ooooohhh aaaahhhh thing.

Unfortunately, I forgot to charge the battery on my camera, so I have no pictures. But that’s okay, it’s etched in my mind. You will just need to get out there for yourself to understand what I’m talking about.

Our next adventure was supposed to be just a short afternoon drive. We ended up on the Canadian border in a little logging town called Jackman. There is nothing in Jackman. It was early evening by the time we got there and there was no way we were driving home, so we looked for a hotel. We pulled into one hotel that advertised on its sign that it also offered taxidermy and a butcher. Next please. A much more suitable hotel was found across the street.

The next morning, we fueled up our stomachs at a great little restaurant called Mama Bears Den and then started our drive back.

We stopped at a historic site on the way. Benedict Arnold crossed the Kennebec River here in little ole Maine on his way to Canada. This is where he crossed:

The Kennebec is really quite beautiful in this part of Maine. There is nothing, I mean nothing there. It is very rural. We drove for an hour and saw no homes.

Our next stop was in The Forks where we hiked in and discovered a beautiful waterfall.

So while it was crazy to drive that distance for no reason, we made the best of it.

The next part of our vacation was spent at a Lynard Skynard concert. We sang and danced and felt like kids again. It was so much fun. Even my hubby, who never sings out loud, knew the words to every song and was belting them out.

We finished off our vacation at a friend’s camp. She comes up once a year from Florida and a bunch of us friends get together to visit and enjoy a wonderful meal.

We always have lots of fun together, this year was no different.

It was the end to a wonderful vacation.