The weather this summer has been historically terrible. It seems we’re exceeding every average in the book (except, fortunately, for hottest summer). We’ve exceeded the typical July rainfall, we’ve exceed the typical August rainful and we’ve exceed the typical number of thunderstorms in a given YEAR.<\/p>\n
And it doesn’t appear to be ending. I suppose I can take some comfort in knowing that we’re not alone. For example, we suffered identical weather for almost the entire trip to Maine. The long 4.5+ hour drive up was in almost a constant torrential downpour. Our return home yesterday included patches of the same every 50 miles or so. On the actual days of our vacation, we had rain every day but Saturday (which still started off as clouds but cleared up rather nicely by afternoon).<\/p>\n
Anyway, we arrived Wednesday night at about 7:30PM, unloaded out belongings into the cabin, then quickly headed out for dinner. After all of that driving, a nice meal seemed perfect. We bypassed a bunch of local\/walkable restaurants for a place a few miles away on top of a hill (come to think of it, Top of the Hill may have actually been the name of the place). The bread was good, but nothing else with my order seemed to go well. The food took an hour and a half from the time we ordered until it arrived at the table (did I mention we were starving after the long ride?). The veal piccata I ordered was cooked in oil that should have been changed ages ago and was over-cooked. The brownie a-la-mode dessert that came with Randy’s entree arrived with a burned bottom. Scott and Deano’s food came out okay, though (it’s difficult to screw up pasta and burgers too much).<\/p>\n
We returned to the cabin and played games (RummiKub). Considering that it had been cold (50’s), rainy, and that the cabin had no heat or lockable doors, we slept rather well.<\/p>\n
Oh, I should describe the cabin. It definitely looked like the website. Perched on a hill, along a dirt road in the middle of the woods, the cabin had a open living\/dining\/kitchen room as the main portion of the cabin. There was a wood stove for heat. However, you had to go outside and around to the back of a deck to access the bathroom and bedrooms. The bedrooms had no heat or fireplaces. And the walls weren’t insulated. In fact, they were just planks (boards) nailed to periodic studs. From the outside, the cabin looked like it was a wooden cabin. From the inside, you saw the studs and bracing (since, like I said, there was only one thin piece of wood separating you from the outside). Consequently, it could get mighty cool in those bedrooms. Fortunately, I’m a human heater and kept Randy warm. Unfortunately, you had to walk outside to access the bathroom to pee in the middle of the night (or any time, for that matter). And the single-ply walls provided quite an array of insect\/arachnid life to join us. Every shower I took I was joined by at least 3 spiders or daddy long-legs. <\/p>\n
But the most disconerting part was that the doors had no locks. Any time, day or not (even when we’re not there) somebody could just open the bedroom doors and walk in. The living room section of the house did have locks so that is where we kept our laptops, iPods, cell phones, etc… Having been a city boy for 20 years, a locked door is just something I’ve become accustomed to. Still, I did manage to fall asleep.<\/p>\n
It’s funny, on our last night there Randy and I had a romantic little dinner at this delicious little restaurant in Southwest Harbor called Fiddler’s Green. It looked like a typical house but was actually a restaurant that had some views of the harbor. I had an amazing scallops entree with asparagus, spinach, and orzo (by far the best meal of the trip). Anyway, we were chatting up the owner and she asked where we were staying. We told her the place and her response was classic: “Oh, those cabins sure are, um….rustic.”<\/p>\n
The next day it rained on and off and was completely cloudy as we drove around Acadia National Park. We did the loop road and took hundreds of pictures of the spectacular coast. Scott took some really nice ones of us which was great since Randy and I normally travel alone and have so few photos of us together (it’s usually just one or the other). After driving around all day we reached the southern portion of the island and, lo and behold, some blue sky started breaking through the clouds! <\/p>\n
Randy, Scott and Deano took advantage of the light to take some more photos. Meanwhile, with three other more qualified phototraphers in my presence, I opted not to take photos that would simply duplicate theirs (and with inferior quality).<\/p>\n
That night, Randy cooked some yummy chicken and marinated veggies for dinner and we played more games. Unfortunately, the last game became more competitive than it should have and it put a damper on activities for the rest of that evening…and the following two days. (for the record, and this may come as a shock, but despite my fiercely competitive nature, I was not the source of the problem).<\/p>\n
It poured the next morning so we hung around the condo and began having the sort of day that I had craved: a lazy game-playing day filled with naps and reading. As the afternoon approached, everybody decided to go to Bar Harbor (the only big town in the area). We got there, had lunch (yet again, a mediocre meal but at least the space was fun), and walked around the shops. Though, after making the loop around the shopping district it began to rain heavily. I opted to return to the car to read (I brought magazines for that very reason) and they continued picture taking. When they returned, the previous night’s game tension still existed so we returned to the cabin to rest a bit.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Randy, Deano, and I rode out to view a lighthouse at sunset (though, with the rain there was no sunset to see…just a lightouse). Scott stayed behind to nap, and eventually take a bath before heading to bed. The rest of us had some dinner (thanks again, Randy) and rested.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Deano and Scott went on a sailboat ride (I passed…as you may recall my history with sailing). The sun started shining by mid-morning so Randy and I grabbed the bikes and rode the carriage trails in Acadia National Park. By the afternoon, we’d done nearly 19 miles. We chose some trails that ended up with us climbing some of the smaller mountains. There were two portions where I actually had to walk my bike. But we picked some wild blueberries for nourishment and got to see some pretty vistas. We even frolicked in a waterfall!<\/p>\n
Despite my thighs burning for the rest of the day, that may have been the best time I had on the trip. We later drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain and took some photos before returning to the cabin. Scott had decided to head back Saturday night (he’d been there 3 days longer than the rest of us…which meant he had to put up with 3 more rainy days than we had to) so he and Deano finished packing up and headed out (Scott was Deano’s ride).<\/p>\n
That night was when we had the amazing meal at Fiddler’s Green (I highly recommend it). We came back to the cabin, lit the fire, played RummiKub, drank wine and relaxed. Then we went outside to head to the bedroom for our last night’s sleep.<\/p>\n
We ended the trip by exploring the western portion of the island and then laying out on the beach at Echo Lake for an hour or so. But then, you guessed it, storm clouds started approaching so we packed up and began the ride home.<\/p>\n
Now we’re back home….and the weather IS THE SAME!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The weather this summer has been historically terrible. It seems we’re exceeding every average in the book (except, fortunately, for hottest summer). We’ve exceeded the typical July rainfall, we’ve exceed the typical August rainful and we’ve exceed the typical number of thunderstorms in a given YEAR. And it doesn’t appear to be ending. I suppose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}