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Let me just preface this by saying that for years UltraBob has been trying to sell me on the merits of a MacIntosh computer. The Mac is SO much better than Windows-operated PC’s. They never crash. In fact Johnny called the MacIntosh realm “the land of dreams and rainbows”. Well that was the clincher. I am getting an Apple for Christmas. But back to our story of another dreamy, rainbowy land…...............

Ah, Paddy-O. What can I say? He’s an angel; a TRAIL angel that is, and he does a lot of trail magic! When I started describing this next part to my relatives with words like “Trail Angel, Trail Magic and Trail Names, brother-in-law Bill asked, “So, do those AT hikers ever live in the real world, or do they just stay in Make-Believe Land?” It does sound a little goofy, but if you will just click your heels together three times and say “I DO believe in fairies”(you know like Tinker Bell on Peter Pan…THOSE kind of fairies) it will go a lot easier for you.
Okay, a trail angel is, quite simply, someone who does nice things for those who are hiking the trail. This can consist of giving rides, providing food or other amenities or helping with lodging. Paddy-O’s particular brand of trail magic went something like this: he would bring his pickup to a place where he knew hikers would be coming out. His truck was always filled with drinks and food, and he also carried around a portable grill for burgers and hot dogs. He also gave lots of rides, and on this particular occasion, he was willing to drive ahead to the next camping spot with hikers’ gear while they slack-packed for the day. Paddy-O was, of course, a trail name, but we found out later that his real name was Patrick, so not so much of a stretch to Paddy-O. He was a tall, slender man, probably in his 40’s, and he had thru-hiked the trail himself years earlier. He was from New York, and had had a variety of jobs, but if memory serves (and it often does not) he was currently running a tree trimming service. Paddy-O got to know quite a few of the hikers through his efforts, and the previous year had met and quite liked a hiker known as “Skinny.” After hiking the entire trail, Skinny was killed in an auto accident soon afterwards. So, Paddy-O was devoting this entire season of trail-angeling to Skinny, after which he planned to hang up his grill and stay home for a while. He carried a notebook around and asked recipients of his “magic” to write a little entry. He planned to give the notebook to Skinny’s father. I learned all of this at the camp that evening, as the whole thing seemed a little bizarre to me, and I wanted to see if I could figure out what “made him tick.” I came to the conclusion that, while rather odd, Paddy-O’s heart was in the right place.
Of course most everyone decided to slack pack and let Paddy-O transport their gear. Everyone but Sara and Jason, that is, who decided to hang out with us for the day. This was probably the highlight of the entire trip. The hiking was really cool, but camping out was fantastic! Besides, it would have been a shame to lug that tent and sleeping bags and pads all over tarnation without at least trying them out. We were going to experience the wilderness.
We were in the large, slightly yellow rental car, and Paddy-O had given Sara directions to the camping spot for the night. The navigators decided that there was a better way to get there, and we spent several jolly hours driving windy, rutty roads, occasionally turning around and trying another directon. In the end, it was Jason who found the way, but he ruined it by being an insufferable know-it-all… Well, not really, but he did gloat a bit about being so often right. The camping area had been used for that purpose before and was near a river. There were a lot of stone rings that were either a) old fire pits or b) stone circles from an ancient druid civilization who worshipped trees. There was even an outhouse of sorts. Sara had a habit of rating toilet facilities and this one got a mediocre rating. After checking it out, she strongly suggested that we NOT use the stall on the left, and I took her word for it.
We spent the next several hours gathering a mountain of firewood. We also hauled in some longer pieces with which Jason fashioned benches around several sides of the fire pit for campfire sitting. It was fun to watch Jason break the large branches into shorter lengths by smashing them with a large rock. He also levered some between two close trees and broke them that way. Before you could recite The Declaraton of Independence backwards, we had a large pile of neatly stacked firewood and another of smaller twigs for kindling. Jason also stripped off a bit of birch bark for fire starting and coaxing, and had a rather strong reaction when he caught Debi (or Platypus, as was her current trail name preference) wantonly throwing the pieces of bark into the fire.
Armadillo (yes, that is Debi changing her trail name again) had brought Jason a gift, which he liberally used to liven up the conversation. If you have not seen the movie “Napolean Dynamite”, I suggest that you do so. The gift was a small, keychain-sized item that recited, at the touch of a button, 5 or 6 phrases from the movie: “I like your sleeves. They’re real big.” “Do you have some chapstick? My lips hurt really, really bad!” “A liger is pretty much my favorite animal. Its a cross between a lion and a tiger.”, etc. Trust me, its really funny.

Gathering firewood and working on the fire pit

And now for the fun part: setting up the tents! This tent was light years away from the large 8-person tent my family used to take camping. I still have that tent, and actually got to where I could set it up by myself in the yard for summer overnighters, but it required about 1/2 hour of time and lots of lugging. As Sara & Jason demonstrated with their tent, just like ours, this little REI two-person tent practically set itself up. As we began unfolding the supports, they sprang together and we merely had to secure them to the tent, put on the raincover, and do a little staking. Of course, under the tent, we put the “footprint”, a groundcloth type thing, I was interested in talking to UltraBob yesterday to discover that a footprint is also, in computer lingo, the amount of disk space required by an application, or space taken up by hardware. I am a bit of a word nut, but my previous experiences with footprints had been limited to muddy tracks on my clean kitchen floor. We arranged our sleeping pads and bags and laid out our headlamps.

Setting up the tents

Then Paddy-O showed up with the other campers’ gear, and we set up 3 more tents for Jay, Pace & Ricky. Somehow, we didn’t have or perhaps didn’t know how to set up, No Hurry’s tent, so he was the only worn-out hiker not overjoyed to behold his sleeping quarters ready and waiting.
The campfire was terrific and the company couldn’t have been better. As I said before, noone ever made us feel like we didn’t belong or like we were in the way. That morning, before they set off for the day’s hike, I had presented Jay with a neon orange bandana for Honey. Hunting season was in full swing, and I did NOT want that yellow dog mistaken for a deer, albeit a very short one. As Jay tied in around her neck, he said, “I’m so glad y’all are going to be camping with us tonight.” It made us feel very good.
Panther (yes, that’s Debi again) and I got out the hot dogs and marshmallows we had purchased earlier, and Paddy-O fired up his grill with burgers. In his notebook, I had noticed several hikers referring to his “Mango-Tango” juice and I begged him to let me try some. “It’s non-alcoholic,” he warned me. That was fine with me. “There is only one store in the world where they sell this stuff,” he informed us. “It’s where I buy everything. Stew Leonards. Their stock is limited, but their prices are unbeatable.” The mango-tango juice was cold and sweet and I could see why hot, thirsty hikers would be grateful for a glassful.
Paddy-O had a rather circular way of talking, making it rather challenging sometimes to see what point he was trying to make. I went over to his truck to see if I could help him lay out the feast, and he countered with a question for me: “Do you know who Roger Williams was?” “Uh, no, I don’t think so.” “Not much of a history buff?” “History? You mean the Roger Williams of Rhode Island founding fame?” “Yeah. He was an independant kind of guy. I’m kind of like that in a way.” “So, you are saying you’d rather do it yourself?” “No, not really, you know?” By then I was totally confused, and wandered back to the campfire. I didn’t really want to help anyway! The funny thing is that later on, he did allow Sara to grill burgers and dogs and then told her she was the only one who had ever helped him. Go figure.

Jay, Debi,Paddy-O, Sara, Jason Pace, Ricky, No Hurry (David) and Honey of course, with the “Paddy Wagon”

You can get some good discussions going around a campfire. Ricky liked to tell people he was a scientist, but actually his degree was in political science. What can you do with a degree like that? Help out with running the family ice business of course. The others joked that he would be an ice scientist. Jay told a little about what it was like growing up in South Carolina. “I used to hate it when I got whipped and had to choose my own switch,” he said. “In the south, they grow regular switch trees. You can buy them at Walmart.”
Ricky had particularly requested the marshmallow s’mores, so I perfectly toasted marshmallows and slid them between chocolate lined graham crackers until he was practically sick. At this time, I decided to, once again, force the issue of our Trail Names. “So, how about Cougar?” I asked for probably the 5th time. “Well,” said Ricky, “Do you want tough or sweet?” “Tough!” I promptly replied. “How about this: your tral name will be S’More. Tough graham cracker crust, but sweet and warm on the inside.” “Wow Ricky,” I said grudgingly, “I hope you are going into ice sales.” S’More. Well, it could have been worse, as I was soon to find out.
Several of the guys were, once again, rolling their own cigarettes when one of them made a comment about “doobies” or “joints” or something like that. They grinned and winked at each other, and Debi knew. “Sara told you, didn’t she? She told you I thought you were smoking marijuana. And she promised she wouldn’t until after I was gone!” “It was just too good, Mom,” Sara said, only a little contritely, “And everyone thought it was cute.” “In fact,” said Jason, rising to the occasion, “I think your trail name should be “Joint.” And so it was.
We also heard a few more trail stories Jason was forever losing his belongings and demanding that others search their packs, but this had happened so often with the result being that the item was in his own pack, that the requests were now usually ignored. Pack bomb described the chaos that ensued when everyone emptied their pack and spread the contents about the camping area. We actually witnessed this, and the term is apt. They could end up camping with some “interesting” people on occasion. One time they were in a shelter with a young man who seemed a bit mentally disturbed. They awoke to find him painting his water bottle. Jason’s shirt also received a few artistic strokes. “Look,” said the artist, waggling his fingers, “I’m all painty.” This, as you may imagine, became a kind of catch phrase.

Sitting around the campfire
Jay, Paddy-O, Pace, Ricky David and UltraMom

It was great fun, in the dark, to finally get to try out our headlamps. They worked great, and were so small and lightweight. When UltraDad used to flood irrigate the farm, he had to go out every couple of hours, day and night to set dams in ditches and “change the water.” HIS headlight was efficiently fueled by four D-cell batteries that were housed in a case he clipped to his belt or back pocket. A large wire ran up to the wide elastic band that encircled his head. The lamp part was about the size of a doorknob. But this was much better than me having to go along to hold a lantern or flashlight, which happened on occasion.
We slept like logs, or very tired women, in the cozy warmth of our mummy sleeping bags. When I crawled out of my bag fairly early the next morning lured by the “call of nature”, I found Paddy-O brisk and smiling, getting ready to fire up the grill to toast breakfast bagels. “How are you this morning?” I inquired politely. “Great! Just great! I just went for a swim in the river. I try to do that every morning.”
It felt about 15 degrees F out there. I decided I would just stink for awhile longer.

Honey-Dog gets an early morning drink from the river

“Joint” rolled out of her bag soon after, and together, we got the campfire going again, determined to burn every scrap of wood we had gathered. “Hey S’more,” she said cheerfully. (Joint is most decidedly a morning person) “Its great to be out here in the wilderness.” “I know, I know. It really isn’t bad at all. Of course the bathroom thing could be a bit better, but we’re getting pretty good at this fire thing, aren’t we Joint?” After trying out our new trail names a couple of more times, we decided to go back to “Cougar” and “Panther” when we were just talking amongst ourselves. They just seemed to fit us better.
The hikers would be heading towards Karatunk today, and word on the street, or rather trail, was that there was, besides a large river that you must be ferried across, an awesome hostel. Laundry facilities, dry clean sleeping areas….in fact the group decided they would zero there and get a few housekeeping chores done. “What is zeroing, Cougar?” whispered Panther. “Stopping and hiking zero miles for a day,Panther old chap,” I said smugly, proud to have actually remembered something. “Try to keep up.”
Sara, Jason, Debi and I would drive there and check out the hostel. After that, it would be time for Cougar and Panther to leave the wilderness and the trail and start making their way back to civilization and the real world…....

to be continued

Motel. I’m talking about the White Wolf Motel. Did you think I was going to write about an actual wolf that was white? Well, that’s what I wanted you to think so you would read this post! I mean, who wants to read about a motel? Well, too late now. You’ve already started reading, so you had just as well keep going.
The White Wolf Motel did have some vacancies. At least we think they did, and we know that we ended up with a couple of rooms, but the proprieter was either a) disorganized, or b) crazy. All we know is that they kept renting the same rooms to different people. This was an old fashioned motel where all the room accesses were outside, and you were issued a large metal key tied to a piece of driftwood. The rooms had some charm, however, and the beds were very comfy. Armed with key, we climbed stairs, made our way around the walkway and tried to enter one of our rooms. We found it occupied by a man. He was very nice, but unwilling to share his room. We had a similiar experience when someone tried to enter one of our rooms and the very same reaction. I made really sure to lock all available locks that night before retiring.

The White Wolf

The boy-hikers showed up dirty, exhausted and famished. Debi generously treated everyone to a large pizza repast at a nearby bar in honor of Sara’s birthday. It was a great lot of fun. The waitress was terrific and everyone was in great spirits. The boys ordered several appetizers, and we decided on pizza flavors. One large pizza was ordered for every two persons along with 3 or 4 large pitchers of beer, pepsi for me. Sara tried to save some pizza crusts for Honey, but had some of them taken away by a hungry Jason.
After a bit, everyone congregated in our motel room (Debi and I had one to ourselves) for a little birthday celebration. I had visited the grocery store earlier in the afteroon and had bought a birthday cake, paper plates, forks and napkins. I also got a frosting tube so I could write the required “Happy Birthday Sara” with the gooey gel. The store was out of birthday candles, so I got a mango-scented votive candle for Sara to blow out.
Honey, Jay’s yellow lab, got comfortable on the bed with her rawhide chew bone. We reminded Jay that he had promised to show us Honey’s “booties.” Earlier in the trip, Jay had become concerned about Honey because her paws were getting cut up on the trail, and when he saw some dog booties on sale for $4.00, he got them for her. She was not impressed. “Here,” said Jay, “Lets put your booties on, Honey Dog.” It was hilarious. As he slid the sock-like boot over each paw, Honey looked resigned and martyred. When the bootie was fully on, she acted as if she could no longer use that paw. No longer could she use her front paws to help secure her bone. When she walked, she prissily lifted each paw high in the air, attemping to shake off the offending bootie, which she eventually did. Poor Honey. We had to soothe her pride with a little beef jerky and pizza crusts.

Honey-Dog, Jay, & the hated booties

How do people walk in these things?

Sara received the most unusual birthday card I have ever seen. Jason had carefully cut a large section of pristine birch bark, the preferred fire starting medium, and had fashioned in into a card which we all signed. The others joked that Jason had stripped most of the trees along the route trying to get the perfect piece of bark. It was quite beautiful. Ricky gave Sara a large ceramic birthday vase. But I think my gift was her favorite. Earlier in the day, I had presented her with a comb, and for the first time in a while, her hair was sleek, shiny, and tangle-free.
The group had acquired a new hiker and they brought him along to eat cake and chat. His real name was David, but he was known as “No Hurry.” A group he was hiking with early on had all been awarded trail names but him. When he said that was okay, he was in “no hurry” to get a trail name, it stuck. I could tell that No Hurry was trying to persuade the rest of the group to do something, but it took a bit of explaining before I understood what. There was a chance that, if enough of them wanted to, that they could “slack-pack” the next day. This is someone transports your pack for you to the next night’s stop and you get to hike without that heavy weight on your back for a day. And No Hurry really wanted to do that. It seems that Paddy-O was back in town…...................

UltraMom, Sara, Jason, No-Hurry & Pace
Check out the mango-colored (and scented) birthday candle!

to be continued

Okay, I had my little pity-party last night, so now its time to, once again, relive the experience of a lifetime…............
When we last saw our heros, they had just left Bar Harbor, Maine and were heading back towards the Appalachain Trail. Sara knew the guys’ hiking plan, and our plan was to find the trail access where they would be ending up. We would hike in several miles and meet up with them, and then all head into the town of Stratton for a good night’s rest and a hearty birthday celebration. (remember: Sara turned 23 that day.) We drove into Stratton and checked on the lodging: this, as it turned out, was prime hunting season. Everything was booked up solid. . One motel wouldn’t open until later in the day, so we headed for the trail. Sara had good maps and instructions, Debi is a very good driver, and I am an excellent back seat sitter, so we were soon at our destination. The Appalachian Trail is marked with white paint slashes on the trees along the path. Mostly, there are markings when the trail intersects a road or takes a turn that may be confusing, and Sara explained to us how differently places slashes could tell the trail-savy hiker which way they were to go, or what was up ahead, but not being a partcularly trail-savy hiker, I promptly forgot it all.
It was an absolutely glorious day, and we were all in high spirits. Sara was feeling better after a few days off. Also, she had visited the hotel laundramat the previous evening with all of her washable trail belongings, and we were all enjoying the results. She had to run them through two complete wash cycles before they didn’t stink! And it was her birthday, and she was going to see her friends again. What was not to feel good about? Debi and I were excited to, at long last, be doing what we had crossed a continent to do: hike on the Appalachian Trail.
Sara stripped to shorts, tied on her bandana and secured her backpack. “Bring whatever you want,” she said, “Just put it in my backpack.” I think we threw in some water bottles and raingear, but were soon wishing we had added a few boulders. That girl could move. Of course I think her legs are approximately twice as long as mine, so that helped (her, not me). We finally got to try out our hiking poles, and they were great! The trail, far from being a paved promenade, consisted of a lot of elevation changes, and a lot of wet and rocky stretches. We became acquainted with “bog logs”. As you may deduce, these were logs, in various stages of algaed slipperiness, laid over the more boggy stretches. You walked along them single file, as on a balance beam, though a pretty wide one. “As soon as you see one, you have to say “Bog Log!”’ Sara informed us. “Ah. Is that some more of that Appalachian Trail hiker tradition?” I inquired. “No,” she said, “I just think its cool.” The hiking poles especially helped save my arthritic knees when going down, but I could also tell that using my arms as well as my legs was contributing to my overall cardiovascular workout. Of course I thought about all that sometime later.

Bog Logs

Sara was very encouraging as we scrambled after her. “You guys are doing great. Don’t worry, I fall down sometimes too. Sure, we can stop for another water break, but next time lets try to hike longer than 10 minutes, okay?”, etc. After a while, we encountered another hiker coming the opposite way.
“Hi”, he said, “I’m Hopeful Hiker.” I think he was someone they had seen before, and he and Sara had quite a long conversation about what was ahead on the trail, what was behind on the trail, and whom else Hopeful had seen on the trail. Hopeful Hiker had been ‘flip-flopping’: though he was ultimately headed north, he sometimes took sections of the trail and hiked them north to south. He was worried about a section of the trail that Sara had already hiked, and she said nothing to allay his fears. Hopeful had just come from Stratton, and raved on and on about the virtues of the hostel where he had stayed. “There are lots and lots of televisions,” he enthused, “and there is any movie you can think of.” He must have been a little media-deprived because the wonders of the televisions and all of the movie choices were an oft-returned to theme. He hadn’t seen Sara’s “party”, but there had been a couple of other guys.
These other guys turned out to be Stan and Okie. Stan was the father of TDS (Totally Different Subject), a thru-hiker who was often with Sara’s group. Stan had come from Oklahoma to experience a little of the trail. I’m not sure if Okie came along with him or what. That part was never quite clear to me, but what ended up happening was that TDS hiked pretty much alone and Stan hiked with Okie. We heard stories of how Okie (supposedly the expert) brought Stan out on a big hike with just an energy bar to share. We did run into the pair on the trail, and Okie quizzed Sara about us being prepared for the day’s hike. “We’re fine,” she told him a bit testily, “and we have plenty of food.”
After a couple of miles, Sara decided we were not going to run into her boys, and we needed to get into town and start finding a place to spend the night.

On the Trail

Debi & the Birthday Girl

To Be Continued…..
Next…......The White Wolf

Those of your who are familiar with children’s classic literature will recognize this title as being slightly plagarized from Judith Viorst’s “Alexander and the ….....etc.” Hers may be more cleverly written and illustrated, but I think the description fits my day perfectly. Actually, lets go back several days to last Friday…..........

UltraMom is exhilarated. She has had quite a day, thank you very much, but has come through it with flying colors. First of all, she was finally going to get her long-awaited kitchen range delivered. It had been over a month since she had ordered it from the newly opened Home Depot in Elko, and after much travail, and more phone calls, it was finally here! The deliverymen arrived and hauled the old, hated stove out of the house. They removed the new one from the box, loaded it on the dolly, cinched a strap around the stove to secure it and…........shattered the entire glass front of the stove.

“I guess we’ll have to bring your old stove back in, Ma’am. We’re really sorry. I’ve never had this happen before. The whole front of that stove was glass. They shouldn’t make them that way.”
“No, no, don’t bring that thing back in here. Haul it away. I’ll go into Home Depot this afternoon and see what they’re willing to do for me.”

The Home Depot experience actually went pretty well. There was a double-oven kitchen range in the warehouse that had a damaged door handle. It was quite a bit nicer than the stove originally ordered, but they would let me have it for the same price, and would come replace the door at a later date. SOLD! Also, UM exchanged the headrail for her vertical blinds and with Sis-in-law, Pat’s help replaced it and had the satisfaction of seeing it work perfectly. And best of all, the next day, UM was traveling to Twin Falls for the big, annual WeightWatchers meeting, where she would learn lots of new things and get to spend the night with her best friend, Debbie, from Idaho.
Here’s where the fun, (as well as the third person writing style of which I am growing weary) stops.

What with all the excitement and packing, I got to bed pretty late on Friday night, but awakened several hours later with a decidedly queasy stomach. The rest of the night was filled with jolly trips to the bathroom and repeated emptying of the contents of my stomach and intestines. But I wanted to go on my little outing SO badly, I decided that I felt better after one final throwing-up and drove the 3 hours to my meeting. Halfway through the meeting, however, it became abundantly clear that I was not home free. I managed to get to the motel desk, check myself into my room and collapse on the bed. After several hours, I awoke feeling better and arrived back at the meeting just in time to find out that I was the winner of one of the drawings! I won $30 while I was gone! Anyway, I was a barrel of fun the rest of the evening, and collapsed into bed about 7, but Debbie and I did have a nice little talk. The next day was better, and I forced myself to do a little shopping at the mall before driving back home.
Today, I awoke excited. Today I was getting my stove! And I was feeling better! And, just for good measure, and for a more marked contrast with the rest of my day, here are a few more exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When no one had shown up to deliver my stove my 12:00 noon, I called. “You are on the schedule for today. Your stove will be delivered.”
Okay, but I was getting tired of waiting around. Finally, about 2:30 Home Depot called. “Are you sitting down? There is a little problem with your stove. It was crushed by the delivery truck axle.” or some such thing. I kind of stopped listening and started crying after the “crushed” part. But I got a grip on myself and called them back about an hour later. They would place a rush order on a stove just like the one I thought I was getting today for no additional cost. I should have it in a week. Kind of pushing it for Thanksgiving when we are expecting a houseful of company, but okay, I’ll make do with the microwave and toaster oven for another week.
Then I get a call about a job I had applied for, oh, a month or so ago at the local minimum security prison. The job entails running the prison store, and is 20 hours a week. A guy from Carson City (Nevada’s great capital) called to tell me. “The job starts Nov 28. But you will need to go to Lovelock ( a couple of hours away) to get your ID badge and get tested for Tuburculosis. And you need to get it done this week.” Well, I wasn’t crazy about that, but decided it was something I could do. Then he calls me back to inform me that I actually have to go to Carson City (300+miles, 4 1/2 hours driving) to fill out the paperwork for the job! No, they can’t reimburse me for any travel time, gas or motel room. He’s sorry, that’s the way it is for everyone. And it would be great if I could get it done by Wednesday. I told him, in slightly different words, “I’m having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day!”
I’m sure it isn’t helping my mood that I still don’t feel all that great. Udad has gone to work tonight, but suggested I take it easy the rest of the night. Murphy has been slinking about acting worried and sympathetic. I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow.
I guess everyone sometimes has days like this…...........even in Australia

UltraMom

The night before, while I was luxuriating in my bath, Debi and her daughter had a little heart to heart about life, love and……………..marijuana. You heard me. Okay, we’ve got to back up a day to the charming little hostel in Rangely. While we sitting together in one of the bedrooms discussing the hike of the day, several of the boys started rolling cigarettes. My thought process went like this: “Is that marijuana? Would they do that so casually in front of us? No, as odd as it would seem that people would still roll their own tobacco cigarettes, that must be what they were doing.” Debi, however, who is a little more experienced in the ways of the world, assured me that it was indeed marijuana. And those boys were lighting up again the next morning! Debi expressed her concerns to Sara, and, when Sara could control her tears of mirth, she affirmed my conclusion; it was indeed tobacco. Debi made Sara promise not to divulge her error to the group until after we were well away. Will Sara keep her promise? Stay tuned………..
Okay, back to Bar Harbor. Acadia National ParkAcadia Park is right on the coast, and features Mount Desert Island, Cadillac Mountain and spectacular ocean views, as well as historic former summer homes of the rich and moderately famous. We had in mind to rent bikes and ride some of the 57 miles of carriage roads, built by John D. Rockefeller and his family, but since it was raining , we decided to take Oli’s Trolley, “The fun way to see our BEAUTIFUL ISLAND”. It is, of course, Bar Harbor and Acadia’s Original Trolley Sightseer. Oli’s Trolley That settled, we drove into the town of Bar Harbor and breakfasted at a charming little restaurant called Jordan’s, not be confuned with the Jordan’s Pond House Restaurant right in the state park, which we would see it on our tour. It is famous for its popovers, which, unfortunately, we did not get to sample, but our breakfast was very good. Jordan’s Pondhouse Then it was time to wander the oh-so-touristy shops, which were all having “end of the season” sales. I wanted to get John a gift, and ended up buying him a Casio G-force watch at a quaint little shop. Yes, I know they sell Casio watches anywhere, but I am at the point in my life where I think twice before buying kitschy souvenir-type items I will have to display or store (CAN’T throw them away), and it was on a good sale. When we passed The Opera House, an eclectic Internet Cafe, Sara informed us that we could find her there in an hour or so, and “see you later.” I guess she wanted to catch up on her email. Inside were well-worn board games, books and magazines, and, or course, computers. It was a very interesting place. My favorite store, however, at least from the outside, was BARK HARBOR, catering to pets, as you may imagine. Bark Harbor (Ultra showed me how to insert links, and now I can’t seem to stop.)

UltraMom in front of “Bark Harbor”

The tour bus was not crowded, so we each had a window seat to ourselves. The brochure described a “2 ½ hour, fully narrated tour”, and the tour guide/bus driver really took his narrating duties seriously. We heard about the days when the area was mostly a resort playground for those who could afford summer homes. Changing times and the great forest fire of 1947 were largely responsible for evolving the area into what it is today. We made a couple of stops where we could get out, take photos and stretch our legs. At one stop, I daringly ducked under a warning tape to snap a photo of “Thunder Hole.” The guide pointed out one historic home that a lovesick tycoon built for his would-be bride. He was trying to tempt her to cross the ocean from her home in England, but she was terrified of ships and water. Finally, she was persuaded to make the voyage on a new ship that was said to be unsinkable. You guessed it; it was the Titanic. She perished, and, heartbroken, he never lived in the house he built for her.

The dangerous Thunder Hole

Sometimes, the tour guide was so caught up in the story he was telling that he made a wrong turn, or forgot to tell us about the places we were seeing. One story was particularly long, and involved a lobsterman who lost his wife in a boating accident. When her body was found, it was covered in lobsters. They asked the lobsterman what should be done with the body, and he said, “Set her out again”, the local jargon for resetting a lobster trap. I guess it is a local folklore, joke sort of story, but it left us saying “Huh?” Really long, and not that funny!

Sara, with panoramic view of Atlantic Ocean

That evening, we decided to make use of the kitchen facilities in our cabin. At the local grocery store, we purchased ingredients for a veritable feast. Sara is a recovering vegetarian, so her choices were mainly in the vegetable/bread/cheese food groups. I say “recovering” because while on the trail, she had found it necessary to add a bit of protein to her diet. The boys joked about Sara’s definition of “meat’. Choice bites of steak, with no fat were NOT meat. Certain parts of the beef jerky also qualified as non-meat, with the rest going to Honey. Debi and I who are total omnivores, had steak, but also heartily partook of Sara’s garlic bread, tomato, cheese & oil platter, asparagus and mushrooms. And I think she had a little of the “non-meat” portion of Debi’s steak. It was a fantastic meal. Of course, after dinner, more baseball.
We arose early the next day, which was Sara’s 23rd birthday. We could easily have spent a week in Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park and not run out of things to do, but we were eager to “get back on the trail”..

TO BE CONTINUED: (I think we may actually get on the trail in the next chaper)....