Going Home

We're packing up and heading home this morning.

The last two days were pretty uneventful. On Friday, we basically just hung around the campsite and relaxed. We did venture out a couple of times, first to go to the grocery store in the morning, then to play mini-golf in the afternoon, and finally to take a walk along the Marginal Way in the evening. We had to wait forever for the trolley at Perkins Cove to bring us back to the center of town, but at least it was a nice evening.

John and Kevin check out the beach and the rocks as we detoured off the Marginal Way.

Rock stacking seems to have become a local tradition at this part of the beach.

Yesterday was more of the same. We went out around noon and found a book sale at the Wells Public Library, bought a bag of books and videos. Went out a little later in the day for our last round of mini-golf. Maria shot -3 on the back nine, including two consecutive holes-in-one, and beat John's score by one!!! Then last night after dinner we did some laundry and started organizing and packing up.

We should be able to get out of here fairly quickly this morning, after breakfast. Hopefully the traffic will be OK and we don't have a repeat of our trip up here last week.

Thanks for reading along this week! I'll try to post some photos (I don't think we took too many) within the next couple of days.

Next trip . . . New Hampshire, the White Mountains, in less than two weeks.

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Kittery and Portland

Yesterday was a very hot and somewhat oppressively humid day here in southern Maine. With the forecast for a possibility of t-storms in the afternoon, we decided that it would be our best day to go visit the outlets in Kittery.

We started out by first driving into New Hampshire to visit the liquer store so that Maria can stock up on wine for the coming year, both for cooking and drinking. Then we headed back to Kittery to hit the outlets. Both boys wanted and needed some things (clothing and sneakers), and we were pretty lucky in that we found pretty much what they needed. Everybody ended up getting something except for Maria, who didn't really want or need anything.

When we were done late in the afternoon, we decided that it was too hot and humid to just go back to the campground and cook dinner, so we decided to stop and get a pizza for dinner. That hit the spot. We got back to the campground just as the sun was setting. So we started a fire and sat outside for a while before heading in for a family game of Othello and a game of Scrabble.

Today, the plan was to go to Portland to see the Sea Dogs game against the Altoona Curve. Portland is about a 40 minute drive north of here. Unfotunately, we got there to find that today's game, scheduled for noon, was sold out. So we headed back to the campground. I called Portland to see about getting tickets for tomorrow night, but that was sold out as well. They play on Saturday, but that game is at Fenway, so that's out. So it looks like we're getting shut out from baseball during this trip.

We're just going to hang around and relax and then head into Ogunquit tonight to sit on the beach and maybe walk around town for a while.

John and Kevin had fun in the pool at the campground while dad enjoys finding a wi-fi spot at poolside.

No idea what's planned for tomorrow or Saturday.

Later . . .

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If I Pay $15.95 For Sun Screen, the Terrorists Win

Today was another beautiful day here in Ogunquit. Temperatures in the 80's, low humidity, not a cloud in the sky. So obviously, it's another beach day.

We took the shuttle to the beach, getting there right around at noon. But before we left, Maria loaded the kids up with sun screen so that they could go right into the water when we got there. She asked if I wanted to grease up and I declined, saying that I'll take care of it when we got there.

So when we got there and set up our little spot on the beach, I started looking for the sun screen. Couldn't find it. So I asked Maria if she knew where it was. "Uh oh, I forgot to bring it."

I burn. I burn like a hambuger on the surface of the sun. So I decided that I needed to go find some, ASAP. We're on the Atlantic coast of Maine. East is out of the question, because that's the ocean. I decide I'll go west and walk back to the entrance to the beach where there was a little food shack. Maybe they sell sun screen.

Nope.

Then I decide I'll just keep heading west and walk back to the main road (Route 1). Maybe there's a store there that sells sun screen.

Nope.

So I go back to our spot on the beach. I look north, where there's a bunch of buildings around a quarter of a mile up the beach. One of them must be a store that sells beach stuff. Like sun screen.

Nope.

Back to our spot on the beach. The main entrance to Ogunquit beach is around a mile south of us. We're quite familiar with that part of the beach, and we know a store that sells beach stuff. Like sun screen. So off I go.

I finally arrive. There's the shelf full of sun screen. All different brands. All different SPF strengths. All in 8 ounce bottles. All priced at either $15.95 or $18.95.

I'll burn like a hambuger on the surface of the sun before I pay $15.95 for a small bottle of sun screen. So I start my trek back north, to our spot on the beach.

In the end, I estimate that I was walking, practically non-stop, for close to an hour and forty-five minutes. I would also guess a total of about four miles. With nothing to show for it in the end.

By the time I got back, the kids were tired and wanted to leave.

What a great day I had at the beach!!!

John and Kevin had a great day at the beach . . .

. . . while dad looked for sunscreen.

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The Beach

We just got back from the beach. It was a beautiful afternoon there, the weather was perfect and there was a nice breeze. Somehow, I outlasted the boys as they both asked to leave before I did.

Now we're all taking showers to get rid of the sand from our pores. Not sure what the rest of the day holds for us.

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Sunday

Yesterday was pretty much a washout. It never actually rained, just a few scattered drops, but it was cloudy and misty pretty much for most of the day.

We were hoping to make it to the beach yesterday, but that never happened due to the threat of weather. So all we did was go mini-golfing in the morning, and then went into town after dinner to do some browsing and get some fudge.

Today looks like it's going to be a perfect day, weather wise, so we should be spending a good part of the afternoon at the beach. Looking up to the sky, I'm seeing nothing but blue. This should be a good day.

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Our 2009 Maine Vacation

Yesterday we left home to start our nine day vacation in Ogunquit, Maine. We started a little behind schedule due to all the rain we've been having this week. Maria was not able to do any packing of the camper before yesterday morning. So as a result, we did not actually hit the road until around 10:40am yesterday morning.

And what a horrible, horrible drive we had. The first hour or so, through Connecticut, was fine. But once we reached the Mass Pike in Sturbridge, we hit traffic. Basically, we were stuck in traffic from Sturbridge all the way to the Maine border. Thirty miles on the Mass Pike until we reached I-495, then all 63 miles on 495 until we reached I-95, then through most of the 15 to 20 miles or so through New Hampshire was ALL stop and go traffic. Once we got into Maine, we had about five miles of open highway until our exit, then actually did OK on Route 1 until we were about four miles from Ogunquit. Then we crawled again until we reached the campsite.

All in all, it took around 5 1/2 hours to drive 178 miles. Take away the first leg of the trip, through CT, it took around 4 1/2 hours to drive 127 miles. ALMOST ENTIRELY ON INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS. Yeah, that would be less than 30 mph, folks.

Needless to say, I was mentally exhausted when we arrived at the campground.

Our campsite is very nice, though, better than last year's at the same campground. We again are surrounded by Canadians. My best guess is that 90% of the campers here are from Quebec. This must be where they ALL go on vacation. I feel like we should have brought our passports.

After we set up our campsite, we had a light dinner of hot dogs and salad, then went to the pool for a little while. Back to the campsite for a fire, then a rousing family game of Scrabble before bed.

There's supposed to be wireless internet here, but I guess we have to go up by the office to get a signal. So this blog entry was written and sent from my Blackberry.

It's supposed to rain sometime this afternoon, so we'll see how that goes. We may go down to the beach this morning.

More to come later . . .


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