For the past four years, in the Fall, we have gone to Maine. We stay in Bar Harbor; we visit Acadia; it is the true beginning of Autumn. Low sky, trees that come close, leaves and moss carpeting the ground -- the cocoon is spun that is needed to endure the hard upcoming months. Until we moved out East I did not realize the purpose of Fall -- if done right, it fills you with enough to last until Spring. Nothing does Fall like New England. It's more than the foliage. It's the white church steeples creating a stark contrast with the foliage, it's the lakes and streams reflecting the trees and the geese, it's the villages that haven't changed that much in the last sixty, or one hundred-sixty years... It is the most nostalgic of areas for the most nostalgic of the seasons -- apple picking and bonfires and thick sweaters. The perfect season and place to create traditions.
We left on Wednesday (with backpacks full of M&M's) and stopped at our favorite little restaurant in Portland, Maine -- Silly's. The restaurant is fun and the pulled pork and cakes are worth the eleven days they shave off your life. Judd the Red Chicken got stuck in the bathroom and a group of loud, endearing, middle-aged ladies clapped and hooted for him when he was freed.
We always listen to a CD that we bought in Maine -- Bert, and I. It is regional humor that is somehow both dryly understated and ridiculously over-the-top. Created in the 50's -- a precursor to the likes of Lake Wobegon... While there are some jokes that are too subtle for the kids, they cackle along through most of it (sense of humor fine-tuning should be part of the new core curriculum). It's about an eight hour drive, and this CD is allowed to loop several times. We also read from The Witch Family (favorite October book), and made up goofy stories by each taking a turn to supply the next sentence.
The first thing that we do when we arrive in Bar Harbor is drive by the illuminated moose and let him know that we are back. (Saying, "See you next year," is the last thing that we do.)
Thursday:
Morning in Bar Harbor means putting on our rain boots and heading out to where the tide has left little friends waiting to be found. On our way to the water line we pass our whale statue and say, "Good morning -- we're back." We pass a hydrangea tree that is growing along with our girl -- we take her picture with it.
We search...
And create a small aquarium in our buckets. This year there were tiny sea stars, teensy crabs the size of pencil erasers, a silver-dollar sized crab, a cool striped shrimp, and a bazillion periwinkles.
We always eat at least one breakfast at Jordan's. The blueberry pancakes with the blueberry syrup...
And then on to Acadia National Park. The kids' sweatshirts are covered with the Junior Ranger patches that they have earned at a bazillion National Parks/Monuments (yes, yes, we've already covered that we're nerds). It carries some weight when we say that Acadia is our favorite. In the past we have ridden bikes, hiked, enjoyed a horse/carriage ride along the carriage road, and driven to the top of Cadillac Mountain predawn to be some of the first people in the U.S. to see the sun... This year we spent the bulk of our Acadia-time on Sand Beach. We learned from a Ranger that the reason why there are not that many sand beaches in Maine (most are those gorgeous, craggy, rocky landscapes) is because a) the Maine shoreline is kind of inside a mouth created by Cape Cod and Nova Scotia -- this lessens the strength of pounding waves that would make sand by breaking down rock and b) the rocks are a very hard granite that are difficult to pulverize.
While at the beach we created a very detailed village. By the time we left we had several dead crabs guarding the various shells, feathers, sea weeds, huts, lobster claws, and sticks that amassed together made a macabre and awesome little world...
To further our obsession with Lilliputian sea creatures, we found tiny sand dollars...
We also went on a hike around The Bowl (a mountain lake)... This was enjoyable for a while, but then a few of us (all of us except The Dad) felt that somebody (The Dad) had snookered some of us (all of us except The Dad) into hiking for longer than originally agreed upon, and it started getting ugly... Before the point when we became that grumbling, dysfunctional family that stomp off camera while spluttering and shaking their heads on those period-type reality shows (e.g. Frontier House) we did notice how beautiful it was...
And felt quite a kinship with the vandal who appreciates one of our favorite movies -- Nanny McPhee:
Once we made it back to the parking lot and decided to talk civilly to The Dad we went and consumed popovers at the Jordan Pond House before heading back to Bar Harbor where we dodged the rain by popping in and out of the shops.
We ended the night by getting ice cream at Ben & Bills (the kids and The Dad each get one sample spoonful of the Lobster ice cream; I do not).
Friday:
Our morning ritual...
Sitting on our balcony with hot cocoa, getting delicious apple tarts, blueberry tarts, and sticky buns at Notch Bakery, and hanging out in front of the fireplace in the hotel lobby... Then grabbing supplies for a soggy picnic -- including Whoopie Pies -- Maine's state dessert. We headed to the College of the Atlantic to run around the campus and then go to one of our favorite tiny museums there where a Ranger leads a discussion at the touch tank (note: the touch tank is stocked by Diver Ed who is the man behind Diver Ed's Dive-In Theater -- a very cool thing to do that the kids loved last year).
The fourth-grade classes at the school the kids went to usually get to do a Clearwater experience where they sail a replica vessel on the Hudson. This was one of the only things that Judd the Red Chicken was worried about missing and we decided that we would try to find something similarly cool during the year. Maine always delivers for us. We all got to sail on the Margaret Todd replica schooner. We watched the crew (and volunteers -- our family did not volunteer) hoist sail and brilliantly coil and tie the ropes. There was a Ranger on the trip who chatted about the history of the area and pointed out the seals when they poked their noses out of the water.
And then it was time to say goodbye to Bar Harbor because we had other parts of New England to explore... Taking scenic, but isolated back roads we wound ourselves towards the boarder of Maine and New Hampshire to position ourselves for Saturday...
Saturday:
Created in 1954 Story Land is perfect with it's quirkiness, quaintness, and real animals. At one point the breeze became particularly playful and I stood and watched the leaves and pine needles rain down on the children as they scampered on and among the nursery rhyme structures; I felt all that nostalgia is supposed to feel like -- equal parts loveliness and melancholy. I had to acknowledge that my children are on the older end of the spectrum, and that our visits to Story Land might be drawing to an end. And so I tried to take note of every retro detail:
A quick stop at the Back Country Bakery in Jackson (owned by the coolest couple ever -- the type that bicycled around the world before teaching English in China then decided to buy this little bakery in New England where they do almost all of the delicious baking themselves... they make you feel like a lazy loser... who has to smother your feelings of low self esteem by eating another delicious brownie...)... And then on to the Fryeburg Fair where The Girl got to pet goats to her heart's content (almost -- she would stay for hours if we let her), and The Boy fell madly in love with a chicken (he wants a chicken something fierce and when he found the EXACT chicken of his dreams with the EXACT hairdo, and it was only $10 I saw his heart first leap, and then fall almost dead quivering amongst the straw... to realize that the chicken is out of his grasp despite the fact that he has enough saved up for it is almost too much for a nine-year old to handle... but handle it he did... though there were a lot of sighs coming from the back seat as we drove through New England...). I got to take something out of my bucket list: fried Oreos. As it turns out, you can keep them -- I don't like how they get kind of soft and the lard/frosting in the middle gets lost.
Sunday:
We drove to Squam Lake because we have been in the general vicinity before, and I had to actually see it because I have this fascination with On Golden Pond. I actually haven't seen the movie since I was a kid because I'm afraid it will wipe away the magical gauze that holds it in my brain. What's in my brain right now is the way the light played off the lake, and the realization for perhaps the first time that grown ups are afraid and that's why they sit around and look at sunsets and sunrises -- somehow that lessens the fear. The jury is still out on whether or not I'm going to watch the movie and inevitably displace my childhood perception, but what I do know is that the lake is beautiful enough to soften the fears that come with being mortal.
After attending church we continued on our way home. First we stopped by Dartmouth and had lunch (and told the kids that if they chose to go there someday, and got significant financial aid, well, that would probably be okay... we probably wouldn't hate them).
Last year the kids worked their tails off earning a Junior Ranger badge at Saint-Gaudens and Judd the Red Chicken requested that we stop and go through the garden portion again. For some reason The Girl got on a kick as we cut across the grass, and referred to The Sister as a "naked beauty." Her giggles bounced off the sculptures and structures.
Ever closer to home we came. Our final stop was one of our favorite New England towns, Walpole, NH.
And so our yearly pilgrimage to find Autumn has come and gone and this year we folded in three days of "school." Pelted with rain we returned to the city with our new layer of memories, muddy rain boots, and piles of laundry. I need to do some sorting... Surely the students learned on our extended field trip...
Last week the family was talking excitedly about the trip and it came up that it might just be better than Christmas...
This year we didn't have to use the days off that come with the Jewish holidays for our trip. Instead we spent the time here in the city and learned about the meanings behind the days off; as near as I can tell the holidays are about introspection and renewal and family togetherness and hope as a new year begins. I'm grateful that we have a better understanding of that, so that next year if our trip once again falls on the holidays we will know how appropriate it is. There are layers of things to celebrate in this life. Among them is that there exists a place where we can go and feel like everything that traditions represent -- a love for the past that's tied to a hope that all that is good will continue on year after year -- is waiting. A place where being weathered, the visual manifestation of time passing, makes things better.
