Hiking with the Cousins

One of the highlights of the trip out east was a hike to the top of one of the Camden Hills with our cousins Cam and Beau.  Initially Nora and Stuey were not too psyched to go for a hike in the tick infested woods, and there was a bit of 'Ambu-dragging' at the start.  But the kids warmed up to the journey, and made it up to the top.

I love hiking through the deciduous forests of the east coast.  Huge trunks and spreading canopies far overhead.  And you can see forever under the trees - huge boulders sticking up through the leaves.  And there are vast quantities of leaves.  It is like nothing we have in Alaska.

Up on top we had a spectacular view out over Penobscot Bay.  In the distance we could even see North Haven Island.  On trips past we have spent a lot of time on North Haven.

Of note it was the last day of deer hunting season in Maine.  That's the reason we all had on a bit of orange.  I thought it was funny because I never wear orange in Alaska while hunting.  Patrick

Cam points out the sights

This is Stuey's picture of the cousins jumping

Golf Course without Wind

Yesterday at the golf course it was cold but there was no wind.  Quite the difference from Friday afternoon.  This time we used cross country skis, and Nora and Stuey were much happier not having to take off their skis to climb the hill.

My highlight was a quick circuit of the course with Nora.  Nora was gliding along like a champ right behind me - no plodding at a walk ski pace for us!

The kid's highlight was the snow forts.  There is a HUGE snow drift where we parked the car and they built tunnels into the side of it.  They even connected a tunnel from one side to the other.  They most definitely did not want to leave.  The good thing was that the car was parked so near by that I just sat in the front seat and listened to music with the heater on.  I kept the back gate open and could check on them in the rear view mirror.

Bad on me for my poor carbon footprint!

Patrick

Family Travel Routines

A New England Tradition (for us anyway) visiting Duncan Doughnuts

As a family we've visited Maine quite a few times.  This wasn't the first time we've gone to visit Granny Coco!  

Over the years there are places we go, or things we do that happen every time we travel 'out east'.  Just on the travel portion alone, there is the food court in the Seattle airport where we sit in that huge echoing room and eat bad fast food;  the same old downstairs baggage claim at Logan Airport where we once managed to find a baby car seat at the lost and found; the Kennebunkport Rest stop on I-95 where we fuel up on Burger King and Starbucks coffee, and of course, on the homeward bound trip, there is the Hilton Hotel where we always seem to spend the night prior to catching our early morning flight home. At the Hilton we always eat dinner in the same booth with the TV playing sports overhead and the kids examining their kid meals menus with the same old puzzles and point-to-points.  

This was our first trip out east as a 'smaller pack' but all the routines and places remained the same.  Just that instead of 4 we are now 3.

Such travel routines bring a sense of comfort and safety.  It is a way of creating a 'family mythology' - a 'this is what our family has always done'.  I remember these sorts of travel 'touchstones' from the family trips to Maine of my youth - the 'Hojos' in Brunswick, playing the alphabet game in the family car on the New Jersey Turnpike, stressed out parents as we navigated the traffic of New York City - 'should we take the Tappan Zee or the Tri Borough bridge?'.  All my siblings will immediately recognize these travel memories.  They are part of who we are as a family, and despite the passage of almost 40 years of life, remain a part of our family lore.

And so it is with Stuey, Nora and I.  I am certain that when Nora and Stuey think back on their trips out east they will remember dog walks around Beauchamp Point with Granny Coco, visits to the quaintly candy striped red and white Uncle Willy's Candy Shop in downtown Camden, and of course the periodic visits to Duncan Doughnuts!  We do not have 'DD' in Alaska.  They will remember the treks out the long granite breakwater to the lighthouse in Rockland Harbor (something we did not do this year), the family meals with cousins, and the hikes through the deciduous forest to the tops of the various Camden Hills.  

They are a part of the family story - the trips to Maine.  Our family mythology.

Patrick

Lobsters at the Kennebunkport rest stop on I-95

Leaving the house for a hike around the point with Coco the dog

Ah the candy shop . ..  .

Shooting hoops with the cousins

Stuey and John watch the Badgers take on the Georgetown Bulldogs

Dinner out on the town with the cousins

Stuey and the glacially scoured rocks of Rockport Harbor

With a Bloody Mary this substantial (it even had a piece of bacon on top) - who needs the meal?

Golf Course on a very Windy Day

Downhill skiing at the golf course!

Yesterday was an 'early release' Friday at St Mary's School so I picked the kids up at noon.  The plan had been to take the kids skiing at the golf course.  But I wasn't so sure it was such a good idea.  the roads were super icy, the wind was screaming, and it was very cold.  I was thinking maybe a McDonald's lunch for a treat and then home for a cozy afternoon indoors.

But no the kids wanted to go skiing and had even promised their friend Thor that they'd pick him up at 1PM to join us.  And so all geared up we headed to the golf course.  When we picked up Thor his dad seemed surprised that we were still going.  I confided that I thought we'd maybe last 10 minutes and should be back with Thor by 2PM.

This was not to be.

The roads were icy, the wind was screaming, and it was very, very cold.  At the golf course we parked the car and there was a waist deep drift of new snow to be negotiated before they could even get out on the golf course.  Then a sled blew away and had to be chased down.  Huge ground blizzards of blowing snow would periodically blow through and obscure the horizon. The mountain tops all around had clouds of blowing snow streaming off on their lee sides.   But at the golf course the kids were having a great time.

They started out downhill skiing and sledding, and I did some kids on sled and ski towing behind my skate skiis.  My feet and hands actually got cold and I was politely asking if anyone wanted to go home yet.  Nora told me, 'Daddy go do a few laps around the golf course and let us play'.  'Wow, what is going on here?', I thought.

After an hour or so the kids started to build a snow fort in the lee of the hillside.  Meanwhile I did laps around the golf course in my skate skis.  Finally I looked at my watch and saw that we had to leave if I was to make a work commitment at the museum.

So I broke up the fun and prodded the kids to the car.  There was a big snowball fight.  Stuey pretended to be asleep in the bushes and would not move.  No one wanted to leave.

We dropped off Thor a mere hour and a half later than expected.  I guess there is something to the adage 'on Kodiak there is no bad weather, just bad gear'.  I think a good attitude has a lot to do with it too.

Patrick

Take the skiis off to walk back up the hill - it is easier in XC ski gear!

It was SERIOUSLY windy at times

Building a snow fort in the lee of Pyramid Mountain and some alders

Snow fort getting demolished as fodder in a snowball fight

Happy dad, Happy kid on the drive home

Hey Dad - watch where you're going!

High Winds

 It is cold and windy out there!  Right now it is blowing 50 mph sustained with 75 mph gusts and is a chilly 19 degrees Fahrenheit.  Could this mark the beginning of a decent winter?  I'm not getting my hopes up too high.  Last December we also got teased with 2 weeks of winter weather and the kids and I got to do a lot of skiing and sledding at the golf course (click here, here, here, and here).  But then on Christmas Day it got warmed and rained (click here) and that is the way it stayed for the rest of the winter.

That said I do plan on taking advantage of the winter weather.  Yesterday I took the kids skiing at the golf course, and I think we'll be going back a bunch in the next week.

Yesterday evening I went in to work at the museum to set up for today's Holiday Bazaar, and the winds on the harbor and the sunset light was impressive.  All the blowing snow in the air caught the low angled sunlight and turned hazy pastel colors.  The wind was whipping up the water into waterspouts off of the harbor.

I watched a gust rip the galvanized sheet siding off of the assisted living home and go flying into the electrical wires.  20 foot long pieces of sharp steel were bouncing down the sidewalk.  Later I saw a dumpster do a slow roll as it 'waddled' down a street.  Wrappers, cups and bags flying through the air all over town like confetti.  It was dangerous out there!  Patrick

Granny Coco's Backyard

The second day in Maine the kids explored Granny Coco's backyard.  The apples on the trees still tasted good and were even crunchy.  Nora picked some apples that granny Coco used to cook with pork tenderloins, and later used in a pie.  The kids also learned that crab apples taste AWFUL.

The amount of leaves that had fallen from the trees super impressed the kids and they made a HUGE pile with relatively little work.  Back in Kodiak most of trees have needles and not leaves, and the cottonwood tree in our yard does not produce anywhere near amount of leaves seen in Granny Coco's yard.  They both did a few jumps into the pile and I tried to get them to pose with it.  But by the time they were finished raking tempers were a little short.  I wanted to get them to do an 'American Gothic' pose with their rakes, but they would not stand next to each other.  See picture below.

It is a good thing they did the playing in leaves thing the first day.  On the third day Stuey found a tick sucking his blood and that was the end of woods exploration and playing in the leaves.  My kids are terrified of ticks! 

The tick was a traumatic experience for Stuey, but afterwards we discovered that everybody we met had a tick bite to show Stuey.  Stuey would show off his bite and then they'd show him their bite mark.  Everybody had a story to tell, and all related that there is no need to be terrified of ticks.

I get the feeling ticks in Maine are sort of like bears on Kodiak.  Something to be careful about, but nothing to be overtly paranoid about either.  In Kodiak 'bearanoia' is when someone wears a pistol for a walk in the park.  In Maine 'tickanoia' is when you stop going outside or playing the woods because of ticks.  Patrick

I tried to get them to do an 'American Gothic' pose but this is as close as they would stand to each other - seriously

Off course all this playing in the leaves is all pre tick scare

Off to Grandmother's House

Driving the final leg of the trip on the Maine Turnpike  - Coco the dog resting in Stuey's lap

For Thanksgiving Nora, Stuey and I flew to Maine to stay at Granny Coco's house.  The kids call my mother 'Granny Coco' because her dog's name is 'Coco'. 

It was a long trip.  Plane rides from Kodiak to Anchorage, Anchorage to Seattle, Seattle to Boston, and then my mom picked us up at 5 AM at Logan airport and drove us the final 4 hours of the trip to Maine.  WOW! From door to door the total trip ended up at nearly 22 hours long.  At the start Stuey was so bad in the Anchorage airport that I considered sending him back to Kodiak.  But once we got on the planes and the kids got into their digi players and ultra packaged kids meals all went well.

On the drive to Maine we listened to books on tape, gruesome fairy tales by Roald Dahl, and stopped for breakfast at the Kennebunkport rest area.  We got Maine so early in the morning and yet so tired that it was a little weird.  In Maine people were still just waking up!

The kids took a hike around the point with Grandma and I took a quick nap that turned into one of those 'wake up and where am I' kind of naps.  By dinner time both Nora and Stuey had fallen asleep in their chairs reading books and Granny Coco and I had to herd them sleep walking to an early bedtime.  Patrick

Granny Coco's House!

Dominoes - new game of the trip

Reading in the living room - an evening ritual

Granny Coco's kitchen

Coco the 'rat dog' - Coco is MUCH smaller than Tank, Sheba and Brewster

Saying goodbye at the end of the trip at the Logan Hilton