Fun & Games in Maine

Sally called me at work early in the week to tell me that the owners of the cabin where we're staying had told her that we could go up as soon as we wanted. The cabin was empty this week, so they may as well let us in rather than have it stay vacant.

I'd been planning to work through Wednesday, leave three hours early on Thursday, and then get up early on Friday morning for the drive up. When they offered us the extra day, though, I took Wednesday completely off, and we worked hard that day to get ready to go a day early.  Thursday morning we got Great Santini-style, starting at 3:30 am. We hit the road at around 4:40, and we didn't stop until we crossed into Massachussets.

We got here just after noon on Thursday, and since then life has been good. 

Thursday was laid back. The kids and the dog swam, I took some pictures and generally tried to leave the stress of the road behind, and Sally took a nap. Later, we got in the paddle boat and headed out onto the lake where we saw a monstrous snapping turtle sunning himself on a rock.

Thursday evening we played Clue. It was Ms. Scarlet in the Bathroom with the Candlestick.  I knew it was Ms. Scarlet, and I knew she used the Candlestick, but Hannah won the game on a lucky guess about the location. 

I went to bed at 8:30 Thursday night and slept ten hours!

Friday was awesome. We got up pretty early, had breakfast, played some D&D--even Sally played!--and generally hung around in the early part of the day. It turns out that Sneax is back in the mythical town of Breakwater Bay, this time with Elaina Emboo's adopted sister Jayditha. Jayditha is a priestess of Aphrodite, but being adopted, she's also a little standoffish. Anyway, the girls were hired to truck some supplies up to the village of Phandalin, just south of Breakwater Bay alongside the grizzled old dwarf mercenary Anzlo Farseeker, when they were ambushed by goblins. They defeated the goblins and then followed the survivors back to their lair, where they then defeated the local chieftain. As usual, Sneax killed almost everyone. 

After the game broke up, we hit the water.  The girls and dogs played, and I swam for just over half an hour, call it 1800 yards, including some of the worst open-water navigation of my entire career. Got back, threw on some shoes, a visor, and my phone, and ran another 4.3-miles over steeply rolling dirt roads. That wasn't bad. 

Friday afternoon we headed into town to see the Guardians of the Galaxy. Fun, funny movie. The theater in Ellsworth is an ancient film-projector affair, and their sound system isn't great, but I liked the movie a lot, though it's paced so fast that there's an awful lot of exposition-by-dialogue. 

Friday evening we made dinner at the cabin, ate as a family, and then played Princessopoly, the game in which you buy princesses for money, and then other people have to pay you every time they land on top of a Princess you own. 

Now it's Saturday, and I'm drinking coffe. Today we're hiking up to Bubble Rock in Acadia. What've you got going on?