Maine-ly For Fun, Part 5, The Rainy Season

You'll remember, from Part 1, that rain had messed with our plans to get out of the Boston airport in a rental car. We hoped the forecast would be wrong and there would be no rain the rest of the week. But, after our beautiful day in Acadia and Bar Harbor, Wednesday dawned rather dark and dreary. But it turned out to be a wonderful day of total relaxation and watching of the good movies MM and her family had in the cottage.



By noon, the deluge began, and it rained in earnest all afternoon. In the evening we had a dinner date with Midlife Mom and her husband. We met them at the Lucerne Inn, halfway between their house and the cottage.




We had hoped to see the amazing panoramic view, but it was dark and very wet by the time we got there.





But what an amazing meal we had. I ordered the special of the evening, and it was not only delicious, but beautiful - pinwheels of beef stuffed with lobster and asparagus spears.




I must admit, nothing we ate that night was on my "food plan" - I even indulged in rich dessert. It's a good thing we took these pictures of MM and me before we ate rather than after! MM and I have lost, together, a total of 72 pounds since our last visit with each other a year ago.

This one was taken last November when we had breakfast together the beautiful Senator in Augusta.

It was a fabulous evening for the three of us, visiting with our friends. The funniest thing - MM's husband didn't know until that evening that he was getting together with a blog friend. He thought his wife had found a long-lost cousin or something like that.

I usually love sleeping to the sound of rain on the roof. That is, unless I have a big plan for the next day that is going to be spoiled, or at least hampered, by the rain. I didn't sleep very well that night, waking to the rain all night long, wishing and praying it would stop before morning. No such luck.

It rained all day, the day we'd saved for the trip to Baxter State Park, where the leaves were at peak beauty. All day, as we traveled, I imagined the beauty we would be seeing if the sun were shining through the trees. But we made the best of it and had a wonderful day together. We were blessed with free entrance to the park, since Kevin has a Maine driver's license, and the gate keeper was the mother of one of the TC students.

The steam from the paper mill covered most of the buildings. The smell took me back to International Falls, Minnesota, where I lived for 3 years when I was a kid.

The guys talked me into going on the short hike with them, where we were supposed to find a beautiful waterfall. It was supposed to be 1.2 miles. We walked and walked, and climbed and climbed, and took very careful steps because of the very wet rocks and muddy path. I didn't look up at the trees too much (didn't want to drown!), but looked down and saw these piles of muti-colored leaves.







We never did see the waterfall - don't know how we could have missed it. Maybe it just seemed like twice as far as 1.2 miles, since it was so miserable. But I did catch the rushing water between the trees.








Fortunately, DC had brought a water proof jacket and a poncho with him, and Kev's friend's mom loaned us hers, so we didn't get drenched everywhere - mostly from the knees down - well, DC from the waste down. This picture was taken at the final leg of the Appalachian Trail. We actually have a picture of ourselves at the beginning of the Trail, taken in Georgia a few years ago, but I can't find it anywhere. It was a much nicer day.




It did brighten up a bit as we headed back toward the cottage. I liked this rock, even though Groovy does not.

The GPS got us into a mess, but we saw some beautiful scenery because of it. Just imagine if the sun was shining!

We were very glad to arrive back at our little home away from home, turn on the little electric fireplace, and pop "The Blind Side" into the DVD player.

Stay tuned for Part 6, The Finale.