Date: 2004-10-16
From: monson, me

To: alna, me
Miles today: 0.0

"going on a vacation"i awoke to rain and cold yet again. supposedly, this system was going to move out and give way to blue skies, but things sure didn¢t appear that way this morning. i made some breakfast in the industrial kitchen at the lakeshore house and dropped a few things off at the post office before returning to the living room with the big window overlooking lake hebron.shane came by and we talked about hiking plans. i told him about my new plan to take a vacation on the coast of maine. we discussed the possibility of ross, mandi, and i giving him a lift down to caratunk. bob¢s wife came by and told me that i could keep my pack at the lakeshore house as long as i needed to. she said that there were new guests arriving tonight, but they wouldn¢t be getting in until much later. long after ross and mandi had picked me up for my vacation.i called and left a message for steve the ferryman in caratunk to tell him that i would no longer be requiring his services on monday to get across the kennebec. i told him that shane would meet him at the river in my place.i walked down to the general store to kill some time. shane showed up a short while later and we talked about his plans. he said he wasn¢t too excited about trying to cross the rivers between monson and caratunk because of all the rain we¢d just had. i told him that i knew exactly what he was talking about because i¢d played that game before. shane decided that he would take me up on the offer of a ride to caratunk. he just didn¢t want to have to ford rain-swollen rivers. shane, tim, and i spent some quality time hanging out in the general store. we played some guitar and talked about the music from the night before. shane was sorry that he hadn¢t stopped by for it. the sun finally broke through the clouds and it turned into a very nice day.i walked back down to the laundry mat to use the phone to find out if ross and mandi had gotten lost. of course, they pulled into town while i was inside on the phone. they were parked in front of the monson general talking to shane when i returned. tim had stepped out for a minute so i didn¢t get to tell him goodbye. he¢s such a great guy. i¢ll say it again, if you¢re in monson- you must stop by the monson general. if you¢re in monson on a friday night- you much stop by the monson general to check out the live music. we retrieved my things from the lakeshore house before heading to caratunk. ross and mandi wanted to see the caratunk house, a local hiker hostel that has come up for sale. after a quick tour of caratunk (have you ever seen the town? it is small. real small.) we dropped shane at the trailhead at US201. he said he might hike north on the AT for a little bit and find a place to set up camp and wait before his ferry across the kennebec on monday.ross and mandi are both very fast drivers. i¢m not sure if all people in maine are fast drivers or just the two of them. the trip to their house in alna, maine, didn¢t seem to take too long. we stopped for a nice dinner at a ¢barbeque¢ place in the town of bath. i use the term ¢barbeque¢ loosely, because i¢d venture to guess that these folks up here don¢t even know what real barbeque is. just like the people in texas don¢t know what real barbeque is either. if you want real barbeque, come to north carolina and i¢ll show you what real barbeque is. i wasn¢t even going to waste my time with this stuff. i had a cheeseburger.ross and mandi live in a lovely house with mandi¢s mom, holly (aka olwyn aka ira), mandi¢s grandmother, grammie, two dogs, five cats, and a bunch of hens. the house sits on 22 acres of land (i think it is 22 acres or i could be making that up). ross has a woodshop in the basement and is quite the craftsman. he has built some beautiful furniture in his spare time. because of his visa status, he isn¢t allowed to have a real job right now. in the meantime he is doing lots of projects around the house and on the land and building amazing pieces of furniture.i¢m glad to be here on vacation from hiking. what better place to take a vacation? vacations are fun. and, after all, maine is vacationland.