Tuesday, August 14, 2012
2012 Vinalhaven_2
Jenn, Paul and Maya joined us for the last couple days in Vinalhaven. Here are more pictures from our trip that are embedded in the blog or can be seen by clicking on this link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/117929270461197925228/2012_Vinalhaven_2?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCK_km_2i_9Llfw&feat=directlink
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Pictures of Lobsterfest and beautiful Vinalhaven, Me
Below are the pictures of our trip so far. The first half are of one night outside Rockland in a horrible motel. I took a bunch of pictures because I'm contesting the charge on our credit card (cold shower and bed broke!). If you don't see the embedded slideshow, click on the link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/AniqueOM/2012_Vinalhaven?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCMqBxvqbwvbmxwE&feat=directlink
Travelogue: Vinalhaven August 8 2012
We’ve now been on Vinalhaven for five days. This morning we
took Isaac to story time at the library in town. We were one of three families
there, so Isaac got a chance to pick out several of his favorite books—Polar Bear Night, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Did you Hear?, If You Give a Mouse a Cooke?—and listened as Mary, the volunteer
storyteller, read and patiently waited for Isaac to fill in lines that he knows
by heart.
Among the things we love about this island are the people: year-rounders, summer folk, or short-term renters like us. Mary, for instance, has been coming to Vinalhaven for more than twenty years; she rents a place for a month and while they are here, she and her husband open their house to friends and family: “it feels like I’m running an inn,” she said. Yesterday, while biking on North Haven, we stopped at a local farm, Turner Farm, that we just happened to pass, and in line for the doors to open at 10 AM, we met Rosa, a college councilor from Concord, MA. Like Mary, she’s been renting for nearly twenty years. She provided us with a lovely image of her family growing up spending summers there. Since her kids were little, they have been living “free-range” on the island.
Later that same morning, on the way to Mullin’s Cove, Josh blew out his rear tire, and a potentially dire situation was averted with the help of two locals: the first, Carol Waterman, drove Josh’s bike the five miles or so back to town. We learned that her husband’s family has lived on the island for generations; they used to run a grocery store, Waterman’s, in the building that is now the island’s (amazing) community center of the same name. When she introduced herself, Josh reacted as though she was famous: “Waterman, as in the Watermans!?” She told Josh that her two sons both went to school on the island in the state’s smallest K-12 school. Her oldest son was one of two seniors in this spring’s graduating class! Meanwhile, down at the beach, where Isaac threw rocks into the surf, complimenting himself on each throw (“Good throw … that’s a good throw!”), we met Gayle, a grandmother visiting from Augusta. She was there with her two grandchildren, Caden and Emma (5 and 3). Her daughter married a local lobsterman, whose family has lived on the island for generations. So the children’s other set of grandparents are Waterman’s and Brown’s—another family just as well-known on North Haven. Everyone we run into is so nice, so welcoming that we feel like we don’t want to leave, ever. (Maybe it’s also the influence of “Under the Tuscan Sun,” where the heroine travels to Italy, on a whim buys a villa, and lives a wonderfully full life off her no salary.)
Every day, Josh scans the real estate listings, and we talk about taking two weeks next year, maybe spending one on each island. However, there are some warning signs: Rosa mentions that the island of North Haven feels just like 1965, then pauses and says more quietly, “for good and for bad”; we notice that there are literally no kids besides Isaac here who are not blonde—not much diversity, in other words. While at Booth’s Quarry on Saturday, Anique swam the length of the quarry with a college dean from Virginia who bought a place up here thirty years ago and now talks about how much work and money it takes to maintain that property. Just last year, she finally rented it out for August so that she could take a ten-day trip to Ireland. Otherwise, she’s always either back home in Virginia or “here.” The way she said “here” made her vacation home sound a bit like a prison. Certainly, it injected a fair amount of reality into our real estate fantasizing.
While it might seem strange to want to keep coming back, year after year, to the same 12-mile long island off the coast of Maine, we keep discovering new things that we missed on our previous trips or things that we failed to appreciate before having Isaac. The shelf of rock sticking out from the side of Lawson’s Quarry, where Isaac can wade safely without having to wear his bulking and much-loathed life vest; Polly’s Cove, a beautiful inlet, near the top of the island, where we spent an hour after dinner last night, where Isaac threw rocks into the gentle surf, where we saw a bald eagle; even North Haven, which we finally “discovered” this trip. And, we imagine that these discoveries will continue to occur with each year we travel here. What’s more, though, we’ll start to feel like this is our spot. While checking email at the ARC, a local café on Main Street, Josh spent a few minutes chatting with a couple of brothers, 12 and 13, from Portland. They’d been coming to island every summer since they were babies; their grandparents own an old homestead not far from town. For them, this island is a second home, and though we’re not ready to drop 20,000 bucks on a cedar shaker cottage or some Victorian-style fixer-upper in town, we both want something of that experience for Isaac. Every day, he asks to see the “waterfalls”: by this, he means the spot in town where one can see the water flow in or go out from the bay into the harbor. We spend a lot of time at this spot, on one side of the street and then the other. This place feels like it’s Isaac’s (no one else is standing in line to see it), and we’re pretty sure it’s what he has in mind when he says that “we love Maine.”
Among the things we love about this island are the people: year-rounders, summer folk, or short-term renters like us. Mary, for instance, has been coming to Vinalhaven for more than twenty years; she rents a place for a month and while they are here, she and her husband open their house to friends and family: “it feels like I’m running an inn,” she said. Yesterday, while biking on North Haven, we stopped at a local farm, Turner Farm, that we just happened to pass, and in line for the doors to open at 10 AM, we met Rosa, a college councilor from Concord, MA. Like Mary, she’s been renting for nearly twenty years. She provided us with a lovely image of her family growing up spending summers there. Since her kids were little, they have been living “free-range” on the island.
Later that same morning, on the way to Mullin’s Cove, Josh blew out his rear tire, and a potentially dire situation was averted with the help of two locals: the first, Carol Waterman, drove Josh’s bike the five miles or so back to town. We learned that her husband’s family has lived on the island for generations; they used to run a grocery store, Waterman’s, in the building that is now the island’s (amazing) community center of the same name. When she introduced herself, Josh reacted as though she was famous: “Waterman, as in the Watermans!?” She told Josh that her two sons both went to school on the island in the state’s smallest K-12 school. Her oldest son was one of two seniors in this spring’s graduating class! Meanwhile, down at the beach, where Isaac threw rocks into the surf, complimenting himself on each throw (“Good throw … that’s a good throw!”), we met Gayle, a grandmother visiting from Augusta. She was there with her two grandchildren, Caden and Emma (5 and 3). Her daughter married a local lobsterman, whose family has lived on the island for generations. So the children’s other set of grandparents are Waterman’s and Brown’s—another family just as well-known on North Haven. Everyone we run into is so nice, so welcoming that we feel like we don’t want to leave, ever. (Maybe it’s also the influence of “Under the Tuscan Sun,” where the heroine travels to Italy, on a whim buys a villa, and lives a wonderfully full life off her no salary.)
Every day, Josh scans the real estate listings, and we talk about taking two weeks next year, maybe spending one on each island. However, there are some warning signs: Rosa mentions that the island of North Haven feels just like 1965, then pauses and says more quietly, “for good and for bad”; we notice that there are literally no kids besides Isaac here who are not blonde—not much diversity, in other words. While at Booth’s Quarry on Saturday, Anique swam the length of the quarry with a college dean from Virginia who bought a place up here thirty years ago and now talks about how much work and money it takes to maintain that property. Just last year, she finally rented it out for August so that she could take a ten-day trip to Ireland. Otherwise, she’s always either back home in Virginia or “here.” The way she said “here” made her vacation home sound a bit like a prison. Certainly, it injected a fair amount of reality into our real estate fantasizing.
While it might seem strange to want to keep coming back, year after year, to the same 12-mile long island off the coast of Maine, we keep discovering new things that we missed on our previous trips or things that we failed to appreciate before having Isaac. The shelf of rock sticking out from the side of Lawson’s Quarry, where Isaac can wade safely without having to wear his bulking and much-loathed life vest; Polly’s Cove, a beautiful inlet, near the top of the island, where we spent an hour after dinner last night, where Isaac threw rocks into the gentle surf, where we saw a bald eagle; even North Haven, which we finally “discovered” this trip. And, we imagine that these discoveries will continue to occur with each year we travel here. What’s more, though, we’ll start to feel like this is our spot. While checking email at the ARC, a local café on Main Street, Josh spent a few minutes chatting with a couple of brothers, 12 and 13, from Portland. They’d been coming to island every summer since they were babies; their grandparents own an old homestead not far from town. For them, this island is a second home, and though we’re not ready to drop 20,000 bucks on a cedar shaker cottage or some Victorian-style fixer-upper in town, we both want something of that experience for Isaac. Every day, he asks to see the “waterfalls”: by this, he means the spot in town where one can see the water flow in or go out from the bay into the harbor. We spend a lot of time at this spot, on one side of the street and then the other. This place feels like it’s Isaac’s (no one else is standing in line to see it), and we’re pretty sure it’s what he has in mind when he says that “we love Maine.”
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
July 2012 photos--new camera!
Months ago, we lost our relatively new Canon Powershot and were sitting around waiting for it to show up when I just couldn't stand it anymore and bought a replacement. So now watch the old one appear any moment! Anyway, here's a link to our Picasa album from July. This includes the Masons' visit and trip to the Acton Discovery Museum, beach with the Olivier-Meehans and hanging out with Roisin Reavey.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Nothing Better
Several weeks ago, Anique and I took our bikes in to Wheelworks in Belmont for a tune up, in anticipation of our Maine vacation later this week. So this morning, I decided to forgo the car, and take Isaac out for a bike ride. Our itinerary: Stop 1) 3 mile ride to Best Buy to purchase an 8 gig flash drive. Stop 2) short trip to Farren playground; a new favorite for Isaac and me, it boasts obstructed views of the Charles (for me) and it's never crowded (Isaac: "No other kids. I no like other kids"). Stop 3) Watertown Library, if time.
And we were off. Our first stop went off without a hitch, and the overall experience was enhanced for Isaac by the automatic door, which we used to enter and exit and then enter and exit and ... scene.
However, as we merged onto Arsenal Street, and I shifted into a higher gear, I noticed an acute clicking sound. When I turned onto Charles Street, I shifted gears again, and suddenly my back wheel stopped turning. I hopped off to investigate. The problem seemed to be with my derailleur. Then I saw that my rear wheel was rubbing against the frame. I tried to fix it, but my limited knowledge of bikes and Isaac's refusal to stay next to me as I worked finally lead us to lock the bike in its place and to set out for home on foot.
For the first half-mile or so, we walked along the Charles River bike path. Isaac waved high to the kids rowing crew (Isaac: "I see boats. They're fishing"). After gamely holding my hand and walking for 30 yards or so, Isaac asked to ride on my shoulders, where he sat for the rest of our long, sweaty march back home (with the exception of twenty minutes or so of running around at the playground). We inspired a lot of smiles from passing bikers and pedestrians. Not far from our house, on Waverly Street, an older man working on his pickup whistled and said: "Just a father and his son out for a walk in the morning. Nothing better." For a moment, I thought about telling him about our abandoned bike--which Wheelworks fixed at no charge later that afternoon--or about the fact that not long after we left the playground, while astride my shoulders, and with a mile-and-a-half separating us from wipes and a clean diaper, Isaac proceeded to poop. I paused and instead said: "Yup. Nothing better."
Friday, July 27, 2012
It's a jungle in here.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Jamming
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