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Acadia National Park

We drove up the coast and arrived on Mount Desert Island about 9pm on Tuesday night. We arrived at Blackwoods campground, on the south side of the park at about 9:50, ten minutes before the park office closed. Whew.

For some reason, you couldn't register for more than one night of camping. This park ranger was a little odd and warned us vehemently that we should come back just as soon as the office opened in the morning if we wanted to secure our campsite for the next evening, as there were very few sites available. We did not heed his advice, but took our own sweet time the next morning, and yet it was alright.

Wednesday, we biked all over Mount Desert Island, 23 miles in total. By far the farthest I've ever ridden my bike in one day. We headed down to Seal Harbor and played some on the beach there, and then biked to the gardens nearby, Thuya and Asticou.We also went to Northeast Harbor where we sat and ate our lunch while watching the docks.
Then we headed back into the National Park and spent sometime biking on the carriage roads. There were some lovely views. My memories are growing foggy. I do remember that it was really hilly and that once, we biked too far and on our way back down the ridiculously steep hill we had just needlessly pedaled up, there was a sign warning truckers that there was a steep grade and they should use low gear.After our bike ride, we hopped in the car and headed to Sand Beach. (What a clever name.) We lay on the beach and read for awhile. Our goal the whole time was to get in the water, but we wanted to warm up first. We should have noticed that the only people in the water were small children. The adults had enough sense not to get in. I also recall looking around and seeing that 2 out of 3 people were still reading Harry Potter. We finally managed to get in the water, but we had waited so long that the sun was beginning to set. Whoops! We did manage to get totally soaked though and probably stayed in the water for 10 minutes. I don't feel like I ever need to get in the ocean in Maine again though.

After our beach adventure, we drove into Bar Harbor, looking for ice. We decided to find the store where Lauren's mom (the girl we had met at Moosilauke) worked. We did and met her and bought our ice. She was kind and generous to us, offering to let us borrow a pot big enough to cook lobster in if we wanted. Sadly, we didn't have a stove big enough to hold such a pot!

That night, we made a campfire and cooked bananas with chocolate chips for dessert. Quite tasty. While we were sitting at the fire, a man approached us, asking where Fulton County was. We were quite alarmed at first, given last summer's experience when the scary man asked us to watch a movie with him and his son and the fact that this man was difficult to understand. But then we figured out it was because of Kate's license plate and that he was genuinely being friendly. Still, don't approach random campsites in the dark!!

Labels: travel

posted by CP @ 10:46 AM 0 thoughts

on rest

I came back to Atlanta after Christmas, instead of going to DC for a few days, in order to rest, to actually be refreshed headed into next semester. I really have no idea how to rest. I spent yesterday reading, doing crossword puzzles, took a walk, got my haircut. Basically nothing all day long. And yet I was still a bit tired when I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep.

I remember telling my community group shortly after Thanksgiving that I felt like I'd been tired since August. I would just like to find a balance between the nothingness of summer and winter breaks and the crazy-mad busy-ness of the school year.

I feel like I have to do something in order to find rest. That's some backward thinking, I realize.

Kate and I were talking about it the other day and she pointed out that's it's always either one extreme or the other. Things are either crazy and I'm exhausted or there's nothing going on. There's rarely any balance, which she said was part of our struggle on this earth. Makes sense to me.

I do know that I will never find true rest in this life. I suppose that's a good thing- it certainly makes me long more for heaven and for Christ's return. Though I'm not sure that's a particularly God-glorifying reason for wanting such things. "Jesus come back, so that I can get some sleep." Hmm... I know that's not really what I'm asking, but it seems silly. I do look forward to that true Sabbath rest promised in Hebrews.

So for now, I suppose I should simply enjoy this next week off that I have and not beat myself up over my inability to rest. That certainly seems counter-productive to my intentions.

posted by CP @ 9:17 AM 0 thoughts

Christmas reading list

My Christmas break reading list may be long than my summer reading list was...

Finish Bold Love
UnChristian
The DaVinci Code
The Kite Runner
Life Together
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
Revival and Revivalism

posted by CP @ 9:29 AM 2 thoughts

the Maine coast

After departing Freeport, we headed up the Maine coast toward Acadia National Park, making many stops along the way. We stopped in Boothbay Harbor and then again in Camden.

I don't quite recall why we stopped in Boothbay Harbor. It was quite touristy. I think it was to find this fisherman, listed in Kate's book of things to see across the US.
Apparently if you look at him from the side in the rain, something strange happens. I think there's lots of pirate lore associated with Boothbay, because the gift shop we went in was filled with not only the ordinary tourist trinkets, but myriad pirate trinkets as well.
We walked around this cove and then hopped back in the car to head north.

Our next stop, around dinnertime, was Camden. We were also thinking to camp there for the night, but that didn't work out. Camden was beautiful, the kind of small town you would want to live in and know everyone there. We stopped in a park near the town library where there was a statue dedicated to Edna St. Vincent Millay. This park was one of the most picturesque things I saw.
We needed groceries so we stopped at a store and in addition to the camping necessities, picked up some fresh fish for dinner. There's a state park just north of the town, so we figured we could stop there and have a picnic on the beach. The park straddled the coast road and much to our chagrin, we discovered that the coast side closed earlier than the inland side, about 30 minutes before we arrived. We were at a loss. We decided to keep driving in hopes of finding a public beach or something to that effect.

A few miles further north, we did, in fact, find a small strip of public beach, where we decided to cook our fish and enjoy the evening. We bounded over a low rock wall onto the sand and plopped ourselves down, all cooking and food supplies in hand, near a family consisting of what appeared to be mom, grandparents, and 4 small children. It sounded like they were speaking a mixture of English and French.

As we set up the stove and began to cook our dinner, the family kept giving us strange, disapproving sidelong glances. They also kept moving farther and farther away from us and I could hear them warning the kids to stay away from us, as if we were monsters who might eat them alive. Kate and I found the entire situation hilarious. I still don't think that cooking dinner on the beach is all that strange of an activity. And we certainly don't look like threatening people. I mean, we had even showered that morning.

We finished our leisurely picnic on the beach and packed up to head north to Acadia, much to the relief of the sidelong-glancing family.

Labels: travel

posted by CP @ 6:05 AM 1 thoughts

good music

Asthmatic Kitty is streaming Sufjan's Christmas album here.

Indelible Grace has a new CD out, "Wake Thy Slumber."

It's good stuff.

posted by CP @ 6:46 PM 0 thoughts