Way Up North

I am up north.  Way up north.  North in Maine.  So that's north a lot.  This is potato country in Maine.  It's a land of sky and potato fields.  It's a land of hardworking people.  It's a cold, frozen land in the winter, and in much of the fall and spring.  The snows in Southern Maine have pretty much gone.  But in The County, as Aroostook is called, it is still snow covered.

Today on our way up, we could see Mount Katahdin clearly.  Often it is cloud covered and barely visible.  But today its peak was pristine white surrounded by dark spruce and pine at its base.  It put me in mind of barnacles - but then I am from the coast.  We wanted to stop for a picture, but the lookout road was snowcovered and closed.  Some footprints led up to the overlook.   Earlier someone had decided to park their car on the side of the highway and hike up to get a better look.  We decided not to risk the ticket.  We've seen the mountain before.  I still like to see it though.  It is like looking at the ocean that changes with the sky and seasons - never the same view from day to day.

We kept on riding.  Pippi came with us.  She, unlike Deb Day's Chloe, got to come on this trip.  (The cat is not going to be speaking to us when we get back.)  Pippi is a good rider and doesn't need to have a bathroom break during our 6 hours on the road.  This is fortunate, as I really don't like picking up dog droppings.  We, however, needed to stop twice.  Coffee, bathroom, Monster drink/orange juice, bathroom, no more drinks, no more places to stop, we're there, bathroom.

After being on the road for 6 hours we arrived at our destination: Mapleton, north of Presque Isle, west of Canada, a nice little town, and the town where I first taught school, and where my mother-in-law lives on her own in her cozy home of 60 something years.

We came for a visit to relax, get the computer working correctly again, watch TV, sit a bit, and talk.  We may play Bananagrams, a game we found at BAMS! on our way up.  And tomorrow, for supper, we'll have the sockeye salmon that we bought and packed in ice for the trip.

Time to head home will come too soon.  It's a long ride.  It's a long time between trips. The summer is really the time to do this.  The weather at any other time is too unpredictable.  The whole time we are planning the trip and the entire time we are here, we keep an eye on the weather.

Snow flurries on their way today.

I remember a time, years ago, when we left Mapleton to go home after Thanksgiving, a few snowflakes had started to fall.  My father-in-law said it wouldn't amount to anything.  It was just a flurry.  It would stop very soon.  I looked at the sky, and wasn't so sure about that.  But because we needed to be back for work the next day, we headed for home in the "flurries".  We never did get out of the storm.  It was not a flurry.  You don't need a yardstick to measure flurries.  You don't need to shovel and plow flurries.  This required shoveling and plowing.  This was measurable in feet.  This required x-ray vision and snowshoes.  Cars and tow trucks littered the highway and embankments. We arrived home safe and sound in body, but mentally a wreck.

So we are keeping an eye and ear out when the weatherman speaks for the next few days.  We will plan our trip home accordingly.