Vacationland

I was very happy to have been in Maine when I heard that temperatures in the DC area reached above 100 degrees again. I'm also glad we remembered to turn up the thermostat a little before we left so the AC wouldn't run like crazy while we were gone. My plants, that I so carefully watered, are wilting even more now than before we left. That'll teach me to try and make things look pretty...

Our drive up took about 9 1/2 hours. It was completely smooth sailing with Jake behind the wheel from 9pm to 12:30 than me until about 3:30 and then him closing it out with us arriving into South Freeport marina around 6:30am. Dublin was great and slept on her bed in the back seat the entire way. We caught the 8:00am ferry (the Lilly B!) to Bustins Island and proceeded to soak up relaxation and great weather all week. Jake's family cottage, like most cottages on Bustins, is rustic but comfortable. It sports gas powered range, oven, fridge and lights, although some new solar powered LEDs were added this year. It has a huge porch and lots of windows to catch the Casco Bay breeze. The toilet is a composting toilet located in the shed/outhouse in the backyard. His mom likes to refer to it as "luxury camping". I would have to agree. I made one additional trip ashore during the week to run the L.L. Bean 4th of July 10k in Freeport. It was hot and the course was hilly. I finished it in just over an hour since I took time to stop and walk through each of 3 sprinklers people had out and each of the last 3 water stations. Then my friend and I hit up the grocery store for our remaining supplies and headed back to the island for the remainder of the week.

Jake's aunt and uncle stay up there most of the summer and just run their online business from their cottage. Their dog, the golden I mentioned in the previous post, got along great with Dublin and they frolicked and played whenever we went down to visit them. She also enjoyed some swim time although she seemed a little nervous about full-on swimming as compared to wading around. The week was filled with games, food, wine, beer, conversation and relaxation. The weather, with the exception of one hot, breezeless day, was fantastic, and I didn't want to leave when Saturday finally rolled back around. We headed off the island on the only rainy day of the trip, stopping in Portland to have dinner with Jake's grandparents before returning to DC. Our drive back was about the same as the drive up with me taking the start and finish of the driving this time. And I will admit that I had nearly full cellular and data signal the entire time but tried my best to stay offline since that was kind of the point of the trip. I caved towards the end of the week though.

Bustins is one of those places that is totally capable of just capturing your heart. The history of it is evident in the many early 1900's cottages that people have vacationed in for years. Jake grew up vacationing here every summer and has lifelong friends whom most of were actually there with us last week. I look forward to the time our kids will also get to spend here in the future and until that happens I look forward to relaxing weeks at Bustins with Jake.