6/9/06 (Friday): Yesterday was so rainy and nasty that I didn’t even want to get out of bed! I feel like I’m getting moldy! Our little yard is a swamp, there’s mud all over our patio carpet, and even the chipmunks haven’t come out from under our rock wall. We had to do laundry because so many of our clothes were wet and muddy, but the laundry room is about a city block away. So we took plastic bags to put everything in so that it wouldn’t get wet coming back. I went into the office for a while and practiced on the spare cash register. I feel pretty confident now. I’ve got the basics down, it’s just that when I make a mistake, I'm still just learning how to void it, and doing unusual stuff like making refunds or giving discounts. I guess people are just going to have to be patient!

In the afternoon we went down to Thomaston and saw the movie “RV.” It was absolutely hilarious! Robin Williams used to be my favorite comedian, but then he did a couple of shows that I didn’t like at all. This movie was the old Robin back again. It’s about a guy who fears he’s losing his high pressure job to a younger guy and that he's growing apart from his kids. He decides to rent an RV and take his two teenagers and his wife on a trip to Colorado. Everything that could possibly go wrong does. Parts of it are kind of slapstick, which I don’t usually care for, but overall it’s pretty funny.

Today is not sunny, but at least there’s none of that “Maine Sunshine” hanging around. We packed a picnic lunch and headed out for a scenic drive. We made two big loops, one north of Rockport (where the campground is) and one south. On the northern loop we drove through deeply wooded hills with some gorgeous lakes and rushing creeks. There were some farms (it’s blueberry country there) and isolated homes, but no development at all. I love that about this area—I haven’t seen a single subdivision and planned community. There’s only one Walmart for a huge area, and no big cities. The major industries are lobstering, fishing and logging. The northern loop villages are quaint—many houses have lobster traps stacked neatly in the front yard and boats parked beside the trucks. (These traps are on a dock right behind a house, but many times they're stacked right in the front yard! They're all different pastel colors, too--very pretty!)

I’ve been a fan of the famous American artist, Andrew Wyeth, since I was in high school. He lived in Pennsylvania and summered in Maine. His father (J.C. Wyeth) and son (Jamie Wyeth) were also artists. Many of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings were done right in the area of Maine where we’re staying. He was particularly fond of painting an old farm house owned by a family named Olson, and used many locals as subjects. That house is now a museum, and we visited it today. It was quite thrilling for me to see the places Wyeth immortalized in his paintings. If you’d like to see some of his paintings, here’s a good link: http://www.birdsnest.com/awyeth.htm

We were walking back to the car when a very different looking bird landed in a shrub right next to us. He was smaller than a robin, all black except for a yellow crest on his head and a white stripe on his wings. I’d never seen anything like him. I was pointing him out to Wiley when the bird started singing a very sweet song. Out of nowhere, I said to Wiley “I don’t know where this came from, but I think it’s a Bobolink.” When we got home, I looked it up, and it was a Bobolink. I think my mother, the inveterate bird watcher, must have been helping me out from the Great Beyond! I have no other explanation for that name popping into my head!

The lilacs are fading here now, but the daisies, wild roses and lupines are coming into bloom. The hills are just covered with colorful bloom. Everything looks so different here. We still feel like we’re on vacation, even when we’re working, because the scenery is just so breathtaking. Even the barns look different. They’re bigger, mostly two stories, and usually covered with cedar shingles. They’re often painted dark red or green, or left to weather a dark gray. The houses are very plain and boxy. It’s hard to tell the really old homes (many dating from the 1700’s) from the newer ones, because they still use the same style. There’s an old verse about New Englander’s that goes: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” With our new, simplified lifestyle, we feel like we fit right in here, where the houses and towns all seem simple and practical.

Does anyone know what people who live in Maine call themselves (like people who live in Florida are Floridians)? That’s been bugging me ever since we were in Massachusetts and someone referred to Maine natives as “Maine-iacs.”

But I digress. We wound up in Thomaston, just south of home, at lunchtime, and we stopped at the public landing for our picnic. Then Wiley needed to wet a line (again unsuccessfully), and I was sitting on a bench admiring the view. This poor guy and his wife were trying to back up their pick-up and boat trailer. He tried. Then she tried. There was no one else around. I felt sorry for them after about 10 minutes (really!), so I asked them if they’d like some help from an old lady who’d never backed up a boat trailer, but knew a little about backing up a travel trailer. They eagerly agreed, and I got him most of the way back to the boat launch before an old fisherman came over and helped them finish up. They were so grateful! Turns out it was a brand new boat and the friends who were supposed to meet them at the boat launch to help never showed up. Lord knows Wiley and I have gotten enough help from complete strangers on our travels! I felt like it was pay back time.

We got back home about 2 PM and Wiley immediately went out to the picnic table to pick his crabs that he caught two days ago. I think he’s going to freeze the meat, so I’d better get busy and prepare some dinner. That’s all for now folks. Stay tuned for the next installment of Joyce and Wiley’s Great Adventure!