Nature 3, Alperts 0

Maine day one was beautiful.  Blue skies, clear ocean, scenic mountains, and hot dogs at our campsite.  What else is there in life?  Day two is when my dad bothered to mention "Yeah, that's why we stopped vacationing in Maine.  It always rains."  The rain came overnight, so that didn't bother us.  But the wet rocks that couldn't dry under cloudy skies, the thick fog that covered the island all day Friday, and the choppy seas in advance of the hurricane pretty much nixed any of our nature plans.  No rock climbing, no hiking up steep trails, no kayaking, and no diving.  Score one for weather.  Instead we walked around a pond we couldn't see despite standing 12 feet away from (though the picture we saw later did look nice) and drove to the top of the "mountain" (1500 feet?  come on)  in the park to watch the fog swirl around us.  Still pretty, just not in the conventional way.  For Shabbat we grilled our chicken, put an entire bundle of logs into the fire and watched them burn until we fell asleep.  In the true spirit of our vacation we rested most of the day on Saturday, playing cards, reading, napping, and making fun of Adina for reading silly vampire books.  Saturday night we really did the camping thing right, grilling our hot dogs on skewers over the fire then making fresh smores for dessert.  Then we hunkered down the tent to get ready for Hurricane Bill, what we hope will be this vacation's last bout with bizarre natural phenomenon.

Some of you may have seen my facebook status the other day minimizing the power of nature.  The hurricane was a bit farther out to sea than originally feared and passed by overnight and early Sunday morning giving us some rain but not much else (at first).  Gone before we even woke up, so naturally I made fun of it a little.  As it turns out, that was a bad idea.  You'd think I'd have learned a thing or two about karma this summer, but I'm actually kind of slow.  First the hurricane showed its true force by crashing enormous waves onto the island.  It was all well and good from our vantage point near our campsite early in the morning watching the huge swells break into the rocky shore.  We only got splashed from head to toe once.  But then we headed into the park itself to check out the main surf gazing spot on the island, a little group of rocks on the shore called thunder hole where strong waves supposedly crash, splash, and echo loudly when the seas are stormy.  On our way we decided to stop at the farmers market in town, then Adina decided it would be nice to walk through the town for a little while and check out some of the shops.  I told her I was ready to go very quickly, but she insisted we walk all the way down Main Street and back, setting us back about 35 minutes.  During this delay, right exactly at the time I had planned on standing at thunder hole watching the waves, an oversized wave crashed into the viewing area at the site and dragged 20 people into the ocean.  We were on our way over by this point and were passed by the emergency vehicles going to and from the spot where it happened.  By the time we got there the road had been closed and we were sent back into town.  A little scary that if the day had gone as I had planned, we would have been there, too.  Knowing me, I'd also have been about as far out on the rocks as I could have been, as is my way.  Weather strikes again.

With our plans yet again scrapped, we decided to head back towards the mainland and find something to do.  We tried a movie theater, but seeing as we couldn't get through two sentences of the synopsis of The Time Travelers Wife without cracking up we decided that trying to watch the whole thing was a bad idea.  Friendy's was of course delicious, but only lasted a few minutes.  After a failed attempt to get Adina to join in I took a ride in a glider, an engineless aircraft that is towed behind a single engine plane until about 4500 feet where we cut the chord and glide around for half an hour until gravity finally wins.  Apparently she learned her lesson after the hang gliding incident in Wyoming and the helicopter fiasco in Hawaii.  It was totally cool, and the pilot even said I wasn't the worst on the controls he's ever seen.  Turns out it's not so easy to turn without it becoming a headfirst dive.  Though he possibly could have given better directions than "steer it like a ship, not a fighter plane."  Thanks, bucko.  He pulled us out of it just fine, and I'm sure I'll get better next time.

Mother nature had already shown us all that the hurricane was not something to laugh about, but apparently she was still upset about the facebook thing so she came back Sunday night and decided just to make life suck for a bit.  See, on Thursday and Saturday nights it had rained while we slept, and that is all well and good.  Yes, it wakes you up a bit in the middle of the night, but the rain fly is over the tent so we stay dry, and it's pretty much gone by the time we're up in the morning.  It's a whole different story when the downpour starts before you actually get ready for bed.  Because now it means you're wet, and you've climbed into the tent making it wet, too, and you have no chance of really getting dry until the sun comes up.  There are no space heaters in camping, even when there is wifi.  As an added bonus, it was our last night at the site so we had to pack up a wet tent in the morning on the still muddy ground.  Nature 3, Alperts 0.  So we were a bit cranky heading out of Maine today.  A bit of sunshine and some antiquing (I wish I had a garage full of old junk I could call antiques and slap a price tag on) later, not to mention a slightly scenic detour for lunch, we were in better spirits.  Just in time for it to pour again, but this time we were safely in our car on the Maine turnpike.  Though I'm not sure you can really call it "safely" when the rain is so heavy you cannot see the lane markers or the car in front of you.  There was also some slow going in MA, since every 20 feet there was another road construction project funded by stimulus money.  Even though it did get annoying, I guess it is perfect timing since so few people are on the roads commuting nowadays.  Eventually we did make it safe and sound to Boston, where we'll be until heading to Albany (three state capitals in three days, baby!) on Wednesday.  Appetizer at Ta'am China, check.  Dinner at Ruben's, check.  What else is there to do in this town?

Less than a week until I'm back at work and Adina is back on the couch.  We are really starting to feel the end of summer.