The Voyage

So, we sat at the Casco Bay Lines for at least 3 hours waiting for the freight boat which was to take the 4 of us plus Miss Murray and untold boxes of food from Whole Foods over to Chebeague. I finally broke away to find a book store and stumbled on an outdoor air show which was great. i really like Portland and think it would be a great place to spend a weekend and just stroll around. It is a real sea port town with an active Front Street, a sensational Museum, an excellent bakery and some great restaurants.

we finally made it out of town on the boat and settled in for the trip. Originally I had resisted this trip but now agree with Grandma Dot that that the trip across and around Casco Bay serves as a transistion to island life. However I was already pretty mellow. Shopping done at whole Foods and brioche loaf collected from the Bakery.

The house I rented sight unseen turned out to be great. We all hated to leave the Aaron's Wharf house but it was sold. So we rented this house on Hamilton beach and Dorothy stayed with us when her rental was cancelled because of a malfunctioning septic system. That was very important for Kate and for me because it's all about Dorothy and the 8, or is it 9 summers that we have spent together.

We arrived at 7:30 pm after a full day of travelling and had a quick dinner and then crashed. Miss murray seemed to feel at home immediately. We knew this because she peed and went to sleep without hours and hours of pacing.

Sunday we went off to get bikes which are the life blood of our stay on the island. As usual the bikes while free are terrible and have no gears. I've decided that next year I have to have a newer bike that has gears so that I can bike out to Deer Point and don't have to spend more time walking my bike up hills than riding up them. The girls tooki off on their bikes and werent' seen for hours. This kind of freedom to just wander around an entire island is unimaginable for city kids who are taken from place to place and have absolutely no wiggle room. Even as I write this I'm looking at cell phones for Kate which have a GPS so that I will know where she is at all times. Yikes. Is this childhood?

One day they played tennis at the local courts, biked to the Rec Center and ran into one of Kate's classmates at the local grocery store. We had lunch at the Clam Shack and then were able to barbecue on Tuesday night. There was enough rain on Sunday and Monday that we couldn't barbeque. Our days followed an island pattern without consideration for time and tide. Arnie and I would take Miss Murray down to the beach early in the morning or we would hide under the covers until she smoked us out. Breakfast, reading, the beach, lunch, naps, reading on the beach, dinner. Do it all again. I had a great time cooking.