camping 2012, day 4: homeward bound
sparkling day
After one more breakfast at the Cafe we said goodbye to our friends, then hung out in town for a little while before getting in the car for the trip home. Harvey was enjoying himself so much that he threw the biggest tantrum of his life, which lasted about 20 miles down the road.
rest stop parking
He should know by know that the journey is as much fun as the destination—well, if not the journey itself then the intermediate destinations along the way. We made our first stop in Searsport intending to look in at Left Bank Books (which we've enjoyed before), but were distracted by the sight of the ocean down a side street. When we explored and found a playground we made a quick change of plans.
alligator? or dinosaur?
I wasn't in the best of moods, thanks to an enormous cut on my foot, but everybody else had a great time playing on the variety of great playground equipment (even Rascal: he got away when we opened the car and ran all over the place before we could collect him). Then of course we had to check out the water, especially since Harvey found a "swimming girl"—or "swimmin guller" in his idiolect—that clearly needed a place to swim.
splash
Coming from Massachusetts, where shoreline access is strictly controlled and rationed, it's always exciting to find places like this. Yeah, that's the ocean; it's always there; go down and visit if you feel like it... We sure did!
no one else there!
After another tantrum we were back in the car and on to Camden, where Zion nursed and Harvey and I learned about local literary figures.
posing with Edna
We also enjoyed watching the seabirds: ducks (and ducklings!), seagulls, and cormorants. The former were very disappointed that Harvey didn't have anything better than rocks to offer them.
sorry ducks, it's not bread
There was one more stop, but it didn't produce any pictures: a highway rest area on I-95 (I don't even remember which state!). One of our few failings as hippies is how much we enjoy McDonalds, so we were very disappointed when the timing of our dinner stop produced only a Burger King—all the more so when I saw the prices. They may have been inflated for the captive highway audience, but all I could bring myself to afford was ten small chicken nuggets, and Harvey ate most of those. Luckily we still had some leftover peanut noodles and homemade bread—not to mention the last of the cookies.
This time the tantrum came before we left, when a game of "hit people with sticks" turned bad (who could have imagined?!). But that just meant that we were all ready to pile back into the car and roll through the last of the homeward miles.
Now what's the next adventure going to be?