a whole month!

Summer has kept us on the move, and I've been neglecting my public! I have a to-do list a mile long (including writing thank you notes for Maple's birthday, which was last month!), and it just keeps getting longer. This is our first weekend at home in a while, so I hope to make some progress. I'm starting with the blog, since Wynnae reminded me very sweetly (and a little insistently!) to update it. When I read Wynnae's comment to Maple, she told me to write this for her: "Wynnae, I really miss you and I want to come to your house but I can't because you live so far away and I do too."

In August, we took our first real family vacation since moving to Massachusetts. We've taken a bunch of long weekends, and once we even went away for a week, split over two calendar weeks, but we always visited family, never just went somewhere by ourselves. For years, Sean has been wanting to see the Northeast Kingdom. Somehow I've kibosh-ed all his attempts to see this little part of Vermont, between my other vacation plans or worries about money. So we finally decided to see it together. We didn't have a plan beyond spending the first two nights at a campground in St. Johnsbury, and we figured after that we'd either explore more of the Northeast Kingdom or head up to Maine, one of two states Sean hasn't been to (the other is Alaska).

We learned so much on this vacation. It was like vacation boot camp! First of all, it is probably a good idea to have ground rules and a budget before you embark on a vacation. I was so worried about every penny we spent, and on top of that I said I'd plan the meals but didn't really put much thought into them. (Dry couscous, anyone?) Lesson 1: Decide on a budget before you leave on your trip. (A casual comment about "needing a budget" on the way to your destination doesn't count.) Lesson 2: If you don't have the budget for eating out, plan fun meals that will satisfy, rather than thinking of food as calories!

We spent our first three nights at private campgrounds, where we were the only tent campers and spent our nights listening to the humming of generators. Lesson 3: Only tent camp at state-run campgrounds! (State campgrounds tend to have more tent campers and often don't have the infrastructure for the old folks with their RVs. Also they are cheaper and in prettier spots!)

After a few days, we realized that there's a reason the Northeast Kingdom is "undiscovered" -- it's boring! It's pretty in a Massachusetts sort of way, but nothing spectacular. And certainly nothing vegan to eat, aside from dry couscous. So we headed to Maine, where we got a spot in the State Campground at Rangeley Lake. The Rangeley Lakes area was gorgeous, and once we realized that dry couscous and Twizzlers weren't going to keep us happy, we ate a few meals at restaurants and even went to a museum, for which we had to pay admission! (Gasp! The tightwad nearly has heart failure!) We hiked up to a beautiful spot and saw all of the surrounding Lakes (Rangely, Mooselookmeguntic, Cupsuptic). We visited the Rangeley library and saw hordes of thru-hikers on their way to Katahdin (it turns out we were in Rangeley exactly 8 years after I'd planned to stop there for a maildrop - August 26, 2001). And we finally realized after six days doing backpacking-style (minimalist) camping with our dog, our daughter, and our Honda Fit -- not exactly the most comfortable situation -- that we'd do a lot of things differently if we had it to do over again.

The Fit is too small to do car camping comfortably with the dog, so we'll leave her in the kennel next time. We need to be a little better organized, and we need to bring a cooler if we're going to try to make our own food. We might even need a Coleman Stove so we can have pancakes instead of dry cereal for breakfast! Breaking down camp every night is sort of tiring when you're not backpacking, so we should plan to stay in one place for a string of days. And having a budget would help, so that we could eat out without one of us (okay, me) freaking out about the bill.

By far the most stressful part of the vacation for me was the constant fear that Maple would sit on a toilet seat. I have pretty severe OCD when it comes to public restrooms, but Maple, being a normal kid, doesn't mind sitting on whatever fluids might be left by the previous crapper. After wiping off and toilet-papering the 4000th toilet seat, I started to wonder if anyone makes a plastic toilet seat guard for kids. I bet they do. But I refuse to let my OCD win! I just taught Maple how to sink a hook in the ceiling and suspend herself from a rope over the potty...

Despite the occasional pain of lesson-learning, we had a really nice time on our vacation. We saw a great hippie puppet show, Maple rode a horse for the first time in a paradisaical setting, and we played Uno and Go Fish in our tent at night while the crackling embers of Sean's fires sang outside.

We got back to Natick just in time for me to work for four days and then head out to Grandma Libby's house for Sean's and my first backpacking trip together. My parents had agreed to stay with Maple at Libby's during our 3-night trip, so that Sean and I could cover ten miles a day; a do-able pace for us (with backpacks) but not for Maple's first trip. We planned to do a 40-mile section of the AT between Bennington, VT and Manchester, VT, bringing my AT-miles-remaining count to 535. We had a great time! I think I mentioned before that Sean is the best hiking partner ever, but I'm not sure I ever elaborated on that. Like most other things in life, hiking both invigorates me and stresses me out. I had a couple of "Portia moments" on this hike, where I was tired, out of balance (literally), and/or hungry, and in those moments I either got extremely crabby or started flailing around like a drunken porcupine. Sometimes both. Sean stayed calm and told me "We're almost there" or "Let's stop for a snack." He'd give me a kiss and rub my shoulders and say sweet things. We made our 40 miles as planned, enjoying sweeping views of southern VT from Glastenbury and Stratton mountains. And we had our longest time together (without Maple) in four years! It was great fun. And we've already planned another 18 miles of day hikes in October, bringing my total AT miles for the year to about 120. On one 5-mile section, my mom and Maple are going to come with us! I'm excited for that. In 2001, after I'd quit my thru-hike, my mom and I hiked the five miles from Vt 11/30 over Bromley to the North, and we're going to do it again, together, in about a month, but this time with Maple and Sean.

While we were off backpacking, Maple had a great time with her grandparents -- they took her to an amusement park, met enthusiastic dogs, and went to playgrounds and farmers markets. I just saw the pictures yesterday -- Maple looked so happy! She even got to go swimming with her Pa.

On Thursday, Maple saw her doctor for her 4-year checkup. She is very healthy and apparently quite advanced for her age (tell us some shit we don't know). She was initially so good at reading the letters for the eye test, that when she got bored of it (while using only her left eye), they decided she had some vision problems in that eye and are sending us to a pediatric ophthalmologist. Her left eye was only a little worse than her right, but Sean and I think it was more a case of boredom than a lack of vision. But we'll see. Anyway she is 40.5" tall and 36.5 pounds. For all you stats freaks out there. On Monday she goes to school! It's hard to believe that her time at home with Sean is coming to an end. When I think of what an incredible job he's done raising her, and how much he's given up (four years of his life!) to be with her, I feel so grateful and so amazed. They are so close, and I hope that this change in their lives won't change that.

As for Sean and I, we're dreaming about moving to Utah more than ever. Even though fall is the best time to be in New England, we can't help being nauseated by the crowds, the snobbery, and the constant quest for more, better, faster, blah blah blah. We're hatching a plan to finish the AT, get out of debt, save some money, and move out west by 2011 or 2012. Only a few more years in the humidity and the excess of Massachusetts...