The Maine Attraction

Christmas vacation! Woohoo! That's right. Two weeks off for the teachers at a certain private boys school which will remain unnamed due to the jealousy that might ensue!

Only bummer is, Mrs. Donaghy does not have two weeks off. So... I decided to "pop in" on my family up in Maine, unannounced, hah hah! for a two night stay. What's a 600 mile drive when you've got a double CD of Greg Brown, (which lasted until Massachusetts), the best of the Indigo Girls (finished it in New Hampshire), and a 16 part lecture series on Ethics by Dr. Peter Kreeft on audio CD? (still some left for the ride home)

I made it in under 8 hours; no lunch, and no questions asked, capish?

Yup, 8 hours alone in a steel and fiberglass motorized shell hurtling north. I had alot of quiet time. Greg Brown and the Girls do that to you. Their lyrics drop like honey on the heart and you just have to turn off the radio and savor the imagery. Let the thoughts bound up by busyness go free, expand and breathe again.

When I hit the Maine Turnpike, and the pine and the birch trees waved a cold spindly hello, I started thinking to myself, "Oh boy, I hope they're home." I turned onto the newly paved road (darn it) off of route 17 where Dad has his cabin nestled in the tall pines, I formed a "plan." Which was to "sneak up" on him and "surprise".... "him."

It worked perfectly! I drove past the cabin at an inconspicuous and typical Mainer speed, which was about 90. And there was me Da, carting wood from some newly fallen trees to his brush pile. I parked a quarter mile down the road and walked into the woods, in stealth mode. Up he came from the driveway as I threw myself into the frosty undergrowth, blending like a ninja into my surroundings (yeah, right). When he turned back down the hill, after what seemed a LONG time to be squatting in 29 degree woods, I leapt like a stag (well, I crashed like a moose) through the saplings toward the clearing. As he turned around up the hill again, there I was, his first-born, standing on a fallen fir tree like Errol Flynn, without the green tights (did anybody get that allusion?)

He was speechless! We bear-hugged and he bellowed and I love SURPRISES!

So I slept in today, which I rarely do. Now we're off to breakfast at the Come Spring diner. Woohoo! I have to do this more often.

To be continued.... of course, 'cause it's a blog.