Yikes! Sure, my head is larger than Julie’s. Hell, it’s larger than the average watermelon, but, after we previewed the picture, we decided we could use the close-in perspective to my head’s advantage and have Julie in front of my shoulder rather than behind. The result:

Much better, don’t you think? Unfortunately, there was no easy way to use the camera to eliminate my double-chin. Hey! Some people have a unibrow; I have unidimples. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!

Now (Family Vacation to Maine — August, 2008)

The Appalachian Trail (AT) gets its closest to Rangeley when it crosses Rt. 4 about 10 miles southeast of town. I’ve mildly fantasized over the years about bringing some “trail magic” to the AT. Trail magic is loosely defined as some sort of unexpected, highly pleasant experience on the trail, typically spawned by an act of goodwill either by a local person/community or a non-thru-hiker. I experienced my fair share of trail magic, and read about others’ that happened while I was hiking. A couple of times, someone would arrive at a shelter with beer and share it freely. That‘s what I’ve had my mind set on for years — either hiking into a shelter or sitting at a road crossing with a cooler. If at a road crossing, there would always be a couple of large pizzas included as well.

On our last day in Rangeley, after I had already told Julie that it didn’t look like I’d get to fulfill this fantasy on this trip (which wasn’t a big deal — my parents aren’t getting rid of the cabin any time soon, and we will be back!), Bob and I decided at 3:00 that we would give it a shot. We weren’t even sure if we could buy beer in Maine on Sunday, but we headed out. We picked up a 12-pack of Heineken cans at a convenience store, drove over to the AT, and hiked in the 1.8 miles to the Piazza Rock shelter.

I signed the Maine Appalachian Trail Conference trail register shortly before we got to the shelter (my note was that the trail looked great!):

Bob and I took each other’s pictures at Piazza Rock itself:

We arrived at the shelter to find one person there — “Silver” was a 57-year-old gentleman who has completed the AT four times since his first thru-hike in 1999. He lives out of a camper and tools around the country doing long-distance hiking. He winters in the Florida Keys, where he volunteers 3 days a week in a park in exchange for a free camper site. He was hiking from Monson, ME, down to Gorham, NH, on this trip.

We had a nice chat with him. As I’d hoped, his eyes lit up when I offered him a beer, and he assured me that the remaining beers would be appreciated. Bob and I each drank one with Silver, leaving 9 in the shelter for Silver and other hikers who passed through in the next few days:

We chatted longer than we should have, probably (Julie and Jen wound up squeezing all of the kids into our minivan and driving into town for dinner — leaving us a note to meet up with them), but it really was a neat experience.

It was a little odd to have a 57-year-old man telling me how much things had changed on the trail since I had hiked wayyyyyy back in 1993. I was the “old-timer!” But, there were also a lot of things that stayed the same. The shelter itself had been newly built when I passed through, and it’s been well-maintained and looks great. The fellow who ran the ferry across the Kennebec River for years — Steve Longley — was still involved with a hostel in the area, but had given up ferrying duties a year or two ago. He had actually driven me to the airport when I needed to fly to D.C. for Dee’s funeral. And, we chatted about various hostels and trail towns in the area that had changed over the years.

Silver also brought up the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association and their annual “Gathering,” which rang a bell deep in my brain, but of which I hadn’t been consciously aware of in years. He told me about trailjournals.com, which I think I had stumbled across several years ago when the daughter of some friends of my parents was hiking the AT. Times certainly have changed, as Silver talked about how internet access was expected at each of the hostels (allowing people to update their journals on the internet as they hiked, among other things, presumably). I suppose people may even use mobile devices to make journal entries from within a shelter, which I guess I am a bit of an old-timer about, as that just seems wrong! Silver also brought up how the stove fuel of preference these days is isopropyl alcohol (it was white gas when I was hiking).

I’ll do the same thing again, given the chance. Maybe even with the kids as they get older (it’s only 1.8 miles in to the shelter, but it’s got some steep climbs and some muddy sections that require walking across flattened logs). We were a bit late in the year to catch southbounders, and a bit early to catch the first big wave of northbounders…but it was great to meet a thru-hiker nevertheless and compare notes and experiences!

This first picture is not just of Alana and Carson doing the dishes one evening. It is also the last recorded picture of that glass in Alana’s hand being in one piece. 15 seconds after the picture was taken…it slipped out and shattered in the sink.

As much as Benton likes to skip rocks, I have a sneaking suspicion he’s going to experiment with pitching sidearmed some time in the next year or two.

Alana, Alana, Alana…

We really don’t expect her to become a Texas Tech Red Raider…but you never know…

J and Boppa stopped in for a few hours (doing laundry en route from the Arctic to Massachusetts for a weeklong class on shorebirds), and Alana recruited J to read to her on the deck for a bit:

Carson spent some alone time on the dock throwing rocks.

And…posing before jumping back into the water:

Our kids have always been as compatible as the adults — their youngest, Jack, is just a bit older than Benton — to the point that all of the kids fairly freely mix and match when they’re playing.

Jordan reading to Alana:

Jordan making chocolate chip cookies with Benton:

Jack and Carson skipping rocks off the dock:

Jack and Benton skipping rocks:

Jack and Benton wading up a stream on the hike out from Angels Falls (covered in yesterday’s post):

The two families on the hike in to Angels Falls (before I fell down…):

The Herbert kids are also much less affected by cold water than the Wilson kids. They always swam in our (chilly) pool in Austin more/more readily than our kids.

Jordan showing our kids how to jump off the dock:

We didn’t bring Elwyn…so Jordan wound up being the rock-diver of the group:

Of course, the Herberts were there looking for some R&R, just like we were:

We had a great time visiting with them, which was what we expected. So, my guess is that this won’t be the last of our family meet-ups over the coming years.

Smalls Falls

There will be a “Then and Now” post at some point from this hike…but that’s for another time. Smalls Falls doesn’t really have much of a trail — there are lots of little paths and pathways that meander up along the falls and to another tributary that runs parallel to it.

As tends to happen with group shots, getting all three kids to actually look at the camera, keep their eyes open, and smile at the same time is next to impossible. But, we had Carson in pure Carson form:

And…then we had Alana being charming:

We got to watch a couple that was being “very unsafe” (consensus of all of us). The guy jumped off this rock and then, clearly, was twisting the arm of his girlfriend to do the same, which she eventually did (the picture didn’t have to be this blurry…but it’s all I got):

It was easily 20 feet down to the water, and there were some extremely unsafe rapids immediately downstream.

Angel Falls

Angel Falls was a longer drive and then a mile-long hike in that included wading through several water crossings. Unfortunately, while trying to find an easier crossing at one of these, I took a spill…while carrying Alana. She landed on her bottom, and I took a chunk of skin off and bruised the pad of my left hand. Julie was immediately and decisively anointed the Alana-carrier at that point. By Alana.

The falls are pretty impressive — 90′ with a lot of water. Carson and Jack at the base of them:

Carson, Jack, and Jordan posing on the big rock at the base of the falls:

Bob throws the kids off the rock and declares himself ruler of all that he can see:

And by “throws,” I mean, “Gently helps them climb down,” of course.

Probably not the most environmentally responsible thing to do…but damn hard to resist.

If you ranked the Wilsons in order from 1 to 5 as to who was most interested/willing to get into the water, it would look something like this:

1. Me
2. Alana (a very close second)
3. Carson
4. .
5. .
6. .
7. .
8. .
9. Benton
10. Julie

Benton waded in a number of times, but his actual swimming time was so limited and brief that it was not captured by any cameras. Julie waded in a few times…and that’s as far as she got.

Alana got in the first time by jumping off the dock (not this picture). She was wearing her floatie suit and holding on to my hands, but I let her go completely under and then bob back up. Her eyes were open really wide and she came up and sputtered, “That’s cold!”

And that was it. She then proceeded to jump in a half-dozen more times, even without holding on to my hands as she jumped. And, she got to the point where I wasn’t holding onto her in the water, either. She’d hold her hands up and proudly proclaim, “No hands!”

Carson also enjoyed jumping off the dock, and we got a couple of half-way decent pictures of that.

And, there was plenty of wading around for the purposes of finding rocks to skip across the water.

The Herbert Kids — Jack and Jordan — put all of the Wilsons to shame. But, that was expected — we’ve always suspected they were a bit cold-blooded. More on our visit with the Herberts in a bit.

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(If you don’t see the satellite view, you may need to click on the “View Larger Map” link to pull it up in a browser.)

We’ve got a series of posts coming that cover our week at the cabin. This post is all about the various paddles we took on the lake. My folks keep a tandem canoe and a couple of sea kayaks there, and they got a lot of use. Having grown up canoeing and canoe-camping quite a bit…I’m excited by the kids’ enthusiasm!

It took a little experimenting to figure out how to position my 200-lb. body (um…on a generous scale) in the canoe with the kids in a way that didn’t have them riding out of the water. First, I tried kneeling on one of the thwarts (with Carson):

This worked well balance-wise, but was brutal on my knees and not particularly comfortable on my tush.

From then on, every time we got in the canoe, we paddled it backwards, so I could sit in the bow seat (facing backwards) and whomever was in the bow would sit in the stern (facing backwards). Hmmm… If you paddle a canoe backwards, is the bow still the bow? With Alana in this arrangement:

I still kneeled occasionally, but I kept my life jacket off to use as padding on the bottom of the boat. Much better.

On Thursday, Carson, Benton, and I paddled just over 2 miles to the Rangeley town center. Benton’s idea was that Carson would paddle on the way over, and he would paddle on the way back (quietly telling me that he thought Carson might just decide to ride back in the car with Alana and Julie, who were meeting us there). As we departed from the dock at the cabin:

Doesn’t the water look nice and calm? It was. I’d noticed during the week that the prevailing wind was a west wind when it picked up, and we were paddling pretty much due east, so Benton’s plan seemed like a good one, as I would have a stronger paddler on the way back if the wind was blowing. While we were in town, we ate lunch, had some ice cream, did a little shopping, spent some time in the public library (free wi-fi, so I could check in with work), and got ready to head back. The wind had indeed picked up.

And Benton had decided that he wanted to ride back in the car with Julie and Alana. Doh!

Carson was game to paddle back with me. He paddled for the first half-mile and then got engrossed with the small rubber lizard (dubbed “Lizzie”) that he had purchased in town. Paddling solo into a stiff headwind in a tandem canoe. I’ve got good form. I can take it.

Until Lizzie “jumped” into the water when Carson dangled him over the side for a drink. He floated, fortunately, so I was able to retrieve him fairly quickly, but I was then turned broadside to the wind in open water. To Carson’s credit, he gamely grabbed his paddle when I told him I needed some help to get us pointed into the wind again, and he was a help. After that, he went back to Lizzie-time.

Back at the cabin, Benton was well-rested and wanted to do some sea kayaking. The next thing I knew, he and I were paddling (separately) a mile west into that same headwind up to Hunter’s Cove. Much easier in a kayak, and I was impressed that Benton completely had the hang of things by that point. He spent a lot of time in one of the kayaks:

Carson did some kayaking as well, but the kayak that had pedals that were adjustable far enough forward for the kids to reach was my dad’s, oddly enough, and it is a bit of a tank as sea kayaks go. Still, Carson could fairly consistently maneuver himself and got to where he’d paddle 10-20 yards out from shore and back:

Alana even got into the action (note that the stern is cropped out of the picture…to obscure the firm grip I had on the boat!):

Julie, too (take note of her here, as you won’t see her at all in the post of us in the water):

Probably one of my favorite pictures from the trip was a hastily snatched moment of full family cooperation around a dancing bear statue in a courtyard we stumbled upon:

We also encountered a massive spider outside the art museum (click the image to view a larger version):

Alana tried out her Mission Impossible skills at a large war memorial:

And Carson tried out what it would be like to be memorialized on a coin at the Ottawa mint:

Carson also transformed himself into Obi Wan Wilson with a hotel bathrobe:

And Alana tried out my sunglasses:

All in all, we had a fairly action-packed day+ in Ottawa. We also managed to squeeze in a swim in the hotel pool, check out the locks that ran right past the hotel (waiting long enough to watch three boats move from one lock to another…if not all the way through the entire process), and take in a light show that was performed on the side of the main parliament building. From there, it was on to Rangeley, Maine on Monday…