V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N…in the north woods.

Oh Cheeky Monkeys…what an adventure I’ve had.  Know where I went?  Noooo….not shopping, not couponing and not racing my little Volvo from one end of Bangor to the other (because I would never drive too fast anyway…hi Bangor PD!) looking for the best deals!  Because I was onnnnn……………………VACATION!  What?  Who does that?  Crazy rich people with too much time and money!!  Me!!  Do you know where we went?  Can you guess the exotic locale?  Hawaii?  Noooooo.  Try again.  Greece?  Nooooo..you’re getting colder, Cheeky Cheeksters!  And as a matter of fact, you’d have to get WAY COLDER, AS IN 47 degrees in July because I was in…THE GREAT NORTH WOODS OF MAINE!  True Story!  Pull up a chair, lemme tell you how this went down.

So, Mark.  Total workaholic.

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6 days a week, go-go-go-must-work-must-not-stop…you know the type.  (shameless plug..Evergreen Home & Hearth!  In Ellsworth and Brewer for your shopping convenience!)  So I was very surprised to hear him start talking about vacations awhile back.  Even more surprised when he shows me a listing online for a lakefront cabin waaaaaay up north.  As in, walk too far into the woods and find your butt in Canada up north.  And then….THEN….he surprises me by calling from work one day and saying he HAD BOOKED IT, ISN’T THAT EXCITING?   Cabin!  North woods!

Off we went.  Me, Mark, Hal & Mad.  Did I mention Hal?  The autistic kid who hates change, strange people and strange places?  Hahahahaha…oh, good times.  And that it was a 3.5 hour drive?  In Hurricane Arthur?  Hahhahahaha..whoo!  *stops to wipe tears of laughter*

One LONG, LOUD, tree and fallen power line dodging (really) drive up to the County later and we arrived.  Pouring rain, screaming wind…wait a minute..that’s not a cabin on a lake,  that’s a house on a lake!  With cathedral ceilings, wifi, DirecTV and a generator?  Hold up.  This is MY KIND OF CAMPING!  It can snow for all I care!  Get me in there!

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Well, the rain let up a bit, we got the truck and every soaked item in it into the house and had a look around.

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Hey now.  I LOVED this place.  It was a pretty big house, lots of bedrooms, loft master bedroom upstairs, fully stocked from towels to spatulas.  You name it, it was there and waiting for us.  OK…I’m starting to get the crazy, rich person vacation thing lure of the northern woods thing.  Birds?  I grew up in Maine for the most part and there were birds up there I’ve never seen before, as well as eagles, hawks, woodpeckers, cardinals, jays, just stupendous numbers of them.  And my personal favorites..

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These guys.  There were so many ducks!  There were a couple especially spoiled ducks that waited by the door every day for someone to come out and feed them.  Totally unafraid of humans, which is probably not the best thing if they don’t want to get their feathered bums shot off during duck season.

There was also some very dead wildlife.  In the house.  This took some getting used to.  Or in my 11 yr old’s case…lots of getting used to.

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Dead things aside, the view was so beautiful..such amazing sunsets!  I could get used to this.

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There were only a few things I had to adjust to up there.

1.  Bugs.  Never seen so many, so big in my life, and I lived in South Carolina and endured Palmetto bugs.  Which are essentially huge cockroaches that fly.  What is UP with the deer flies in the County?  I have never seen such aggressive, butt-headed bugs. The mosquitoes up there think Deep Woods Off is a turn on, and maybe someone from the County can tell me..what the heck with the moths that swarm the potato fields?  We were driving thru New Canada and it was like driving thru a hail storm of moths.  Entertaining, but gross.

2.  It’s cold, y’all.  Straight up 10 or more degrees colder than Bangor and it was 47 this morning when I woke up.  Shivering.  Possibly hypothermic.  Note to self…do not leave windows open and ceiling fans on in the north woods.

3.  You are OUT THERE, Cheeky Monkeys.  Out there.  Fort Kent was the closest town for shopping, 17 miles away.  Toilet paper?  Coffee creamer?  Better make sure you’ve got it going in, or otherwise you’re spending a lot of time on moose-infested roads trecking out to get what you need.

And by the by, how much did we like Fort Kent?  Those people, I swear..every single person was so nice and friendly, really small-town feel and I loved it.  I actually had to do a double take more than once, when I was greeted so warmly by a stranger, I thought I must know them and just couldn’t remember who they were.

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We stopped at a little shop called Stevie D’s and she had AWESOME cones!  Mad was a happy kiddo..Blue Goo flavor ice cream.  Too fun and again..super nice people.  We got to shop at the Good Shepherd thrift store, ’cause you KNOW I was gonna find a thrift store somewhere on vacation.  The ladies were so sweet to us and they had such great stuff!   And John’s Shurfine has prices equal to Bangor and the every single person treated us like we had shopped there forever.  I was surprised at their low prices since gas is $3.90 up there, I figured groceries would be way more as well.  We got excellent meat there for lower than what I’d pay at Hannaford here..go figure!

And Hallee?  You guys, she did really, really well.  She had her own bedroom so she could go in and shut the door if she needed to be away, and the house had a huge, glassed in porch with a large patio table and chairs and guess who did her puzzle out there all week?  She loved it!  Now, I’m not gonna lie.  By the end of the week Girlfriend had pretty much enjoyed all she was gonna enjoy and was ready to come home today.  BUT…that being said, she rocked it and I am so proud of her.  She got in the lake, flew a kite, made sand castles on the beach and went in to Ft. Kent with Mad and I for a morning..really did a great job in a situation that was really out of her comfort zone.

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It was a wonderful trip, and I’m glad we went, but boy am I happy to be home!  Fatzilla stayed at home with our wonderful niece Jen and I missed me some fat kitty.  I think she may have missed us a little bit, as well.

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Does she look like she may have lost a pound or two to you guys?  I think she went on a hunger strike while I was gone.  Or not.  She looks like she ate a moose.

Allyson Sorenson

About Allyson Sorenson

Bangor mom. BDN blogger. Volvo lover. Coffee drinker.