Vacation Wrapup

Upon seeing this sign, I couldn’t help but wonder: What exactly are the “Thunder Hole Restrooms” and what makes them significant enough to include on a sign? Are we talking about an outhouse with an embarassingly loud echo?

One realization I had this past week was that the Unites States’ greatest asset may not be its Constitution, its military superiority, or its wealth, but its geography. I’ve advised Pam that if I ever go off on one of my angry rants about moving to Canada, she should just say one word: “Maine.” As two days of rainy, foggy weather — in a large house with no heating save for one working fireplace — proved, North equals Cold.

We did make the best of the remainder of our trip, but saw little of the sun until the day of our departure. On Friday, we drove the Park Loop Road, we shopped in Bar Harbor, we got a look at Thunder Hole (for which, I discovered, the restrooms are apparently only a sideline). Friday, with fog replacing the rain, my brother and I climbed the Beehive, we all took another nature hike, visited the Bass Harbor Lighthouse, drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain, and had a very pleasant dinner at the Colonel’s Bakery and Restaurant — after being snubbed by an exceedingly arrogant “big-fish-in-a-litle-pond” manager at the Burning Tree. Afterward, we caught a water taxi for our last trip back to Sutton Island through nearly impenetrable fog; it’s hard to imagine what they did in the days before radar and GPS tracking — except for the omnipresent lobster-trap markers, we could have been in the middle of the Atlantic.

For the return trip, we opted to stick to the highways, and made much better time to Portland — especially given our later-than-planned departure time. The return flight was uneventful, and by dusk we wearily staggered into our home... to find the air conditioner on the fritz.

I just can’t catch a break in that whole temperature arena...