Vacation at Last

Truck loaded up for the week

Mid-August and here I am at Madawaska Lake again, this time with Carol and Patches. We arrived Sunday and Ian pulled in Monday morning after driving up from his new apartment in Portsmouth, NH. We’d hoped Ali would have been able to join him here but a possible job interview had nixed that plan. Leading up to coming this week the weather has been forecast as a mixed bag. Cloudy and spots of brief light and heavy rain escorted us during our trip her. Margaret was on board for the ride as she’d been down our way for a short visit so hitching a ride home with us was nicely timed.
Monday began very foggy – the lake was entirely shrouded in it. As the day progressed the sun came out and mostly clear skies dominated the remainder of the day. After Ian got settled in we all took a bike ride along South Shore Road. Late in the afternoon Carol and I made our first Madawaska Lake foray with the new kayaks. Grilled some steaks for supper. Shortly after we walked out to nearby Route 161 which gave us a clear view to the northern sky where we were able to view a 4 minute passing of the International Space Station.

View towards the east of the camp

First tee and fairway at the Caribou Country Club
(Panorama view)

Patches hanging out during
the afternoon reading and
nap time. We celebrated
his thirteenth birthday a
few days before.

Tuesday was a near perfect day, Ian and I made it out to the golf course in Caribou for 9 holes. I lost only two balls, one irretrievable and the other vanished off the face of the earth right beside a forward tee, a wayward shot to be sure. Not to matter, just great to be out on a nice course with Ian. Afterwards he changed into bike riding gear and got on his bike which he’d thrown in the back of the truck and peddled his way back to the camp 14+ miles. Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent reading and napping lakeside. Supper was grilled chicken thighs with a garden slaw Carol put together the she uses vanilla yogurt to bind together.

Passing canoeists enjoying the calm water

Sunset

Ian beginning our morning's kayak trek.

Wednesday began with clear skies, Carol went off to accompany her mother to a PT session so Ian and I took the kayaks along the south shore camps until getting to an uninhabited section of woods and then drifted along there until getting to a wetland and a thin rock outcropped area that we can see from the camp across the lake.

Seagulls with no sea to be seen and
a tern for good measure.

Hung around there a bit watching a nearby loon and a small colony of “landlocked” seagulls that a tern seemed to tolerate keeping company with.

We then crossed the lake directly back to the camp. By noon Carol had returned so the three of us took a drive up to Fort Kent for lunch at Shirley’s Diner where my mother and I ate during last year’s vacation. The return trip was along Route 1 to Frenchville where we turned off to pass through St. Agatha (pronounced san-a-get), Sinclair and Cross Lake. As we neared returning to the camp we ran into a thunderstorm barreling through the region and once back at the camp found the porch had taken in a lot of rain through the screens soaking the padding of the chairs and everything else left there. Margaret and her sister Carolyn stopped by for a visit bringing freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. For supper I grilled a couple of pork loins – Carol did up a batch of her homemade raspberry ice cream for dessert.