Vacation in Maine

We’re back. It was a busy five days, and of course there’s all the stuff to do at home after you get back from vacation that makes one wonder if it’s worth it! But this definitely was. Outside of the travel days. Sigh. Now if we could just figure out a way to get from one place to another without all the hassles, I’d be in line to sign up!

We spent the weekend with friends of ours, Thomas and Nancy Spear of Cushing, Maine. They have two sons, Micah (6) and Zach (2), who are a lot of fun to be around. On our first day in Maine, Roger went out with Thomas and his sternman, Rob, to drop lobster pots. Thomas said he’s behind in getting them out this year, but Roger didn’t mind. He loves learning new things and getting in on the action. This is Thomas loading pots onto his lobster boat, the Nancy Elaine.


Saturday evening, we drove over to Augusta and had dinner with son, Randy, and the other team members. Sunday we caught up with them again and enjoyed services at two churches, getting to see both of their drama presentations in the process. Randy accused me of crying almost before their military drama started. Excellent theme: the goodness of God—all the time. It was very touching.

After the rain we had on Sunday, we hoped that it would clear in time for our plans on Monday. God was good, and we had a beautiful day! We started with a hike on the breakwater close to the Spears’ home. It was a fairly easy walk out to the lighthouse at the end, and long enough for me to say I got my exercise in for the day.


We enjoyed sitting at the end of the breakwater, soaking in the sun.


Randy helped Zach make the mile and a half trek to and from the lighthouse at the breakwater a little easier. His mom and I are the ones in front. Sunni and Aaron travel with Randy this summer.


Randy went with us to Moody’s for lunch. Moody’s is a diner started back in the 1930s by Nancy’s great-grandfather. It is a very popular spot to eat at any time, day or night. Randy ordered a lobster roll, since Mom and Dad were paying and he hadn’t been able to afford to eat lobster on his own.

We met up again with the rest of the crew to take a trip out into the river to watch Thomas and his sternman haul lobster pots and bring in our dinner. It was quite the group on the boat: the six members of the Truth in Action drama team; Nancy and her two boys; the sternman’s daughter; and of course, the sternman and Thomas. (A couple of us were stoked up with Dramamine. After my last experience on that boat four years ago, I was very careful to take all precautions this time! Even though I was assured that we wouldn’t be going out into the Atlantic as we had on my previous trip.)

In this picture, Bill is on the left, then Ashley, Sunnie, Christi, me, and Randy.


Soon the men were hauling up the pots, taking out the keepers, throwing back the females who were producing eggs and other shell fish, like crabs, hermit crabs, and snails (abalone). Not that most of those aren’t edible; they weren’t what we were wanting for dinner that evening.


Here’s one we kept. . .and ate later.


On the way back in, Zach took a turn helping his dad steer.


The ride got a little "zig-zaggy" about then! But we all had a great time.

Then it was time to say good-bye to Randy again. But he’ll be home in two weeks to spend a little time before heading back to school in South Carolina for his final semester before graduation.

Next week, we’ll return to the good old grammar!