Last week was vacation week for the Soule sisters and Aunt Helen, Uncle Rich, and cousin Samantha came up from Vermont to spend the week at Hancock, so a family camping trip was planned for two nights at Seawall. We kicked it off with an afternoon and overnight at the cottage on Wednesday so we could (theoretically) get an early start in the park on Thursday.
The Marks family loaded up (and I mean LOADED) up the family truckster...
and trekked to Jordan's Snack Bar just outside Ellsworth for onion rings and milk shakes (oh yeah, and burgers, too). We arrived at the cottage to find no one there and no house key in my pocket. Mum arrived, but she, too, had no keys (having given them to Helen), so we stuffed Jeremy in through the bathroom window and he dutifully let us in to use the facilities, lock the place back up and meet the rest of the family at a nearby lake.
Little Tunk Pond was not someplace we went as kids. We simply didn't know it was there! It is a lovely gem of a place, with a tiny parking area a short walk away. A hidden treasure:
After a relaxing swim and some sand city engineering (which involved creating dams, building sand huts, and then diabolically flooding the village), we headed back to the cottage. From there, I went for a 4-mile run, with Helen escorting me on her bike, towing Sam in the bike trailer. It was fun to explore the nearby neighborhood where we used to walk as kids and beyond via my new hobby. There were lots of well-maintained seaside cottages with lovely gardens and I was rewarded with a gorgeous view at my turnaround point. We even passed a series of signs that went like this:
Go Slow
Enjoy the View
So, Bikers, Kids,
And Joggers
Can Too! Thanks!
How nice of the locals to include all three of us in their request!
After that, it was a nice big family dinner and bed time for everyone. All the regular beds were occupied, plus Jeremy slept in an ancient overstuffed armchair with an ottoman, and Samantha slept on the floor (following a briefly traumatic falling-off-the-bottom-bunk mishap). The cottage felt just right, three generations full: two parents/grandparents, two daughters/moms, two sons-in-law/dads, 4 kids/grandkids, and even a grandkitty.
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