Friday, August 11 I spent the day packing and cleaning things up in our apartment. TheBoy came home from work sometime around 5.30 and I cut his hair. We left just before 7 after a stop for gas, heading north for TheBoy’s mom’s house to stay the night. We missed the exit for Albany where we were stopping for dinner at Burgerville because we were both so tired, yet we still made it to our destination by 8.30. Went to bed around 10.30pm and slept fitfully until 3am when we got up.
Saturday, August 12 On the road to the airport by 3.30am. We arrived at 4.30am, two hours before our flight was scheduled to leave and it was a zoo. There was a line of people waiting for curbside check-in 50 feet long in front of the doors. Then, we went in and stood in line for 10 minutes waiting to check-in because we couldn’t see the e-ticket check-in. When we didn’t budge an inch in those 10 minutes, I left TheBoy in line and went to track down the e-ticket kiosk. Once located, it took maybe 20 minutes to get checked in and our luggage dropped at the xray scanners. Security moved swiftly and we were at the gate with an hour and a half to spare. The flight left on time but landed in Atlanta a bit late and we rushed to catch our second flight which was [luckily] delayed a half hour. After landing in Maine, we headed further up the coast with my mom and sister, ending up at home there at 9.30pm eastern. A long day.
Sunday, August 13 My dad’s birthday. Spent the day at his house with him. My younger sister arrived around 5.30pm and we had a big dinner of mostly meat. TheBoy got to eat fiddlehead ferns for the first time and proclaimed them delicious. He’s a smart boy.
Monday, August 14 Went to Bangor to try on wedding dresses. Found and bought one:
Ignore the train, it will be perma-bustled in a french bustle. Went to various other stores then drove back down to the coast stopping to pick up lobsters, then at Young’s Lobster Pound for muscles and clams. Had delicious lobster dinner at home, at which TheBoy ate a whole lobster for the first time ever.
Tuesday, August 15 Younger sister’s birthday. Spent at my dad’s, visiting with my aunt who drove up from New York to visit us all. Another big dinner, this time muscles [20 lbs] and steamer clams [5 lbs] as well as various meats. Evening finished by watching the whipped cream edging slid off the leftover ice cream cake. Way more fun than it ought to have been.
Wednesday, August 16 Drove to see my mom’s brother and some of his family. Are shown a large amount of taxidermied game as that is what he does. Went to Hussey’s General Store in Windsor, Maine where we had planned to try on wedding dresses. This plan foiled by having bought one on Monday. Bought a knife for cutting our giant picnic sandwich and some devil dogs as TheBoy had never tried them. He agreed later it was good.
Went tourist trap shopping all afternoon then home for a delicious mustard coated turkey breast dinner that my mom made. Also, roasted broccoli is delicious!
Thursday, August 17 Drove to Bar Harbor to visit the Abbe Museum.
Friday, August 18 Spent day at Dad’s, with visiting aunt.
Saturday, August 19 Did laundry, spent day with Mom hanging out due to spasms in TheBoy’s back. Packed up to leave.
Sunday, August 20 Left house at 10am. Headed to LL Bean in Freeport. Absolute zoo. Picked up last of souvineer gifts needed. Headed for lunch at Outback. Arrived at airport nearly 3 hours before flight is scheduled to leave. Check-in, then peruse crappy newstand with mom. Mom leaves with 2.5 hours left to departure and we go through security. Slow, but easy. Get inside. 5pm, realize that our flight is scheduled to start boarding 2 minutes before the flight currently at our gate is set to leave. Worry because our connecting flight in Atlanta leaves exactly 1 hour after our first flight lands and we have to get from one terminal to another while there. Flight before us finally leaves only a few minutes late. However, our flight is now pushed back 5 minutes. The minutes crawl by, and no plane arrives at the gate. Plane finally arrives and deplanes at about 5.50pm. Realize there’s very little chance we will make connecting flight. Shortly after 6pm we board. Five minutes later we are told we’re on hold because of bad weather and that we’re going to sit on board for 30 minutes. The 7 year old boy sitting next to me has a yowling cat in a travel cage shoved under the seat in front of him. 6.30pm comes, we are deplaned and told they don’t know when or if we’ll reboard. Speak to gate agents who don’t reschedule us [our flight is final flight out that night, and the next day’s flights are all booked.] They give us a back-up flight itinerary which means that if we make it to Atlanta, but miss our connection, we will automatically be booked on the next flight out, at 9.40am. 9pm, we are back on board and cleared for take-off. We land in Atlanta at 11.25, and finally deplane about 20 minutes later. We find out we did miss our connector, it left at 11pm [also delayed.] We go to the e-ticket kiosk and scan our back-up and it checks us in and prints boarding passes for our flight the next morning. We find hotel information and start calling, finally finding a place with openings on the third call. We then have to fight our way through hotel shuttle parking and get the last two seats on the Holiday Inn Express shuttle. During the madness, I nearly have a panic attack because I am exhausted and stressed. Get to HIE and get a room, thankfully.
Monday, August 21 Fall asleep at 1am. Highly recommend Holiday Inn Express! Good beds, nice linens, neat shampoo containers. Wake up at 5am, shower and redress in Sunday’s clothes as our luggage is still checked. Feel it will be unlikely that it will arrive with us the next morning although they claim it will. Partake of the free breakfast. Good breakfast. Check out and leave for airport on the 6.30 shuttle as we were warned by gate agent the night before that security would be a bear. Through security [including secondary screening] by 6.40. Take train to correct terminal and wait at gate, getting more food after about an hour or so when we are finally awake. Board on time, leave at 9.40 on the dot, land at PDX at 11.45. All of our luggage arrives, praise be! TheBoy’s mom is there to pick us up and we have lunch with her at Fuddrucker’s in Tualatin. Pick up our car at her house and discuss some wedding stuff. Leave there at 4pm, arrive home in Eugene at 5.30. Force selves to stay awake until 9pm when we pass out.
And that is what happened on my summer vacation!
