Last Friday, four of my in-laws arrived. Now, before you send me a a sympathy card or suggest I buy a box of Calgon, you should know that we’re having a great time! Well, I am anyway.
On Saturday, we had so many people to take to Bar Harbor that we had to take two vehicles. The men drove in one car and I drove the women and Max and Mason in Vixy (my new / used mini-van). We were going to meet the guys at the top of Cadillac Mountain. Since I almost never drive (Richard drives while I enjoy the scenery), I wasn’t positive I knew where the turn-off was…but I thought I had a pretty good idea. Richard offered to program the GPS for me but I said, “We’ve been to Bar Harbor dozens of times. Don’t worry!”
I thought we were supposed to take a right where the road splits at the gas station so that’s what we did. We kept driving and driving and I started to think maybe I’d missed the turn-off. We pulled over and I turned on the GPS. After five minutes or so of fiddling with it, I found an entrance to the park. It was another few miles up the road. Funny, I thought, because I distinctly remember it not being NEARLY this far from the turn-off!
We found the turn, and entered the park. Then, we encountered a ranger station where we had to pay $20 to get in. Hmmm, I thought, we never had to pay to get to the top of the mountain before. Later, we passed Sand Beach and Thunder Hole. Gosh, I thought, we usually see those AFTER we see the mountain. We ended up behind several buses full of tourists and moved at a snail’s pace. We had spotty cell phone reception and we kept trying to alert the guys that we were running a bit behind. Just before we finally got to the top of the mountain, I figured out we’d entered the back of the park, not the front. We ended up arriving about an hour later than the guys and I’d driven about 40 miles farther than if we’d gone the right way. Everybody was really nice about it but, well, I can imagine what was going through their minds.
We saw the mountain, which was beautiful but FREEZING, and we then drove down to Bar Harbor. I didn’t have any problem finding that. After shopping and dinner, we headed for home. The guys had parked somewhere else so we were on our own again. That was probably the first sign something might go wrong.
In Ellsworth, they’ve changed the main road where they now divert eastbound traffic to the right, and then back to the main road again about halfway through town. When we got to the Home Depot, I thought I recognized the car dealership in front of us so I turned right. We drove for about half an hour before I realized that nothing, and I mean NOTHING, looked familiar. I kept my thoughts to myself and started concentrating. The road was primarily dark – not many buildings at all and certainly no streetlights. Another thing that bothered me was that we appeared to be the ONLY people on the road. Not one other car was anywhere in sight. How odd. We happened upon a large church that I knew I’d never seen before and then I knew, beyond any doubt, we were lost. I finally admitted out loud we were in a pickle. Nobody groaned out loud or voiced any anger but, again, I could pretty much read their minds.
I pulled over, and again turned on the GPS. I told it to take us to Bangor and it told me to take a u-turn and head 30 miles back to Ellsworth. Turns out we were on Highway 1 North…heading to Canada!
When we were almost back to Bangor, they calculated I’d taken them about 100 miles out of their way that day.
They were supposed to tour lighthouses on the coast the next day but, oddly enough, when I offered to drive the girls, they decided to stay home and do some shopping in Bangor instead. Hmmm…
This week’s Maxism:
Max learned long ago that pointing your middle finger at someone is forbidden because it’s the same as yelling a bad word at them.
Last week, Mason was pulling on Max’s finger, over and over again. Max kept trying to brush him off, thinking he was just teasing him, but I knew Mason was trying to make Max do the old “pull my finger” trick. He was hoping Max would make a fart sound for him, which always sends Mason into a fit of giggles.
However, Max was confused because Mason kept pulling on his middle finger, not his index finger. Max finally got exasperated and said, “Mason, stop trying to make me say the f-word!”
Hugs to all!
Angela
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