This first one, David is pinning flowers on Paul.  David pinned flowers on all the guys.  It was fun getting to know him and extremely helpful all day.

I’m sure you can figure out what’s going on here.

And this was probably one of the best shots of the day.

My dad grew up in Shanghai, raised by his grandmother.  The rest of his family had already moved to Hong Kong.  He’s always been a very bright man, but realized that the burden of college would be too much for his family.  He attended a junior college and became a commissioned radio officer for the merchant marines.  He spent six years on the water before meeting my mom, at which point he realized that he needed to have a land based life.  He told my mom that he was going to leave the service and move to the US.  My mom was at that point planning to go to Rutgers for her master’s degree.

He first landed in LA, where he worked for two months in a photo development store.  The owner there was apparently not very honest, and cheated my dad out of his salary.  Angry, my dad moved to NY, where he began working as a bus boy in a Chinese restaurant, and moved his way up: waiter, bar tender, then a manager.  Eventually he moved to a larger restaurant but disliked the supervisors and quit.  During this time he had already started formulating his idea of opening an auto shop.  He still needed some more income at the time so he began driving a cab in NYC.  I’m still confirming dates, I believe this is around the time my parents got married.  He eventually opened his auto shop the month before I was born, which probably presented it’s own difficulties.

My dad, is a very perceptive man.  He is can read people very easily, and has a very refined understanding of his customers and their thoughts.  While he never thinks of himself as being very sophisticated, I can see where Kevin get’s a lot of his characteristics.  I’m more like my mom when it comes to these things, more gullible and trusting, but thankfully I got both of their desires to learn and be inquisitive.  In case I forget to tell my kids this, or they don’t get to experience this, your grandfather lives by a very simple creed.  Loyalty to your family is always primary.  Do whatever it takes to protect them and provide for them, everything else is secondary.  I know we have all been blessed with his steadfastness in this belief.

Thanks Dad, and happy birthday.

Late in the night Sarah awoke to mysterious sounds outside.  We got out of the tent and noticed our bag of Doritos got dragged to the edge of camp.  We put the chips back on the picnic table and went back to sleep.  In the morning as we had breakfast we noticed little paw marks on the picnic table, indicitave of a racoon.  The trash bag was torn open too so looks like a raccoon wanted to share in our bounty.  We spent the morning cleaning up the camp and packing everything into the truck.  We left for Boston around 1030.

Paul was designated driver since he slept more than anyone else.  He made it the whole 4 hours to Boston where we checked into a Hilton just outside the city.  It was a pretty nice room and we relaxed/showered for a few hours before we met up with Jae for dinner.  Since we had skipped lunch I improvised some egg and cheese sandwiches in the microwave using our left over Egg Beaters.  hmmmmm yummmy.

We drove into Boston, which was horrible, around 1730.   The Chinese restaurant was quite good and Sam stole the check from Jae.  Jae felt bad and took us out to Cambridge Brewing Company.  We ordered their sampler and settled on two choices.  Overall the beers weren’t very good, but they salvaged it a bit with their Cambridge Amber.  Paul had to go back to New Haven that night so Sarah and Sunny drove him to the train station while I hung out with Sam, Jae, and Mike (one of Sam’s classmates from UVA) and his wife.  I think she felt a little out of place so she took off early.  By the time Sarah and Sunny got back we had pretty much finished two pitchers, although I think I drank most of it.  We dropped everyone off at their respective locations and went back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.  All in all, just a travel day and some good company.

Now, not to get too sidetracked but what defines a pond?  This “pond” was really big, and seemed to be more lake size than pond.   I’m not sure if this nice EPA definition really helps much, but maybe Seal Cove Pond is really shallow.  Still it’s an awfully long walk around, and by the time we had hiked about 30 minutes we had barely made it more than a quarter way around.  After finishing our short hike we went back to camp for lunch. On they way we stopped by at an old farmer’s stand and picked up a quart of blueberries and some corn.  Those blueberries were fabulous.  Nothing like fresh fruit.

We ate the left over bulgogi and began perusing the KOA’s activities guide for stuff to do.  Turns out there is a small brewery in Bar Harbor , and they offered tours everyday from 1500-1700.  It was almost 1500 so we cleaned up quickly and made our way over.  The brewery is really small and basically consisted of this couple’s basement.  What really stood out was that during the tasting we were offered samples of five of their beers and a sample of one of their soda syrups.  Their Harbor Lighthouse Ale and Cadillac Mountain Stout were fabulours.  The rootbeer and blueberry syrups were great too.  We ended up buying a few bottles of syrup, a Cadillac Mountain Stout, and a Peach Ale for the road.  If you are ever in the area you have to stop by for a taste.

On our way out of Bar Harbor we decided to go play mini-golf. We had a coupon in the book for a $1.50 off admission so it was a good time.  Sunny and I both had hole-in-one’s  and we won a free game for it.  Overall Sunny and Sarah kicked the boy’s butts.  Now that we were nice and hungry we tried to go to Poor Boy’s Gourmet , but the wait was too long.  We ended up at a very forgettable pub/restaurant.  While my fish and chips was ok as was the baked brie, nothing else was really that exciting.  We walked around on Main street some and saw the harbor.  After getting back to camp Paul collapsed into the tent and went right to sleep.  The rest of us stayed up a bit longer and roasted some corn in the camp fire.

For a day that was suppose to be relaxing, we ended up doing quite a bit!

I think I woke up first this morning.  I ambled my way to the restroom to cleanup and lit the citronella candles on the way out.  As I come back to the tent the rest of the party is gently rising from the tent, hungry.  We broke out some eggs, bacon, sausage, onions, mushrroms, and peppers.  While we ate we decided that we wanted to go kayaking.  We called one place and they said they were all booked up.  Now here’s the thing, instead of hanging up, he asked us to hold and CALLED the other kayaking companies around the island and found us a slot for 7!

We weren’t scheduled to kayak until 1530 that afternoon so we went back out to Cadillac Mountain to hike an easier trail up.  It was still a pretty difficult climb for us, and Jae/Jae turned back about a quarter way up.  As I moved further up my heels became blistered and by the time we were at a good halfwy point I pretty much couldn’t keep going.  We took a number of pictures along the way and turned back.  By then it was around noon and we drove up to the top of Cadillac Mountain (nature beat us twice, so we figured we needed an assist) and had sandwiches up top.  We took a great relaxing rest up top then proceeded to Maine State Kayak .

The tour was great.  We got in our shoes and put some stuff in the dry bags. They gave us a quick explanation of rowing and had us get into the tandem kayaks.  The rowing was farely easy, but many of the ladies would take breaks along the way.  Sarah was kind enough to keep her oars out of the water while she rested so I wasn’t rowing against the extra drag.  The landscape in the area is absolutely beautiful.  I can totally see getting lost just staring at the landscape.  We’re totally coming back with the kids in the future.  The tour was about 4 hours total, and we took a rest on a private island beach about halfway through.  Despite explicit instructions to urinate in the ocean, a few in our party decided to try and go in the bushes.  They got a little scolding from the guide.

Jane, our guide, is a Chicago native, who came out to Maine for the last few years.  She’s moving to Indiana to finish her education degree and will eventually be a middle school teacher.  Good luck Jane, it was a great tour.

It was pretty late and Jae/Jae had to get back.  She had a citizenship interview the next morning in Boston, so they had to leave that night.  While we prepped dinner, they built a fire to make S’mores.  Jae’s never had S’mores before so we insisted that they stay at least long enough for that.  We made rice and bulgogi for dinner and rested through the night.  It was a really busy day and we were all pretty exhausted.

So we’re back in Maryland now.  It’s good to be home, back to civilization.   The trip overall was great.  Good to be away from TV and computers for awhile and spend time with family and friends.  I think I’ll break up my posts so that each covers a day.  Hopefully this gets me in the habit of posting every day or so. 

It was decided that we would leave bright and early Monday morning.  My mom suggested that Sunny and Sam stay over at her place so that we didn’t have to loop into Manhattan to pick them up.  We all got up around 0300 and probably got on the road by 0400.  In the pitch black morning we fired up the GPS , and headed out towards New Haven to pick up Paul.  It was a really quick trip and got to New Haven around 0530 and proceeded our way up to Boston to meet up with a couple of Sam’s friends, Jae and Jae. (husband and wife, I can’t spell their actual names )

We met at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast at 0800. I had a giant breakfast of Country Fried Steak, white gravy, eggs, biscuts, and grits, plus enough coffee to drown a horse.  I got to sleep in the back on our way out and swapped halfway through at our next gas stop.  We borrowed my dad’s 1992 Toyota Land Cruiser .  We got an amazing 12 MPG out of it.  We got to the KOA around 1430, checked in, pitched our tent and made cheesesteaks for lunch.  The mosquitos were brutal and the bug spray didn’t seem to help out at all.  Within 20 minutes I had a dozen bites on my legs, and Sam had this giant bite on his forehead.

Around 1600 we headed out to the park to pay our fees (only $20 per vehicle!) and just survey the area. We wanted to climb a trail up Cadillac Mountain, but about 50 meters in I smashed my head on a rock and we decided it was too dangerous, given how dark it was about to become.  Besides, Sarah’s steel toe boots were not workinig real well for her.  We walked an easy trail for another hour and then headed out to find an LLBean outlet store we had seen on our way through Ellsworth.  We lucked upon a pair of boots which fit Sarah well.  We even got a great recommendation to a nice lobster house for the night.  What we weren’t ready for was that everything closes by 2100 in the area, so with only 10 minutes to spare we raced over for dinner at Union River Lobster Pot .  The meal was indeed satisfying, we all had lobster, and mussels, clams, and New England Clam Chowder.  They had a 4.5 pound lobster in the tank, and one of the wranglers even “hypnotized” it for us.

We made our way back to camp and settled in for the night.  At that point we had been up for quite awhile   A few of us took showers in the remarkably clean shower facility in the center of camp, soothing our sore bodies and relieving some of the itching.  We had made a quick stop by the Walmart on our way back and picked up some citronella candles, but it just seemd that the mosquitoes for the rest of the trip were just not nearly as bad.

I’ll have pictures up soon.  I’ve just been really busy catching up at work.  Good to be back!

I tried to play tennis with my father-in-law but ended up spraining my ankle early.  We went swimming with Isabelle the first time and she really loved it.  Only thing was I think she swallowed a bit too much pool water and vomited.  We took that as a cue to exit the pool.  As far as we can tell no one noticed.  The suite was spacious with two bedrooms, a kitchen, two baths, and a living room.  They had an odd layout of the doors since I think the suite was built as a one bedroom and they have a bedroom attached through one of those secure partition doors so that the single room could be rented out separately.  The kitchen was fully functional so I made breakfast each morning.

This leads to the two frustrating things about Split Rock.  They kindof treat the resort like a cruise ship.  They charge you for everything, tennis court rentals, movie theater, bowling …  They try to mask it by using a room charging system but it just felt awkward.  When I sprained my ankle only 30 minutes into our two hours on the court they didn’t offer to refund the un-used time.  I can understand if there was a huge queue of people who wanted to play and our reservation kept someone else from playing, but there was no one else there.

Finally the restaurants are pretty bad.  They claim to have three really good restaurants at the resort.  We went to their American style in the Galleria and the Italian themed one in the lodge.  Both were pretty poor in quality and service time.  I think our experience would have been a lot better if the food was up to par.  We ended up going to Burger King, a 20 minute drive out of the resort, for lunch because we just weren’t up for another meal there.  If we ever go again, I’m probably going to fill up the cooler with marinated meats and groceries and just cook all our meals in the kitchen.

It was a good trip though.  Isabelle had fun and got to hang with her grandparents.  Hopefully we’ll find things to do in Orlando so she can hang out with my parents a little more.

So we had an eventful July 4th.  We went up to NY to see my dad on Sunday and drove down to Philly to see Sarah’s parents on Monday.  We went shopping for supplies on the 4th, and on the way back got into a traffic accident.  I probably shouldn’t go into details since, as the TV cop says, “Anything you say, can and will be used against you in a court of law.”  Suffice it to say my right passenger door was smashed along with minor damage to the surrounding panels, trim, windows …  Good thing is no one was really hurt, some bumps, bruises, and minor cuts.  

We drove the car back up to NY for my dad to fix.  He ordered all the parts and had them waiting in the shop for the insurance adjuster to show up.  He finally came by on a Friday afternoon, and the repairs are getting started.  We ended up having a good week with family on an impromptu vacation.  It’s been nice working at JHU, everyone was understanding and more than willing to let me have the time off.  So now I’m back and driving my mom’s car for a few weeks until we can get back up to NY to pick up the car.  Just in case you were wondering, it was Sarah’s nice little sporty car that got hit, and not my old clunker (shucks!)

Hope everyone else had a good vacation.  Congratulations to Andrew on the wedding.  Sorry we couldn’t be there.