We hosted our first orange trailer this week…a t@b…with blond chicks in complimentary orange t-shirts. The way Nancy and Cheryl drew a crowd, you would have thought they were rock star divas! They were only here a few days but their legend lives on!

This is also the first time we’ve splatter painted… and you haven’t lived until you put water color paints in the middle of a table, put a pine bough in the hand of each child and tell them their goal is to splatter paint…preferably onto the paper…oh what fun we had! Everyone received three sheets of paper. The first was used for squiggly blue lines. The second was painted with green squiggles and the third was splattered with every color in the rainbow. Once every one and every sheet was painted, the assembly began. The blue sheet became the ocean, the green squiggles became seaweed and the splatters became sea stars, fish and sharks…it’s definitely a project we’ll be doing again and I imagine the results are hanging on refrigerators from here to New Jersey…

And then the surprise came. I woke up Monday morning and Steven said “pack your bags with casual cloths and biking gear, we leave in thirty minutes.” In fifteen years we’ve only been away for a few days at a time if we left together…and then only from November to April. I argued a bit and felt ridiculous as I climbed in the truck (who leaves during the busy season?) and then I got nervous…were they packing me away because I seem too short tempered?…But no, Elaine, Bob, Kaylin and Al had worked together with Dad and Steven so that we could take a quick trip to Vinalhaven before he went back to school. When I started to relax and get excited about our unexpected trip I got the backpack stuffed and even remembered to bring a drop spindle with some coveted silk and camel hair roving…I was going on vacation!

We drove to Rockland and boarded the ferry once we had put together a picnic lunch along the way. The ferry ride is about 90 minutes and every moment is scenic…we saw more dolphins and seals than you could count. Once we powered through the Rockland Harbor and the small lobster boats, we were moving from one side of the ferry to the other to see the sailboats and schooners that call Penobscot Bay home in the summertime. We motored past the Rockland Breakwater Light and were reminded of how short a mile’s walk looks from a distance.

Vinalhaven is a perfect getaway destination, whether for an afternoon or several days because the town in Carver’s Harbor is vibrant, the land preserves are both plentiful and spectacular and it feels like another world…we brought only our bikes and never felt pressed by the traffic on the roads. We stayed at the Tidewater Motel and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it…the folks were friendly, our room was spotless, the coffee was excellent and they offer organic granola that we put into the backpack each morning. The roads and the tiny islands were dripping with red raspberries so we started each morning with granola and berries and ended each evening with berries and ice cream…and in between ate homemade blueberry pie and fresh fried haddock…looking back, it’s a good thing that we did so much biking;-)