This time tomorrow we’ll be back in California (admittedly the wrong part of California), and I’ll start sorting through the pictures (and memories) of this trip to Grand Lake Stream, Maine.
Many fish were caught, but a week is never enough at Grand Lake Stream, and as the L&T’s mom pointed out, it was never meant to be.
In what I’ll call “the olden days,” people would come to a camp like this for a month, or better yet, the whole summer, and your vacation could take on that languid, relaxed pace that is both rejuvenating and memorable.
Today, a week is an eternity to the L&T and I, both of us quietly wrestling with jobs/client work while we’re supposed to be on vacation.
Surveys suggest today’s workforce believes a “vacation” is a long weekend with a restaurant visit thrown in, and the concept of a whole summer off is probably more tightly entwined with retirement (or death) than it is your working life.
It’s not a complaint as much as an observation — we presumably make these choices for ourselves — but you do wonder if we’re creating lives so fractured they’re more jigsaw puzzle than seamless big picture.
On that note, my writing minutes have evaporated; time to load up the car for the trip to Bangor, where a hotel (and a plane, and another plane, and a long-term parking shuttle, and a 5.5 hour drive home) await.
See you on the way home, Tom Chandler.
A working career of weekend and week-long family trips where years later, adult-aged “children” recall with fond memory specific events (often where dad did something stupid or embarrassed them, or both) and how that shaped them as people and set your relationship–and friendship–with them for life: priceless.
And, as to having all that time in retirement, well, I am still looking for all that free time.
I find myself doing a lot of something, just less focused and for a lot less money.
A. Wannabe Travelwriter(Quote)
We frequent an old camp style resort in Ely, MN hard up against the BWCAW (Camp Van Vac, established in 1917). We’ve talked to a couple old timers who came there for the whole Summer back in the 1920′s (and kept returning for the next 60 to 70 years). Usually the father would stay for a week or two and the rest of the family would “camp” until the cities cooled down in late August. They described the experience as idyllic… swimming, fishing, hiking, campfires etc..
These little slots of time we allot ourselves to engage in things that fulfill our deepest needs is just an extension of the fragmented existence imposed on us by the modern world. For the life of me I can’t think of a single reason why we organize our existences that way other than expediency and cultural inertia.
fishskicanoe(Quote)
Twitter?
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Posted as a suggestion or cause? ;^)
fishskicanoe(Quote)
PJ says you need to get more pics of Divine Miss M up on here, toot suite! (She’s dealing with empty nest syndrome; wants to live vicariously through others’ little girls.) I’m sure you took a ton during this trip.
Hope you had a safe and wonderful trip home too! Presidential Suite at the fancy hotel, First Class on those planes, a chauffeured ride to Shasta. Right? RIGHT??
The Chile Doctor(Quote)
Hey Tom,
Right after you got back from Grand Lake Stream, I mentioned to you I was leaving for Maine. We did 8 days on the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. Excellent Trip!
My point though, the book I brought to read on this trip was “Where Cool Waters Flow” by Randy Spencer. He is a Maine guide working out of Grand Lake Stream. Do you know the book? If not, get it. I enjoyed it! Maine is a different and special place.
Scott
Scott(Quote)