In standard adventure fashion, nothing about our Katahdin trip went as planned. Of course that makes it all the more fun.

To start, Paul’s original ETA of 5:00 p.m. was pushed back due to work constraints back in CT. Freed from the daily grind, he called up the RAGOZZINE setting on his trusty GPS and hit the road. However, once he reached NY state, he quickly deduced that something was awry. Turns out he had our old VT address saved and was headed thataway. A quick fix and he was on the right track for Maine-y adventure once more. As an aside, I’ve heard too many GPS whoops stories to see myself buying one anytime soon, though this soon-to-be released model does have a certain je ne sais quoi.

By the time Paul rolled into Rockland, it was pushing 9:00 p.m. and Katahdin seemed very far away. Undaunted, we packed up my elegant, sophisticated, and classy Ford Taurus and headed north. Three hours later, we crossed into Millinocket, Maine and decided to find a place to sleep for a few hours. None too keen on camping along the roadside, we started trying the roadside motels in the hopes of a reasonably soft bed. But with each motor inn we queried, No Vacancy met our blurring eyes. Finally we found a place that had rooms to let. A sign taped to the door of the office instructed us to inquire at the lounge to book a room. Across the parking lot, the bass line of “She Got Legs” thumping away, we saw the “lounge” — the LaCasa Lounge. It looked like we’d have to spend the night at a strip club motel, oddly named the Adobe Motel (I still can’t believe they have a web site) despite clearly being constructed of scrap wood and spent condom wrappers.

After a few hours of uneasy sleep in beds assumed to be hosting heretofore unidentified species of pubic parasites, we awoke around 5:00 a.m. and headed out of town to Baxter State Park. As we neared the gates, we queued up behind dozens of other cars and trucks. Progress was slow. It looked like the two women staffing the entrance were having really in-depth conversations with each vehicle-load of hikers. We soon found out why: all trailheads to Katahdin had been closed before sunrise; too many hikers shared our goal to summit Maine’s highest peak. Crestfallen, we were talked into enjoying the perfect weather and hiking Doubletop, a lesser peak in Baxter.

The car ride toward Doubletop—a fine mountain in and of itself, one of New England’s Fifty Finest—was a sad one indeed. As Paul pored over the park map in the hopes of sneaking our way to the Katahdin trails, I gave into angst and lack of sleep. I couldn’t believe I exposed myself to all manner of social diseases from strip club motel bedsheets just to be rebuffed at the last moment. Luckily, my co-pilot stayed focused as I roared past a blaze marking the Appalachian Trail. Didn’t that terminate at the summit of our choice? As if destiny guided us, we next passed an out of the way and completely vacant day use parking area. One k-turn later and we were hustling our way toward a southwesterly Katahdin trailhead.

Sprinting from excitement excitement, a late start, and the fear of being nabbed for not listening to Ranger Big Brother, we hit the Hunt Trail (a.k.a. the AT) at 7:35 a.m. with high spirits. On the way up, we maintained a very healthy clip, passing dozens of groups of other hikers. Historically, Paul has always hiked slightly slower than me, but even with his knee brace, we both kept the pace fast and the breaks minimal. Our only extended pre-lunch rest was about 2.5 miles from the top. Here, the terrain becomes downright scrambly with mammoth hunks of rock jutting about at all angles. Imagine the top of the Cliffs of Insanity, you know, whee Westley and Inigo Montoya cross swords, and you have a good visual of what we needed to surmount. In some spots, there was just a white blaze directing us to a 12-foot sheer wall of rock, an iron hook driven into its surface. Others had a 30-foot climbing rope to help you not fall to your splattering doom. On a rainy day, I can’t see how you could get enough purchase for some of the moves required. But soon enough, we were to and past Thoreau’s Spring and, by 11:40 that morning, we had both reached the highest point in Vacationland.

Despite bringing enough water to keep a dolphin alive during a veterinary airlift, both Paul and I ran out of drink 2 or 3 miles from the bottom. Rather than suffer dehydration (temps at the top of the peak hovered in the low 90s), we broke the cardinal hiker rule and drank SWEET, COOL, REFRESHING stream water without potable pills. I may be paying for it today (as is my toilet), but the water flowing over Katahdin Stream Falls tastes as fantastic as God’s sweat. We practically did cartwheels for the last mile of the actual hike. I signed out of the log book at 3:25 p.m., making our hike time on the 10.4-mile loop just shy of eight hours. With sufficient water, we might have been able to get there and back again in 7 hours or less!

Of course, once done, we still needed to hike the half-mile back to the car. So exuberant to be done, I did a smart little jig by my now dusty car, the trunk of which had been finger tattooed with the classic “Wash Me” by a fellow fun-loving hiker. For me, this climb marks my 25th state highpoint, which has been stalled at 24 since last millennium. In the near(ish) future, I’ll scan all my old summit photos and make a page commemorating this pseudo-meaningless achievement. Likewise, once I find my digital camera’s USB cord, I’ll share pics of this adventure. Until then, Paul has a whole Katahdin photo gallery up and ready to be viewed with extreme abandon. Enjoy!

I’m more excited to see the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill nicely represented toward the end of the video. See you on the flip side of Mt. Katahdin!

Okay, here’s your fair warning that this post is kind of gross. You still have time to scoot off and read The Family Circle or something.

Currently, I’m being torn apart by a paradox. Something’s going on and I have two complete opposite ways of reacting. I can only do one and both can be honestly defended as the right thing to do. How will I ever choose? The situation stems from the bathroom here at work, though any public men’s room can serve as the catalyst for my indecisiveness. You see, men’s rooms have urinals in them. Urinals for pee collection. And guys, when they have to go number one, pee into the urinals. All well and good and a far better system that the ice-filled trough that some bars provide their patrons. My predicament arises when I go in there and see some urinal full of pee with the depositor long gone and, therefore, far away from the flusher. My urge is to flush the pee away, as it’s pretty gross to just leave urine sitting around a public place, even if that place is a bathroom. I mean, adding urine to anything never makes it better—though making yellow snow is about as close as one could hope to get.

So, on the one hand, I want to flush down the urine. Following this disgusting train of thought thus far? Well, as I move to get rid of the pee, I think about the environment and wasting water and all that. I mean, I am on the Green Team at work, keeping our operation’s environmental impact as minimal as possible. And even though all I mostly do is bring the recycling downstairs and turn off the kitchen lights when no one is in there, I consider myself a friend to the environment. I could also cite the fact that I bike to work every day as my small part in cutting back on carbon emissions, but I mostly do that to save money. Even still, since money is made from paper and paper is made from trees, even being cheap can be construed as ecologically sound. Go me.

So there it is: I cannot satisfy my desire to save the planet and support my desire to not have to deal with other people’s urine. I’m not sure what should win out, though I’m already regretting publishing this on the Internet.

The great thing about living in Maine is that we’re already in Vacationland. As such, we never have to travel too far to get away from it all. This past weekend, Megan’s folks rented a cabin on Sheepcot Lake and invited us to stay over Saturday night. This is the very same lake on which they used to own a camp. The cabin was very private and had a cool path through the woods that led to a waterfront dock. All in all, it was a very cool time and we worked through the Cabin Vacation Checklist fairly succinctly:

1. Had one meal consisting of hot dogs and baked beans [CHECK!]
2. Sat outside and listened to nature [CHECK!]
3. Played cards [CHECK!]
4. Woke up early [CHECK!]
5. Swam in the lake [CHECK!]
6. Navigated the lake in a boat (one can substitute a kayak here, so long as you and floating up off the water’s surface you’re golden) [CHECK!]
7. Tried to catch some fish [CHECK!]
8. Caught no fish, not even a bite [CHECK!]
9. Took a break to read a good book [CHECK!]
10. Grilled the majority of our meals [CHECK!]
11. Were sad to leave [CHECK!]
12. Decided to buy a camp at some point [CHECK!] [CHECK!] [CHECK!]

It’s no secret that I love free stuff. This is not to say that I stop at every pile of junk put out by the roadside by folks who are just too lazy to have a garage sale, picking through the cardboard box with FREE hastily scribbled on one flap in the hopes of scoring a really sweet trinket. But, when one can get a deal, I applaud with exuberance.

Take, for example, free music. While I tend to avoid pirated stuff (now that I have a full library anyway), there are places on the Internet to download legal copies of songs that ain’t half bad. One decent place is music.download.com, which is a subdomain of CNET’s web area to safely download any software you can think of. This site is pretty hit or miss, as not all artists are represented, and even when you find one you like, some songs aren’t free. Not to say that musicians shouldn’t charge for their craft, but when you’re looking for a sticker price of $0.00, there’s little room for negotiations.

My happiest find of late actually comes from e-monolith Amazon.com. It’s no secret that they started offering MP3 downloads, but what many don’t realize is that they have quite the catalog of free songs for download, and all at 256 kbps. And some of the stuff is even enjoyable! I even went so far as to sign up for their weekly newsletter, as it highlights a few free songs to preview. And, if you investigate said free song, like Benny Goodman’s “This Year’s Kisses”, be sure to click on the album the song comes from, as there are about a dozen more olde tyme swingin’ songs up there to download at no cost.

You do need to install the Amazon Music Downloader app, which is kind of a drag. But I’ve had no problems thus far and keep waiting for the day some Bad Religion tunes pop up there. And of course, if you need an even easier experience, you can always check out the music by fellow Midcoast Mainer Doug Felton, posted at his site TastyTrack.com.

So where do you go to preview new music or download quality songs?  And in case you’re wondering, this product review was not solicited; I just really like spreading the free music word.

And while I volunteered to be stuck by a needle today, what truly hurts is that Hazel is growing up pretty damned fast. After week and weeks of her hating daycare, something clicked last week and she now loves it. She says the names of her classmates at home and I’m convinced, if she could reach the car pedals, she’d happily drive herself there at the crack of dawn. Oh how she despises having to actually eat breakfast and get dressed before we finally get on the road at 8:30 a.m.

Of course, this improvement in her mood is something to be celebrated. When I dropped her off today, she made her rounds, saying hi to every other wee tyke in the room. This is a vast improvement over her leg-gripping tantrums (our legs, her tears) of June and July. But once I had put all her things away in her cubby, I went to say goodbye and she was already off playing…with the class bully. Not even 15-months old and Hazel is already running with a rough crowd; a crowd that likes to kick and bite and generally express frustration physically. Too Cool Hazel didn’t even look up when I was leaving—a bothered waving of her hand dismissed me until the school day ended. I’m sure her and her new friend had to go find some matches to play with or something.

I suppose I can be okay with this so long as:

1. nobody gets hurt.
2. Hazel doesn’t get expelled (or whatever the daycare version of that is).
3. Hazel is the brains of the operation. The bully is definitely bigger than Hazel, so is the default brawn, but if Hazel isn’t the criminal mastermind of the operation, then how could I abide? No daughter of mine is going to be some dumb lackey, or worse, a toadie!

I’ll let you know if Hazel gets any tattoos between now and nap time. Knowing my luck, it will probably read: