Got it in One

I was sitting idly in my chair, looking for ways to kill time while the appliance repairmen worked on our fridge and dryer, when I decided to check out the online world geography challenge, Worldle, where players are challenged to identify the border map of a different country each day. In general, I'm not that accomplished at the game. Beyond the obvious ones, it usually takes me three or four guesses to narrow it down. And if it's a Pacific island? No way. So today, when presented with something that resembled a sea cucumber with a posse of amoebas, I surprised myself when I correctly recognized it as New Caledonia.

Later, I was trying to figure out how I knew that, and at first I considered an association to Little Caledonia, a tiny Scots-influenced gift shop in Georgetown that closed in 2002 after 50 years in business. They carried all sorts of pretty little knick-knacks and were always good for a last-minute Christmas or hostess gift. In 1988, in an article called "The Right Stuff and a Bit of the Wrong Stuff, Too," The Washington Post Magazine stated that "Walking into Little Caledonia is like entering Charles Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop."

But the map itself of New Caledonia looked so familiar to me that I felt it was more than just the name that jogged my memory. Then I remembered reading the novel Miss Benson's Beetle, the story of a teacher and amateur entomologist in post-WW II London who sets off to find the Golden Beetle of New Caledonia. It is a quirky tale, but one that had me studying the map of that French territory for a few days after I finished.

But how was a French territory named after Scotland, you may wonder. James Cook dubbed the island in 1774 because, to him, its landscape resembled the Scottish Highlands. The indigenous name of the island is Kanaky, however, from the Polynesian word "kanaka," meaning human. I like that better, but what are the chances of a shop named Little Kanaky ever opening in Georgetown?

All Hail the Tomatoes

Before we left for Maine, I visited the garden and picked all the ripe or nearly ripe tomatoes. Then I packed them carefully in pairs in small brown paper bags and brought them along for the vacation. A wide windowsill over the counter in the kitchen of our rental house was the perfect place for all 15 to continue ripening until we needed them. 

There was also an old-fashioned brass desk bell on the same sill, and in a bout of whimsy, as we were selecting tomatoes to slice for our sandwiches to carry on the first hike of the trip, I proclaimed that the bell had to be rung whenever a tomato was used. Most of our group was game for this silliness, and for the better part of the week, we dinged in celebration of each tomato.

Back at home, one of my first chores was to head up to the garden and check on it. It seems like we found the sweet spot of traveling this year. The weather down here was unseasonably cool and dry while we were gone, and there was not a single over-ripe tomato on the vine. There were more than 10 pounds of tomatoes ready to pick, though.

And if I could be in two places at once? I would ring that bell for each and every one.

Easy Peasy

I wasn't planning to stay. 

After picking up the rugs we ordered for Heidi's new classroom and helping to carry them in, I was going to go home, do a few things around the house, and pick Heidi up later. But when we got to the room, there was too much to unpack before putting the rugs down, and I wanted to see how they looked. I started organizing school supplies, going through bookshelves, putting games away, hanging pictures, and sorting extension cords and charging cables. Before we knew it, a few hours had gone by, and not only were the rugs in place, but the room was looking pretty good. 

Setting up a classroom in August? It's what we do.

Off the Beaten Track

We had just crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the traffic was getting gnarly when the map app flashed a message on the nav screen: Alternate route available: Would you like to save 9 minutes?

Would I ever! I felt my body relax as I took the exit marked "beaches" and left he prospect of traveling the last 120 miles of our trip home in the treacherous stop-and-go traffic of I-95 behind. Our new route was not without congestion in its first few miles, but once we crossed the fancy Roth Bridge over the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and hopped onto 301 south, it was clear sailing. 

We rolled through blue skies and sunny farm fields on the bay side of the Eastern Shore, never stopping once until we approached the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Even then, we were mostly against traffic until we were nearly onto 395 south, but the express lanes rescued us, and we made it home 20 minutes quicker than the other way was predicted to take.

After 16 hours over two days in the car, the novelty of the new route, along with the open roads and pleasant beauty of that part of Delaware and Maryland, made the last leg more than bearable.

Tent Sale

"Oh look, they're having a tent sale," I said to Heidi, spying the huge white canopy set up on the side of the LL Bean outlet in Ellsworth. "Wanna stop?"

Even though (or maybe because) we were only 30 minutes into our 7-and-a-half-hour journey (the one that would ultimately end up taking closer to ten hours), we decided to make a quick detour and check out the inventory. It didn't hurt that dogs were also allowed in the store, and as we walked to the entry, I pointed to the tent. "Do you want to check out the tent sale first?" I asked.

"I don't want a tent," Heidi said, "but feel free."

I looked at her, confused. "They're not selling tents," I replied. "It's a big clearance sale in that tent." I pointed. Then I remembered where we were. "But I guess they might actually have a few tents," I laughed.

"I'll meet you inside."

The Eagle Has Landed

"Oh my gosh! Look at the size of that thing! Look at that white head! That's not a seagull."

Heidi and I were sitting in the sun on the granite blocks above the ocean at Wonderland Beach when we turned to see what the guy on the next ledge over was talking about.

"That's an eagle!" he proclaimed excitedly. "Like, real America, America! Holy cow, it's close!" 

Three teenage girls gathered around him. "Where? Where?" they clamored.

"It's right there in the tree," he pointed.

I turned around. There was a large stand of pines behind us. I stood up and craned my neck to see where he was pointing, but I couldn't see an eagle.

"I don't see it!" one of the girls said again.

"It's in the tree!" he repeated.

"I see it!" one of the girls pointed.

A woman standing by waved at me. "Do you want to come look?"

I stepped over to their rock and peered into the tree tops. "There are a lot of trees over there," I said sympathetically to the two girls who were getting frustrated. I scanned the woods again and saw the eagle at the top of a spruce behind a couple of other trees. 

As I pulled my phone out to snap a couple of pics, I heard the second girl exclaim, "I see it!"

"I still don't!" whined the last girl, and the guy took her by the shoulders and turned her body, lining her up with a clear view of the eagle. 

He took her arm and pointed it right at the bird. "See it now?"

"No!" she said.

He shook his head and stepped back. The other girls jumped in to help. "See those two trees? See the dead tree behind them? See the tree to the right of that? Look at the top! See it?"

"No," she sighed.

"Hey! There's an eagle right up in that tree!" The original spotter hailed a group of hikers just stepping onto the beach from the trail. "Look!" They joined us on the ledge and turned to look up at the eagle who looked back at us, surveying the scene below.

By then, I had several pictures, and Heidi and I turned to go. "I see it!" the last girl cried.

"Yay!" Everyone on the rock cheered.

"It's so awesome!" she marveled, and we couldn't disagree.

Sea Dog

Besides a fawn and a few wild turkeys earlier in the week (and of course the mouse), we haven't spotted much wildlife on our amazing vacation up here in Maine. Even the starfish we were promised when we walked down to the causeway were not in evidence, but on that day, there was something better. 

As the dogs swam in Norwood Cove, there was a sudden flurry of fish jumping out of the water near the sluice, and then a seal leapt out of the water and did a little spin before splashing back in. We followed his movement by the ripples of fish trying to escape being eaten, and then, we saw just two eyes and a smooth gray head poking above the water. It turns out he was following the movement of our dogs as they paddled around the shallows after a stick. 

Who knows if he saw them as kith or kin or foe; he did not approach, even as he kept his eyes periscopically fixed on them. But the tide was retreating, and with it the fish, so he plunged below the surface, did a little flip, and swam out to sea.