Thankfully mother nature cooperated with us and the weather remained mild and on the cooler side for most of the trip. The wind helped keep away the bugs (I hear mosquitoes can’t resist pregnant women!). And it only rained for 10 minutes on Friday. Unfortunately we forgot our screenhouse at Chris’ parents, but Chris, being resourceful as he is, fabricated a makeshift lean-to for our picnic table out of a tarp, and it kept all our goodies dry.

Chris was also nice enough to ask for the campsite that was closest to the bathrooms–with me having to pee every hour or so, it was a good thing!

We always love camping in at Pinederosa Campground in Ogunquit. It’s peaceful, clean, and pleasant. There are always lots of folks from Quebec who speak French, so sometimes you feel as if you’re camping in Canada, not Maine. We stayed Thurs. through Sunday.

Each evening we walked on the beach, about a mile to downtown to get ice cream (although, since I’ve been pregnant, I’ve had to forgo “dessert for dinner”, or, as I now call it “din-sert”, for a REAL dinner beforehand, THEN ice cream for dessert. But hey, ice cream is ice cream!). The ocean felt nice but FREEZING, especially on Friday!

Fri. and Sat. morning we ate breakfast at the Amore Cafe. Most breakfast places have a long wait for seating during this busy season, but we never mind waiting at Amore because they serve you coffee while you’re waiting, and you can read the paper while sitting on their nice chairs on the porch. Makes you much less crabby if you have to wait 45 mins for a table. Plus, their lemon blueberry stuffed french toast makes the wait worthwhile.

The rest of our meals we fired up the mini camping grill for. We bought fresh corn from a farmstand down the road. It is the BEST when grilled in the husk, then patted with herbed chevre. And of course, we had to have the usual S’Mores and Jiffy Pop over the campfire.

Saturday we caught up with our friends Erica and Mark, who were vacationing in the area with their kids (Mark’s sis has a place on York Beach). They hung out with us for a while at our campground before they headed home.

Saturday night, after our ceremonial beach walk, we went mini golfing. We hadn’t done that in AGES. Bending over for me is becoming problem, so Chris was nice at placing the golf balls on the ground for me to putt at (though he wouldn’t place them in the hole for me instead, like i asked ). Chris won, but I beat him a few times at cards at the campsite earlier in the week, so I guess we were even.

Sunday of course came all too soon, but we were grateful for the short respite, one of our last bittersweet getaways before the little one comes into our life. So we enjoyed the free time and napping while we could! But we’re getting very excited for her arrival also.

I was extremely proud of myself for not needing a pulley system to get me up and out of the tent in my current state (although Chris did have to help me a little a few times in the middle of the night). But we did it!

Gray clouds on Sunday morning told us that our 2006 trip to Pinderosa in Ogunqit, Maine was off to an iffy start. The sun began to shine later on in the day as we drove along and we kept our fingers crossed. When we arrived at the campsite we were shocked to discover that we were the only tent in the entire 100 + camping area! Apparently the supposed imminent bad weather ahead and the fact that kids weren’t out of school yet left us loners.

After setting up (and realizing the new screenhouse we bought was HUGE!!) we took a walk on the nearby beach and got a “kathy dinner” (for those of you who don’t know, that involves ice cream!). Later that night we saw the movie “Kinky Boots” (which I loved by the way—it’s cute and I totally recommend it!). Then we got back to our campsite and tried to make a fire. With damp wood. In the dark. (cause we forgot to get new batteries for our big lantern, AND we forgot to bring an axe to cut firewood into smaller pieces.). But it was all fun. A little creepy that first night—strange sounds in the wood when it was totally dark and no one else around!

Our five days went by incredibly fast-don’t vacations always?? But we had fun just unplugging and getting close to nature. We ate at a few good restaruants- the Egg and I (amazing amaretto French toast!), Marcia’s (they had Coronas and mexican food, what more could you want?), and a cute cafe downtown called Fancy That, which had great little sandwiches and salads. Our favorite place was a breakfast spot called the Amore Cafe. They made an out of this world French toast made with lemon bread and stuffed with blueberries and cream cheese—now that was amore. Everyone was very pleasant there and apparently a local writer wrote a mystery novel in which the owner of the restaurant was a main character (or, pardon my pun, should I say “Maine” character? I know I am just too corny!). A few dissapointing places were a Jamaican food place which we adored the last time we went, but who switched ownership and the quality of the food went WAY down….mon. Another place, the Haystack, was just not memorable, with bitter coffee. Oh well, you gotta try them all! Of course, when we weren’t eating out we were having smores and jiffy pop on the open fire (yes, we finally bought an axe and some batteries for our lantern!). And of course many “kathy dinners”.

Other highlights of our vacation were minigolfing the “Nautical Nightmare” (Chris won), shopping at a great store called “Spoiled Rotten” (the owner was very cool and even complemented us on how white our teeth looked!), watching funny old people (there seemed to be a running theme of people pulling their pants up way too high—was there a flood we didn’t know about?), walking the beautiful Marginal Way, shopping at the Kittery outlets, burning the jiffypop (it wasn’t our fault—the bag exploded), and nightly strolls on the beach.

For the most part, we lucked out weatherwise, and , aside from a racoon and the constant mosquitos (saved by “natrapel!”), we had very few irritations. There was only one brief rainstorm at night (nothing got soaked) and an annoying confrontation with a fellow camper. (First of all, she and her husband arrived from Texas in a giant RV. So they weren’t really camping, they were cheating!). Most people who camp at Pinederosa are pretty open minded and easy going. When you’re camping, anything goes. Because we were the only people on the campground, and because it costs money to take a shower in the campground bathroom, many couples shower together in either the women’s or men’s room to save time and money. For all of the previous times we had gone to Pinderosa, this was perfectly acceptable and not seen as offensive—as long as no one traipsied about in the open air naked or did anything offensive.

Well, this woman (we will call her “Nosy Nancy”), came rushing into the men’s room yelling her husband’s name. There was no one else in the bathroom besides Chris and I, and, after making sure of that (I never would walk out if someone else were in the stalls out of respect), I walked out of the shower (fully clothed). This woman saw me and screamed “oh My God! Do you realize that you are in the MEN’s room? You really shouldn’t be here!” After calmly explaining to her what things were usually like at this campground, she slammed the door. (What was SHE doing running into the men’s room then??). She hovered around the outside of the men’s room (waiting for her invisible husband to come out), and when Chris walked out she confronted him, telling him that her husband would never go into the bathroom if I were in there. The scary thing? We never saw hide nor hair of her husband, and assumed he didn’t exist because from then on, we only saw her alone. Well, I guess you can expect a few pests when youre camping.

Overall we had a great time just unplugging from the rest of the world and enjoying eachother’s company. We hope to go every summer!

Ahhh.to be back at Pinederosa (for those of you who haven’t read about our first trip there, please see Camping 01). Yet another few days of bliss, apart from email, phones, tv and the like. Again, we were blessed with beautiful weather and our campsite was nice and shady. We had a lovely little getaway. And some funny memories too! One night a skunk stole our trash and a squirrel stole the candy bars we were using to make our s’mores with!

A group of college kids rented a tent next to ours and it seemed like it was their first trip ever. They not only forgot matches and wood for a fire, but they had a heck of a time getting their tent up, and when they did, they realized the blow-up bed they brought wasn’t going to fit in! We were nice and tried to help them a little, but it sure was entertaining watching them. We had mostly nice weather when we were there, but one night it started to storm, and while we were on our way back to our tent, we saw a frantic French couple trying to get their tent up. In the best French I could muster, I tried to talk to them so we could help them, all the while translating for poor Kris, who had no idea what was going on! The wind was blowing so hard that it was nearly impossible to get up, so we had to just laugh at our attempts. When the tent was finally put up, they thanked us profusely. It feels good to be nice sometimes.

On the hottest day of the week, we decided to head to Water Country yet again. We encountered some funny people. First there was a woman who looked like Elvira at the breakfast place we ate at around the corner. We weren’t sure if she was dressing up like that on purpose or not. Then there was.dun da dun.cottage cheese leg lady with crooked teeth I’m not trying to be mean, but that woman didn’t look like she cared for herself at all. And she had a young daughter too, whom I hope she would have wanted to take better care of herself for.) There was also a group of kids from New Jersey who kept talking about their friend Courtney, except every time they said her name it sounded like “Caht-ney”. We couldn’t help but laugh.

Most mornings we aimed to go out for a good breakfast, as we knew that was going to be a vegetarian’s best bet for eating in Maine . Nancy ‘s was our definite favorite-they used really fresh berries and fruit and their coffee was great. We also enjoyed the Omlette Factory (where we happened to sit next to a couple who lived where Kris grew up!), and the Egg and I (one of the most popular places to go for breakfast, but the long wait to get in is usually worth it). Most evenings we spent walking along the beach over to the other side of town where they had ice cream (the Kathy dinner, as Kris likes to say). It was just so relaxing to walk and talk. Of course we had to make s’mores and jiffy pop at night, too! One afternoon instead of having smores we decided to try a Jamaican food stand downtown. They served a killer tofu plate, with enough food to feed an army. Next time we know to go there first so we’ll have ample leftovers for the rest of the week.

Despite our long drive home (there was a road race and the main road was closed off for a while), we had a wonderful time and a lot more memories to talk about!

The last week of June 2001 marked our first real vacation together. Silly me, I was so nervous to go on vacation with Kris, because I was certain that in this, the longest amount of un-interrupted time together, we would surely drive each other away. I remember freaking out over packing the right amount of clothes, and of course, as always, ended up packing way too much! Kris seemed pretty calm and relaxed on the way there-thank goodness somebody was. We arrived at Pinederosa campground, a camping site in Ogunquit , Maine .

Pinederosa is an especially great place to camp because it is close to attractions yet extremely quiet and set apart. You can fall asleep to the sound of crickets-and that’s it-no tv’s, no cars, just crickets. I would like to think that Kris and I are capable of roughing it-us tough Vermonters!-but I do have to say we were very grateful that the campground had both showers and a swimming pool. The majority of campers at the time of our stay were from Quebec and mostly French-speaking. It gave me a wonderful opportunity to practice my French! The campers next to us had two small girls and when we went strawberry picking one day and picked way too much for ourselves, I went over to their site and said “Excusez-moi, aimez vous do fraises? Nous avons trop!” The woman was very kind (thank goodness! I hoped my French could be understood) and the girls were delighted. They even decorated a little sea shell for us to thank us on our last day. We still have it ! Most of our vacation consisted of eating out, walking on the beach, and relaxing at the campground making smores for dinner. The best thing about camping is being away from everything and doing NOTHING. (Which sort of makes it hard to write about, though!)

One day we did go to Water Country-and we were glad we did, because it was the hottest day of the week-hitting the high 90′s! So it was nice to go to the water park and splash around. Our legs were killing us from running around and climbing all the stairs to the slide the next day, but it was worth it. Another day we went mini golfing at Pirate’s Cove. ARRgh, matey! Kris also taught me how to play chess-I knew the basics but was a little rusty on most of the skills. We survived on leftover pizza and peanut butter and jelly for the rest of the trip. We had great weather, and it rained only on the day we left!