Tag: Maine

Daughters

| Arthur Wyman

Just a little more than three weeks after returning from finally being able to travel to see family back in New England, I got a text message from our youngest daughter.

It was short and out of the blue, just like many of her text messages to me are.

Just two lines, telling me that she was getting married, and the date and time.

No location, and it was happening in about three weeks.

Yep. That’s my girl!

So this started a quick scramble to see if timing would work out with both our work schedules to allow Mom and Dad to attend, starting with the obvious question.

Where?

Driving to the northern tip of Maine was quickly ruled out, partly because our more comfortable on long trips minivan needed some repair work, but mostly because Mom wouldn’t get back in time for her first day back at work.

So, we flew back this time, leaving early Friday morning, with the wedding on Sunday afternoon and our return flight early Monday morning.

Now, with the exception of a nine-hour layover in Detroit with no Wi-Fi (it was down every time I tried to use it) and having to change terminals in both Detroit and Newark, it was an almost uneventful trip to Presque Isle. Mom and I based ourselves near the airport, which had us only about an hours drive to Madawaska.

Jeff and Nicole
Jeff and Nicole
We all met up for dinner Saturday evening in Madawaska. It was the first time we had met his parents, and the evening went very well.

Then on Sunday, we all gathered again, this time in Madawaska Four Corners Park, as Jeff and Nicole said “I do”.

After hanging out in the park for a little while, we all headed to the reception dinner and had a great time, until it was finally time to head back to our motel.

Now, as for our flights back to Michigan, that became interesting, to say the least.

Let’s just say, the words you don’t want to hear when you are checking in at the airport terminal are “Oh! So YOU’RE  the ones!”

Thanks to Hurricane Henri and the mess it was causing in the New York/New Jersey area, and the fact that we were changing airlines in Newark, we had boarding passes to get to Newark but not for the rest of the trip.

Being the adventurous types that we are, we flew on to Newark anyway, knowing that there were multiple options available from Newark to get us home.

We ended up on both our scheduled flights back.

And now, both our daughters are married.

Six Days on the Road

| Arthur Wyman

OK, it wasn’t six days on the road. It was actually ten. Sort of.

And I’ve been playing catch-up ever since!

I’ve been out here in Michigan now since the middle of April, but my wife was still in Maine working until the school year ended. Then, she was going to pack up our belongings, so that we could then load up the moving truck and head west. My part of all of this was to fly back, put the last little bit into the truck, and then drive it.

What is that saying? Oh yeah: The best laid-plans of mice and men often go awry.

Jacob's Baptism
Jacob’s Baptism
Changes in my initial plan happened long before I returned to Maine. The first Baptism of my Grandson was scheduled for the same weekend. Now obviously I was going to be there, so that added a couple of days. Which was a good thing, as the packing of the house, and subsequent packing of the truck, fell way behind schedule.

It’s amazing how much stuff you accumulate over the years.

Without boring you with all the gory details, I arrived in Maine late Friday night, but didn’t start the journey westward until late Wednesday night. After scheduled family stops (now backed up to Thursday and Friday), we finally hit the road Saturday morning.

During previous moves, I’d driven 26-foot moving trucks, so I wasn’t worried about the long drive. Weekend traffic, however, was an unknown factor that I would have to deal with. Fortunately, I was driving against the bulk of the traffic, so we had no major issues during the drive.

And the truck itself gave us absolutely no issues. In one of my previous moves, I’ve had to deal with trucks that we had to swap out part way through the move (king pins are an important part of the steering operation of trucks, and when they go bad, there are times when you steer and the big, heavy truck you’re driving doesn’t exactly go where you want it to) and trucks that loved to eat oil (one or two quarts of oil every gas stop), but this one ran perfectly.

We arrived back in Michigan Sunday morning, and the Upper Peninsula late Sunday afternoon. Sunday night, my wife saw our apartment for the first time.

It took us three days to unload, and we think we managed to get most of the house stuff in to the apartment, along with most of the storage stuff in to the nearby storage building. I’m sure as we continue the long unpacking process, we’ll be shuttling items back and forth between the two.

And if all goes well, I plan to get back into a regular rhythm of posting to my blog. I know it’s been very haphazard since I’ve arrived here in the U.P., but now that my move is complete and I’m mostly settled in at work, I plan to make the time.

You, my dear reader, deserve nothing less.

Wait, what was that saying again?