Saturday was back to being Mer’s day, and she wanted to start the day locally. We drove the short distance to the Rockland Lighthouse Museum, where we started in the gift shop reading a children’s book about a Maine Coon cat who wanted a home and love. After we finished reading it, Mer went to the bathroom to clean up her face from her tears, and then we went into the museum itself.

The Lighthouse Museum is contained in two rooms: one normal-sized room where they show a video on lighthouses, and present displays with the history of the government agencies who had supervision of lighthouses, and one very large room that contains everything else. The larger room focuses on the life of lighthouse keepers (summary: it was difficult and lonely), and has many lenses from lighthouses. They have displays on the evolution of the technology of lights and fog bells/horns, and have an extensive display on the rescue services of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. We were able to do the entire museum in about two hours, and it was an interesting and well-done museum.

From the museum, we drove directly to Mer’s cousin’s house in Thomaston. Dana and her husband Dale were hosting the family Fourth of July picnic, albeit a few days late. There were about twenty people there, including friends of Dana and Dale, as well as family members that I knew. Dale had cooked up a ton of food on his grill, and so we grabbed chairs and ate too much while chatting with various folks. It was a pleasant day, in the shade, and we were there for over two hours before Mer announced we should move on to the the next destination.

We drove over to Damariscotta, another coastal town Mer had never been in, and we walked around the main street and down to the harbor. We strolled along one side street as well, where there were some very pretty seaside homes. Damariscotta is not too large, so we were only there for a fairly short time before we drove over to nearby Damariscotta Mills.

Damariscotta Mills has no downtown that I saw. What it does have is water. It has a freshwater lake, a very cool fish ladder made of stone, and a large lake/bay that connects to the ocean. I’m not sure how much of the large lake is fresh water and how much is salt water. We drove around for several minutes trying to find a parking space so we could get out to check out the fish ladder and the upper lake, and we finally settled on parking in a parking lot at the bottom of the fish ladder, even though there were not other cars there. It turned out the lot was owned by the city or the state, and was okay to park in; people just did not park there because it requires you to walk a ways to get to the lake.

We walked over to and along the fish ladder as best we could. Much of the ladder is on private property, so you can see it, but not get close to it. A fish ladder sounds dull, but this one is very pretty; it is made of stone, and twists back and forth as it comes down the hill. We got an excellent and close look at the top and bottom, and could see most of it from the road that led to the upper lake.

The upper lake had a swimming hole, and it was popular, from the looks of things. It had a bridge to jump from, and lots of trees for shade. In good Maine tradition, there was no real beach – just rocks and some patches of lawn, but it was still a good spot for swimming. Mer had a schedule in mind, so we did not linger long at the lake, and returned to the car by the way we had come. As we approached the very bottom of the fish ladder, there was a huge splash from the stream next to us and something huge caught my eye. I was startled, to say the least, and just made out the tail of a seal as he swam into the larger lake. Mer was sad she missed him, but she did get to see his head poke up in the lake as we drove away. I’m sad we did not see him as we came down the path, but I was not exactly looking for wildlife that close to a parking lot.

We headed over to the coastal town of Port Clyde, where Mer had arranged for us to have a sunset cruise on the Monhegan mail-run boat. The boat is used to ferry mail and passengers to Monhegan Island, but they also do pleasure cruises. The sunset cruise also promised to try to see puffins, a surprisingly small seabird that nests near Port Clyde.

The boat was a good-sized wooden boat that dated back to World War 2. It had some function in the Philippines, but I forget exactly what its role was. Mer and I got to sit in the prow, so we had a great view. There was only the crew (three people) and one other couple on board, and the other (very young) couple seemed to know the crew, so we were pretty much the focus of the crew and the on-board commentary. It was pretty much a private crew. I’m sure the crew lost money on us, but we had a great time, and they were very friendly the entire trip.

The cruise lasted a little over two hours, and it was lovely. The sun was warm, but the sea air was cool, so I was comfortable, although Mer had to put on a jacket once the sun went down. We saw several small islands where fairly rich people had built  homes, including the Wyeth family of painting fame. The focus of the trip, aside from the sunset (which was spectacular), was wildlife. We went out to a nesting island for many seabirds, and circled it several times. We did get to see puffins, as well as gulls and cormorants, and a small rock island filled with seals. On the way back from the island, we saw two porpoises. We were also passed by a party boat full of people, some of whom took the time to moon us, which was amusing since the captain of our boat called it before the boat came near us. We did get to see two lighthouses, and the crew had hoped we would see a couple of eagles, but they did not make an appearance for us.

It was a peaceful and lovely ride. The sunset was amazing, and as an added bonus, we saw a few distant fireworks from shore. If anyone ever gets to the coastal area of Maine, I can heartily recommend the Monhegan boat line cruises.

Thursday was Mer’s day again, and she had a busy little day planned. We started off by going back to Thomaston to go back over the various “Museum in the Streets” placards that we had missed. We got a brochure on the location of all the signs from the local town office, and we set off, starting on the far end of Route 1 and working our way back into town back toward the old prison site. When we made it back to the middle of town, we stopped at an excellent bakery to have a piece of cookie cake, and I had a hot chocolate. Thus fortified, we finished the tour, some of which was not easy. Sometimes signs were behind trees or on the corner of buildings, but to the best of our knowledge, we found them all.

The last signs were out by the old prison site where we had been on Tuesday. We crossed the street to look for a woods trail that was supposed to be there. We did find it, but it clearly has not been used too much – it is narrow and grown over. We tried to walk it, but gave up and returned after just a few minutes. There were several boggy sections that were muddy, and the bugs were out in force. We walked back to town and to the car, and drove on to the next destination.

Mer had never been to Friendship, Maine, before, so that was our next stop. Friendship is a tiny little fishing village that is known for one thing  – being the birthplace of the Friendship sloop. A sloop is a type of sailing vessel, and a boat builder in Friendship back before 1900 figured out how to build several boats per year (instead of the usual one boat per year), and that made his sloop more popular and affordable. We learned much of this from a very small but interesting museum in Friendship housed in the old one-room schoolhouse. It seems as if most of the one-room schoolhouses in Maine now house a local historical society. The lady staffing the place was very friendly, and when we were done with the museum, she told us how we could drive down to the ocean to see Friendship’s harbor.

Once we finished our Friendship tour, Mer had me drive to Union. Union is another town we had not seen before, other than to see from a nearby major road. Union is a very cute inland town, in the midst of hills and lakes. We drove over to the fairgrounds, to go see the Matthews Museum. The Matthews Museum is a large and eclectic collection of lots of objects. Most of them are farm-related or home-related, but the museum also had motors and old wind-up record players and horse-drawn buggies and sleighs, and more. We were both amazed at how large the place was. There is even a one-room schoolhouse still set up as it would have been when used up until the 1950s. The museum is named after the man who started it by donating his collection of stuff, which was large enough to start a museum. The museum even has one large room dedicated to the Maine soft drink of Moxie, including a wooden bottle of Moxie that is about thirty feet tall and used to be lived in as a bedroom for two children. It’s a strange place to browse, and interesting. We caught the museum on its opening day for the season, so we had the place more or less to ourselves, except for the three or four volunteers who were there setting up. We did not even come close to seeing everything in the two hours we spent there before they closed.

We went home and invited Carleton to supper, but he had already eaten. We headed over to Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro. We like Moody’s for their normal food, which is excellent (and they have the Maine tradition of calling shakes frappes, which is fun). The real treat of Moody’s, though, is that they have some of the best whoopie pies in the state. After we had supper, we grabbed four (including one for Carleton) and brought them home.

We had one more outing for the evening. We headed back to Thomaston to see their fireworks. The fireworks had been postponed for a night because of  fog, but this evening was fine, so we parked just outside of town at the Montpelier mansion, which is built on a hill. We tried to sit outside, but the bugs were bad, so we retreated to the car. To pass the time, I asked Mer questions from a game about books, and so we did not feel the wait too badly.

When the fireworks started, we tried another spot outside the car, but it too was buggy. We finally found that standing on the side of the road in front of our car was not too bad, so we did that for most of the show. We were lower down on the hill, so we did miss some of the lowest fireworks, which were obscured by the nearby trees. Still, we could see pretty well. The fireworks were mostly good, but the spacing and frequency was strange. I kept thinking the show was over because there would be pauses of thirty to forty-five seconds when there were no fireworks. There were at least three times when the show looked like a climax with many fireworks going off, and even after the finale and when we were getting back in the car, a few more isolated fireworks went off. It was a bit odd, but still a good show on the whole. We drove back to Rockland and to bed.

Friday was my day, and I had seen signs advertising a schooner race that started at the breakwater in Rockland. I had never seen a sailing race before, so I very much wanted to see it. Mer and I tromped out to the end of the almost-mile-long breakwater, all the while admiring the many boats sailing around the inside of the harbor. There were smaller ships with one mast, larger ships with two masts, and the Victory Chimes, a three-masted master-of-ceremonies ship. They were very pretty.

The start of the race was relaxed, and the ships set out based on class. As such, Mer and I were out on the breakwater for about an hour and a half. It was a pretty day, and there were a lot of people about, so it all felt very festive. As we were leaving, we could see a long line of sailing ships heading north toward Camden.

When we got back to the house, we invited Carleton to go over to the nearby Owl’s Head general store, to get their award-winning hamburgers. We got them to go, and took then over to the Owl’s Head lighthouse park, where we set up chairs and looked out over the ocean while a wonderful breeze blew in. It was a beautiful spot, and we took our time eating.

After lunch, we went back to the house, where Mer and I got our car and headed up to Camden. On Fridays in Camden, the library and the Chamber of Commerce offer free guided walking tours of Camden. We met the guide and his understudy at the library, and they took us around, just the two of us. We had a private walking tour! That was pretty great. We learned about Camden’s library, natural amphitheater, and seaside park and how they had been designed and cared for. The amphitheater is very close to obtaining a National Landmark designation. We took our time walking around, and after the seaside park we walked back up to the main street, where we learned about the woolen factories and grist mills that used to be on the river. The tour ended at the opera house, which is usually included in the tour, but was sadly closed by he time we got there. In all, the tour lasted about an hour and a half.

Mer and I took the recommendations of the tour guides and tried a new bakery in town, for a snack and a chance to get off of our feet. The place was very pleasant, and the baked goods we had were quite welcome. It seemed a fitting end to the tour of Camden.

Finally, in the evening, Mer and I walked to the far end of Rockland, to the Rockland Sail, Power, and Steam Museum. The museum looks very interesting and I hope to get back to it, but on this evening, we were there to hear a lecture on the maritime quest for a reliable way to calculate longitude. You can get latitude from sighting stars, but to calculate longitude, you need a reliable means of keeping track of time, either by a clock or by an astronomical means. It took a very long time to come up with a good clock that would work on board a ship, but a Yorkshireman named Harrison did it after over twenty years of trying. It was an interesting talk, and we got the bonus of having a pleasant evening walk back to the house.

Tuesday (the 3rd) was our first full day in Rockland, and it was an odd little day. I went for an early morning run of about six miles, and then I got ready for the day. Since Mer was still getting ready, I took the car to a garage, where they very kindly looked at it within the hour. The car had been making a metallic sound when in motion, and it had gotten worse on the trip into Maine. I was afraid it might be a ball joint since my normal mechanic has been keeping his eye on one of them, so I wanted it checked out immediately. It turned out to be that we had badly worn front brakes, and the garage said they would replace them and it would take a couple of hours.

So, I walked back to the house and met up with the now-ready-to-go Mer, who wanted to walk downtown. We wandered along the water, and stopped briefly at the St. George’s Valley River Trust building for some maps, and then on the other end of town, we stopped in at the Lighthouse Museum so Mer could pick up a brochure on kayaking, something I had always wanted to try. Since we were near the south end of the main street area, we walked over to the nearby garage, where the car was ready. It was not a cheap repair ($350), but it let me rest easier about all of the driving we would be doing over vacation.

We drove back to the house, where we met up with Carleton. Carleton had offered to take us out to lunch at the swanky seaside Samoset Resort. We love eating on the patio there, since it is beautiful and in the shade, so we were very pleased to eat there. Carleton drove us over (it is only about two miles), and we had a wonderful lunch looking at the ocean and talking with each other. It was a pretty perfect lunch.

After lunch, we went back to the house, where we picked up our own car. Following one of the maps we had picked up, Mer directed me to drive to nearby South Thomaston, where we pulled off the road to see the tidal marsh that is there. It is very large, and quite pretty, although there are no paths in the marsh to wander on, since it is a tidal marsh and any path would be flooded on a regualr basis.

We then drove on to the small village of Tenants Harbor. We walked down to the small harbor, and then walked up to the tiny library to ask for directions to the cemetery, which is what we wanted to see. Touring cemeteries is maybe a bit creepy, but especially near the coast and near mountains, cemeteries always seem to be in very pretty places. I also comfort myself since I would want people to enjoy the park-like atmosphere of any cemetery I might be buried in, as long as they were respectful. Anyway, we walked the mile or so to the cemetery, and it was pretty. Again, as seems to be the case with old Maine cemeteries, all of the people buried there either died very young (before forty) or died very old (older than eighty-five), even in the early 1900s. There was a small point of land in the cemetery that had a small bench that overlooked the harbor, and we sat there for awhile before heading back to the car.

The last stop of the day was in the town of Thomaston. Mer had a map for the St. Geroge’s River “river walk” which took you through the town, highlighting historical areas of the town as they pertained to its shipping past. We started at the site of the old Maine State Prison, which was torn down in 2002, and is now a large, open field and park. The old prison site has a commanding view of the river, and was a great place to start the walk. Thomaston has about thirty signs up throughout the town that point out historical buildings or events, so we stopped whenever we came across one of these.

The walk took us along the prison site, and then along back streets of the town, where we had never been before. The houses were very beautiful, and some, that used to belong to successful captains, were quite large. The walk curved us back through the neighborhoods back to the river and the small harbor. There we bumped into a lady who was a member of the historical society, and who very kindly told us about some of the history of shipbuilding and the harbor and the town. From the harbor, the walk returned us to the prison field and to our car, and so we headed home.

Wednesday was the Fourth of July, and I had hoped to be in Rockland for the Fourth so I could run in the nearby Thomaston Firecracker 5k race. Mer’s cousin’s husband, Jon, was also running in it, so Carleton was pretty excited to see us both run.

The day was not too warm, but it was humid, and it sprinkled a bit. I got in line to sign up for the race, and then realized I was in the women’s line, so I switched over. Jon was a few spots ahead. The volunteer-run race ran out of bibs from a larger-than-expected turnout, so they gave me a number on a piece of paper. That was fine, as long as it could hold up through the race, which it did.The race had a kids’ fun run at 8:00, and we started more or less on time at 8:30.

I was hopeful for this race. Although it was humid, I was only a month or so removed from running a full marathon. The course was hilly, but I had been doing hill training recently, so that was good. Also, I had run a half-marathon last fall at under seven minutes/mile, so my goal was to be under twenty-one minutes for the race. I started out with a very strong pace, and quickly found myself near the front. I passed a few people and settled into a slot where the man ahead of me was too far ahead to catch, but I was also determined not to be passed. I did walk for a few seconds at the turnaround, where I grabbed some water, but I did not give up my spot in the race. I had to keep talking myself through the hills, but I finished with a strong pace, and to my delight, I came in 6th out of 188 runners, with a personal-best (post-college, since I do not know what I ran in college or high school) time of 19:34, or a 6:19/mile pace. I beat my old best time by one second, but given the hills on the course, I was really happy.

I also thought I might win my age group, but Mer warned me that the guy who came in fifth looked to be an older runner. We were sticking around for brunch at the Thomaston Cafe anyway, so Mer and I hung out to see the awards ceremony. They had a leader board, and to my great delight, my name was on it for my age group (forty to forty-nine years old). They were just about to hand out awards when someone came up and took my name down and put up the name of the forty-seven-year-old man who had come in fifth. Easy come, easy go.

Jon had done quite well in the race as well, coming in in the top quarter of all runners. We joined Jon and his wife Tracy and their two small children, along with Carleton and his great-grandson Logan, for brunch at the Thomaston Cafe, which was mobbed. It took a long while to get a seat, which was when Mer and I were waiting to see if I won my age group in the race. We did finally get seated, and ordered. I expect the staff was frazzled, as my hot chocolate was tepid at best, and Tracy’s pancakes were not cooked all the way through. Usually the Cafe has excellent food, so I wrote it off to the hectic morning.

We finished breakfast just in time to go claim seats for the parade. We sat with a huge group of people on some lawn on the side of the road. It appeared the houses on the main road allowed it, and that was very good of the owners. Carleton had brought some chairs, so he and Tracy and Mer were all able to sit, while Jon took the older of the two kids to see if she could catch some candy that was thrown from some floats.

The parade got off to an uneven start. The parade started with the Thomaston fire department, and that was great; however, they got ahead of the next group of people, who were dressed as Civil War-era soldiers who stopped every hundred yards or so to fire their rifles, and then reload. After they passed by, the rest of the parade flowed well. There were a couple of bands playing from flatbed trucks, some cheerleaders, lots of political marchers and floats, and a few beauty pageant winners, and the parade ended with the fire departments from all the small towns around Thomaston. It was a nice little parade, and a good way to spend the Fourth.

After the parade, I went home and showered and then took a nap. Since I was in charge for the day, I decided to head up Route 1 and see what could be seen. We drove for almost an hour north when we came around a corner and saw a sign for the Penobscot River Narrows Bridge. I was very excited. My brother Shannon had told me about visiting the bridge, and I had wanted to see it since that time. We came around another corner and had a great full view of the bridge, and it really is an amazing design. We stopped and took pictures, and then drove on so that we could go up in the observation tower.

The observation tower is part of a larger park that includes Maine’s non-gold-containing Fort Knox, and the fort was open to tour with the admission to the tower. That was unexpected and quite welcome. We started with the bridge to make sure we had the leisure to take our time. The new bridge across the narrows replaced the still-standing older bridge next to it. The old bridge had been inspected in the early 2000s and was found to be corroded past repairing. So, a new bridge was designed and built in just forty months, with the new bridge being built from both sides of the river and meeting in the middle. That was pretty cool. The new bridge’s cables are housed in tubes so the cables can be replaced individually as needed, and they are even experimenting with cables made from carbon fiber. The whole cable system is kept under pressure from nitrogen gas so that the engineers can tell immediately if an individual tube has been breached by the weather.

The observation tower is in one of the two towers that hold up the bridge, and is 420 feet above the river. It is the only bridge observatory in the United States. Mer and I made our way to the elevator, which takes you up to near the top. To get to the real observation tower you had to climb two flights of stairs in order to clear the elevator shaft. It is quite a view, and since I am scared of heights, I fluctuated from being scarred to being uncomfortable and back again. I sat down on the floor at Mer’s suggestion, and that helped, but I was still only able to stay up there for a few minutes. Mer stayed a bit longer, and then joined me on the ground, where we talked with a volunteer about the bridge.

Having seen the bridge, I was very pleased to turn my exploring attentions to the fort. The fort highly recommended flashlights, which I took to be an excellent sign. Happily, I carry four in Mer’s car, and two of them still worked. The fort is just open for people to explore, and I’m guessing there were only about twenty people in the whole place, so we had much of the fort to ourselves.

It was really cool. There are long hallways at the front of the fort that are dim and have no access except at the ends. There are still rooms for canon, and the roof was built for canon as well, and the roof is reached by a spiral staircase. There are tunnels that lead to the outer defenses, and there are still a few canon in place for educational purposes. Plus, the fort has a wonderful view of the Penobscot River. The fort was never quite finished and never used, but it is still a great place to explore. We spent a couple of hours there, closing the place out.

At that point, since we still had over an hour drive ahead of us, I decided to go back home. We stopped back in Rockland to pick up supper at the Rockland Cafe, where we also picked up our first Maine whoopie pies, a dessert that I grew up on.

It was a very good start to the Maine vacation!

Breakfast was at 9:00 in the B and B, but we were up before that and able to do morning devotions and readings on our private back porch in the cool morning air. It was quite wonderful. Breakfast itself was an informal meal in the kitchen, since there were only Mer and I and one other guest in the B and B that morning. Breakfast was a delicious French toast bake. After breakfast, we took our time packing up, and so we did not get on the road until about 11:00. We stuck to our plan of taking a slower but more scenic route through Vermont and New Hampshire, which I think added about two hours onto our day, but was worth it.

We drove the short distance to Vermont. Mer has a theory that Vermont is instantly beautiful when you enter it, and we were coming in on a road that we had never used before. The New York side was very pretty and pleasant, but we turned a corner and entered Vermont and the horizon was instantly filled with a tree-filled mountain and dense forests on either side of the road. It was instantly beautiful, and only as we entered Vermont. Mer’s theory is still correct.

We drove along, taken in by the scenery. We passed a sign for a house museum dedicated to the poet Robert Frost, so I turned around and went back. Sadly, it was closed on Monday. The house had been a house where Frost had lived for a few years, and it was in a very pretty spot. We climbed back in the car and continued on to Bennington, Vermont.

Bennington is known in Vermont as the place where the Bennington Battle Monument is located. The monument commemorates a Revolutionary War battle that took place in Bennington, and the monument is huge, coming in at over three hundred feet. Given that the monument is located on top of a hill, it can be seen for some distance. The monument is a large tower, sort of like the Washington Monument, but with a different stone exterior. Plus, according to a local ranger, the monument is constructed with free-standing blocks of stone that overlap, so that there is no mortar or cement used in the structure. Pretty cool.

Anyway, Mer and I had gone to college in Middlebury, Vermont, so we had been by the monument from time to time, but had never stopped. This time, we stopped, and walked the grounds and went up in the monument itself. Usually, I hate heights, but the observation area has thick walls and very narrow slits for windows, so I was able to stand it for a few minutes before having to head down.

After Bennington, we kept going east through Brattleboro, and we crossed over into New Hampshire. We stopped in the cute (but notso pretty as Vermont) town of Keene, New Hampshire, for a bathroom and bakery break. We then jumped on a New Hampshire highway and took it all the way to the bridge in Kittery, Maine.

We always take the coastal highways – Route 295 up to Brunswick, then onto Route 1. Route 1 is pretty, and takes us right into Rockland, where Mer’s grandfather, Carleton, lives. We got to Carleton’s place about 8:00. We greeted Carelton, unpacked, and then, after a short visit, walked downtown to a local restaurant, where we ate supper on the patio. Our timing was good because we’d just finished supper when the bugs started coming out, so we were able to eat more or less in peace. The evening air was wonderfully cool, and we walked back to the house, where we chatted with Carleton and then went to bed.

After a Saturday filled with a wedding and two graduation parties, we did not hurry overly to get going on our Maine vacation. We slept in the next day and packed, and finally got on the road about eleven. We drove for eight hours, stopping for lunch at a Subway just off the highway. Eight hours got us to far eastern New York. Since our travel plan for Monday was to take it easy and enjoy a scenic drive through Vermont and New Hampshire, we went a fair ways off of the New York Thruway; we stopped in the small town of Ballston Spa, where we would spend the night at the Lewis House Bed and Breakfast.

We got to the Lewis House around seven and checked into a huge multi-room suite. We then asked for recommendations for a restaurant, and the very kind owner directed us a short distance down the road to the Spa Brauhaus, a local German restaurant. We got to the the restaurant only about twenty minutes before they closed, and there was only one other party in the place, but we did not feel as if we intruded. The service was still excellent, and the waitress assured us she had plenty of closing tasks to keep her busy when she was not waiting on us. We had an excellent meal of Hungarian Goulash, and finished with decent desserts. When we went up to the bar to pay the bill, I saw a Team-in-Training jar on the counter. Team-in-Training is an organization that helps marathon runners raise money for leukemia research. I asked the barkeep about the jar, and we got to talking about his running. For the next hour. Well after the place closed. It was very friendly. He even offered to by us drinks, which we turned down, but it was very kind of him. We found out he started running small distances, and then found out about Team-in-Training and decided to try a full marathon. He had done two, and wanted to do another. He was a good conversationalist, and we left only because we had to get some sleep because we had a good-sized travel day on Monday.

We got back to the B and B a little after 10:00, and I drew Mer a bath because the bathroom had a large claw-footed bathtub. She relaxed, and I got ready for bed and read a little. It was a relaxing evening after a long day of driving, and a good start to our vacation.

Yesterday was a fun and exciting day. We had a wedding and two graduation parties, and all of them involved former students I actually know.

The wedding was a late morning wedding, and it was the long-anticipated wedding between our former CVCA students Tom and Fiona. Tom and Fiona had both taken Mer’s Honors and AP English classes, and I’d had Tom in Royal Fools, and I’d worked with both Tom and Fiona on the Diakonos service team’s spring break service trips. Tom is one of the most talented improv students I have ever had, and Fiona is one of the most genuinely sweet and compassionate students I have ever met. They’d started dating in high school, and now, four years later, got married.

Many members of the bridal party were former CVCA students, and there were a ton of current and former CVCA people in the congregation. Fiona had a simple, pretty dress and a 1920s-style mini veil that was perfect for her personality. Tom seemed very calm, but he did break out in a huge smile when Fiona came down the aisle. Fiona needed a little time when she came to read her vows to Tom, as she started crying (which was very sweet), but she made it through. It was a beautiful service, with a homily speaking to the serious nature of marriage and the life-long commitment required, and Tom and Fiona spent some time in prayer.

After the service, the congregation stayed seated for a few minutes while a slide show of Tom and Fiona played. I had never seen that before as part of a wedding service (these are usually played at a reception), and I liked it. Everyone could see because the screens were high, and there were no distractions (like food or conversation). Mer and I were very pleased that we appeared in one of the slides with Tom and Fiona. We felt famous.

There was an appetizer time after the ceremony, and we got to visit with Zach and Londa Churchill quite a bit, as well as with some other CVCA folks. We eventually wound our way into the reception room, where we were a bit sad to find out we were not sitting with Zach and Londa. It turned out okay, though, as we got to sit with the McSparrans and a host of former CVCA students who provided amusing conversation.

There was a meal served that was a buffet of various sandwich wraps that were excellent. Mer and I were a tad embarrassed when Tom and Fiona cut their “cake,” which was a large cupcake. Everyone was then encouraged to eat the cupcake that was in front of each seat. Mer and I had eaten that about forty-five minutes beforehand. Ooops.

It was a fun gathering, and I was frustrated that I needed to leave a bit early. I started having digestive problems, and had to ask Mer to leave. We still had an excellent time and got in some quality visiting, and it was a great wedding.

I took a nap and drank some water and felt better, which was good because we still had a full day of graduation parties to go to. The first party was a joint party, with Nate and Alec as hosts. Nate was in Royal Fools, and both Nate and Alec were in my Connections small group at CVCA. I knew them both quite well and was very much looking forward to the party.

The party was up in Hudson, in the back yard of Nate’s house, where we’d attended Nate’s older brother’s graduation party three years prior. The place was mobbed with familiar faces, including the Millers, the parents of one of Mer’s favorite former students who graduated five years ago. The Millers’ presence was a nice surprise to us, as we’d forgotten they were friends of Nate’s family.

The food was excellent, and Mer and I got to spend a good chunk of time chatting with Rachel, a current CVCA student and Fool who had just gotten back from a family trip to Italy. Later, I spent a good chink of time chatting with Ben Pykare, a former Fool and the student help I have this summer. We talked about the video game Civilization V, which we currently play together on occasion.

We ended the evening going to a grad party of a student whom I did not know (one of Mer’s students). The food was fantastic, and as we settled down in chairs in the shade, a young woman approached us. She was smiling, and finally told us that she was Malu, a former CVCA exchange student from Brazil who had been in Fools. I felt terrible for not recognizing her, but last I had known, she was in California, and so I was not expecting to see her at a small CVCA grad party. She was in town because her former host family, the DiPaolos, were having their own wedding of a daughter the next day, and Malu was in town for a month as part of that celebration. We had a long talk with Malu about her studying theater out in California at Biola, and it was wonderful to catch up with her. Her English was always excellent, but she is now at the point where her accent is almost gone.

It was a grand day, with the only down side being that Mer forgot her purse at the last party, and I had to take the forty-five-minute round-trip back to go get it. Happily, it had not moved at all from where she had placed it, so the day ended on the same happy note on which it began.

With Mer out of town Sunday afternoon through Friday evening, I was left on my own to “batch it” for a few days. Happily, I have good friends who look out for me and made sure I had social options.

On Sunday evening, I was paying bills in the office at about 8:30 when I heard the doorbell. I ran upstairs and opened the door, and to my surprise and delight, I found two of CVCA’s just-graduated students, John and Ben. John was in my Connections group (small group of students who met with me once a week), and Ben worked for me last summer and this summer. I know them both quite well, and they are great guys. As an illustration of that, they had been over on CVCA’s athletic fields playing Frisbee, and when they were done had remembered that I was alone. So, on the spur of the moment, they came over to see if I wanted to see a movie. I was quite pleased and impressed, so I said sure, and after we talked comic books for twenty minutes and had a comic book exchange, I headed off with the two of them to the video store, then the gas station for some junk food, and finally over to John’s house, where we joined John’s father in the basement den to watch the silly comedy Johnny English: Reborn. It was a foolish little comedy spoofing spy films like James Bond, but it was amusing throughout and very funny at times, and I was with good people and had a very good time.

On Tuesday, Zach and Londa called and asked me if I would like to join them for dessert. I was quite pleased to do so, and Zach suggested Sweet Frog, a top-your-own frozen yogurt place nearby. I remembered that I had been lukewarm about frozen yogurt when I’d tried it in Chicago, so this time I planned on using just a little yogurt with a whole lot of toppings. Zach and Londa picked me up, and we drove to Sweet Frog, which is fairly new. The line went all around the store, and after we got in line, the employees started asking people to wait outside for fire code reasons. It appears to be a popular place. Zach is the seventh grade Bible teacher at CVCA, and is a very popular teacher. He managed to have three or four CVCA student sightings in the yogurt place. We also saw another CVCA teacher, Ray, there with his son and his son’s girlfriend. Zach and Londa and I visited for over an hour total, and my toppings-intensive yogurt was excellent.

On Thursday, I hosted a student Batman night. John and Ben had thought it would be great to see a couple of animated Batman movies, and so John arranged it with some of his friends. I supplied Batman and the Mask of the Phantasm, and John was going to bring Batman: Under the Red Hood. I took a half-day off so I could bake and nap for the evening, and people came over around 5:30. By 6:00, there were five of us, me and four other students, but John was nowhere to be seen. We finally started the evening at 6:15, and found out later that John had gone on vacation with his family, and they had extended their stay by a day, so he was out of town, which was too bad for our group. A little ways into the second move, my colleague Craig showed up, and so we had a good little party going on. It was a great time – food, good movies, and cool people with whom to hang out. Mer and I had bough a new couch the previous Thursday, and it had been delivered on Wednesday, so I had good seating for everyone. I also went out and bought a thirty-two-inch LCD TV for the occasion (it was an open-box, discontinued model that was forty percent off). I missed Mer for sure, but evenings like this helped soften the loneliness.

Mer was due back on Friday evening, but I had one last hurrah left. I took another half-day off, and Ben and I played the video game Civilization V for about four hours. I was doing very well in the game, and was reminded of why I cannot ever own the game in my house – I find it too addicting. But it is a good time when played sparingly with other people.

Over the few days, I also did some work in our main bathroom, adding a towel hook and a towel ring, and getting a new shower-hanger for soap and shampoos and the like, and I got and installed a new faucet; now everything in our bathroom is silver and matches. It was not all play while Meredith was away in Florida.

I did finally get Mer back; her flight came in on time at 11:30 into the Akron-Canton airport. She was back just in time for us to have a busy Saturday followed by leaving for vacation on Sunday. I may have been batchin’ it, but I suspect she is the one in need of rest.

I started last Saturday off with a felt-good fourteen-mile run. My boss, Jim, joined me for much of the run, so it was a sociable time.

Once I got home and got showered, Mer and I headed south to Aunt Mary’s to visit with the family. We headed out to lunch at a Canton landmark, John’s Bar. I had never been, and it was a fine place to eat and chat. The food was good, and the inevitable televisions were muted, so they were not particularly distracting. After lunch, we went back to Aunt Mary’s, where we continued our visit for a bit. Mer and I headed back home, but I gave in to a whim (not unheard of), and we stopped at Handel’s ice cream stand in Green for a little dessert (actually a fairly good-sized dessert).

In the evening, Mer and I headed into Ellet, a section of eastern Akron, to Grace Brethren Church, where our friends Nate and Rachel attend church. Nate had agreed to host and to run sound for Heather Dale for a concert for the evening, and we wanted to go. Readers of ye olde blog may remember that I have had Heather and her partner/guitarist Ben over to our house for a house concert three times over the last couple of years, and we are big fans of her music.

Heather had just released a new CD inspired by fairy tales, and so we were looking forward to hearing new songs. Ben and Heather greeted us warmly, and it was great to see Nate and Rachel, whom we had not seen in a few months. The church was set up to seat about 120 people, but sadly we only ended up with about twelve or fifteen people in the audience, despite a Facebook event, my e-mailing the CVCA staff, the event being on WKSU’s folk calendar, and it being on Heather’s website. I felt bad for Heather and Ben, and they even had brought along an excellent drummer. They took it in stride and still gave an excellent concert. Nate managed the soundboard, and the sound was excellent. Ben commented what a great venue it was, and indicated a willingness to come back in the late fall for a holiday/Christmas concert (and even strongly hinted that he may call on Mer to be a backup singer, which would be really exciting). Heather sounded great, and it was wonderful that we got to hear her play a real piano since the church had one. It was a good concert, and maybe we can get more people out in the fall. As an added bonus, we had a couple of students show up, Katie and her brother Thomas, and their mother came along as well. It was fun to see them.

Mer is ever a time optimist, and so after the concert we sprinted over to a late graduation party. We made it, but most of the real food was gone or cold, so I had a piece of cake. We watched the students put on an impromptu and chaotic whiffleball game, and we stayed for about half an hour. Since I was fairly hungry still, I drove home a way that took us past Five Guys Burgers and Fries. We got there just before closing, and we were delighted to see one of our former students, Jackson, working there. Jackson is a born performer, and he is always “on,” so we had a great time interacting with him.

On Sunday, Mer was going to Florida with her parents to help them prepare for their upcoming move back to Ohio. She was going to be gone though Friday, and so I drove her to Aunt Mary’s, where we met up with everyone, and then we headed back to the airport (a three-mile drive). I stayed with Mer and Dale and Carlene through the check-in process and walked them as far as security. I stayed until they cleared the checkpoint, and then I headed home to my temporary bachelor pad.

I have a little extra vacation time, and I was getting quite sick of work, so I took a play day last Friday to spend time with Mer. Mer let me be in charge, so I decided to catch a matinee of Pixar’s new film, Brave. Brave caught my attention for several reasons: I tend to love Celtic-inspired stories and music, I love Scottish accents, the music for the film is wonderful, and, although the film is animated, Pixar did a spectacular job of recreating the beauty of Scotland. Needless to say, I loved the film. It did appear that Mer and I were the only childless people in the theater, but we got some of the adult-related humor that went over the kids’ shorter heads.

Later in the evening, we went to Actors’ Summit theater to see the last show of the 2011-12 season, a musical revue called Route 66, where the music was popular hits about or inspired by the highway. The play happened to be an opening night, and it coincided with the theater’s first-ever gala dinner and auction. So, before the play started, we got to see an auctioneer coax bids from the audience for six items. He did a fantastic job; he was funny and engaging, and the auction did not drag at all.

The play was fluffy, but fun. I don’t expect a lot of depth from musical revues. The director wisely played up some of the humor in songs about driving, having the actors “drive” around on stage in trucks made up of soap boxes (although they had working headlights) and by having a large man in a dress drive around on an electric scooter for “Little Old Lady From Pasadena.” Mer and I still prefer story-driven plays and musicals to musical revues, but Route 66 did an entertaining job.

Actors’ Summit always has desserts after the opening night performances (which is a major reason we try to go on opening nights). This night, they had everyone walk across the street to the top level of the parking deck, where they had dessert and dancing under a pretty evening sky. Mer and I were very pleased about this. We got to have cupcakes and we got to dance to some fun music, which spanned the 40s to the 70s, but was mostly from the 60s and 70s. We had a great time, and it capped off a lovely day.

Last Thursday, we headed up to Cleveland Heights to see Mer’s friend Jill. Mer and Jill went to high school together, and had reconnected via Facebook, and Jill, who makes artisan candles and other scented products, had a home sales party at our house a few months ago. Jill had invited us up to her area, so we finally found a time that worked for all of us.

The area in which Jill lives is very cute. It has a lot of shops and restaurants, an outdoor music venue called Cain Park is nearby, and it feels much like some of the smaller Chicago neighborhoods. Jill lives in a funky and fun apartment above a small restaurant, which we found with no trouble. Jill showed us in, and we sat in her living room and chatted while we all adored Jill’s Maine Coon cat, who is gorgeous and very friendly.

Jill is a trip. She is gregarious and talks in an almost stream-of-consciousness sort of way. It may sound off-putting, but it is quite the opposite – she is fun and funny, and I was smiling the entire time she was talking. We visited for about an hour before driving the several blocks to the nearby local chain restaurant, Melt. Melt, which oddly attracts a heavily tattooed and pierced clientele, specializes in grilled cheese and variants of grilled cheese (by adding meats and other things). It was very good, and a fun place to people-watch.

After supper, we went back to Jill’s place, where she suggested we watch her VHS copy of her and Mer’s 1990 high school graduation. We readily agreed, so I got to see a younger Jill and Mer in the graduation finery, and I got to hear Mer’s valedictorian speech (as well as Julie Claypool’s speech – we have been friends with Julie for ten years or so, so that was great to see). After the video, Mer and I had to leave, so Jill walked us to the car and urged us to come back soon. That seems most likely, and hopefully it won’t be months in the making this time.