A few days ago I went on a little adventure with the Nature Conservancy and Maine Huts and Trails.
Cleveland drove and it was raining the whole way there. A lot. He frowned and sighed for the majority of the three hour car ride, but for some reason I wouldn't budge. I kept saying things like, "It won't be that bad! Think of this as a challenge, like we're going to feel amazing afterwards. And we're going to be so relieved to get warm in that hut and sit by the fire and drink hot cocoa! We'll only be soaking wet for a few hours!"
WTF was I thinking? I'm still not entirely sure. He even confessed considering offering an alternative plan, like hiding away in a hotel with a hot tub somewhere just to not do it.
It was nice, being at the hut, getting warm, and it actually felt like we earned that Jumbalya with the fruits of our labor... surrounded by hardcore ski/outdoor people who were debating which remote Maine roads were washed out by Hurricane Irene between the Forks, Sugarloaf and Saddleback.
This is a Polyvore set that I made roughly outlining my outfit. Note: my shirt wasn't yellow, it was black and white.
This is what our companions were wearing, with the exception of possibly Maggie, who kept her Ponomo earrings on the whole time.
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Just kidding. That's from the Patagonia website.
Here's the hut:
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| mainehuts.org |
A friend recently told me that I'm outdoorsy now. I said that I didn't have the right gear to be outdoorsy. Seriously. Do you have any idea how much Gortex costs? At one point, when we were packing, Cleveland pulled a hat out of his closet. I said that he should bring the hat, he said he didn't particularly like the hat, thought that it looked sort of stupid. I'll tell you. We both looked sort of stupid in Cleveland's grandfather's beautiful wooden canoe, with our piecemeal outdoor gear (anything not cotton). But that stupid hat definitely kept his head warm and dry.
One of of the other women on the trip, a fundraiser, also paddled to the hut (as opposed to hiked.) Her and her husband run an adventure/coffee business non-profit business and is currently looking for takers on a Costa Rica trip: part sustainable coffee tour, part white water rafting/adventure. She asked me how our paddle was (they literally paddled six miles an hour downstream. That's a lot.) Cleveland and I are new to paddling together- I'm inexperienced at steering, and he's not terribly experienced in a canoe, though in his defense he's done more kayaking and rafting than I have. But we somehow found our groove and we made decent time. Adventure woman seemed genuinely happy for us, then remarked, "They don't call them divorce boats for nothing."
At the end of the second day, my muscles were definitely aching. We paddled 12 miles and hiked about 5. Grand Falls lived up to it's name, and I'm excited to visit Maine Huts and Trails again... when it's sunny. Maybe this winter?
image c.o rangeleysnomobile.com
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