WoodenBoat School

Aaaah, the WoodenBoat School of Brooklin, Maine. That's not a [sic], by the way. It is Brooklin, not Brooklyn. The y place is in New York. This is certainly a whole different kind of Brooklin. The year-round population is about 700, and it swells to around 1,200 in the summer. There are lots of folks here who do the go to Florida in the summer thing. The water in Eggemoggin Reach is always cold, which means it is great for lobsters, crabs, and sharks. Two things that pinch and one thing that bites. Anybody catch the special about the USS Indianapolis on Discovery last night? Sharks are amazing creatures, but they seem to be mostly teeth. As we learned in our kayaking classes on Beaver Island, it's best to keep the bumpy side up.

We left the hotel in Boston on Saturday at around 11:00. Our original plan was to stay two nights in Boston, then drive to Portland to spend the night, cut down the drive, and catch a ballgame. We loved Boston and Gloucester so much (and the hotel) that we decided to extend our stay there to a third day and skip the night in Portland. That gave us a drive to Stonington of 5 hours and 7 minutes, according to the sickos at Mapquest. It might be 5 hours and 7 minutes if you're making the night shift drive, but not when we came through. We made it to New Hampshire in great time, then ran into a brick wall. The part of New Hampshire we passed through is only 12 miles wide, but it took almost an hour! I can't sit in traffic more than a few seconds without wondering what the delay is. I have this theory that if there was some way to get everyone to tune in to the same radio station, they could broadcast a message at a precise time--there would have to be a countdown of some sort, which would be fun, everybody counting down together--instructing everyone to speed up to say 65 mph at a given moment. If everybody did it, traffic would instantly be moving again. But you just know there would be one stick in the mud. "Oh, boy, I don't know. I just think it would be best to just be patient and see this thing through." Then there would be a giant pileup. Probably wouldn't work. So anyway, it turned out that we were sitting in traffic because all 75,000 cars had to go through a toll station. And the worst part of the whole thing was that the stinkin' toll was only one measly sawbone! By golly, if I have to wait that long in that much smelly traffic, they ought to at least charge me something worth collecting.

But we finally made it through the toll station and were on our merry way again. Then it started to sprinkle. Then it started to rain. Then it started to downpour. The wipers worked fine until schnauzers and wiener dogs began pelting the windshield. After about an hour of this I pulled over to see if by chance there were any gopher wood trees in the area.

We ate lunch in a little town in New Hampshire that was real easy to get into, but near impossible to leave. We went under an overpass on the way in, but on the way back out that part of the road was flooded--true story. We had to stop where we did, because New Hampshire is only twelve miles wide and we had to urinate...Mengel rules of travel etiquette. Alex had a hot dog, and the dog was about 10" long, but the bun was about three times that size. The bun itself would have been a meal. Probably the restaurant owner also owns the bakery.

Back on the road. We made it to the Bay area in good time, then rediscovered that oldest of tricks that the road plays on you. Just because you are 40 miles from somewhere doesn't mean it will take you 40 minutes, and just because you cover that 40 miles doesn't mean you are there! The last 25 or 30 miles before we got to Deer Isle were probably at one time a Deer Path. Rather that flatten or straighten it out, the masochistic civil engineers decided to just widen it. It was a beautiful drive, and I'd love to do it on a motorcycle sometime, but you know how it is when you've been driving for quite a while, through traffic and heavy rain, and you have to pee, and you're hungry, and you've been watching (or for those of us in the front seat, listening) to Barney Fife whine for so long that even he has become annoying? You know what I'm talking about, right? We made it to Deer Isle a little after 7, but that's not the end of the drive. Stonington is all the way at the southern tip of Deer Isle, and the roads were, if anything, curvier and hillier and not as wide and bumpier. Anyhoo. We found Grandpa's Cottage at piled out of Blue Van around 8:00.

The cottage is, how do you say, interesting. Personally, I like it. We are one block from the harbor, so we hear the fog horns, we see the lobster boats anchored in the harbor, and it's just very quiet and peaceful. Valerie isn't so thrilled. It has a bath but no shower, so to quote Erika, we'll all have to bathe in our own filth. The stairs must have been built by an Everest explorer. I swear I had to have Drew climb up, tie a rope off, and belay the rest of us. I'm learning how to rappel this week to make getting down less treacherous. Braden likes it, but I suspect one of these days I'll be posting something about the severity of his brain injury. We would feel more comfortable if there was a railing all the way across the top of the stairs, but there is a short section that is open. There is a bench across the front of it, which just means that Braden can fall from a greater altitude. On Sunday night Valerie tried sleeping in at least three different places. Two of them were two hard, one of them was too soft, and none of them were just right. Me, I prefer to sleep on the floor, so a firm (read, hard) bed is right up my alley. We're getting by.

The kicker, however, is this--it turns out that the WoodenBoat School is almost 45 minutes away from Stonington. I know what you're all thinking, or at least what you should be thinking. "Great job, Mike. You paid $1300 for a cottage that is dangerous, dated, and distant." Well, you're right. We spent quite a while fighting about exactly how Drew and I were going to get to school every day without one of three things going on:
1. Valerie and the young'uns being stranded without a vehicle
2. Valerie and the young'uns poking around Brooklin all day while we're in class
3. Valerie and the young'uns driving a total of 3 hours every day to bring us to class and pick us up afterward

Oddly enough, none of those options was appealing to Valerie and the young'uns. And let me tell you, we had a good tussle about it. The fur did fly. One more thing I should tell you. We didn't make it to church yesterday morning--Mom, I know you're wondering if we did or not--because the house didn't have any hot water until almost 10:30. I don't know what the story was there, because we had hot water on Saturday evening, and we had hot water at 10:30 on Sunday, and we had hot water on Monday morning. But for whatever reason, it was at best lukewarm when we were trying to get ready for church. I had a pleasant sounding Baptist church on Oceanville Road picked out. Probably the devil resides in our water heater.

By 1:00 we had the whole picture, so I called the rental place to find out if we had any options. I left a message with a person, not a machine, but didn't get a call back until almost 7:00, right in the middle of a meeting our kayak building class was having. I hate it when people's cell phones ring at times like that, but to my undying embarrassment, this was one call I had to take. The nice lady called to see exactly what I was talking about. To get down to brass tacks (what does that mean? Why are brass tacks any more concise than other types?), we can't get out of the lease, but they did refund a big chunk of our rent, so Drew and I caught a ride to a neighboring town today during our lunch break and I rented a car. This should work out fine, and now I get to drive a Mazda 6 all week. Pretty sweet deal.

Now, if you are an intuitive person, and most of you are...a few of you I have suspicions about, but most of you seem pretty sharp...you're probably thinking that things are in the toilet. Let me put your mind at ease--we're doing fine. Stonington is absolutely beautiful, the rental car thing is going to work out great, and Valerie seems to be talking to me again. When we talked on the cell while Drew and I were heading back to our class after lunch break, she sounded positively friendly! And that's good, because our 15th wedding anniversary is on August 1st and I'd hate to spend that day/night in the doghouse.

Things are settling down, working out, and all is good. The kayak class is simply outstanding. Drew did a good job picking colors for his boat, and it is going to be really neat. He's fired up that his kayak will be 12" longer than mine. Brooklin is a great place to visit. I would highly recommend a boatbuilding class to anyone out there, and this is the place to do it. The store on campus is chock full of stuff I just gotta have, and if anyone wants me to pick up a t-shirt or sweatshirt for you, I'd be happy to. You can see their stuff online if you do a search for the WoodenBoat School store.

I'll get some pictures up tomorrow so you can see that everyone is still smiling!