A visit from BeeBee

Kurt's best buddy from college came to spend a couple days with us! I would say his visit is best summed up in photographs (see below). We went for a hike to Peaked Mountain (aka Chicks Mtn), stopped in at the Hollywood Casino, went for drinks in Bangor, and invented a new game 'Sniper'. This was only the second time I've ever met B and the first time I've met him as Kurt's betrothed. Let me just say: when B is around, you can't help but have a good time.

Lobsters and Liquor....It's the 4th of July!

My parents came up to visit for the 4th of July! I cried when I hugged them. The weight of how much work a graduate degree really requires has started to set in, so to let loose with my family was a much needed release. We spent the weekend at my aunt and uncle's house swimming, eating, drinking, singing, and planning a wedding! The whole weekend is just a blur of happy moments: planning wedding stuff on the porch with my mom and aunt; my mom, Kurt and I played marco polo in the pool and it cracked us up the entire time; Kurt playing guitar by the fire, Sparklers to celebrate my aunt's birthday (you can see her enjoying them in the picture below)....the list could go on and on.


Then I had a hectic couple of days where I drove back to Bangor to do the routine sampling and then rushed back down to go to a Kruger Brothers Concert at the Deertrees theatre with everyone! Sampling went later into the day than I had expected, so I didn't have time to stop at home to get a shower. Instead, Kurt and I snuck into a campground so I could shower! The concert was amazing. It was such a wonderful experience to introduce Kurt and my parents to the Kruger Brothers' music, and to do it as a fun Maine experience. Deertrees theatre looks like an old barn stuck in the middle of the woods, but it has amazing acoustics and makes for a very cool concert enviornment. We even got them to take a request! They said that they never do a request, but with a special plea from my aunt and I they played "Take me in your arms" just for us!

It was so hard to say goodbye to my mom, dad, aunt and uncle. I am a very lucky woman to be surrounded by a family that can revive her soul just when she needs it most.

Camping in Acadia National Park

The last weekend in June, we finally got to visit Acadia National Park on Mt. Desert Island. We camped at the Bass Harbor Campgrounds (owned by "Doc" who has a son named Kurt!). The owners of the campground were the friendliest people, they told us where the best places were to go and how to cook our own lobsters over a fire! During the high season (july and august) they have a big lobster bake every Wednesday, but we showed up right before the big rush. We got a cute site along a big open field. We could hear the ocean and buoys in the distance. After we set up, we went for a walk to see the Bass Harbor lighthouse (picture at right).

We talked with a couple of the other people stopping to look at the lighthouse, and even saw some porpoises while looking out toward the ocean! Then we high tailed it back to the camp site to get a good fire going before it got dark for our hot dog and smore dinner. We played cards, charades and read around the fire. While laying in the tent we listened to the strong winds coming off the coast and swaying the huge pine trees around our site.

The next day, we drove around the island, it was beautiful! We saw the seawall, where a very small natural rock wall seperates the ocean from a freshwater lake on the island. We explored a path off the road and climbed down the rock cliff to a sea cave that was exposed because it was low tide. We stopped to eat some sandwhiches at Sand Beach. There are very few natural sand beaches along Maine's rocky coast, but sand beach is one of them and it's beautiful. The water was the coldest ocean water I have ever felt, it took your breath away when you just put your foot in!

Then we went for a hike up the Beehive. The hike is described as "a nearly vertical climb using iron rungs with spectacular close-up views of Sand Beach and Great Head." The views were amazing (despite being somewhat overcast) and the hike was such a fun time.

After the exhilerating hike, we stoped at Preston's Seafood to buy live lobsters for dinner! We figured we would take Doc's advice and try our hand at cooking lobsters on the campfire. The campground lent us a huge pot to boil the water in and Kurt McGuyver found two pieces of rebar to prop the pot up above the coals. The woman in the campground office told us to throw the lobsters in when we had a rolling boil and in only 13 minutes we would have perfectly done lobsters, she was right! Not only was it an amazing meal, but it also gave Kurt a new experience: his first time holding a live lobster. With some sweet potatoes and green beans, we had a perfect meal. And I can't forget smores for dessert.

A very lucky seagull smelled our dinner and waited patiently 2 feet from our campsite until the perfect moment (kurt and I both went to the bathhouse to rinse off all the lobster juice) to steal some leftovers. We found him on top of our picnic table...that sneaky bastard. After dinner, we practiced camera tricks with hot coals and long exposures and listed to the All Request Oldies station until a couple of rain drops chased us into the tent.

Where pine trees meet the sea

Our first weekend adventure in Maine was a road trip up the coast. We've decided to make the most of the first month or two where I have relatively little to do for school and Kurt is unemployed. So this post will be the first of many summarizing our first Maine adventures.

We were pleasantly surprised that it only takes an hour to go from our front door to the Atlantic Ocean. It took me a while to pin point what it smells like in Maine, but now that I've got it I'll never forget it: a mixture of pine trees, maple syrup, and honeysuckle. When we're along the coast it also smells like salty sea air and pine trees. It's a very distinctive and comforting smell and it will forever be the 'Maine smell.' We started our trip by visiting Schoodic Point, a part of Acadia National Park.

Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I took detailed notes of our first couple of weeks here because it just seemed so fun to me. So in that first week (before the weekend adventure I started to tell you about) we found a great Thai place in Orono (we actually visited this thai place when we came to visit the university in April, Kurt got a fortune in his fortune cookie that said "your life will become more of an adventure." I won't lie that helped us decide to throw caution to the wind and move to the land of lumberjacks.), we also found an awesome used bookstore in Bangor and we planted flowers, fresh herbs, and a tomato plant in our yard. It wasn't long before we started calling the Orono apartment "home."

I also had my first week of field research! I went out on several lakes, heard my first loon and saw a huge snapping turtle. The lakes in Maine are beautiful, sunrise as the fog is lifting and the loons are calling is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Little cabins are tucked into all the pine trees around the lake, each with smoke coming from the chimney (yes, even in the end of June it is still cold enough at night for fires in the fireplace).

Every day after I came home from being out on the lakes, Kurt and I would go on a local adventure to feel out our surroundings. This week we went for a walk at the Orono bog boardwalk, such an amazing environment. We were a little on edge because a momma bear and 2 cubs were seen just that week, and here like most places in Maine there was no one around but us. Well when we first started our walk we ran into a small family...the dad showed us the gun he had hid in the stroller just in case he came across the bear...hmmmm.

And just when you thought our week was jam packed enough, we also went for a 6 mile bike ride into Old Town! I brought my brother's old mountain bike from home which is rusted and falling apart and Kurt found an old Walmart mountain bike left for garbage in the back of a vacant apartment down from us. So on our fine pieces of equipment, we started off (and stopped frequently to fill Kurt's leaky tires with air). We made it to the dam on the Penobscot and laughed, got great exercise and vowed to never do it again.

The last (and most important) thing we did before we set off for the coast was to go to the Canoe Hullabaloo!!! That's right ladies and gentlemen, Old Town's fifth annual riverfront festival. Kurt ate his first red hotdog! I don't know what the big deal is, but it's a Maine thing. We also had whoopie pies (a Maine trademark) and doughboys! A doughboy is like a funnel cake, but instead of being a bunch of strings of dough it is one big piece, kind of like a pizza with cinnamon and sugar on top. They're delightful. But let me tell you the best part, we got to experience the greatest Elvis tribute artist, EVER. Joey Loring does not attempt to be Elvis, he just pays tribute to the King. It was so great, because he's a local town guy and to hear all the Mainers sitting around us saying "Oh yeah, Joey looks good this year, he's got a blue suit." Man, I have never laughed so hard. Best thing is we got a picture with Joey:

Ok, so now we're ready to get back to the coast: Schoodic was b-e-a-utiful. We did a driving loop around the peninsula and a small hike to the highest point to get a good look at the coast. A rocky coast lined with evergreens is unbeatable in terms of beauty. And the tops of the highest ground are all bald because of the winds coming off the coast. So you see the beautiful almost pink colored granite. And all day the fog kept rolling in and out; you would turn around and in a matter of minutes you could see islands and fishing boats you couldn't see just a second ago because of the fog. And there was a constant chorus of fog horns, bell buoys, gulls and loons. It's quite a magical place.

On our way out to the point, we stopped in Winter Harbor at a smoked seafood place called the Grindstone Neck of Maine Gourmet. The owner was the friendliest guy, he ended up loaning us a cooler and ice packs to keep our food cold with the faith we would bring it back 2 days later. And he introduced us to the tastiness that is honey cured salmon candy. I will have cravings of this now for the rest of my life. Our experience with Mainers has been nothing short of amazing. I have met some of the most friendly people up here, they will talk to you like they've known you for years and go out of their way to help you out.

From Schoodic, we headed north along the coast to Jonesport, the most quintessential Maine fishing village (picture at left). We also went through Machias, where we had lunch at the whole life natural market and cafe, best black bean burrito I ever had. In the afternoon we stopped at Quoddy Head State Park and lighhouse (eastern most point in the US) where we saw a porcupine and seals! We also grabbed a couple beautiful sea stones to put in our office to remember our trip. Kurt jumped on the opportunity to climb the huge rocks along the coast.

Then we arrived at our home for the night, the Home Port Inn in Lubec, ME. Dave and Suzannah, the owners of the Inn, were such sweet people (and quite the travelers!). We had dinner in the Inn, and what an amazing dinner it turned out to be! We had haddoc, halibut and fresh blueberry pie! Not to mention a wonderful red wine, Sangre de Toro. We realized during dinner it was actually our 9 month anniversary! After a wonderful night sleep, we woke up to fog horns and gulls. After an out-of-this-world breakfast, we jumped the border into New Brunswick!

Side-note: One other thing I love about Maine, every restaurant uses items that are bought locally. Awesome.

So it was a 10 minute drive to hop onto Campobello Island (good thing we brought our passports!). We visited Roosevelt Campobello International Park. President Franklin Roosevelt had a vacation home on Campobello Island and it is not open to public tours (middle picture below). Kurt and I were the only ones there! The house was beautiful. We also went to see the East Quoddy lighthouse (across the bay from the West Quoddy we visited the previous afternoon). Although it was too foggy to see it from only a couple hundred feet away, we could hear the fog horn going all day. We grabbed lunch at the Family Fisheries Restaurant (picture of Kurt trying to blend in with the Canucks below along with me about to do work on a lobster roll) where it was obvious we were 'from away' compared to the french speaking locals. We had our second lobster rolls ever (the first was on Friday evening at the Sea Dog Brewery in Bangor)! These were better than the brewery, but not the best we ever had....more on that to come. After lunch we began the trip home, stopping to return the cooler and to pick up some glass art. Glass art is a touristy Maine thing, but we had to do it anyway.

And that my friends, is the story of our first Maine adventure. Oh yeah, side-note #2: I love lupine. It grows everywhere in Maine in the spring and makes me happy. What better note to end on than a flowery one.

June: a month of discovery

So June 2008 was a big month for the soon-to-be Strock family. In the first week, we quit our jobs, traveled to Hilton Head with his family for a farewell trip, traveled to my family's cabin in Huntingdon, PA for a bon voyage, took a majority of our belongings to thrift stores, packed up what was left, and GOT ENGAGED! We were engaged on 6/8/08 in Huntingdon, PA surrounded by family. There were tears, cheers, and a diamond. It was glorious.

The Move:
Or what I like to call the wagon train to Maine. Wikipedia defines a wagon train as "individuals traveling across the plains in covered wagons who banded together for mutual assistance. Although most trains elected a captain and created by-laws, in reality the captain had little authority. His role was largely confined to getting everyone moving in the morning and selecting when and where to camp at night." Kurt did a fine job as captain, haha. He'll appreciate this entry for a million reasons. Anyway, we had a grand total of 2 hours sleep for a 12 hour drive. We had a honda civic, a jeep cherokee, and a truck (compliments of mom and dad) to stuff full with our belongings, mattress, and sofa. Jerry did a wonderful job as co-pilot for Kurt. Despite the lack of sleep, we were happy.
We stopped at my aunt's beautiful home in southern Maine to rest up for the last 3 hours to our future home. When we arrived, the apartment wasn't quite what I remembered in the 2 minutes we spent looking at it 4 months ago. But my aunt and mother went to work cleaning their lives away. I'm lucky my amazing aunt is an interior designer by trade (and a good one at that) or else this apartment would not look as amazing as it does now. She gave us all the furniture we wanted! Who is this lucky?

So when the dust settled, we had a new home, the same cat, and our family 600 miles away. I'm not going to lie, our first 5 months haven't always been sunshine and roses. We've probably learned the most about eachother in these past months than we have our entire relationship. We went from a cushy 3 bedroom home to an apartment that has taken us back to the simple kind of life. We do our own dishes, we go to laundry mats, and we have no cable tv. We've discovered that we are avid card players, that Kurt can make me laugh so hard milk literally comes out of my nose, sometimes I get cranky, sometimes Kurt gets defensive, we prefer washing dishes than having a dishwasher, and we vow to never again live with out a washer and dryer. The biggest change has been going from being surrounded by friends, family, and constant activities to having only eachother and the great outdoors. So we've had to adjust to the fact that we can't be everything for eachother, but that we can support and challenge each other to be more for ourselves. I am proud every day to wake up and live life with Kurt.

And So It Begins...

Although there is a scientific paper awaiting its completion, I'm going to make my first blog entry. Ready? Here goes... I moved to Maine this summer with the most wonderful man I know. Every day his patience, kindness and wit impress me and I love him even more than I did the day before. It's hard to think I didn't notice any of these things when we met 12 years ago in 6th grade.

Last winter, he agreed to embark on an adventure with me so I could go to graduate school in the great white north. Being away from everything we know, all of our friends and family, has been a challenge. And we have learned a huge deal about ourselves and each other, and I am proud to say we're getting married as soon as I get this degree.

This blog is a way for me to catalog our adventures and experiences as we start our life together in Maine, the things we see and do and the things we learn about each other and life. So I've got some catching up to do! We've been here for 5 months now and we've done some amazing things...so the next blog I have time for will be a quick synopsis of the adventures of the past 5 months and all the emotions that went along with them. I love you, Kurt.