North in Maine

Emma flew in a few days ago and there is a lightness and happiness spreading within me that has been missing for a while.

We are yet at another house and I wish she could have seen my firehouse cottage, which I started to feel at home at. In order to see some more of Maine though, a location change was needed. So we are farther North and near Kathadin Mountain, which still has snow at the peak.

All this moving has made me long for a place to call home, but I do enjoy not having to clean much and seeing all the places along the way.

To funnier topics, we went hiking in Baxter National Park yesterday. I have been using a trail app and the one I selected was supposed to be moderate, which seemed to be doable. Out and back about 4 miles, not too high of a mountain peak and it was a beautiful sunny day.

We drove about 20 minutes to the entrance and another 20 to the start of the trail. The dirt road inside the park was lined by greening trees and bits of sunlight shining through. Clear blue sky above and just peaceful.

I had read in one review there were black flies that were really bad, but had disregarded that, thinking they probably had no bug spray. Bug spray and sunscreen applied and off we go. It was a nice shady trail with wood planks for some parts to avoid the wet.

Until about one third in where it started getting rocky. Big boulders to climb over then smaller rocks. Quite steep though and I was getting slower as we went, but still I felt good about the scenery and the trail. Then they came, an onslaught of black flies, swarming in front of your face, into your ears and nose and mouth and just everywhere. It was awful.

We bravely pushed forward and onward, thinking it might just be a bit until we are higher up. Well it kept going steep and rocky and these flies kept being right around us. Every stop I had to make to catch my breath became unbearable as the flies kept swarming in more.

We made it nearly all the way up until we decided we could not take it anymore. No view in the world was worth this, and worse of all if they were up there too we would not even be able to rest up there either. It felt like defeat, but these relentless little things just sucked the joy out of being there.

We made it down in record time and both of us will eventually be able to laugh about it, but not yet. No, not yet. Last night closing my eyes, I could still see them swarming and felt the need to swat at them too

They are an indicator of good water quality and the bug spray prevented them from biting us, but that is really all the positive I can come up with.

3 hours of walking where one simply could not stop to enjoy the surroundings but rather stop and swat trying to catch breath and ignore the noise near the ears. Needless to say we are a bit weary today and picking something closer to the house and water, with a chance of breeze...

More to come soon