we drive. well really, we work, and then we drive, but as this is the story of the 'independence day holiday', i'll begin at 15:00 on june 30, when i gleefully log out of the automatic calling system and start packing up. my coworkers think we're insane, to drive all the way to nova scotia and spend only two full days, but i have a feeling.
we'd packed the night before (and some that morning), so when we get back at 3:20, we're ready to start loading. dagny pulls in three seconds behind us, fresh from the coffee shop. she feeds the cat and laughs at my laptop while i grab our stuff and benjamin gets the bikes ready--he's decided to ride my old 820 for the trip, since he can't push his any further. the cannondale will be arriving the following monday, just late for the journey. ah well.
we're off by 16:00. the thruway between syracuse and albany had been flooded a day prior, and we can see the high-water line, above road level, in the ruined bushes and mud-covered trees as we pass through. the trek from rochester to maine is a familiar one, and we pull into freeport by 23:30. thanks to my ineptitude (which no one else seemed to mind), we spend the next half hour goose-chasing it down the wrong road before we finally find our chosen campground, deep in the woods before the bay. dagny has determined to sleep in the car, so benjamin and i hop out to set up our tent. in the dark. on the coast of maine. all proceeds dandily, tent stakes secured and poles threaded, until benjamin says,
"uh, gemma...you should move."
in typical fashion, i fly into 'death imminent' mode and hot-step it to the car. "why?"
"something big just growled."
that comment alone is sufficient to send the both of us back to our bucket seats. dagny, unconcerned, queries.
"i heard something big moving around and growling," benjamin explains.
"are there any bears in maine?" i chime in.
dagny starts to laugh hysterically. "um. not at the coast?" she manages. "there are lots of raccoons, though, and they growl."
benjamin roots for the flashlight and returns to the front lines. i'm not moving, and i can see something crawling around behind the tent. benjamin sees it too. dagny keeps laughing.
needless to say, we all slept in the car that night--at least until 4:00 (dawn in that insane place), when benjamin finished setting up the tent and woke me to come sleep stretched out for a few hours. which was lovely.
as it turns out, "something big" was a cow, and "growling" was probably a raccoon--which also may have been what left very muddy footprints all over the car.