I'm alive! We removed the old dressing on my thumb last night. E stood beside me for moral support and to catch me if I fainted. It was gruesome but I held it together. I've been wondering how my thumb was planning to replace its lid and it was good to see what it's been up to this last week or so. It looks like the tip of a new, tiny thumb is growing in the wound. I imagine it will stop at some point and dome over like a thumb should be. But it's possible that this new, tiny thumb will keep growing until it emerges from my original thumb the way a branch does from a tree trunk. I'll keep you posted.
We start the day with breakfast of home made granola and home made muffins (it's that kind of a hotel) followed by a swim. Or rather, E and S swim while I awkwardly and uselessly chaperone them, my thumb in the air like I'm hitchhiking to dry land.
In the antique shop next the the hotel, we meet Claude and Debbie who run the shop. They're lovely. S is crying because we've told her off for attacking thousands of dollars worth of antiques so Claude comes over and gives her a choice of one of the porcelain animals he has in stock. She chooses a lion and is immediately calmed. I buy an old Maine number plate and a tin mug with a lobster on it. All Maine people have these. I ask Claude if he has any jobs going. He laughs. I'm just not getting through to these people.
Maine is misty this morning and I'd love to say it's dampened my enthusiasm for the place but it hasn't. The forests that were lush and inviting yesterday are tranquil and intriguing today. Claude and Debbie told us about the wealth of writers and other artists they know in Maine. It's easy to see how these surroundings would attract and inspire people.
E has plotted a route to our next stop which takes us through inland Maine and avoids major freeways and interstates. The route takes us away from the sheen of the seaside and into a densely forested world of logging communities, lakes and increasingly rolling hills that smells incessantly of pine. I am in love. I want to be a lumberjack and seeing stacks of trees being treated and dealt with in those yards makes me whimper again. Though I'd take any job in Maine, lumberjack would be my number one choice.
After a hearty lunch at a proper diner called The Governor's in Lewiston (our server Jeremy being a total dude), S falls asleep in the back of the car and we plough on. After a while, we realise S left the lion she got from Claude. With a mild tug of the heart strings, we keep going. She's asleep. I hope she forgets about it. Along the way, we stop to take photos here and there. E takes a picture of a fleet of school buses at a depot on a hilltop, lifeless on this Saturday afternoon, save for old glory flapping flapping in the breeze. I stop at a fishing lake and attempt to get a bit arty with E's good camera. We stop for a little while in a town called Naples. The road into town brings you round a corner where an enormous lake opens up from the treelined highway and stretches to the mountainous horizon. Though far inland, town itself is colourful and pretty like those seaside towns. Awestruck, E and I don't talk for a little while.
A similar thing happens as we drive through North Conway, New Hampshire where our hotel is, about an inch over the Maine state border (as the map shows it). These roads are like corridors and the tees close you in. If you don't like trees, it must be very claustrophobic. But I love trees. Every now and then, the walls of the corridor break away to reveal a mighty lake. The suddenness of these sights is part of what makes them so striking. But as we go through North Conway, the trees give way to not only reveal an incredible lake but an enormous mountain that had previously been hidden. The effect is quite literally breathtaking and the mountain so huge and so on top of us that I feel almost nervous. Again, E and I don't speak for a little while. When we do, it's with the stilted dialogue of the shell shocked.
'See that mountain?'
'Yeah.'
'Wow.'
'Yeah.'
The lobby of our hotel is bedecked with models and wood carvings of bears and moose. Antler chandeliers hang above us and there's a roaring fire beside baggy leather chairs in a wood panelled, wood decorated reading room. It's funny, but wonderful. Wood, bears and moose seem to be all the rage in New Hampshire. I think I'm going to like it here.
It's Mother's Day here tomorrow. People keep wishing E a happy Mother's Day and I realise I should really do something to celebrate. I would like to broadcast the fact that we've already had our Mother's Day and I did a standup job of celebrating it. But the expectation is there. Not from E though. I tried to sneak a card in Walmart and she told me not to. Maybe I'll buy her a bar of chocolate or something.
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